Editing User talk:Who is like God? (section)

== Screen shot guideline / mop-up ==

myk wrote: ''For examples of bad screen shots see [[E1M3: Toxin Refinery (Doom)]].''&nbsp;&nbsp; I happen to know how those were taken, and I thought they had an acceptable aspect ratio because they had square pixels (letterboxing).&nbsp; But if I understand your guideline, they are not OK.&nbsp; For example, [[:Image:E2M3 trail intestinal.png|this]] and [[:Image:MAP01.png|this]] meet your guideline, but [[:Image:E1M9 start.png|this]] and [[:Image:Doom95-MAP01-Start.png|this]] do not meet it because they have "non-vanilla-like" aspect ratio correction.&nbsp; Is that what you're saying?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[User:Ryan W|Ryan W]] 14:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

: Yeah, the latter two make no corrections (Doom95 only adds to the area viewed). The E1M3 shots (640x400) would have looked correctly in the game, where the engine stretches the pixels, but not here (where the browser draws square pixels). <small>[[User:Who is like God?|Who is like God?]] 19:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)</small>

:: ''would have looked correctly in the game''&nbsp;&nbsp; Actually no, because they were taken with ZDoom, where the stretching can be turned off.&nbsp; However, I now understand [[Talk:Skulltag#Aspect Ratio|Fraggle's "VGA card" arguments]] better, so I think I am going to stop doing that.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[User:Ryan W|Ryan W]] 14:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

:::Was that supposed to be a correction or something? One would assume the user would use 640x400 correctly in the first place. Whether 640x400 may appear as a 16:10 mode would depend on the video card drivers. On my computer these modes show up only as 4:3 modes. <small>[[User:Who is like God?|Who is like God?]] 02:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)</small>

''For example, [[:Image:E2M3 trail intestinal.png|this]] and [[:Image:MAP01.png|this]] meet your guideline, but [[:Image:E1M9 start.png|this]] and [[:Image:Doom95-MAP01-Start.png|this]] do not meet it because they have "non-vanilla-like" aspect ratio correction.''

And that's my problem with this. It takes a blanket approach, adopting this practice to all in game screen shots, instead of just those that are taken using the original Doom executable.

That screen shot of Doom 95, for example, is correct because that is ''exactly'' how it appears in Doom 95. To change it would ''not'' be an accurate representation of how Doom 95 displays the image, thus changing it would be wrong.

For the E1M9 image, on the other hand, the image that is captured is not correct, because it is not an accurate representation of how it appears during gameplay. In this case, as myk suggests, the image would need to be stretched vertically by 20% to a 4:3 ratio in order to compensate.

Moving on, other source ports use different styles of aspect ratio correction, Vavoom and ZDoomGL, for instance, apply it differently from other ports (Vavoom, for example, never applies it to the status bar, always applies it to sprites, and gives you a option as to whether or not you want to apply it to the "world".) What if I'm showing off a particular project for one of these ports? Why should I have to change them? Applying these guidelines would make an screen shot that is ''not'' representative of how the author intended it to look. This is just flat out ''wrong'', and this "guideline" makes no concession for this.

There are also the screen shots for consoles that this rule can obviously not be applied to.
 
As far as I am concerned,

::''Screen shots should be taken in software rendered mode, '''with settings resembling vanilla Doom as closely as possible''' (unless the screen shot is for showing off a port specifically or belongs to an add-on that requires the use of such a source port).''

is a better guideline when it comes to this. I bolded the part that could definitely use some further clarification, however. We can do this by removing the guideline myk added, and instead taking it and using pieces of it here to help a user better understand what ''"with settings resembling vanilla Doom as closely as possible"'' means and how this applies to the screen shots they take. [[User:Nuxius|Nuxius]] 05:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

::''And that's my problem with this. It takes a blanket approach, adopting this practice to all in game screen shots, instead of just those that are taken using the original Doom executable.''

