Flag size - animated graphics

[Karnilla of Nornheim]

I’ve offered, over in the economic forum, to do flags for people. It isn’t difficult for me to do a fairly basic flapping flag animated GIF, either, but because the site won't allow flag graphic files larger than 10kb, I almost never can make a flag full size, that is 107×71 pixels as an animation. Complicated designs sometimes are as small as ½ size. I was wondering if the people at the technical end of things could, and would be willing, to increase the file size to 15 or 20 kb? Then it would be much easier to animate full size flags for people.

(Btw anyone wanting flag designs from me, please post in the vexillogical storefront thread. I didn’t set that up, and there are other willing custom flag makers there, as well.)

[Bokkiwokki]

But why would you need to make the forums even more of a sensory overload by allowing appalling things like "flapping flags"?

[Karnilla of Nornheim]

But why would you need to make the forums even more of a sensory overload by allowing appalling things like "flapping flags"?

Perhaps you have me confused with someone else, like Max Barry or violet? I don't “allow” or not “allow” anything. That's up to the admins and the people who run the game. I do graphics. I am willing to spend my own time to do graphics for people because they want original flags and lack either the skills or the software to make them for themselves. Some people want flapping flags. Some want the overlay. Some want a plain graphic. I can accommodate them all.

If you find the forums a “sensory overload”, then perhaps you should go to a different website. If you think that flapping flags are “appalling”, that’s your opinion, and until you are willing to spend your own time and effort to make flags for your fellow players for free, I’ll thank you to keep it to yourself! In the mean time, I suggest you learn some manners, and not insult other people’s artwork.

[Hryvatia]

But why would you need to make the forums even more of a sensory overload by allowing appalling things like "flapping flags"?

If you find the forums a “sensory overload”, then perhaps you should go to a different website. If you think that flapping flags are “appalling”, that’s your opinion, and until you are willing to spend your own time and effort to make flags for your fellow players for free, I’ll thank you to keep it to yourself! In the mean time, I suggest you learn some manners, and not insult other people’s artwork.

Well, no...

(S)he's entitled to their opinion, and considering we've just got rid of all those damned Jolt ads here I too would be against the distraction of flapping flags. It's one of the things I like about this forum, no 600x600 images in signatures or flashing invasive avatars et cetera.

If you're going to propose something that is likely to be rather controversial, then you're going to have to learn to take criticism without lashing out.

[EDIT: Also this 'storefront' isn't roleplayed or in-character, so shouldn't it belong in Gameplay?]

[Somewhereistonia]

The last one was in gameplay and it makes more sense there.

[Erastide]

I'd suggest some chilling out while you wait for a response to the request of a flag size increase.

I'll note people get animated flags without the need for a size increase, but who knows, you may catch [violet] in a giving mood on this one.

[Grays Harbor]

But why would you need to make the forums even more of a sensory overload by allowing appalling things like "flapping flags"?

rude. very rude.

but here's me, thinking that somebody willing to do things for other folk is kinda nice, as opposed to "I DON'T LIKE IT SO IT CANNOT BE PERMITTED AND IF YOU WANT TO DO SO IT IS APPALLING!" Please remember this is a game and some folk like that type of thing.

[Hryvatia]

But why would you need to make the forums even more of a sensory overload by allowing appalling things like "flapping flags"?

rude. very rude.

but here's me, thinking that somebody willing to do things for other folk is kinda nice, as opposed to "I DON'T LIKE IT SO IT CANNOT BE PERMITTED AND IF YOU WANT TO DO SO IT IS APPALLING!" Please remember this is a game and some folk like that type of thing.

Read the post above your own. Try not to fuel the fire.

[Erastide]

There was a question asked at the beginning of this thread. I removed 2 off topic/insulting comments. I also pointed out the question to be discussed.

You want to discuss the virtues/problems with flappy flags? Go to the flag gameplay thread or the storefront one the original poster linked to. Or if you think they need an outright ban, start your own topic and don't derail this one.

