Building a Basic Universal Multipurpose Picture Pack

[TheWho87]

I've been thinking about redoing my wrestler images for years, and the biggest problem was starting over from scratch, but I was thinking with the amount of booking simulators about and coming our, now might be the best time to do it as well as to factor in being accessable to be universally used for all games.

EWR and TEW has basically stuck to the 150x150 route, but as long as the image is square it gets scaled to size, so with newer games able to use larger images, along with alternate file types, and looking at what's currently out and what's planned its been suggested that 300x300 might be a good round to go down. The other thing would be to go down a simple organic/plain background style without borders, I've never been a fan of the big chunky borders of nGo or SAMPP.

Here are a few examples I've done, I've been more toying with the idea and getting a stable base before rolling out, but it should be simple to make, just resize headshots to fit and done.

Edited November 3, 2021 by TheWho87

[Benji]

I wholeheartedly support this idea. I'd very much like to see a picture pack where the format goes "NameYear.gif" so that we can try and make something of picture database that can be used throughout all mods across time periods. I do like the borders of the other pic packs mentioned though. I feel like they make the game more immersive, as well as adding uniformity.

[TheWho87]

3 hours ago, Subject Delta said:

I wholeheartedly support this idea. I'd very much like to see a picture pack where the format goes "NameYear.gif" so that we can try and make something of picture database that can be used throughout all mods across time periods. I do like the borders of the other pic packs mentioned though. I feel like they make the game more immersive, as well as adding uniformity.

At the moment I'm building up the current era images, done Impact, Stardom and working through AEW right now, the naming format I'd be looking to go down would be similar to my Broadcasters pack in a Name_Year, for example the Misawa pic above would be Mitsuharu Misawa_90, not sure what to do with gimmicks/alternate images, for example the numbers Dark Order members I've done so far are Alan Angels_Five and Preston Vance_Ten and might do the Su Yung Impact gimmicks as Su Yung_Susan and Su Yung_Susie.

[TheWho87]

Also in regard to borders, I like borders too, I am just not a fan of thick borders, so if I create these without a border, that leaves an option to be changed at a later date rather than be fixed now, it's easier to add things than remove them.

[IDOL]

I like this idea a lot, and I would also recommend no borders. Borders could be done rather easily to get them to fit a certain pack with a quick batch process in photoshop. Same goes for sizing them down to 150x150 or less for TEW and the gif packs. 

I also support some kind of universal naming convention with the year attached. For my current mod I've used names like "Samoa Joe_2k06.gif," Samoa Joe_2k09.gif," "Samoa Joe_2k09_alt.gif" and so on to make adding agers and alts easier.

[TheWho87]

8 hours ago, iDOL Nakazawa said:

I like this idea a lot, and I would also recommend no borders. Borders could be done rather easily to get them to fit a certain pack with a quick batch process in photoshop. Same goes for sizing them down to 150x150 or less for TEW and the gif packs. 

I also support some kind of universal naming convention with the year attached. For my current mod I've used names like "Samoa Joe_2k06.gif," Samoa Joe_2k09.gif," "Samoa Joe_2k09_alt.gif" and so on to make adding agers and alts easier.

You woulden't need to size them down, as long as they are square they will automatically fit, when it comes to GIF's I'm not sure as I've never worked them, but since these are still square they will work that sticker GIF style.

As for the naming, I'm gonna stick to the last 2 digits of the year, at best most will be from 80's to present day, so won't need to worry about it till we hit 2080, and we'll likely be dead or doing something else by then.

 

The only thing I'm thinking bout is how best to host these things, Photobucket is out the question, I saw Gaz used Google Drive for this Stickers, might look into doing that for these.

 

On another note, what time period would you put the following in, I'm thinking left 80's, right 90's.

Ted DiBiase


Woman

Edited September 22, 2021 by TheWho87

[TheWho87]

Some previews of what I've got done so far

Without backgrounds

 

With backgrounds

[IDOL]

The only thing I’d critique is to get them all to the same level of cropping/zoom. Cole and Chase for instance are a lot more zoomed out than the majority of the pack. Maybe set some guides in your photoshop template at eyeline and chin line for the renders and size them accordingly.

