Forum Avatars - RIP

[Aegis Runestone]

Here are the Final Fantasy IV Advance Portraits to use as avatars.

They have transparencies and should work fine.

LT: The sprites look a little ghetto with the resolution, but that's probably not your fault. No PNGs though. We use GIFs. If you can convert those to GIFs and not sacrifice the quality, we can do something with 'em.

Edit: I always felt .pngs were better than .gifs, but I can do it without losing the quality. Try them now. Oh wait, do they stretch to fit the 32x32 size? I can fix that so they don't stretch. Hang on.

Edit 2: Okay. NOW try them. They are 32x32. I just canvas sized them to that size so the original picture shouldn't stretch.

LT: Cool, thanks. With the exception of 2 or 3 ugly ones, I added all the FF4 GBA sprites you gave. Nice work.

[SoloGamer]

Could anyone make 32x32 images of the fighters with their regular faces, with the game background included? Could also be from the matchup screen, if those images don't look bad with a resize.

EDIT: Oh shit, don't forget Mr. Dream.

Since I made the Super Punch-Out!! avatars, might as well be the one to make the ones from the original as well. Here ya go, boss.

Select the ones you like from here.

And on a random note, here's another Super Dodge Ball submission:

EDIT: and in honor Mr. McMahon in light of his recent car accident.

LT: SBD one is ugly, and the McMahon one is blurry, plus I wouldn't take a McMahon avatar anway. Awesome Punch-Out crops though, thanks very much for these. At some point, I may vary up the background color for them so they're not all blue/green, based directly on their intro screens, (e.g. Piston Honda: red, Super Macho Man: light blue). If you wanna do that any point, that would be sweet, but I don't know how readily available those screens are for every character.

[Polo]

Super Mario World - Mega Mole:

DuckTales - Magica DeSpell and Flintheart Glomgold:

Lufia 2 - Gargoyle enemy:

Speaking of which, the Lufia avatars in the Sunsoft category are all from Lufia 2. Their names are:

Lufia 01 - Artea

Lufia 02 - carpenter

Lufia 03 - Maxim

Lufia 04 - Guy

Lufia 05 - Dekar (surprised)*

Lufia 06 - Selan

Lufia 07 - Tia (falling / jumping down)

Lufia 08 - Erim

Lufia 09 - Brinz Lizard

Lufia 10 - Amon

Lufia 11 - Venge Ghost

* this also appears as Lufia1_10.gif in the Miscellaneous category.

LT: Thanks so much for these new additions as well as all of the Lufia 2 fixes. Back when I added those, no specific information was given. I was sincerely hoping someone would eventually come along and provide more details, so I really appreciate the help.

[Devyn]

May I suggest the following:

Barney the Dinosaur

Captain Planet

Captain Crunch

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Duff

Widget The World Watcher

Pocahontas (the little Indian girl)

Droopy The Dog

Inspector Gadget

Some real dinosaurs:

Tyranosaurus Rex

Brontosaurus

Dimetrodon

Pterodactyl

Bozo The Clown

Binky The Clown

Falkor The Luckdragon

Morla The Ancient One

Pippy Longstocking

Janet Jackson

Optimus Prime (duh!)

Aerial the little mermaid

Snow White and all the dwarves too

Mr. Clean

Mr. T

Chuck Norris

Bruce Lee

Bolo Yung

oh, and alternate-universe zombie Wolverine

Thank you and have a nice day.

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot Jean-Claude Van Damme and Papa Smurf - those too please

[PassivePretentiousness]

then make them and submit them you moron.

oh yeah gaius baltar kthnx.

[Devyn]

No, you make them, asshole.

And McGruff the CrimeDog, too. Thanks guys.

[Agonotheta]

somebody needs to put the JJ & Jeff avatars under Hudson Soft category, I had a hell of a time finding them

LT: Done. Hell, I had no idea JJ & Jeff was even a game until you posted. Thanks for the catch.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

We need the captain of the thames from xenogears as an avatar.

[Liontamer]

Thanks very much for the recent updates. Everything newly accepted has been added. Punch-Out!! is our recent large addition, courtesy of Solo!

LT: Cousins!

[Polo]

Punch-Out!! is our recent large addition, courtesy of Solo!

Fixed. ;P

...

Actually, I can supply some different background colors for the Punch-Out!! fighters. First, a comparing / contrasting pic:

Top row is Solo's bunch; bottom is mine with each boxer's background swapped for their intro screen hues (except for Mike Tyson, who shares Mr. Dream's blue screen, so I left his green to match his ring color). As requested, here's Piston Honda and Super Macho Man, plus Mr. Dream:

Any more you want? As you can see, most have their own intro colors to begin with, some not so different from when they enter the ring.

LT: I'd value your input. In your opinions, what do you think makes for better icons? The main thing I'm concerned about if the avatars looking too similar if used en masse. The other option though is doing 32x32 versions (cropped to a square, then resized) of the intro screen portraits that would be available alongside the existing icons taken from the matches, leaving those backgrounds alone. If intro screen portraits aren't feasible at 32x32, then I'm leaning toward Polo's recolored material.

