RF Generation Message Board

Very little of this is my words. Most of it is the work or Reverend Nepenthean.

The following refers to the process of uploading of images, to be viewed via the game pages and/or the image search.  This is done with and the following namely refers to the image script, which can be found here:

Submit Game Images: http://www.rfgeneration.com/PHP/submitinfo.php

Basically how the Submit Image Script works is this: Search for a game as usual, or by console, and all the results will be displayed.  If it says in a particular column in red "no scan" for something like the back scan coulmn, you can click on it.  This will bring you to an upload page.  Find the file (JPG only for scans) and upload it.  The script will re-name the image automatically and credit you (with the name you enter on the upload page - please keep this consistent to avoid duplicate entries), and the image should be there for viewing right away.

As I said, scans must be in the JPG format.  As a general rule, all scans should be 550 pixels on the SHORT SIDE.  Thus, the other dimension will be greater than 550 pixels.  Just set the short side (height of a Genesis cart, width of an NES box, height of a CD case, etc) to 550 pixels and let your photo editor adjust the other side to scale.  There's no reason to mess up the aspect ratio.  If you need something that will resize a large batch of scans automatically and much more quickly than by doing it by hand, Arrhalomynn found a free program that you can download here:

Batch Image Resizer: EasyThumbnails v2.8 (http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/staff/EzThmb_Setup.exe)

For screenshots it's almost the same but a little different.  First, screenshots can be in PNG or JPG format (remember that scans are JPG only).  If your emulator or screen capture software takes them in bmp you can use this program to convert them to JPG or PNG
Image Converter: Solid Converter GX 1.1 (http://www.download.com/Solid-Converter-GX/3000-2192_4-10445994.html)

On the image search results page, in the screenshots column, you should see four links for each game: IG, TS, ES, and AS.  IG is in-game at the top left, TS is title screen in the middle, and ES is end screen on the top right.  Anything else is an action shot.  There can be as many action shots as you want, but the other three are a single image only. 

In-game shots are actual gameplay. Only one image can be displayed here multiple submissions will overwrite the previous image.
title screens are the title screen of the game. Only one image can be displayed here multiple submissions will overwrite the previous image.
end screen is the screen shown when the game has been beaten (NOT "Game Over" screens, unless that is what it says at when the game has been finished successfully). Only one image can be displayed here multiple submissions will overwrite the previous image.
Action shots perhaps should have been named in-game, as they can include both more in-game shots, FMV stills, menu screens, game over screens, and pretty much anything else you want to.  Action shots are just for an assortment of screenshots from the game. This is the only listing you can submit multiple images for.

So, in the image upload script, if a link is green, we have image(s) for that criteria.  If it is red, we don't have anything, so if you do and want to add your image, that'd be helpful.

Updated the size of images to 550.
It increases the quality and clarity of the images without being too large to view on lower resolutions.

Is there a way to get a list of what needs scans and what doesn't?

Actually yes there is. But you still have to submit the scan the normal way.

http://www.rfgeneration.com/cgi-bin/searchreverse.pl?searchmode=image

The checkboxes across the bottom if checked will include that item in the image search.
I suggest unchecking screenshots ;)

2 questions.

1, where would I submit extra pictures? Such as bonus discs and various extras.

2. I can't scan discs just by putting them on the scanner, it'll damage the scanner and the disc trying to get it off. But, I can put them in a PS2 extra disc thingy (The thing that disc 2 is in with any 2 disc PS2 game) and scan it that way.

Would that be ok?

1) Post them here and I will get them:
http://www.rfgeneration.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=announce;action=display;num=1114535076

2)Can I see and example? I have scanned disc on my scanner before and it was OK.

Yea placing a disc on your scanner won't harm your disc or your scanner unless you use nails to pick it back up ;)

It's not so much of putting it on there, but it's eaither putting my fingers on the scanner or on the disc... i'd rather do eaither.

