Avatar Size

[Ferrous]

Hi everyone,

When going through the process of making my avatar, I ran into one major problem, namely reducing the file size. I ended up spending more than two hours trying to track down ways to hack it down from 6kb to 3 kb and ended up having to ask a friend to do it for me. To me, this seems to discourage newcomers (new to making avatars, at any rate) from attempting to make new avatars, given that you're trying to compress a file to half it's original size.

So, I propose this: Why not double the allowed avatar size to 6kb. Even if someone has the number of posts per page set at 100, the total file size of all the avatars on the page only amounts to 600kb, or roughly one to two screenshots per page. Since most of us use the forum default (15 posts per page, IIRC), that only amounts to 90 kb. This would be a big help to me and other potential avatar creators.

Also, when I attempted to upload my avatar as a .png to Helpdesk, it was rejected, with the message "improper file type" or something like that, even though .png's are on the list of "accepted file types" right below the screenshot box. Could this be fixed, .png's are smaller than .gif's.

Thanks for reading! :wave:

 

[collinsl]

Ferrous: CoC States that signatures must be smaller than: 800 Pixels width, 100 pixels height, and 30KB!

 

[freightcar2]

We are talking about about avatars, not signatures. :hehe:

 

[Ferrous]

Ferrous: CoC States that signatures must be smaller than: 800 Pixels width, 100 pixels height, and 30KB!

But is says this about AVATARS:

Forum avatars submitted for inclusion to the selection pool must not exceed 204 pixels in width, 30 pixels in height and may not have a total file size greater than 3kb.

There's a difference. :wave:

And in case I misinterpreted the point, then I'm not asking for huge avatars, just a big enough file size to make it easier for newcomers to contribute.

 

[collinsl]

I would like to apologise to all the nice people on this forum for not reading Ferrous's post correctly.

Sorry!

May you find enlightenment on the correct size for your post text!

 

[pommie]

Before you save the .gif reduce the number of colours down to the amount you have used, you will notice when you have gone to far so just redo it to the lowest amount, my avatar above was done by myself and is only 1.11KB and its animated, so 3KB is quite sufficient for a decent avatar

Cheers David

ps, the fact that it was hand drawn pixel by pixel might also have something to do with it

Edit, I copied yours and reduced the colours, it needs a bit of work to adjust the colours to return it to look as good as the original, but as its not mine I am not doing it ;p

<------ 1.73KB

 

[Ferrous]

Before you save the .gif reduce the number of colours down to the amount you have used, you will notice when you have gone to far so just redo it to the lowest amount, my avatar above was done by myself and is only 1.11KB and its animated, so 3KB is quite sufficient for a decent avatar

Cheers David

ps, the fact that it was hand drawn pixel by pixel might also have something to do with it

Edit, I copied yours and reduced the colours, it needs a bit of work to adjust the colours to return it to look as good as the original, but as its not mine I am not doing it ;p

*snip*<------ 1.73KB

Heh, the day after I posted this, I found out how to cut colors. I guess that makes most of this thread moot.

However, I would still appreciate it if the helpdesk would either be fixed to allow png's or have .png's removed from the list of acceptable filetypes next to the screenshot box. :wave: