Guide for making 800x600 RP showcase screens

[Vince Torelli]

So one thing I've noticed is how a lot of faction/character story threads are written as a summary of events, rather than a showcase of actual RP scenes. While this is cool for documenting the progress of a faction, and isn't necessarily a bad thing, I think faction lore and development becomes better nuanced and expanded when actual RP scenes are depicted for the audience of viewers. It demonstrates that you can actually roleplay, including writing quality dialogue and scene descriptions with /me's and /do's.

 

Now, being that Eclipse is mixed VOIP and text (and more people are inclined to use VOIP), it makes writing dialogue verbatim difficult. However, since the traditional way of creating 800x600 RP showcase screens is to only have a few lines and a short summary of the RP scene (as to avoid metagaming), it's easy to save POV of the conversation and transcribe it for the screenshot.

 

 

 

 

 

HELPFUL TOOLS

Photoshop, or...

 

https://www.photopea.com/

For those that don't want to buy Photoshop, this is a web based alternative with the same UI as CS6.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROCESS

While some methods involve screenshotting the scene and removing the raw text using a magic wand, I have found this to be detrimental for several reasons - 1, grammar errors. 2, Eclipse's font is bulky and there's too much OOC artifacts.

 

INSTEAD, I recommend the "ROLEPLAY TRANSCRIPTION" method. This means taking a raw screenshot or, in case of VOIP usage, a POV of the roleplay you wanna include - including speech and /me's and /do's. Keep this handy, because you'll be transcribing this roleplay onto a CINEMATIC SCREENSHOT.

 

 

HEX CODES:

Me = {c2a3da}

Do = {c2a3da}

Talking = {f1f1f1}

Whisper = {eda841}

Phone call = {fbf724}

 

 

FONTS:

I recommend Arial Condensed Bold or, on Photopea, DejaVu Sans Condensed Bold.

 

 

REMEMBER THAT YOU SHOULD ADD A BLACK OUTLINE OF 1, 2, or 3 PIXELS (give or take) DEPENDING ON HOW BIG YOUR TEXT IS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CINEMATIC SCREENSHOTS

So for the screenshot you're gonna be pasting the text onto, there's a specific method. You want the main focus of the picture to be the characters and/or main item of the RP... this could be a car, item, or anything pertaining to the scene at hand. Since your screenshot will be posted in 800x600 format, you'll want to go ahead and crop/resize your image to fit those dimensions.

 

It is vital that you leave room in the upper-left corner of the screenshot for the Roleplay Transcription.

 

Example:

 

 

 

 

After cropping the image, you'll want to add the text. Your final screenshot should look like this:

Now you're ready to post!

Remember to check with your faction management if they approve the screen to be posted to the thread. (Every faction's rules is different.)

 

 

Edited September 15, 2022 by Vince Torelli

[OGChyz]

Nice and clean guide for the new comers or for someone struggling to get it done. Big thumbs up.

[DoTo]

Very epic. I would love to see more faction screenshots formatted this way.