But Tynstar and I came to an agreement :)

Next question...

For CD based games in a single jewelcase, and for Sega CD/Saturn games. The front cover is the cover of the manual.

Would I submit twice? Or what?

Answered on AIM

For the benefit of others i will answer here:

You scan the front of the jewel case with everything in it.
Then you scan just the front of the manual.

Good point  :-[

Here is a front SCAN (http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-048/bf/U-048-S-00160-A.jpg)

And a manual SCAN (http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-048/ms/U-048-S-00160-A.jpg)

March 30, 2006
Updated screenshot info.
Look for BOLD ;)

I submitted 14 F/B/G scans last night for the US Saturn stuff.  How often are the images updated?

I'm planning on doing my entire Saturn library, but want to make sure everything was in protocol before I proceed on the rest of the games.

I will be OKing those this weekend. We wherer having a few issues so I was holding off updating any game pages.

I looked at your submissions and they look great. I noticed on the Shining Force III CD scan it is not square (the text at the top) and a little more could be croped off but it is not that big of a deal.

Thanks for all those submissions.

I got 285 Saturn images submitted for you since Thursday, I'll take a break for awhile until they all get uploaded. :)

And I thought I was overloading the site with my onslaught of Xbox scans. ;)

They are all loaded. Thanksa lot for all those. MORE MORE MORE  :laugh: :laugh:



I am glad you are out of work. ;)

:laugh:

Me too!

Picture question: OK, I notice when I send my pictures to my yahoo account the size is smaller so I can actually post them with my posts.  Is there a way when I post to pull the image from my yahoo picture page and have the image show up on my posts?  Thanks.

Maybe [i m g ] insert link here  [/ i m g ]

do the [ ] and img without any spaces?

Hope that helps

Yea, I know that but I don't want it to link to the yahoo site.  I want to pull the picture from the site if you know what I mean.

See, if I do it this eway I just get the clickable link to the yahoo site: (http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/cvanderhoef/detail?.dir=1871&.dnm=d74fscd.jpg&.src=ph)

 ???

Maybe you can resav the image onto your hard drive from yahoo and it will be the corrct size?

I know that isnt the proper way to do things, but will it work?

I didn't want to but I'll try it.  ???

How long does it take for scans to be approved? The only reason I ask is I can't remember what I've added and didn't write it down. :rofl:

Depending on how busy the guys are, it can take anywhere from a few hours upto a few days. (normally sooner)

Much like the submit missing games thread ;)

I just submitted some screenshots (using a digital camara :D) for 5 NES games.  Some aren't the greatest quality but they do the job imo.  ;)  I can do more too if it's ok...

I will ask the staff to see what they think.

Thanks

Okay.  :)  It's kinda fun so I hope they get the ok because I have a lot of other games that don't have pictures in the database.  What are some other methods of getting a screenshot off of a tv?

Off a TV I dont know. Usually people use emulators to get screen shots.

I know...It's strange how through the camara these weird lines go up and down the tv.  What the heck is that?  One of them is a wide dark line and the others are squiggly white lines...I realize most use the emulators but I do know many games aren't emulated at all or they don't run worth the crap.  Many Jaguar games aren't emulated that I have.  I think even though they wouldn't be the best quality pictures it would be better than nothing for now.

And if not screen shots I think shots of the actual games and boxes/manuals would turn out better.  I have a ton of games that have no pictures in the database.

I'm not an expert or anything, but there's probably a way to run the system through the computer.  You can just print screen to get it to work.  I'm sure you can, I'm just not sure how.

Those are the lines refreshing I believe. Eye cant see it but the camera can.

when do the images get updated on the site? im sure i uploaded some scanes the other week but havent seen them on the front of the site and now cant rememeber which ones i did.

Normally images are done by 1 of 2 different staff members here at RF Gen.
And they do them fairly quickly. Sometimes they get hundreds of images at once! So when they upload them back onto the site after watermarking them, you may not see them on the front page because there were so many done at once.

