Proposal: Max Avatar Dimensions: 100 width & 110-150 height

[Haiprbim]

Hello, guys and gals.

At the moment, the maximum dimensions allowed for an avatar to have are 100 in width and 100 in height.

To keep it simple, since most of the members at AnimeSuki use some sort of an anime character in their avatars and their faces are Oval-shaped, not in the shape of a Circle, how about changing the maximum avatar dimensions allowed from 100 width and 100 height to 100 width and height somewhere between 110 and 150?

100 width and 130 height would seem ideal, in my humble opinion.

Please, do share your thoughts and opinion on the matter.

[relentlessflame]

Square avatars are preferred due to other places in the forum that place icons in grids (such as the friends list). As people will often try to maximize the size of their avatars, it is better for the maximum sizes to be square to fit into those grids nicely. So I am not really in favour of changing the proportion of the max dimensions for avatars.

[Archon_Wing]

Yea, I think it's best to keep them square, and of course the other concern is bandwidth and loading.

[Triple_R]

Well, Haiprbim, you finally made a rules change proposal that I kind of like!

While the 100 by 100 size limit is manageable (i.e. its possible to get very nice avatars to fit that), it is tricky, especially when I try to make one myself out of anime episode screenshots.

To keep it square, maybe an increase to 110 by 110, or 120 by 120, would be doable?

[Kotohono]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

To keep it square, maybe an increase to 110 by 110, or 120 by 120, would be doable?

The thing is concerns of bandwidth, monitor size, and loading being limits, once the staff shows willingness to increase, I imagine people would keep asking every so often, and it becomes a question of how much is too much of burden on lower end users of the forums?

I could see people saying why stop at 150 x 150, we could do 200 x 200, and so on, because it works for them just fine since they probably aren't a low end user.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Konakaga

The thing is concerns of bandwidth, monitor size, and loading being limits, once the staff shows willingness to increase, I imagine people would keep asking every so often, and it becomes a question of how much is too much of burden on lower end users of the forums?

I could see people saying why stop at 150 x 150, we could do 200 x 200, and so on, because it works for them just fine since they probably aren't a low end user.

Well, avatars by their very nature tend to be small nowadays. That's true not only here, but on message forums in general. Once you get to 200 X 200 and beyond avatars, you're talking pretty huge avatars. The sort of stuff I haven't personally seen in ages. I doubt many people would want avatar size pushed to that extreme.

But a slight increase could be pretty helpful, at least in my own experiences. There are images that look a bit small to me in 100 by 100, but look Ok in 120 by 120.

[Reverzer0]

Yes 120x120 is good for non animated avatar. For animated, well it depends on gif!

[NoemiChan]

Proposal: Max Avatar Dimensions: 100 width & 110-150 height

I prefer any size as long as long as it's square. Whats more interesting that should be discussed is increasing the bit size for avatars and sigs.... hehehehehe

[Auxilism]

100x100 is the maximum, the avatar can be 80x100 or something if you don't want to break the ratio of the character.

Originally Posted by Konakaga

The thing is concerns of bandwidth

I agree with everything else you said but I'm having doubts over this. The proposal is to increase dimension limits, not file size limits. All avatars would still be below 100kb so the maximum amount of data loaded would be the same.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

But a slight increase could be pretty helpful, at least in my own experiences. There are images that look a bit small to me in 100 by 100, but look Ok in 120 by 120.

Thanks for the gif idea.

Images

Sayaka for your viewing pleasure, 100x100 gif vs 120x120 png

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Though I admit that gif loses quality and massively increases file size.

[Kotohono]

Originally Posted by darkhalo191

I agree with everything else you said but I'm having doubts over this. The proposal is to increase dimension limits, not file size limits. All avatars would still be below 100kb so the maximum amount of data loaded would be the same.

Well AS had raised the data limit before, so I am sure some people would naturally ask for 20% more data since they're 20% larger now .

[Reverzer0]

100x130 avatar emmm not bad humble opinion therefore I tried to see it actual",

[Archon_Wing]

I have to agree with Kona. There's no end to this, and what may be a small difference to some isn't taking in account of the general population. This is an internet forum, not a video game.

We did recently increase it already, but that was probably a standard that was heavily outdated.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Konakaga

Well AS had raised the data limit before, so I am sure some people would naturally ask for 20% more data since they're 20% larger now .

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

I have to agree with Kona. There's no end to this, and what may be a small difference to some isn't taking in account of the general population. This is an internet forum, not a video game.

We did recently increase it already, but that was probably a standard that was heavily outdated.

Wow, I'm honestly surprised and disappointed at your responses.

This idea that a minor increase will automatically cause people to ask for more and more is frankly silly.

By this rationale, should the PM box size had never been increased? I don't recall people asking for even more PM box size since then, have you guys seen that?