[Man or Astroman]

My flag moves just fine...

[Grays Harbor]

My flag moves just fine...

.... and is a snapshot of anybody who owns a computor, at one time or another.

[Vault 10]

A flag size limit increase could help not only animated flags, but also people who have spent effort drawing their own flag and want it in a less lossy format than .jpg.


However, I'm not a fan of animated flags, personally... Not a fan of animation in forums at all, really, even the animated smiles annoy me by grabbing too much attention. Animated flags are nice as a picture in a thread, but as an avatar or nation flag, far from always.
On the other hand, no need to make them even worse by keeping them blurry...

[Somewhereistonia]

A flag size limit increase could help not only animated flags, but also people who have spent effort drawing their own flag and want it in a less lossy format than .jpg.


However, I'm not a fan of animated flags, personally... Not a fan of animation in forums at all, really, even the animated smiles annoy me by grabbing too much attention. Animated flags are nice as a picture in a thread, but as an avatar or nation flag, far from always.

I agree. My flag doesn't look anywhere near as good as the original.

Sorry Grays Harbor, but your flag is far too distracting for my liking. Whilst I wouldn't force you to remove it, it would be nicer if moving avatars/flags were kept to a minimum.

[Valipac]

A flag size limit increase could help not only animated flags, but also people who have spent effort drawing their own flag and want it in a less lossy format than .jpg.


However, I'm not a fan of animated flags, personally... Not a fan of animation in forums at all, really, even the animated smiles annoy me by grabbing too much attention. Animated flags are nice as a picture in a thread, but as an avatar or nation flag, far from always.
On the other hand, no need to make them even worse by keeping them blurry...

Both this flag and a flag for my alternate nation do not follow the size guidelines recommended by NS. As far as the 10 kb limit, there really isn't any reason for your flag to be that big. The reason it's that high is that you are either using wayyyy to many colors, including far too much animation, or the flag is just flat out too detailed. As far as forum avatars go, then perhaps this is burdensome, but as far as realistic national flags go, it's spot on. You'd be hard pressed to find a national flag larger than 2-3 kb in the format that NS asks for, much less 10+.

Once you start increasing the size limit, you begin to run into bandwidth problems and the fact that some people will probably never be satisfied with what you grant them. Like I said, mine is saved as a .png (lossless compression), is larger than the recommended size, and still manages to fit under 10 kb.

[Vault 10]

Both this flag and a flag for my alternate nation do not follow the size guidelines recommended by NS. As far as the 10 kb limit, there really isn't any reason for your flag to be that big. The reason it's that high is that you are either using wayyyy to many colors, including far too much animation, or the flag is just flat out too detailed.

So what? Every flag must be three stripes of Red, Green and Blue? Do you find colors or detail harming the aesthetics?

As far as forum avatars go, then perhaps this is burdensome, but as far as realistic national flags go, it's spot on. You'd be hard pressed to find a national flag larger than 2-3 kb in the format that NS asks for, much less 10+.

NS doesn't ask for any format. 107x71 is a very small size, appropriate only for the stock flag-placeholders. The page format fits a 400x250 flag quite nicely.

Once you start increasing the size limit, you begin to run into bandwidth problems and the fact that some people will probably never be satisfied with what you grant them. Like I said, mine is saved as a .png (lossless compression), is larger than the recommended size, and still manages to fit under 10 kb.

An administrator of a site running 4TB+/month bandwith and 60,000 visits/day here, mostly on high-res game mods. Occasionally more. All on a 1U colocation server. And still we're yet to run into a problem with bandwidth. The only complaints we've had are from people accessing the forum from cell phones (we have a 100kb size limit for avatar and sig each), but they just turn the avatars and sigs off, as do I when using mobile access.

