Zielman's Forgotten Ladies (11.09.2016 - Leanna v2, Erin Stout) (1 Viewer)

[Hank East]

The tattoos, the bracelet and the scales all look pretty good so far! And don't feel too bad about vanishing, please. Just remember to at least let us know when you next go on hiatus!

 

[Zielman]

Just posting to say I'm not dead.

Work on Nu Wa's outfit is going extremely slowly, mostly because I haven't opened Flash very often since last post, and when I did, I made zero progress. I think this specific mod is just demotivating me with it's complexity. I have little to no knowledge of shading, and her sash-like outfit is basicaly shading-city. Plus the waving fabric is impossible to re-create in SDT without it looking stiff and unrealistic.
Basically it's a little too much for me right now. I still want to do it, because Smite girls are underrepresented here, but I need more practice and some less complicated designs. Or designs that need less technical knowledge, so I can monkey around without someone bleeding profusely from their eye sockets just by looking at it. ;)

In other news, I've scanned the download section and had some weird and exciting results. First of all, my Aela mod broke 300 downloads, which is super cool - but surprisingly, the hair mod has just a little more downloads than the outfit. It surprises me, because I still think the hair is trash, but whatever. Leanna is the least downloaded from all three, which is understandable (I sometimes wonder if I am the only one that have ever played Dark Messiah). I think that whenever I'll upload more variations of the same outfit I'll just attach them to the first post of this thread, with only the "main" upload being in Download section.

Current plans? I've got two little mods that I've started way back. One from an indie platformer with a shadow-based twist, and another from one of my favorite games ever, with a colorful and imaginative world of pure madness. With an accent on MADNESS.
I'll work on them when I have some free time not spent on playing (and failing at) Hearthstone, studying or writing things.

 

[stuntcock]

I think this specific mod is just demotivating me with it's complexity. I have little to no knowledge of shading, and her sash-like outfit is basicaly shading-city. Plus the waving fabric is impossible to re-create in SDT without it looking stiff and unrealistic.

Hey, that reminds me of something. I gave up on the Celestine costume for similar reasons. The general "shape" of the fabric can kinda be modeled in SDT, with pieces attached to various bodyparts, but any internal visual details (creases, pleats, shading) will not change as the thing moves around. So it's debatable whether it's actually worth the effort involved in finishing the thing.

If you'd like to try to add some physics features (rope simulation, basically) to the sash fabric then I'll be happy to help out. If you'd prefer to just say "I've learned what I can on this project, and I'd prefer to move on" then that's totally OK. I felt pretty burned out after my own similar experience, and I certainly didn't want to look at anything except skin-tight costumes for a while.

the hair mod has just a little more downloads than the outfit.

Yeah, that one is surprising. A full costume requires much more modding work than a hairstyle, but the additional effort is rarely reflected in its popularity. I think that we simply need to accept that it's a porn game :) Costumes help to establish a character, but people are much more interested in taking off the costume and getting down to business.

I think that whenever I'll upload more variations of the same outfit I'll just attach them to the first post of this thread, with only the "main" upload being in Download section.

It's your work, and you're free to present it in whichever form you prefer. I'd just like to stress the idea that there's no minimum "popularity" threshold for a Download entry. In my view, it's the ideal form of "archive" for a mod, because it's a standalone item which can easily be found via a Google search (even if someone has never heard of the Undertow website).

My chief concern with the "megapost" approach is that it gradually becomes difficult to maintain. Mineur has created so much stuff that we've pushed all of the initial "discussion" posts off of the first page of his thread (in order to make room for more megaposts). Dante's threads use nested Spoiler tags to ensure quick loading, but it's therefore impossible for users to quickly Ctrl-F onto a specific item. The BBCode in ZeV's thread is a total mess:

[SIZE=20px][SIZE=20px][SIZE=21px][COLOR=green]6/8/2015: Added Bellona (Smite) to Requests.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE]

The Download pages sidestep most of these concerns, while also providing a bit of additional information (such as pageview statistics, which help creators to identify their most popular works). If you're comfortable using this feature then I'd encourage you to continue doing so -- even when publishing obscure mods or minor variations.

 

[Zielman]

If you'd like to try to add some physics features (rope simulation, basically) to the sash fabric then I'll be happy to help out. If you'd prefer to just say "I've learned what I can on this project, and I'd prefer to move on" then that's totally OK.

