Legion World Forums LEGION WORLD Science Police Headquarters Gremlins/Smilies

I'm still in awe of this site, thanks again.

Is there a technical reason why you can't put all the gremlins/smilies from lighning lad's site on the "instant gremlin" box? They are one of my favorite things about this whole board, whoever designed them deserves heartfelt kudos. One small peeve: Shikari has been forgotten!

Again, great work, guys.

Juan

They're my creations.

And yes, I'm holding off on adding more until I either shrink down the files (and thereby the load times), and/or set up a pop up window for them. I'm working on both right now on our sister/practice site as I type this.

Thanks, Juan

Also, EVERYONE will be represented eventually. Time is my enemy.

Ain't Nighty just the BEST??? He's the Brainiac 5 that the LMBP has needed for YEARS.

Nighty IS the best!

Might I recommend using the Calamity King similie as an "oops!" smilie?

I don't suppose it really matters, and I'm probably being very anti-Legion by suggesting it, but could we maybe have one or two normal looking smilies? Maybe just a smiley and a winky, at least? I only ask because there are a couple of Legion smilies that I have trouble seeing with my monitor resolution, and I'm not always sure what the smiley represents.

If not, it's not like a huge issue. Just a suggestion

I'll see what I can do. But, I'm taxing the limits in the number of smilies right now.

Sorry, Princess.

Like I said, no biggie, really. Doesn't hurt to ask. It's not gonna make or break my visits here either way

A Tyroc "yelling" smiley would be awful cute, though...

And a Dreamer "kissing" one...

And a Bouncing Boy "LOL" gremlin...

Pleeeeaase...?

What's the deal on the message icons above the message screen on the Post A Reply screen that I'm typing on right now?

The cursor only identifies them as icons 1-14. Why is the cham icon frowning?!?! Why am I sad? What do Brainy and the eye represent?

I can understand the "?" and the thumbs up and down, but I wish we could use them within the text. I think the smiling one is better than the red grin instant graemlin.

They're starting to spook me!

< my hero!

When I have more time I'll address your post sorry. But I'm off to work.

Thanks for the note, NC.

Sorry for the delay. I had planned to show you the generic icons that the Message Icons we are using, replaced. But, I've crashed my site.

So then let me discribe what each represents:

The flag replaced the post icon, it's meant to convey a post without an emotion associated with it.

The (Emerald) eye replaced an arrow. It was meant as a look in here type of marker.

Brainy has an idea because he replaced the light bulb.

Widfire is excited because he replaced an exclamation point.

Mystery Lad has the same ? that he replaced in front of his face.

Tenzil is cool in his shades because that's who he replaced.

PG or Violet (take your pick) is smiling since she's our happy face.

Imra (or maybe Kara?) is upset cause she took the mad icon's spot.

Cham is sad because he is supposed to sit in the sad icon's seat.

Bouncing Boy is our grinning icon.

Thom (Gim or Lyle) is in a whatever, random thought sort of mood.

Garth (maybe Dirk) is winking cause he knows something.

The hands are self-explanatory, but I'm going to change them when I have a chance.

They are used to convey the tone of the message you're about to post.

Now then the smilies...part one.

The software comes with 11 graemlins or emoticons. Which are used to add emotion inside the context of your messages. I've attempted to change the boring generic smilies with Legion-related ones. Rather than use just Legionnaires as I'd like to create more traditional representations of them, I've used various characters from various eras to convey the emotions. I've tried to touch upon every era of the Legion's past with these 11, both obscure and well-known.

replaces your generic smiley face 'smile.' It's the Legion's happy benefactor R.J. Brande.

replaces the 'sad' face. Dr. Gym'll's sad face spans the time periods.

replaces the embarassed face. Shy Vi seemed a natural for this one.

replaces the grin with the Grinn. A character from V4.

replaces the wink icon. Current Legionnaire XS makes a cute, knowing winky.

Part two.

is Ze Tongue. He's a rejected Legionnaire from LEGIONNAIRES #44. And is perfect as the tongue smiley.

is the cool emoticon represented by the V4 Tenzil Kem cause he's just plain cool.

:rolleyes: is the rolleyes smiley. Eyeful Ethel seemed a natural for this one.

is anger incarnate just like Brainy's Omega.

is the excited graemlin. I used Keith Giffen's favorite one-eyed background character for this one.

is confused, just like the lovable, constantly perplexed Blok.

