Custom art

[theRealGorbulas]

I have a way to get player skins into the official server. A player using custom art will have to have a normal skin just like everybody else. They can also have a URL along side their character\'s name in the database. If a character has custom skins for themself, another player could get that skin by targeting them and clicking a button. The skin would be downloaded from that URL and placed with a unique name in the art folder. The player to whom the art belongs will then be skinned with their art. There are many people who would love to have the ability to make themselves look different. There is no need for people who don\'t care to download the art. People with fast connections could set up an auto download that would automaticly grab the players art.
There shouldn\'t be any virus threat here because the download isn\'t being executed, but for the paranoid user they could pass it through a virus scanner an the way down.
I hope I\'m not missing anything. Please tell me what you think and ask any questions you might have. I\'m going to try to start messing with the CVS code.

[josephoenix]

I like the idea of \"on the fly\" downloading. It seems like it would work, but if the skins would be funneled through the server they will cause bandwidth issues, and if you use direct client-to-client, you will have issues about two \"passive\" users (behind firewalls). A transfer needs at least one active user. You could have people open 2 different ports for planeshift... one for the actual server connection and another for d/l ing skins...


josePhoenix

[theRealGorbulas]

I was thinking URL like they need their own webhosting. Free hosts should be enough to host one possibly zipped JPEG. You have to be careful who your host is because that might get you a person with \"Bandwidth Exeeded\" stamped all over them.

[josephoenix]

I guess my plans are too grand

That is a lot simpler and painless-er. Good idea, and I would probably notice if people started laughing at me :-/ Especially if only some people were laughing... that way I would know it wasn\'t the shields I equipped to my feet to snowboard with... Of course, I have 3 gigs of hosting space (thats why I\'m always offering it to people who are working toward a worthy cause. No begging xD) and 45 gigs monthly transfer. Yay!

josePhoenix

[fireofsoul]

Would it be possible for it not to download through the planeshift client? so then it would\'nt cause the server to have sudden lag bursts.

[theRealGorbulas]

That was the plan. You have to get your own hosting somewhere. There are lots of hosts that would let you do that

I am thinking about ways that you could possibly block other people from stealing your skin. Somehow block the file from simply being renamed and copied. That would be bad for some people if the art could be stolen. This would need to be client side so that you wouldn\'t need any special tools to make a skin.
You could probably report them to a GM and have it removed or something. I could put a thing in there so that an abusive player could be blocked from using custom art.

[fireofsoul]

just a possible check box saying share art, so then if you dont want it shared the URL wont show or (auto download) wont work.

[theRealGorbulas]

I\'m talking about letting people download your custom skin, so share art would be redundant since you have to put out art for other people to get first. I don\'t want people stealing clothes. You could get there permission and use it, but you won\'t be able to just copy other peoples skins out of the art folder to use as your own. If you don\'t want other people to see your art just don\'t give the server the link.

[fireofsoul]

Have fun making it, even trying to get Ps going on linux gave me a headache.

[theRealGorbulas]

I got some help from blueCommand in IRC, and I have the URL stored in the SQL database, and the server knows whether the client has art. It has this super useful part now where when a player requests his/her inventory it prints \"|\\-Custom Art_/|\"(or NO custom art) on the server output. The client doesn\'t know yet(it might, but it doesn\'t know what to do with it if it does), and there isn\'t a function for retrieving the file or URL yet. I\'m getting somewhere at least.
This is only half of it too. After this works it still needs to apply this skin. Does anybody know when the CB freeze is? It should be soon if not already past, but it is a prealpha game so it has to be closer to release than with KDE which is months before.

[icebr4kr]

I agree that the prospect of having player-specific skins is tantalizing. There is one big problem though, and you already mentioned it. Stealing. It is _impossible_ for the user to be prevented from finding out the URL and getting the skin for their own use. This is analogous to the age-old HTML view-source issue. The only way I could see stealing being prevented is a server check to see that no duplicate skins are found. If a player wants to share his skin, there could be a flag to allow this. The problem with this approach is that someone could just alter the image slightly....

Bah, reread your post. Yes, client-side, I forgot. Some of it still applies though. Ok, then there is obviously no way for the server to enforce skin choosing. Someone can just point to the same URL for the skin or even a different URL for the same skin on another webserver. There\'s really no way to prevent it. The only sufficient solution I see is to allow a copyright line prohibiting the use of the skin other than for viewing that specific player.

Anywho, all of this will have to be replaced when clothes are implemented

[theRealGorbulas]

Maybe I could have the user pass the image through a program before they upload it that hides a tag inside the image with their username or id in it. Then when they upload it the client will refuse to display it on other players. I\'m still not to this point yet, I need the client to download the skins before I can worry about blocking the skin theft.

Unfortunatly, I won\'t be able to get much done for a few days. I\'m going to upload my work, but not tell you where because it doesn\'t do anything, and try to work on it at my grandparents\' house. I don\'t think that I will be able to even compile it there, so it might be full of bugs and stuff. I might be able to get some more of it before I have to go.

[icebr4kr]

Originally posted by theRealGorbulas
Maybe I could have the user pass the image through a program before they upload it that hides a tag inside the image with their username or id in it. Then when they upload it the client will refuse to display it on other players.

Before they upload it to their own web server?

There\'s no way to prevent skin theft (lol) if users upload it to their own servers. In fact it is probably impossible to do it even if the images are uploaded directly to the game server. In practice, I don\'t think it will be much of a problem though because players can be reported to GM\'s if the need arises (or you could make your player name a big feature of the skin ).

[theRealGorbulas]

Stamp your name on your forehead? But then people would impersonate you.

[josephoenix]

Naw, just make a personal crest (like the pattern they branded cattle with, hehe) and \"register\" it to your player account via some form or other. Then if someone steals your skin (that sounds funny ) which has your \"crest\" as a main feature, you can have some recourse. My crest is going to be the \"TM\" symbol (\"MR\" for you spanish-speakers, not sure what for the rest)
Noone will steal what is obviously trademarked o.O

josePhoenix