Whenever I get around to finishing it, which I still want to do, I'd be happy to experiment with physics of those elements, so yeah - I'd be stoked to get your help on this.

But the fabric problem gets in the way only if I want to re-create that outfit REALLY close to the original. I actually brainstormed lots of ideas of getting around this: all the free-flowing fabric pieces torn out (having the "defeated" vibe, like some of Kaliakalia's imports) or folded on themselves; or just completely gone, with the design being really simple. The latter is the easiest, so that will propably be done quickest, but I still like to make variants - just because I love choice, variants and customizability in my vidya games.

The Download pages sidestep most of these concerns, while also providing a bit of additional information (such as pageview statistics, which help creators to identify their most popular works). If you're comfortable using this feature then I'd encourage you to continue doing so -- even when publishing obscure mods or minor variations.

Download feature is great and I will always use it - I'm more concerned about the aforementioned variants. If I just flood the board with different variants of the same costume or parts of it (for example, if I want to upload Aela's facepaint separate from her armor), it would be inconvenient to other creators and viewers. If I just upload basic outfit and then link in the description to various versions of it (vide: my Leanna's outfit with and without cape) attached to this thread, it would clutter the board less imho.

OR I can upload an .rar archive with all of those variants as a singular mod in Download. But that doesn't sit right with me. I dunno. I might be overthinking that. ;)

Oh, and also: thanks, stuntcock. Y'know, for your work. Just wanted to throw that out there. :D

 

[stuntcock]

(for example, if I want to upload Aela's facepaint separate from her armor), it would be inconvenient to other creators and viewers.

Meh. You'll flood the "front page" for a few hours, after which your stuff will get bumped down. Beyond that, it doesn't really impact anyone -- aside from people who are actively seeking it out based on some particular keyword, such as "might and magic" or "cape" or whatever. If someone is new to SDT and is simply browsing for the most-downloaded items, then the existence of an extra item on Page 20 of the list is harmless.

If you're self-conscious about it, then we can coordinate the timing so that I republish some historical stuff (Kaliakalia's thread is a good candidate) immediately afterwards. So you wouldn't even need to worry about the front-page effect :)

Remember that we have dozens of pages for individual My Little Pony tattoo mods. The extra stuff really doesn't hurt anyone, and it's slightly more efficient (in terms of webserver resources) to deliver it in the form of Download pages instead of forum pages. The individual pages can be tagged effectively, which improves the overall usability of the website. The main reason not to use the Download feature is workload -- copying an existing collection of mods into Download entries requires hours of tedious data-entry. If you're an active modder who plans to continue updating a first-post megathread with all of your latest work, then it may feel like a pointless duplication of effort.

OR I can upload an .rar archive with all of those variants as a singular mod in Download. But that doesn't sit right with me. I dunno. I might be overthinking that. ;)

I actually agree with you on that point. RAR/ZIP/7z formats are a necessary evil when distributing complex mod packages (with settings files, source code, troubleshooting instructions, etc). When we're dealing with ready-to-use SWF files, I'd prefer to see them published separately - for users' convenience.

Alternatively: you could try to package a mod as a complete costume, and heavily emphasize its compatibility with moreClothing. Users would load the entire thing, but could then Shift-Click on the various optional bits (cape, gloves, shoes, etc) in order to remove them. Experienced users could easily mix-and-match the pieces of your mod, without you being forced to actually publish a separate SWF file for each piece.

 

[Zielman]

Remember that we have dozens of pages for individual My Little Pony tattoo mods. The extra stuff really doesn't hurt anyone, and it's slightly more efficient (in terms of webserver resources) to deliver it in the form of Download pages instead of forum pages. The individual pages can be tagged effectively, which improves the overall usability of the website.

Good point. Well, in that context I guess I'm not worried anymore. My concerns were based on the "second page of Google" idea. You know, that if you wanted to hide something valuable for no-one to find, you would hide it on the second page of Google search. By that way of thinking, what is on the second page would be automatically less viewed and downloaded, and me pushing someone else's mods off the first page would be making them a disservice. But actually, my Aela mod was downloaded equal number of times both on the first and second page, so I guess that's not true here in SDT community. ;)