Hope this helps.

Yeah, thanks, NC, it does.

People can refer to this if need be. I think a few will become widely used and understood, but some may be too indistinct because the particular expression or feature that conveys the icon's purpose doesn't stand out.

For example BB's smiling face is clear because his smile is big. Ditto Grinn. Mystery Lad "?" and Cham's frown are distinct. But most of the other head's expressions are indeterminate because of size or unnecessary detail.

My background is in art, and I've done a bit of cartoon character design, so for what they're worth, here's my "tips & suggestions." I think you see these already, but here's my take on them.

1) Simplify: use line to express the key aspect, not shape or color that often. You have a palette here, but you're not painting, your color drawing. Big diff, and that's why #1 focus is simplification, not detail. Lines work great for mouth expressions. Same for eyes & eyebrows. A red mouth line suggests the gender we assoctiate with lipstick. Color dots may be best for eyes when not used as the primary expressive feature/aspect.

2) Exaggerate: simplify, then play with forms of exaggeration of the salient feature, even at "expense" of excluding other features (eyes, ears, hair style, etc.) First make it clear, then noticible.

3) Use Existing Visual Clues: as you did, a simple distinct headband identifies Lyle. A green line-slash in hair identifies Vi. But gotta make sure other characters don't share that feature. Because of the white hair, I thought your R.J. was Mekt! I thought, okay, kinky!

So I think the primary way to go isn't "fair representation" of popular Legionnaires, but rather utilization of those who have readily identifiable visual clues.

Which means with Legion you can use color a few times here as immediate clues. As evidenced by your Brainy & Cham icons. Immediately recoqnizable. Ditto I think Shady. But you may have to use lighter shades for darker color in these small spaces so the other feature/aspect you use really stands out.

There's an old saw that writing is really rewriting. Well, the same is often true about any form of design - sometimes gotta tinker and tinker! As frustrating as it is satisfying some times.

I'm really glad we have these little kooky fun guys! And I think I got lucky cause I have the coolest one of the bunch. Seriously!

< I mean, just look at me!

Thanks again, NC, for the info and all the work you do for us here!

Well, it appears that I’ve screwed up. I’m sorry. I had assumed that you guys realized that this board isn’t complete and that we’ve got a lot more planned. But, based on several posts over this past week, it seems that some of you guys think that this is a done deal. What you see was for the most part hurriedly created in order to open it up to the public. When Scott and I decided to create a message board for all of us Legion fans, we had three choices:

One, we could keep it a secret and work on it until it was perfect. Dot all the ‘i’s, cross all the ‘t’s. Work on making all of the graphics perfect. Iron out all of the details before hand. Make sure polls were in their own forum. Fill up the Encyclopedia with every known Legion fact. Determine how many characters everybody would want in a signature. Have all of the graemlins available. Have the opening page be set up and error free. Include the calendar mod, the game mod, maybe even the chat mod and more. Etc. Etc. It would have been months (if at all, knowing me and Scott and our schedules) before anyone else would have ever seen this place. Or the other extreme would be…

Two, we could have loaded up the board on Scott’s site without the separate address. It would have the UBB Classic logo instead of the Legion L in the upper left corner. It’d contain generic graphics and graemlins that came with the software. There’d be Forum 1 through 3 in Category 1, Forums 4 & 5, in Category 2, etc. Nothing would be original and it would look like any other MB. Boring and not very inviting. The plus side here would have been that you guys could have started to post a week or so earlier than you had. But, instead we opted for…

Three, we set up a new web address. Loaded up the board. Quickly, cobbled together some Legion-like graphics in some cases hours before the launch (mostly as place holders until either one of us has the time to do them justice). Set up some forums we thought people would enjoy. And invited everyone over to join us. The mistake is we thought you guys would understand if every little thing wasn’t perfect yet and would be patient enough to let us do things at our own pace. I guess we shouldn’t assume.

I too have an artistic background and spent only an hour re-coloring all of the icons to look a little like Legionnaires. Heck, I still haven’t touched the hands, yet. I’ve changed things as time has gone on and will continue to change them until I’m happy or happier. This includes the message icons. What I wanted was to get this place open as fast as possible. I didn’t realize how fast we would grow in such a short period of time. I thought I had a month or two to get things right. It’s my fault for not explaining these things sooner. Sorry.