[TheWho87]

2 hours ago, iDOL Nakazawa said:

The only thing I’d critique is to get them all to the same level of cropping/zoom. Cole and Chase for instance are a lot more zoomed out than the majority of the pack. Maybe set some guides in your photoshop template at eyeline and chin line for the renders and size them accordingly.

That's mostly down to source images, I refrain from zooming in as it distorts the image, I only zoom out, for example the background Cole is from AEW, while the transparent Cole was from the WWE PC page, and nearly all the WWE PC images not on the main WWE roster are small in comparison.

[IDOL]

1 hour ago, TheWho87 said:

That's mostly down to source images, I refrain from zooming in as it distorts the image, I only zoom out, for example the background Cole is from AEW, while the transparent Cole was from the WWE PC page, and nearly all the WWE PC images not on the main WWE roster are small in comparison.

Maybe zoom out to match?

[TheWho87]

But then you'd be constantly scaling down to the worst sizes you find. I get your direction of trying to go for total uniformity, but unless every wrestler is getting photographed by the same photogropher in the same style that's a near impossible goal.

[TheWho87]

I've been on and off expanding on this, did a few old WWF promo pics, you can see the file naming I'm going for older pics, NAME_YEAR.

[TheWho87]

Does anyone know of a good place that could host a large amount of images similar to the old Photobucket, currently the best option I can think of would be a Google Drive.

[TheWho87]

I've done a test to see the best quality to save the final JPG for the pack, it starts with the source and goes down in increments of 10 so 90, 80 and so on, the first row goes from Source to 60 and the second from 50 to 10, from the looks of it 50 would be the safest level to drop to while keeping quality, below that you can start to notice.

I'm looking to drop a full beta preview of the pack with every picture I've cut so far next month after I release my mod, it won't be compatable, but it's mostly to gauge opinion, look for bugs and sort those out before a full official release, also all images are saved as a source PNG, so they can be quality saved down to JPG and are backed up on a USB, the 4000+ images I've got so far are a little under 1 GB so far, I'm currently raiding PSD Dreams to get as many images usable from there, the good chunk of what I have are mainstream promotions and American indies with a few pics from everywhere else so far, dated pics go back to the 80's and I've got some pics of old school workers from even before then.

Edited November 20, 2021 by TheWho87

[Fat Frog]

Hello, lads.

About two years ago I tried to do basically the same thing, but gave up about 2000 pictures in. It turned into an excellent pic pack, but only if you are playing a somewhat recent scenario.

Here it is, if it helps you in any way.

Everyone is on a white background, with no borders and somewhat uniform zoom.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/6zvi4mm2v9ylnfu/PICS.rar/file

Edited November 20, 2021 by Fat Frog

[TheWho87]

41 minutes ago, Fat Frog said:

Hello, lads.

About two years ago I tried to do basically the same thing, but gave up about 2000 pictures in. It turned into an excellent pic pack, but only if you are playing a somewhat recent scenario.

Here it is, if it helps you in any way.

Everyone is on a white background, with no borders and somewhat uniform zoom.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/6zvi4mm2v9ylnfu/PICS.rar/file

Are they 150x150? If so this pack is going for a bigger size, the reasoning is that is can be used between different games, Promotion Wars uses 200x200, and Pro Wrestling Sim I think is even bigger, I don't want to be limited by the EWR/TEW dimentions as long as it's square it will play in any game, so this pack uses 300x300.

[Fat Frog]

12 hours ago, TheWho87 said:

Are they 150x150? If so this pack is going for a bigger size, the reasoning is that is can be used between different games, Promotion Wars uses 200x200, and Pro Wrestling Sim I think is even bigger, I don't want to be limited by the EWR/TEW dimentions as long as it's square it will play in any game, so this pack uses 300x300.

Yeah, unfortunately, they are 150x150.