Current Signature Rules & Vertical Signature Images

[darker hei]

Hi, aarin and aarin staff!

As most people who know me are aware, making graphics on this site is what really keeps me active and involves me with everyone here. Well, besides the whole yaoi & anime aspect. ^^

I like to keep challenging myself with new styles and formats, so this is why I decided to plead my case and though I know the subject of vertical signatures has been discussed and rejected a long while back, I was hoping we could revisit this once more.

According to the Main Forum Rules and Signature rules and specifications, the maximum allowed signature elements now include:

1) a signature image of 500x250 px max (3 pics side by side possible) = 125.000 px
2) a max of 3 smilies or 3 small pictures at 500x80 px total = 40.000 px
3) 10 lines of regular size text or 15 with a smaller font which adds roughly another 150 px height-wise. So, 500x150 px = 75.000 px

This comes down to a grand total of 500x480 px or 240.000 px combined height & width.

Another thing I noticed while on the forum is that a post is always a minimum of 690 px in height. Meaning, a post with an average of about 10-12 lines of actual post text is completely unaffected in height by a vertical image signature.

Examples:

http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt141/darker_hei/postsize.pnghttp://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt141/darker_hei/realverttagfordemopurpose.png

As it stands now, signatures aren't uniform as it is, some people have images to the right, left and middle according to personal taste, some have lots of text, some have very little, some take advantage of adding smaller images or smilies, some don't at all.
Overall, with the huge amount of space currently allotted for signature space, a vertical signature image of 350x300 px wouldn't really affect anything.

And as someone who really enjoys making graphics, in some instances it really pains me to mutilate a character into a 500x250 px box when the whole thing would look so much better if you had the opportunity to use the character as a whole. This is especially true when you have a subject in a dynamic pose, which is also a thousand times more fun to work with.

Here's an example of an image in Nouche's current contest I really liked, but gave as gift instead of entry because of the current rules:

http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt141/darker_hei/redkingverttag.png

So this is why I'd like to ask if it wouldn't be possible to allow vertical signature images of 350x300 px max and just cut down the text allowance for this option to 5 lines of text.

It would open up so many possibilities for creativity & design and I'd personally be extremely grateful. ^^

[cabbit_girl]

I know when it was last brought up to Aarin by a mod about increasing sig image size (about 1 month ago), Aarin wasn't ready for a size increase

but currently you technically have 500x330 pixel space to work with as long as there is a space between the 500x250 image and the 500x80 image http://aarinfantasy.com/forum/f314/t155617-signature-rules-and-specifications.html#post3763997

however to just allow 300x350 minus 5 lines of text only for vertical sigs would be a bit confusing I think and very difficult for the mods to enforce sig rules, esp. since there currently is no limit on lines of text but if a sig appears too large compared to others it will be placed in spoiler by a mod, simpler version of allowing total image size of 500x350 would allow for you to have your vertical sig, but would also allow for a 500x350 sig as well, which is what I think Aarin is not ready to have here yet, partially due to image load on the server.

a 500x350 totally blank image is about 512k in my ps. but a 500x250 image is 366k and a 500x80 image is 117k for a total of 483k. the image file size doesn't matter much if its loaded onto another host, but when it's loaded to the server, as many member do, it adds up

but again this is totally Aarin's decision so she may change her mind about this at a later date

[darker hei]

From my understanding, tags above the kb limit don't even upload, right? So, as long as they are hosted on an alternate site, that shouldn't be a problem.

If the less text lines rule would be confusing, maybe it would be okay to have the vert tag only and no added images.
That's something someone can see very clearly and if stated equally clearly in rules, shouldn't be any more confusing than the signature rules are as they are now.

Overall, to my thinking, it should be just as easy to identify a too long signature regardless if it's a vert tag or a normal one.
If I know a normal tag allows for extra pics and some lines of text and a vert tag has width limitations and no extra pics allowed, I think that's pretty straightforward and easily identifiable.

I'm not looking for a signature size increase, but I know that a 350 px height vert tag takes no more space or kb load than a regular max signature as currently allowed. We may currently have a 330 px height max allowed, but splitting it into two images makes even less sense spacewise than leaving it in one image. (Completely disregarding the fact that it just looks jacked up.)

I'm not a person to use custom cards, smilies or massive text lines in my signature space. So it would be nice to still be able to use a somewhat equal signature space as others for things I personally enjoy more.

Naturally, I will respect aarin's decision on this, but naturally, I'm also hoping this wouldn't be a huge deal to implement.