Unfortunately, this MB is my hobby. I have a full time job away from a computer and a personal life beyond here. Scott’s got a full time job and some serious personal business. I’m amazed about how much time he’s devoted to being here and thank him for it. July is the worst month I could have done this project. Not only was I busy last weekend, but also I have Comic-Con the next several days along with my 9 to 12 hour days of work this weekend. Then, the weekend after this, my BF (mogli, here on the board) is visiting me for Gay Pride weekend. I promised to spend most of my time with him, since I was distracted during my NYC visit (he moved there in March), thinking (read obsessing) on what I wanted to do with this here board. In my eyes, I ruined the time I spent in New York, not enjoying the moment but worrying about getting home and getting everything up and running. I plan on making up for it.

Things have been changing here and they’ll continue to change as Scott and I find the time to improve them. I’m working on modifications, when I can. I would love to contribute more stuff to the Encyclopedia (that’s why I created that forum), but I just haven’t had much time. I wish I could have waited to do this project a month later when my life’s less hectic. It seemed, based on the posts at various other boards and the activity here that that was not a luxury that I could afford.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m sorry things around here aren’t the best yet, but I’m working on it.

I forgot to add that I've successfully recreated an old thread from the original DCMBs over at our test site. It's time consuming, but possible. If you've got a thread you wnat to revive, it can be done. Including the original dates and posters even if a poster hasn't joined us here yet. That poster appears as a 'visitor' to the board. Everybody else appears as if they made the post on the new board not the old one back before this board was even created. It's pretty cool and better and easier than Rob indicated at his board.

However, like I said up above I won't have the time to do this until August. Sorry.

Gary, a version of this key to the smilies/gremlins would be a prime candidate for the Encyclopedia Galactica section, and I hope you'll make it permanent there.

It's a wholly inspired effort, but I don't believe that every assignment that you've made is as intuitive as you seem to be seeing it. I had the frequent reaction, going down your list of explanations, "Yes, of course, that fits" ... but I wouldn't have thought of more than half the connotations you used in advance of posting.

Well, now that I see my post immediately above, responding to the concrete matters of smilies, etc., on the first page, I feel -- having read Gary's notes above on this page -- like a shitheel, frankly. I had no idea you were this upset.

Gary wrote: "[...] The mistake is we thought you guys would understand if every little thing wasn’t perfect yet and would be patient enough to let us do things at our own pace. I guess we shouldn’t assume."

Gary, amigo. What part of the praise for your efforts has not gotten through? You and Scott did a magnificent job, and I mean that overworked word literally -- Legion World glistens with the care you two took for the experience, and it has from the very first day.

Your "third" alternative for how you would set it up is exactly what I would have done with such a board, if I had the stamina. You used UBB, an excellent backbone, and that was half the battle.

What is confusing me is this: Why are you taking detailed commentary and response -- which you both have solicited -- as signifying "impatience"?

Instead of the immense compliment that it represents, in how Legion World is gathering passionate reaction from those who use it?

Some of us run our written "mouths" too much and too long. I know I do. Yet, to be frank, you've encouraged us to do so, you and Scott, both with outright requests and with actually being responsive to the feedback you do get.

I guess what is important to say here, more simply and once again, is that a host of us fans both profoundly appreciate your efforts, and are happy to help in adding texture and removing bugs.

Yet I also have to wonder, frankly, whether -- or perhaps when -- you're going to believe us when we say this.

You wrote: "I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm sorry things around here aren't the best yet, but I'm working on it."

I rarely shout on the Net, but this time, amigo mio, I have to do it, and I know that for once this is as unanimous a thought as we'll ever have around here:

YOU HAVE NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO APOLOGIZE FOR, AND A HUNDRED EFFORTS DESERVING PRAISE!

And with whatever response you do get, about any feature or other aspect, I hope you'll remember that.

NC, I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I wasn't and continue to be very impressed and satisfied with Legion World and all the work, time, and creativity you and LL put into it.

We share art backgrounds, but unlike you I don't have a computer background so please excuse some of my naive assumptions, questions, and suggestions about the board and it's development. I guess it probably would be best for me to wait a week or two on such questions and "wishes" to see if they are dealt with by you or LL or addressed by more knowledgeable members.

