The Future of Fan Art (1 Viewer)

[SamFulton]

First - I will lead off with the lines about how much I love Media Portal, and am amazed at the level of quality this project is turning out. Usually that kind of statement is followed with, "but this is how I'd do it". My case is no different. Except mine is more, "I want to be involved with MediaPortal - and with FanArt development specifically - anyone want to chime in with suggestions before I just start doing stuff I think is a good idea?"

I think FanArt is the killer feature in all of Media Portal - it has such a big WOW factor. The only problem is that the integration currently leaves much to be desired. I am going to make a simple site (TheTVDB.com style) where users will be able to upload thier own art, and rate existing pretty much like:
http://jossan.visse.nu/~spuck/FanArtVote/index.php

1.) I think it would be nice to have the site do the naming of the files itself so that everything is consistent. The uploading page would have a upload box, dark/light setting, and seriesID field with a lookup button where you can type the name of a show and get it's seriesID. Mutliple rows of these for people uploading multiple files.

2.) There should be a search function, input seriesID or show name and see art for that single show.

3.) Expose all data through a webservice. This is the big deal - the TVSeries plugin will be able to consume this webservice and support automatic downloading of FanArt. It should work just like banners - seamlessly.


Questions for the lot of you:

1.) Would you want automated FanArt?

2.) Does anyone have ANY idea how many users are out there using the TV Series plugin right now? I have dedicated hosting for this with 500GB of bandwidth/mo - I just have no concept what kind of bandwidth this might be eating up.

3.) I think the specification is way too loose right now - the various overlay boxes people use, position of series logos, resolution of the art itself, these will all lead to problems as new skins are created. I think we should be thoughtful about future proofing the work done by fan art-ists. Do you think these issues should be addressed before a delivery system is made so we don't end up with a huge inventory of unusable art?


4.) Any other thoughts?

 

[Clean]

Good points SamFulton,

It may be best to PM spuck about maybe mirroring his site rather than have two fanart repositories. At the very least he should be able to tell you what kind of bandwidth he is seeing.

I do my own fanart so I am not altogether interested in an automated site. spuck's is good for me as is. Easy to upload to and easy to see what has already been done.

As for some of your points, letting the site handle filenames is not a bad idea. I suppose it is just a matter of writing the code.

A search function may become necessary in the future. At this point the file list displayed is enough to find what you are looking for.

As for the automation part, nearly all of my fanart is pushing the 2MB limit each and I could have 5 to 7 per series. That would be a 10 to 14 MB DL for someone for one show and they my not like any of mine. Just something to consider.

The specifications are really non-existent. I try and develop based on the skin/s I know about. My templates are fairly accurate. Any overlays are tested and are used for legibility only. I have yet to feel the need to move the opaqueness past 30%. Having said that, I develop mostly for myself and if some people like them that is OK and of others don't that is OK too. There are enough of us out here for people to find something they like. And failing that, they can always get help creating one on their own.

 

[ThaClown]

Personally I would prefer a FanArt plugin type of solution, where you can select (via preview or tumb) the fanart that you wish to use.
Since there are many types of art and skins I think you should select the ones you like, and not just get all of it.

I know this takes away from the automated aspect, but you only need to do this once for a series.

 

[yatesd]

I mentioned a while back that there is a general problem with FanArt in that it is dependent on the Skin with regards to correct layouts.

What I would like to see is a way that FanArt can be categorized correctly dependent on Skin as well as SeriesID and Dark/Light.

Currently I am the same as "Clean" in that I create my own ones to work in the Skin that I am using and override the one provided but I can not add them to a list as they are already provided elsewhere.

 

[jburnette]

I like the idea of automated fan art or at least "browseable" fan art from within MP. As far as certain skins having different layouts, I think that should fall on the authors of said skins to follow the format. Fan Art should be standardized so that it doesn't turn into "Oh, that looks good with Replicant but not Blue2". I'm not one to try to stifle the creativity of the skin artists, but in this situation every skin should handle and display fanart the same way or we'll end up with, as previously said, a lot of images that only certain people can use.

For your bandwith, why not zip the files once they have been uploaded? Any plugin will be able to unzip the file on download. MP comes with the sharpzip library, so no problems there. That would save you (I'm guessing) at least 25% on each file.

 

[Bobb25]

Personally I would prefer a FanArt plugin type of solution, where you can select (via preview or tumb) the fanart that you wish to use.
Since there are many types of art and skins I think you should select the ones you like, and not just get all of it.

