Good luck for the site, Nightbloom! I am honored that you decided to use the graphic for the site, and I wish you a happy and thriving roleplay. I'm rooting for you!

Aug 25, 2021 22:40:14 GMT haruchan said:

I am definetly in Love with your graphics! Can I ask you where you find your GIF Animations ( like the sparkles, bokeh etc?) <3 Thanks

Hi Haru! It really depends on what kind of gif animations you want, but I recommend looking through videos overlays and tumblr primarily. There's also a lot of good resources on deviantart (I don't follow any particular artist, unfortunately), but they offer psd files that have snow effects, for example, that you can easily use on photoshop.

Personally, I use aftereffects, but it has a lot of technical aspects to it that can make it frustrating for a beginner in aftereffects to learn just so you can accomplish a gif effect on a still graphic. If you're asking specifically for my graphics, I actually also animate a lot of it manually through adobe photoshop, though I'm not sure if I would recommend that because of the sheer amount of hours it will take to animate a 10 second piece.

Another thing I would like to add is that gif animations actually ruin the quality of your graphics, so I would recommend using texture overlays instead of pure gif overlays for bigger graphics, especially if the gif in question is too small to fit the dimensions of the graphics you're making.

I hope this helps!

Typography is such a difficult yet interesting thing to learn about because on one hand- it's very cool to see how fonts evolve, but on the other hand, I don't know what words are anymore, I've checked my filler text paragraph 20 times for tracking and kerning, I just changed the font of the title 35 times just because one of the letters look weird, and spaces mean nothing to me when I'm done.

*whispers*: I also changed the font and line height of this post three times, help me.

I generally don't like putting a final label on things that I love or might used to love, because it feels to me like I'm trying to box away things neatly when sometimes things are just... ambiguous. Retirement feels final; as if when I say "that's it, I'm retired", it would really be over, but I think there's no need to really put it in a box if we are not comfortable doing so. Sometimes, it's good to let things remain up in the air because there doesn't always have to be a "you are either in it or out of it" binary.

I think it's important to try and be okay with a non-answer for ourselves. If I don't want to rp now, that's okay. Do I want to come back in the future? That's for future me to decide then, with her different set of future circumstances and mindset. Trying to decide between retiring or not makes me feel like I'm just barricading myself in or out. Instead of coming at it with a lock and a key, maybe this can be a door we can easily open and close anytime we want, as we progress in our lives. (:

Another thing I want to specifically address (Asu ) is that there are going to be a lot of things in life that we cannot really give a 100% to, but might want to, in a way or just refuse to do it at all. I believe this could be what you're facing, with :

but a friend of mine suggested retirement like Miyazaki instead of hiatus'ing for these unsure feelings— the pressure to return and produce would be off my shoulders, and I wouldn't feel like there's a deadline for me to come back to.

I believe that as our priorities and obligations in life change, so will our feelings and the amount of time we can afford to spend on different activities. That said, I also think it's important to adjust and be comfortable and more forgiving (towards ourselves) with the idea that we can't always give a 100%. At the end of the day, we only have so much time and energy. These two factors will always change like tides, and as such, will the time and energy spent on different things on our lives. You might not be able to spend as much energy or time on what you love, but your effort spent shouldn't define how much you deserve to feel about this. Forgive yourself a little bit more; I might cheekily suggest being more comfortable with half-assing some things a little bit more.

However, I feel differently from your friend; I would recommend hiatuses instead. The thing about taking a hiatus is that we don't have to put deadlines on ourselves either, I think it's unkind to ourselves if we slap our hands together and say "I have to be okay with writing in [specific amount of time]". Is there really an urgent need to make a decision now? I personally don't see retiring as letting go of a hobby; it still feels like we are holding on to it because we need to label it as something- an all or nothing. To take the pressure off yourself-how about letting go of it by being okay with coming back whenever you want? Let it remain a little bit uncertain- free yourself up and your future self up, according to your needs and wants.

I hope this helps a little, even though I know it might seem like a somewhat frustrating answer because of the lack of certainty.