In any event, what would be the harm in increasing avatar size to 120 by 120? It would still be a square. It wouldn't take up dramatically more space. It would allow a bit more flexibility for artists, and amateurs like me. I see some positives here, and no real negatives.

So what's the problem here? I think it would be a nice change for Anime Suki.

[Klashikari]

Just to add our position on the matter: few changes were already considered after the signature limits discussion a while ago.
Thus far, there isn't really any objection regarding an increase of the size limits for avatars in general, something like 120-130 pxl height/width, and we might actually just apply this change really soon.

That being said, I strongly believe that avatars in general shouldn't be beyond 100-150kb (be it possible bandiwith issue combined with signature, but also abuse of certain animation loops).

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

Just to add our position on the matter: few changes were already considered after the signature limits discussion a while ago.
Thus far, there isn't really any objection regarding an increase of the size limits for avatars in general, something like 120-130 pxl height/width, and we might actually just apply this change really soon.

Awesome!

I'm glad that it sounds like this is feasible for the board and might happen really soon.

[Dr. Casey]

Indeed, 120x120 or 130x130, or something in that general area, would probably be just fine. The message boards for the Tales of series have a size limit of 100 x 100, claiming that since the forums operate on 2004 forum technology (Namco kinda forgot the forums exist and haven't updated them in a long time) a size of 100 x 100 is about the maximum that's feasible. Certainly does make sense that if 100 x 100 is A-Okay with 2004 technology, that an increase of only around 20% wouldn't be a problem with technology of 2013.

[relentlessflame]

I personally am also not so opposed an increase so long as we keep the proportion (to encourage people to keep using square avatars). In light of the suggestions, I am currently thinking 125 x 125 pixels, with a maximum file size of 125 KiB.

The one thing I will point out about this proposal is that the dimensions actually produce an image that is about 56% more pixels, so this is a bit of a trade-off. People who are maximizing the file size now with complex animations won't be able to just blow their current avatar up and keep the same quality. But they could conversely keep the current dimensions and add more animation.

[Solace]

What they said. I don't mind it either.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Wow, I'm honestly surprised and disappointed at your responses.

This idea that a minor increase will automatically cause people to ask for more and more is frankly silly.

By this rationale, should the PM box size had never been increased? I don't recall people asking for even more PM box size since then, have you guys seen that?

In any event, what would be the harm in increasing avatar size to 120 by 120? It would still be a square. It wouldn't take up dramatically more space. It would allow a bit more flexibility for artists, and amateurs like me. I see some positives here, and no real negatives.

So what's the problem here? I think it would be a nice change for Anime Suki.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. That was just a concern. I'm not just gonna be like "No bigger avatars!!! Regardless of situation"

Well, the mods have come to the conclusion that this wouldn't be a negative impact, so I believe that's what Kona and I were looking for. I must say I wasn't clear in my post on that, but it's not like I was ever opposed to any increase in change. I did point out avatar size was increased lately, and I was never opposed to that either. It was a good thing.

Thing is that my concern was that of usability. When most people decide what is the proper size, they're gonna use their own connection and rig and often not consider that some use older computers with so-so connections, espeically if they're away from home or something. Yes, yes, it's 2013 and we should throw those hunks of garbage away and laugh at people who use dial-up, but it's certainly not that minor-- it's still making it 40% larger.

And your analogy with the PM box is invalid, because avatars are loaded every page, while PM doesn't have that effect. And gifs and animations aren't light either. I actually did say that if the PM box increase was too much of a bandwidth problem, then it shouldn't be done, because bandwidth doesn't magically appear. But I guess I'm not perfectly versed in these matters and was going to wait for an official reply.

But yea, I'm not really sure why you'd get on our case like that over such a minor issue. If it were proven that these demands are trivial, then there is no issue with that. You should feel fortunate that I'm responding to you in a nice tone, because I like you, Triple. We'll just leave it at that.

[Haiprbim]

Okay, I'm back after 24 hours of chilling in the cold storage of AnimeSuki.

Summing all your opinions up, I see that the most part would prefer to keep the avatars square for multiple reasons (mostly off-threads), but would still prefer to have the square-shaped dimensions bigger and the file size allowed for upload expanded as well.

Well, my whole main point of making the height bigger than the width was to fit the biggest part of the character you are displaying (is displaying for you, actually ) in the avatar.
Once again, bodies are not in shape of a circle, neither are faces. Also, if it comes down to it, I think if the avatar consists of the face and the upper part of the body as well, it looks quite more interesting than if it would include the face only (quite a lot of times the case at 100x100 avatars).

However, as the question here is not only how the avatars will look like in the end any more, but how they will display on other parts of the forums and how functional they would be there, they should bring no drawbacks whatsoever, but it seems that wouldn't be the case.

Well, as long as the avatar is still square-shaped, I don't mind it being 100x100, 120x120, 150x150, or any other.
However, if you guys and gals would prefer it that way, please, do keep the discussion going. I'll sure read all the replies.