I know this takes away from the automated aspect, but you only need to do this once for a series.

Hmm. Perhaps something seperate to the main Mp-Tvseries plugin. I can't see myself sitting and choosing Fan art for 180 episodes when i do a complete new import. But a seperate plugin that allows one to browse through the fan art available, that might be useful. Even something that downloads like the top rated 1 or 2 of each series you have initially, then you browse for any more you might want?

EDIT: I concur with jburnette, there should be an absolute standard for all skins to adhere to when displaying fan art. Otherwise its gonna become a free for all and just end up as a cock up for new people to try and set up their fanart for the first time.

 

[SamFulton]

Good points all -

Automatic download
Seems that everyone agrees that fan-art should not be downloaded in it's entirety for every episode, but I still feel like at least one should be downloaded so that you can have some fan art for your entire collection at the start, without - like Bobb25 said - having to manually browse for one on each of your shows.

My plan was to make modifications to the existing TV-Series plugin so Inker doesn't have to bother with it, and once we have something everyone likes he can roll it into his next release (if he wants to - it is his plugin after all).

What if we added a slider to the import screen that said "Download top rated FanArt" and went from None, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, All

FanArt Standardization
I had a couple of thoughts on this. My best case scenario, and it may just be mine, would be if each FanArt had it's own skin file. This would allow a designer to make a completely custom interface for a particular show - so for example "The Simpsons" there could be a background graphic - the series list could be done in a simpsons font with yellow backgrounds, the current episode highlighted with a donut, etc. But I don't know how people feel about having their skins overridden like that.

Short of that - I was thinking this: The template is separated into 3 pngs background graphic, series logo, and description overlay. This would allow skins (like the upcoming xface) to have a dedicated tv description area that has a solid background to use just the background graphic and not have to worry about skins with a static panel looking bad. The skin could also position the series logo wherever it is needed so skins that impact the top left corner will not cut it off.

MP Integration
I like the idea of having browsable FanArt inside of MP. I would assume you mean bring up the options screen (where force local scan, actions, etc are) and add one when you are in a series that says "Browse Fan Art" that will bring you to another screen of thumbnails where users can download/rate all the art on that series.

 

[spuck]

MP Integration: Don't know about automatic download but I'd love to be able to choose/browse fan art inside MP.
FanArt Standardization: Wow, that are some nice ideas. You could make every show different. That be kind of awesome, I would totally make such skin files for my shows.

Instead of top rated fan art you could have most used fan art. Just a thought, might be easier than voting?

 

[Inker]

Great post, here are my thoughts:

I actually thought about associating a (optional) custom skin file for every fanart back when i first started implementing it, but I figured it would just be WAY overkill. Interesting there is some demand for it. I just don't know how well it could be made to work considering that:
- each skin (B2/SR/etc) has different graghics names (for thinks like buttons)
- each skin has includes differently (do we just not use includes at all)
- even assuming each skin has same graphics names, one's skin might be almost transpartent, while anothers might be solid black

In short, it would require each fanart to include EVERYTHING referenced in the skin file, meaning no includes, only references to grahpics provided on its own, etc. The whole think could be packed in a zip like file (*.fanart or something) but it would require alot of code, basically unwrapping and manully binding the skin file to the graphics just unzipped etc.......

And then, how many ppl are going to create such files (in a quality way, donig the xml does require some work and knowledge, and a wrong xml could potentially cause all sorts of weird problems)? For how many shows? Even then, I would guess lots of slight variations of the same overall layout to emerge.

Now, automatically downloaded fanart, well, if someone can provide the bandwidth required and a STABLE server with interfaces required and is willing to commit to it at least mid-term! It would be no big problem to implement.

Choosing fanart from within MP and having the plugin remember it, well yes, that will come eventually anyways.

I don't have many thoughts on standardizations, I guess a general layout has emerged out of necessity, but I don't want to artificially limit peoples art. My thoughts are votes/download numbers will automatically "die spreu vom weizen trennen" (somebody know the english saying for that?)

It might just be better to wait "for the next big thing" (for those in the know) and revisit this idea then, my gut tells me these things will be alot easier to realise then (both from a coding point of view as well as from a creating those fanart files).

 

[tomtom21000]

4) Any other thoughts?

How about a field/selection for a certain style or artist

You might like to download fanart of your favourite artist or style which will give all your series your favourite and similar style, where available.

tomtom