Known forum issues...

[Holy_Diver]

If you guys can give me something that is just black and white (like that faerie graphic -- forget her name?? Milia?) then I can convert it to the white overlay no prob. I can also always just desaturate whatever you give me, but you never know how something like that will really look in b/w. Just attach whatever you come up with and I will take care of it.

But if you wanted to try different stuff out to see how it looks, then you might need to figure out how to do it yourself.

PS: I can also add a darkening drop shadow, but that needs to be in a different image so I can composite it.

[Holy_Diver]

^Btw, if you like the faerie I can go ahead an put it up there to see what it looks like. I was just attaching it to see if it went over. Just thought it could be something simple for the time being.

[Holy_Diver]

Let me know exactly what you want me to do, and I'll whip it up!

I was just thinking you could make one of those Fraktur lettering you do for all your games that says swordofmoonlight.com somehow so we'd have something to toss up in the original banner style. Technically what would be easiest to work with is all the shadows on one layer, and all the hilights on a another layer, so I can make a finished black and white ghost overlay.

Basically the way this theme is designed to look is the graphics in the banner are supposed to be white. Personally I don't mind the decal look of the current banner, but it looks really rough and could use a transparent background, and decals shouldn't have drop shadows, but even with all of that taken into consideration the colouring still clashes with the overall theme.

[Hguols]

Ok, I just whipped up something really quick before I went to bed.  I did basically the Trismegistus logo design (with the capital letters the Chaucher font, and the small letters the Black Knight font.)

Rather than a dull, ordinary drop shadow, I did a 100 pixel motion blur on a different layer.  That's what came to mind when you said "ghostly".

I'm not expecting you to fall head over heals with this one, since its just slapped together.  However, with some feedback, I think I could improve upon it.  Questions, comments, snide remarks and every form of criticism welcomed.

[Holy_Diver]

I will try to throw something up, but just for the record, "ghostly" isn't really a drop shadow, it's just my awkward way of saying the colour range goes from completely transparent to solid white. In other words, we're just lighting up the background. It can also technically go negative as well, towards black, darkening the background so to speak. Basically we're just putting a light/shadow hilight over the background up in the banner area. It looks good when done right.

So generally speaking we need a black background to start. Not hard though because I can just invert your graphic. The lettering should be white. The only technical problem with this graphic is it's a bit tall (mostly because of the shadow)

I'd just assume try it without a shadow and see if that is not enough. I also find applying an emboss type filter can have interesting effects, making it appear chiseled for example. Anyway, maybe you could change it to a shadowless version for now.

[Holy_Diver]

Well it pretty much looks like crap right now, but hopefully it will get better

I accidentally deleted your original banner Todd... I'm hoping you've a backup

In fairness, in revenge, the front page of this site crashes my firefox every time I open it (on accident) causing me to have to re-download my entire running session


I had to really lower the transparency baseline to the point the shadow would disappear, so it looks real washed out. Plus dimensions wise it doesn't really fit into the current expected 713x96. I was thinking if the faerie isn't cut (I just like obscure shit in these sorts of situations) maybe she could be baked into the banner near the tail end... by the .com maybe if it ever get's added (as if she's picking up the .com and adding it to the end maybe) ...all of that would help fill out the extra width requirements.

Then maybe if nothing else we could just stick on this graphic like a decal (http://www.swordofmoonlight.com/Images/SOMa.png) ...sort of in recognition of the product centric nature of the website or whatever?? Anyway, that looks more like an official sort of graphic. and that version of the sword looks a lot more professional.


PS: The actual banner typesetting or whatever looks really cool actually. No need to change a thing about it. Dunno why, but forum banners are more fun when they look homemade. It gives it a personal touch, which forums need to feel friendly.

PPS: It does kinda look like the sort of retarded shit you see on "hipster" t-shirts these days, but it's good enough for now at least, as good as it can look that is. Maybe that fad will pass (or already has... been a while since I got out)

[Holy_Diver]

Another weird thing I've noticed is whenever the pages in the forum load up it seems to take forever for the banner graphics to popup. I can probably fix the staggering load up behavior by putting the graphics inside div elements with fixed heights, but it's like the images aren't caching or something, and they would still take a while to show up. Anyway, on the other forum I manage with this same layout, the images are always at the top of the screen instantaneously, as in when you click from page to page you can't perceive them ever changing.

[dmpdesign]

I was monkeying around with your logo at work today, I had a few different modifications I tried..unfortunately whenever I tried to make any of these transparent it looked really crappy =/


The preview pane doesnt show the whole file for some reason, youll have to click on them individually and open them in a new tab if you want to see what they look like.

[Holy_Diver]

Dunno, seems a bit prepubescent girly from where I'm sitting

I was just thinking something very simple... just the lettering, then ".com" a little bit out of place, with the faerie as is just to the side of the .com almost touching it s if lifting it up to modify the meaning of the lettering. I could do it if Tom added .com to the lettering. It can always be taken out.

The idea isn't to be fae, just that's the forest dragon avatar (Milia) that ties the three games together or whatever, a nod to KF. with a little cleverness. We can do better eventually but it good to get something that looks solid up so you don't have the pressure on you anymore.

As soon as Tom posts a version without the drop shadow and with the .com lettering I can take a stab at it. I have an ok track record with this sort of thing.


PS: Basically Tom we're trying to make the banner area look like this (http://www.digitaldevildb.com/bbs/index.php?action=recent) though we failed at replacing the lettering in the forum. It's still just taken directly from the old site logo. The quality of the dog I had to work with was poor as well (the back of an ancient tattered strategy guide)

[dmpdesign]

bleh...
I didn't like the fairy in the first place was just trying to put it in place 

can't we have a moonlight sword instead...