4TB is about 400,000,000 current maximum-sized flags. At 10,000 users (most of whom aren't all that active really), each would have to look at 40,000 flags a month to load that bandwidth.
Of course, since all modern browsers have cache, the maximum number of flags one can practically have to download is about 1,000 - we only have about 900 users with more than one post.

Really, it's not the 20th century.

[Valipac]

Both this flag and a flag for my alternate nation do not follow the size guidelines recommended by NS. As far as the 10 kb limit, there really isn't any reason for your flag to be that big. The reason it's that high is that you are either using wayyyy to many colors, including far too much animation, or the flag is just flat out too detailed.

So what? Every flag must be three stripes of Red, Green and Blue? Do you find colors or detail harming the aesthetics?

As far as forum avatars go, then perhaps this is burdensome, but as far as realistic national flags go, it's spot on. You'd be hard pressed to find a national flag larger than 2-3 kb in the format that NS asks for, much less 10+.

NS doesn't ask for any format. 107x71 is a very small size, appropriate only for the stock flag-placeholders. The page format fits a 400x250 flag quite nicely.

Once you start increasing the size limit, you begin to run into bandwidth problems and the fact that some people will probably never be satisfied with what you grant them. Like I said, mine is saved as a .png (lossless compression), is larger than the recommended size, and still manages to fit under 10 kb.

An administrator of a site running 4TB+/month bandwith and 60,000 visits/day here, mostly on high-res game mods. Occasionally more. All on a 1U colocation server. And still we're yet to run into a problem with bandwidth. The only complaints we've had are from people accessing the forum from cell phones (we have a 100kb size limit for avatar and sig each), but they just turn the avatars and sigs off, as do I when using mobile access.

4TB is about 400,000,000 current maximum-sized flags. At 10,000 users (most of whom aren't all that active really), each would have to look at 40,000 flags a month to load that bandwidth.
Of course, since all modern browsers have cache, the maximum number of flags one can practically have to download is about 1,000 - we only have about 900 users with more than one post.

Really, it's not the 20th century.

Talking down to me isn't going to win you any points V10, and it's why you have never really found a group of people on NS who regarded you as a friend.

Now. Click on the world link in the sidebar. By golly, there are 10 flags staring you in the face. Each day, those are different flags. I'm not sure as to how the mechanics of loading all those flags work, but nonetheless you aren't accounting for those in your calculations. Plus the flags the forum users see. This still doesn't account for raiders and defenders, constantly checking in on other regions, each of which has its regional top 10. For that matter it doesn't account for the WA'ers who send TGs to the delegates of other regions. I'm not saying that slightly increasing the size will cause an immediate collapse in the server, but drastically increasing it to the point that some people want just might.

I'm not saying that each flag should be limited to one or two colors, but when you try to incorporate fancy photoshop effects such as gradients and the like, it launches your flag past the size requirements. If you stay away from space intensive things such as this, then it's quite easy to stay within the realms of 10 kb.

107 x 71 is also the size they scale it down for the forums, so it doesn't really matter as to whether or not it's a small size or not. Even if they change the upload file size limit, i doubt they change the 107 x 71 scale down for the forums. As a result, if you only use the game for the forums anyways, why not go ahead and scale down your super fancy flag to that size. Scaling down will drastically reduce filesize.

[Vault 10]

Talking down to me isn't going to win you any points V10,

I'm not talking down to you. I just have closely seen sites running massive bandwidth on small resources without any trouble. Much more massive than 10-kilobyte flags.

Now. Click on the world link in the sidebar. By golly, there are 10 flags staring you in the face. Each day, those are different flags. I'm not sure as to how the mechanics of loading all those flags work, but nonetheless you aren't accounting for those in your calculations. Plus the flags the forum users see. This still doesn't account for raiders and defenders, constantly checking in on other regions, each of which has its regional top 10.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But the thing is, even if every active NSer looks at every other active NSer's flag, it's still not going to be a massive load, bandwidth-wise (it can be query-wise, but that doesn't depend on flag size).