And I'm now better understanding the time constraints you're under, so I'll only bring forth what appear to be "major" issues if again after a period of time I think no else has raised them.

Again you and LL are doing a wonderful job here and we all appreciate it and the unique form of quality
fun it provides!

Have fun at the con!

As always at cons, avoid the congealed nachos. Unless they're a bargain.

Not to sound like a broken record, but I'm sorry for my more emotional than it needed to be response up above. I really have no problem with any of you guys or your feedback. I usually don't post in an emotional state of mind. I try to collect my thoughts first.

Unfortunately, I'm in a frustated state at the moment. I've got a hundred things I need or want to do right now, both here and in real life, but seem to be doing nothing but spinning in place. I'm not going to bore people with my problems, so I guess all I really want to say is, "Thanks for your suggestions and please keep them coming. I hope you'll understand if I don't respond within the next couple of weeks. By the time August comes, I should have most of my real world problems solved and can concentrate on getting some things done around here."

I'm probably overly sensitive to Administrators not responding to concerns and suggestions due to the frustrations over at the new DCMB. And didn't want anyone to feel that way here.

Again sorry. I'm not usually like this. Really.

I'll echo Grey's sentiments and say that you have absolutely nothing to apologize for -- you guys set this up at the perfect time and the continued care you've shown have blown us all away. You guys have been responsive and open to feeback from minute one and we'll forgive you if you need to take a breather -- the last thing anyone here wants is for you to not have fun here anymore -- it's your house, your playground and we're happy to be your guests!

Thank you

Who loves ya, Gary?!?

Who loves ya???

Who loves ya???


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WE DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

psssst--Hey, Gary, just another liiiiittle suggestion: Might you be able to change the color of the "???" over the Blok gremlin's head? They're really hard to make out against either background color as it is; or is it just me? :rolleyes:

Anyway, what you've given us so far! Don't stop!

I'm confused? What are you talking about?

I'm still waiting on my Fortress Lad turning into the rocketship HQ smilie.

Which would signify what , exactly?

Why the founding of Legion World of course!

What's the story with the blue handed "thumbs down" icon? it has white lines emanating from it and there appears to be something on the back of the hand -- what is it?

It was my attempt at Lightning Lad's robotic arm with yellow lightning. Those are the rivets on the back, it's based on the arm's first appearance in Adv #332, "The Super-Moby Dick of Space." Since it's not so obvious, I guess I'll try again. :rolleyes:

And, just to add a little note so that no one thinks I'm a total dweeb. The reason that I made the confused emoticon with dark blue "???" is because at the time we (Scott and I) were using a freeware version of the Infopop MB and it allowed only a generic white background to the posts. So I had to make the question marks dark instead of the white I originally had. I'm part dweeb though because I forgot to change it back after we upgraded to the present site.

I totally forgot about it until you mentioned it Pov! Thanks! This might just make up for your previous indiscretion. Maybe. :rolleyes:

Ummm...

Which indiscretion WAS that, exactly? I've had so many...

THE picture!

OOOOOOOoooooh, YEAH!!!

I was seriously expecting a banning from the testsite for that, you know!

Gary, you continue to amaze me. Thanks!

Brilliant!

As always.

You really need to send me a tutorial on creating smileys, G! It looks like so much fun. Don't worry, I'm not planning to horn in on the Legion ones you're doing, but I'd love to work up a set of CrossGen graemlins...

Well, I learned by playing around with the ones that I had saved from Nightscrawlers.com & X-Fan. I use Animation Shop 3 that comes with Paint Shop Pro 7 to make mine. And here's how Bamfette, the administrator of 'Scrawlers said she made her's...

Hey Gary. You got the upgrade to PSP 8 yet? I haven't tried the new Animation Shop yet but 8 is a vast improvement of 7, which I loved. A few key changes here and there to make it more like Adobe Photo Shop. If you'd like, I could send you a copy.

Really? Cool! I just got 7 a few months ago, when I became smiley obsessed. Thanks.

No problem. I got something else in the mail for you yesterday so I'll just get them sent out together this weekend.

Now I'm intrigued. And I just realized I haven't mailed your JSA issue. All these board issues have warped my mind. I'll send it out with my Wednesday errands promise.

Don't worry Gary. Just knowing you were able to pick me up a copy is great.