Avatar/Signature Format Guide

I'm sure this is more Specific than the one in the REAL rules XD


1)VERY IMPORTANT! What are the signature limits?
-Signatures: No taller than 150 pixels for all images together. This includes but is not limited to: banners, fan club addons, and sprites.

-Avatars: 100x100 and around 15 kb

2) Where do I host my image? How do I host my image?

ImageShack:
http://imageshack.us/
Perfect if you want to host large image files, like screenshots or .SWF's (SWF's is a flash format, but it still counts as an image format.) The size limit is 1024 kb. (1 mb)
Valid Filetypes: jpg(jpeg), gif, png, bmp, tif, swf

Photobucket:
https://www.photobucket.com/
For photobucket, you have to sign up on Saturdays from around 11:00 to 1:00 depending on your time zone. You can also make your account private so noone can look at your picture folders. The size limit is 250 kb, anything other than that it resizes automatically.
Valid Filetypes: jpg(jpeg), gif, png, bmp, tif, swf

TinyPic (My personal favorite):
http://www.tinypic.com/
TinyPic is my personal favorite. It's PERFECT for sigs. It saves you URL space so you can have multiple sig add-ons and text in your signature space. Like mine! *Points to sig* But the size limit is 250 kb. Like photobucket, it resizes anything larger.
Valid Filetypes: jpg(jpeg), gif, png, bmp

You aren't allowed to host nudity on any of these hosts, doing so will prevent you from hosting on those sites and viewing pictures hosted on those sites. All of them are free! Don't forget that you can use your own sites to host images!

If there are any more free hosts you can think of, or I forgot to mention, feel free to post them! I hope this helps you all!

2) Fanart used without permission in sigs OR avatars is prohibited. If you see any instances of this, please contact me or another mod so we can sort out the situation

...Many people don't care that fan artists worked hours to make fan art, only to have it swiped without permission...

This also: http://www3.to/ofp/

I am extremely disappointed to see the amount of sigs that people make that uses stolen fan art. By stolen, I mean fan art that you didn't ask permission to use. Fan art that you took off the site and used like any other image. People worked on this art, not for you to take and put into sigs/avatars. I myself enjoy doing artwork, and people have already taken my artwork and altered it without permission. How did I feel? Peeved. And I'm sure that these Japanese artists would feel the same if they knew what was being done with their artwork. And no, simply giving credit to the site in your sig doesn't cut it. You need written permission, otherwise it is stealing. Can't speak/read Japanese? Well, that's just too bad. Live with it.

3) When you critique, you must critique constructively. An example of a constructive comment is:

”The render is good, but it could use ______”

”The character is a little blurry, perhaps you could fix it up?”

These types of comments do not offend the maker of the graphic, and yet at the same time you can get your point across. Remember that most sig makers put much time into their work, and no one likes to get “it sux” in response.

Also, it is important to note that it does not matter if you think if it is an offensive comment or not. Being polite is key, and do not give critique like you are the master of sig making, because no one is. Do not demand in an overbearing way that the sig maker change whatever is wrong with the sig. Offer your point in a courteous manner, or moderator action will be taken.

Note that a positive comment is not necessary, as long as you are respectful.

4) Receive critique politely as well. The exception is when the critique is rudely stated, in which you may alert a moderator to the situation. If you cannot handle critique, DO NOT POST YOUR SIGS AT ALL. You can politely ask to receive lighter critique (in which I expect critiquing users to follow up with the request), but you must know that the suggestions people give you are to help you improve.

Again, if you notice a problem, do not hesitate to PM a moderator. I expect these rules to be followed, or there will be moderator discussion.

5) When requesting a signature and avatar please try to include as much detail about what you would like in the signature as possible. A theme and the text that you want on it has to be included in your thread.

This avoids misunderstanding, and doesn't waste time on discussion, therefore YOU get your signature faster.

6) Please don't post topics with private requests like:

TItle: " DJdog, please make me a sig"?

Content: " DJD, can you please make me a sig?"

Those kinds of topics shouldn't be posted, instead, please take your private requests to private messaging.

7) When your signature is done, CREDIT THE ARTIST by even a small note under the sig like, "by DJdog". This will avoid lots of trouble.

After your request is completed remember to post "fulfilled" in the title ^_^

9) Remember that no one is SUPPOSED to do the request for you. So be polite. It doesn't hurt to say please once in a while, neither does it to say thank you, but it does matter.

10) Now that you have your signature you will want to post it.

Okay, I've noticed that A LOT of people have asked about this lately, so I decided to make a guide.

INTRO

The code that you use to post images and accomplish other tasks on these forums (and many others) is BBcode. It's an implementation of HTML comprised mostly of brackets ([ ]) and letters. During this guide, I'll go over how to post images along with many other tricks of the trade. I hope I don't bore you.

IMAGES

1. Get the URL for the image. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locater. In short, it's the web-address of the image, just like the address of a website, like the one you see above in your browser (tales.namco.com). An image URL is a tiny bit more complicated than typing in a site's name, so here's an example: http://img236.exs.cx/img236/7464/wolsig3rd.png (click it if you want). Anyway, so you get the URL. Go ahead and highlight and copy the URL.

2. Next, you type . The result should be like this:

NOTE: There are also a number of buttons that are hotkeys for BBcode above the box where you type your post. There's one that says, "Img". Click that, and it will put down the [img] code for you.

NOTE 2: You HAVE TO TYPE THE URL EXACTLY, meaning, including the http:// part. That's why I said to just copy/paste it. Many new people make this mistake, and wonder why they see a red X instead of their image.

3. .... You're DONE! Now, on to a few other things.

ITALICS, BOLD AND UNDERLINED TEXT

After you get one part of BBcode down, you've pretty much got the rest of it down. You'll see why. To make your font look bold, type:

Code:

[b]Text[/b]

You see, all I did was replace the "img" part with "b". Now that you understand that concept (hopefully), you can do just about any other simple BBcode. All you do is put "i" for Italics, and "u" for Underlined text. Understand? (if not, tell me).

A FEW OTHER FUN THINGS WITH BBCODE

"Naming" URL's: Okay, so you have the URL. My example URL will be: http://trigunchronicles.0catch.com/index.html Now, the link will work, but you have this big mess of text, so what do you do? You name it. The code should be ("Trigun Chronicles" being the example name):

[url=URL HERE]Trigun Chronicles[/url].

End result should be:

Trigun Chronicles. Got it? Good.

Making a Clickable Image: This is probably the most complicated of all the BB code. Type:

[url=URL HERE][/url]

This should make it so that the image you post can be clicked, and when it is clicked, it will bring you to whatever website URL was typed in. So, here's how it should look (click on it):

Avatar/Signature Format Guide by: Lord Fawkes Garde