Being an artist can be painful because you sometimes come to terms with the fact that maybe whatever you pour your soul into will never see the daylight; never be appreciated under the giants of Joe Hisashi or Monet, and that your art can be truly insignificant and never touch another person in any meaningful manner aside from a flick of an eye and a dismissive comment of 'that's nice, I guess'.

Just a gentle reminder- not directing this to you personally, Von, because I tagged you below, but this is just a discussion on what we can do to improve advertising, or if we feel that the old method of site to site may be more advantageous. Because it really isn't that deep- though fun to discuss, we should all refrain from passive aggressive comments and any demeaning implications, regardless of whether we might mean it or not. Let's be a bit more mindful of our words and how they may be interpreted, especially since I do think a misunderstanding/fight in a public forum is both harmful and hurtful to everyone involved. This discussion is spurred by good intentions, I say this to hope that we may return to good intentions, because we shouldn't dig into each other for having different opinions on this, or resort to any personal remarks.



---


von , I fully understand what is the proposed method. However, I was trying to say two things.

From your perspective, I can see why you would say it's convenient for both members and staff. I do agree with that; but only if you look at it from the perspective of a member that is actively searching for a site. What I'm trying to suggest is that there may be another type of member- those that are comfortable on the sites they are on, and therefore isn't actively searching. For those members, and I personally think that's quite a lot of people because many members I've had (we're talking about around a hundred here if you count all my sites together) mentioned that they found my sites through affiliate buttons and advertisements posted on the sites they are rping on.

That says one very simple thing; that rpers might not be actively searching for a site, but will be willing to give another site a try if the pictures/premises piques their interest. That means that these rpers - me included - will not really be going to another site to click through categories, etc. to find a site that "suits our taste".

Another point I brought up was that rpers may not know exactly what rp they want because they likely have a varied amount of interests in genres that may not mesh together. That means that even when they are looking for sites, they won't exactly know what they are looking for. In this case as well, it would be logical to assume that whatever site that lands on their doorsteps- ie. if they are clicking through recent posts on their site, whatever ad they see next that pique their interest will be a site they will join.

I fully agree that it's convenient for members- members that are actively looking for a site. However, I personally just don't think that a lot of rpers are out there proactively searching. Sites that thrive and get a decent amount of members will find their members coming from a) an ad they posts on another site they were previously on, b) an ad posted on a site they frequent, like pixel perfect, and c) a pretty affiliate button on a site they were previously on.


--- 

This is another thing I would like to further elaborate on. Pixel perfect provides a lot of things outside of just advertising for your site. It provides discussion, resources, etc. Those are the main reasons why people stick around on pixel perfect, browse through it, and chance upon sites they like, but looking through advertisements are not the main reason why they are around. When it comes to advertising sites- members that are not actively searching, much like myself, will never frequent that site, nor look around, because, as I said, we're not actively searching.

Take animanga ads for example- that's an excellent step in the right direction, but I personally don't think people that are just chilling around will really go there to browse frequently unless they suddenly want to join something. A lot of rpers are comfortable in whatever site they may be, including resource sites like pixel perfect. A site dedicated to advertising, however, will largely differ from that case, because there's really no reason for a casual net surfer with no idea what they want (totally not making a self deprecating comment here at myself btw) to go to such a site.

While I understand your point, I don't think you really understood mine. I wasn't referring to the convenience of accessing something in fewer clicks because the rper knows exactly what they are looking for (which is rarely the case)- I was questioning if people will bother to take those few clicks, instead of just happening to see something on a site they frequent, and going for it, even if it meant them clicking more often.

Another thing I do wonder is that if we all pulled the plug and deleted all advertising boards from our site, what will happen? Well, yes, you're essentially suggesting a more radical change, but as a member, I would feel only discomfort and forced to have to "pick one interest" and try to somehow hope I can chance upon this very specific site, when in reality, I may have been perfectly okay with other sites that adhere to my other interests, except the said advertising site is telling me to pick one interest and go. This kind of proactive searching differs largely from casual net surfing, and as expected, there are always going to be different groups of people for both.