I hate to be a bother but I'm waiting before going scan crazy to find out if I properly loaded the scans I've already submited for two games.  I uploaded them from my hard drive rather then a web site and their ratio was 510x<510.  If anyone can let me know if I did everything right, that would be apreciated as I can then move on to scanning the rest of my...sizeable collection for aditional info for the site.

I have checked your submissions in the submission log and they all look fine to me. Very clearly scanned and neatly cropped. If you have done everything from the scanning images FAQ I don't think you will have a problem with anything.

Approving the submissions may take a little longer though, as Dave (TraderJake ) is currently working on something related to the area. You can keep submitting them however as they won't disappear anywhere it just may take a couple of weeks to get them uploaded.

I noticed that most of the hardware images are straight on front and back shots. I has sent in a few where I had taken them at a bit of an angle to get the sides in as well, if they don't make approval let me know i can re-take the pics as straight front and back shots.  8)

Those will only appear on a CRT.  It is the cathode ray (electron beam) tracing out the image you see on the screen.  That is what the screen actually looks like at any moment in time, if your camera were to have its shutter open for more than 1/60th of a second, then you would not see the lines in the picture, but you would need a tripod to do that.

More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube

If someone could please tell me how to use EZthumbs properly it would be much apreciated.  So far I cant get it to resize anything by width.  It will change the heigth, the width and height, or nothing.....but even changing the numbers back and forth between both feilds and changing the options from stretch to fit and such, I cant get it to save properly.  This is driving me a bit bonkers as I have almost 500 images to re-size.  Please help!

To resize I set which ever side I what to 550 and the other side to 99999. That always works for me.

That's what I do to.  Since the setting is for MAX Height and MAX Width the only one that takes effect is the 550.

Thanks for the help!  Everything is working just fine now.

Thats good to hear!

Just a suggestion here but I was wondering if it would be possible to have the action shots expanded to allow multiple uploads at once? It can be time consuming submitting 5-10 action shots for one game one at a time.

It's way down the pipeline, but it has been noted on several occasions.

i know you don't want the images ripping off the site but is there not away to make the copyright thing a bit smaller as it can be hard to read some of the small print when it gets covered up, Sometimes this might be the only difference in a version of the game

Question about TG 16 games. Since I don't have the boxes on most games, should I put the game case as extra media instead of the front scan?

Having done a couple of hundred scan uploads now, I've realised it would be a bit easier if there was one page something like:

Today I had 67 screenshots for one game, uploaded 1 at a time. Believe me i know how you feel  ;) I know there's allot bigger things brewing for RF Gen however so maybe it'll be an idea re-visited in the future.

I can assure you that in the future I will be working on the next version of the submissions system, as it is currently third on the pipeline after the redesign and some staff scripts. When I do that, I will let people know and they can submit requests.

I think I just killed Wachenröder (http://www.rfgeneration.com/cgi-bin/getinfo.pl?ID=J-060-S-03555-A). I submitted some better scans, but now it has nothing on the page, although when I check submissions, it says it dose have all the items.

Also someone added the game again after I had already done so but under the name Wachenroder (http://www.rfgeneration.com/cgi-bin/getinfo.pl?ID=J-060-S-03950-A)

The game Wachenröder is definitely it's correct and only name (aside from when using Japanese characters) however as it's a German name.
So perhaps a redirection is in order like Wikipedia dose
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wachenroder

We'll have to get someone to move the scans from the latter to the first one with the umlauts.

The images are there, it is an issue with the detection of the images.

http://www.rfgeneration.com/PHP/watermark.php?ID=J-060-S-03555-A;type=bf

As you can see, your photo(s) is there, but getinfo.pl can not currently see them. Hopefully that will be rectified in the near future.

Hmm, would the fact they are PNGs have anything to do with it?
This never happened with JPG submissions.