[Liontamer]

Gimme input.

[OverCoat]

Why not use gif transparency?

[Liontamer]

Why not use gif transparency?

Because it's lame.

[CHz]

Why not use PNG transparency?

[Liontamer]

Why not use PNG transparency?

Because you're lame. Because your mom is also lame.

[The Coop]

Personally? The background colors are so bright and/or intense in Polo's group, that they've become the focus. Why not try dulling the backgrounds a bit... especially those intense light greens and middle blues? The more muted green in the first three images on the top row work better than the rest, as the gray in them makes the more vibrantly colored faces stand out.

[suzumebachi]

i see a resemblance.

also, you definitely need to add one of the king hippos. that would be tite.

[Polo]

Why not use gif transparency?

That works for full sprites within the 32 x 32 dimensions. If added around cropped sprites, they'd look empty and alone. Larry preferred my Bad Dudes avatars with their native colored backgrounds over transparent ones. Of course, a border also helps, making it look and feel "finished" (see: Card Fighters avatars), but that's another story.

Personally? The background colors are so bright and/or intense in Polo's group, that they've become the focus. Why not try dulling the backgrounds a bit... especially those intense light greens and middle blues? The more muted green in the first three images on the top row work better than the rest, as the gray in them makes the more vibrantly colored faces stand out.

Would you suggest toning down just the brighter backgrounds so they don't clash with the darker ones when viewed as a group, or would you say do it for every boxer so that every face gets more attention than its respective backdrop?

Also, for reference, here's each boxer in his corner:

Because each pixel row and column is delicately occupied, I'd avoid a downsize, which could lose details that keep the original feel of a sprite (in my opinion, downsizes and clean-ups are better saved for non-sprite artwork). On the other hand, if they were cropped, we'd more or less get these:

At best, they would make more detailed additions alongside their smaller in-ring counterparts. At worst, they're creepy and cropped too close.

Perhaps a balance between intro screen crops and in-the-ring hue variations would suffice? Is a vote at all feasible since Larry turned my post into a thread?

Also, cousins? SoloGamer and me? O SNAP

[Liontamer]

The cropped ones don't look too bad. A better way to see how they'd look in use is to space out the avatars more (that's for either horizontal or vertical spacing), rather than lining them up with no gaps. Try it.

[Schwaltzvald]

I like them

The close up versions are not bad but I prefer the one I'm using now.

[Polo]

Oh, so THAT'S why I thought they looked creepy. Heh. Ah well. Elbow room version:

EDIT - Moved Glass Joe, Don Flamenco, Great Tiger, Bald Bull, and Mr. Sandman up a pixel each so as to better center their mugs:

[/EDIT]

If they're still bueno, I can GIF 'em separately for you to take.

Not sure what else to say at this point, except I wouldn't mind the second option (Solo's subs, after all, stay authentic with their in-the-ring backdrops). But I would suggest that my head-and-shoulders Mr. Dream be used, as his intro color equals his boxing ring color.

[Dafydd]

Banjo and Kazooie, as well as King K. Rool are all missing from the current avatar gallery. I tried getting them from this picture, but resizing from 80x80 to 32x32 doesn't go well. Will someone give it a try, or find better material to work from?

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i114/TheNGamers/SuperSmashBrosCharacterSelectVer9.jpg

[The Coop]

Would you suggest toning down just the brighter backgrounds so they don't clash with the darker ones when viewed as a group, or would you say do it for every boxer so that every face gets more attention than its respective backdrop?

Every face. Muting the colors of some backgrounds and not others would result in an uneven look to the set. And since even an intense maroon can still detract from the face, doing this to all of them would benefit the each face, and keep them looking like they belong together.

[Polo]

^ Cool, makes sense. We'll see what Larry would like done.

LT: Give Coop's suggestion a try and we'll see how they look. Otherwise, I honestly don't mind using the mini-style faces with the regular green/blue backgrounds, and then these close-up crops with the corner colors.

Okay, tentative batch (spaced and resorted):

LT: Personally, I'm not feeling the muted background colors. Seems pretty drab. When I get home tonight, and you have them ready, I'll upload the crops of the close-up pictures and leave the smaller versions with the original/in-ring backgrounds. Thanks a lot for experimenting with the different background, it was definitely worth a shot, and I certainly liked them. If I could have only used 1 set, I would have went for the smaller ones with the recolored backgrounds. Thanks for all of your help, guys.

It was fun experimenting. I wanted to add a link to a RAR file with the cropped mugshots, but it died on me, so I'll have to triple post the faces...

[Liontamer]

Of course, new avatars are continually being accepted as they come in. Thanks to interweb cousins Solo & Polo for the Punch-Out avatars, which now have their own category. I also spent the weekend updating all the avatar labels with more details (along with catching up on the judges queue).

Basically, the labels are only as detailed as the various filenames are. Stuff like anime, I've got no clue on. It's not a big deal if no one helps, as this isn't a necessary project, and I couldn't care less if I get no additional details. BUT...if you'd like to help by identifying chracters/pictures that have generic labels, please feel free.

Thanks to everyone for all of the contributions so far!