:It takes that approach only for shots that would need stretching or an adjustment to appear as they do ingame. The two guidelines aren't contradictory, and are talking about different things. The E1M9 and Doom95 shots each fail in regard to one of the two guidelines; the former isn't stretched properly (it's in 16:10 rather than 4:3), the latter is not like the standard executable (and thus not suitable unless we're trying to show how Doom95 renders these modes; rather badly). The new guideline never says it has to be applied to everything. It starts by saying that the shots should be suitable for viewing online, and then gives the most common example and how to deal with it specifically. <small>[[User:Who is like God?|Who is like God?]] 19:14, 7 June 2008 (UTC)</small>

::The E1M9 shot was 16:10 in-game as well, even though my monitor is physically 4:3.&nbsp; Hence the term "[[Wikipedia:Image:Image cropping 235x1.jpg|letterboxing]]".&nbsp; I used 640x400 because I was imitating Fredrik's screen shots for E1M1, which are also 640x400, but I didn't ask him whether or not they were stretched to 4:3 on his monitor.&nbsp; Perhaps my graphics card is merely behaving oddly (it wouldn't be the first time).

::In any case, I initially chose the E1M1 images to imitate because the "widescreen" format looked cool, not because I had ever seen a DOS version with a widescreen mode.&nbsp; However, even your expanded guideline does not say that screen shots must be taken with a vanilla executable; it merely says that whatever port I choose must be configured so that its screen shots look like vanilla.&nbsp; I think I now comprehend your argument for standardization, and will switch to 640x480 as soon as I remember to.&nbsp; (If people actually start a massive replacement effort, we'll see how many other opinions emerge from the woodwork).

::Nuxius, I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with your general point, but I do think the wording "suitable for Internet browsers" is misleading; it sounds like we are responding to some characteristic of HTML or of browser software specifically, which isn't the case.&nbsp; If I understand what myk is saying, the difference between the in-game view and the image file happens at a much lower level: one could play Doom in stretched 320x200 mode (4:3), dump a screen shot, and then open it immediately with Photoshop, where it would appear unstretched (16:10).&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[User:Ryan W|Ryan W]] 17:02, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

::::''However, even your expanded guideline does not say that screen shots must be taken with a vanilla executable; it merely says that whatever port I choose must be configured so that its screen shots look like vanilla.''

:::I think I know what you mean, but it's not that the screen shot should look like in vanilla (as some might use transparency, dynamic lighting, or pixel smoothing), but rather just to use the physical proportions the artists intended for the graphics. Proper 16:10 would stretch sprites and stuff like 640x480 mode does in ports that make the necessary adjustments (which Doom95 doesn't); it wouldn't just be like a flatter 4:3 640x400 (flatter in a 4:3 monitor, that is).

:::Using a "desktop" mode with square pixels, an imp in a screen shot from such a mode would look "right", unlike <tt>TROOA1</tt> opened in The GIMP. A 16:10 640x400 shot (note the equivalency between physical ratio and pixel ratio) taken in a 16:10 monitor would still look fine in the desktop environment of a 4:3 monitor, although you wouldn't be able to make it fit the whole screen (it'd either get cropped on the sides, or get black spaces beneath and below). A 4:3 640x400 shot, on the other hand, would also not fit as "full screen", but would also look wrong (flat).

:::The other guideline is the one that says shots should look like from vanilla (unless they are for other engines); this would include +20% height proportions (which should best be applied to ''any'' shot for the PC games, even those that otherwise don't need to look like vanilla, unless the engine it is from doesn't have properly adjusted modes), but also other things, such as to use software mode, to not use a HUD, and to add no extra effects (decals, particle effects, transparency, rocket trails, crosshair, HUD, &c).

:::To surmise, one says, "use a vanilla appearance unless it's for a mod that assumes added stuff", the other, "try to always make sure the sprites and map environment are drawn with proper proportions" (x1.2 height). <small>[[User:Who is like God?|Who is like God?]] 22:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)</small>