Most NSers use stock flags anyway, it's only the active crowd that uses custom ones.

I'm not saying that each flag should be limited to one or two colors, but when you try to incorporate fancy photoshop effects such as gradients and the like, it launches your flag past the size requirements. If you stay away from space intensive things such as this, then it's quite easy to stay within the realms of 10 kb.

But why stay away from space intensive things such as this? It's not going to overload any remotely modern server.

As a result, if you only use the game for the forums anyways, why not go ahead and scale down your super fancy flag to that size. Scaling down will drastically reduce filesize.

Well, I don't have a super fancy flag anyway. Many people don't only use the game for the forums, so they can use a larger flag.

edit: I've noticed that your own flag is larger in dimensions than 107x71, so you certainly find that size small yourself.

[Karnilla of Nornheim]

A flag size limit increase could help not only animated flags, but also people who have spent effort drawing their own flag and want it in a less lossy format than .jpg.

However, I'm not a fan of animated flags, personally... Not a fan of animation in forums at all, really, even the animated smiles annoy me by grabbing too much attention. Animated flags are nice as a picture in a thread, but as an avatar or nation flag, far from always.
On the other hand, no need to make them even worse by keeping them blurry...

Both this flag and a flag for my alternate nation do not follow the size guidelines recommended by NS. As far as the 10 kb limit, there really isn't any reason for your flag to be that big. The reason it's that high is that you are either using wayyyy to many colors, including far too much animation, or the flag is just flat out too detailed. As far as forum avatars go, then perhaps this is burdensome, but as far as realistic national flags go, it's spot on. You'd be hard pressed to find a national flag larger than 2-3 kb in the format that NS asks for, much less 10+.

Once you start increasing the size limit, you begin to run into bandwidth problems and the fact that some people will probably never be satisfied with what you grant them. Like I said, mine is saved as a .png (lossless compression), is larger than the recommended size, and still manages to fit under 10 kb.

The flags that I make can vary widely in size depending on what the person who requests the flag wants. Many modern flags are simple three or four color designs, but historic flags tend to be much more complex, and some people play nations with a historic flavor. Even some modern flags, if they have a canton or a coat-of-arms can be complicated and multi-colored. One design feature I offer people is an overlay which gives the appearance of a waving flag without animation. It also adds significantly to the number of colors required by the graphic.

I really have to take issue with some of the commenters on this thread who suggest that because they like simple flags, or they don't like animated flags, that no one else should have such things. Remember, this is art. It's 100% subjective. There is no "right" answer; there is only your opinions. I respectfully suggest, don't fall into the egoistic trap of thinking that your subjective opinions somehow should apply to the other 50,000 people playing this game. Another point I might remind some posters to consider is that the majority of Nationstates players either don't come to these forums, come only to browse or almost never post. That means that you won't see their flags here as avatars; you'll only see their flags on their nation's page. You might find that what displeases you aesthetically on the forum looks quite acceptable in that format (or maybe not, but really, it's up to the player of the nation — or it ought to be, anyway).

[The Most Glorious Hack]

Let's go back to the old 6kb limit!

[Flibbleites]

Let's go back to the old 6kb limit!

Those of us who are over 6kb would be grandfathered in right?

[Parthenon]

Let's go back to the old 6kb limit!

Agreed, these people don't realize how good they have it with their 10kb flags or forums that work during the daylight hours.

[North Wiedna]

My flag moves just fine...

Flag?

[Nobodishal]

I realize that this thread is a bit old but I figured it would be better to post here than start a new thread.

I personally would like a slightly larger flag size (As in KB, not dimensions). I have been trying to create a good sized animated flag but haven't been able to put in as many frames as I would like. An increased limit to 20KB wouldn't cause too much increase in bandwidth/storage usage, as only active members with animated flags would even approach that limit.

Guess that's all I have to say about that.