POLL: The fact that we still have no standard DC template is...irritating.

[SMMM]

Lumberjack and I will be using his (I have a few covers using it in the works)...while Warlock and Shenske are doing their own thing it looks like.  They won't all match up, so what's the point?  And yeah, I'll admit it.  I'm too lazy to reformat my covers for anybody else's template.  And I'm sure others on both sides are as well..Should we do a poll akin to the "Famicom vs. Family Computer" thing we had going?  Because I can just see people saying "wow, what an awesome cover..oh wait, doesn't match up with the other ones".   

Unrelated but also on my mind: 4tygames made a post in another topic I fully agree with.  About how a lot of covers are very badly stretched out, or insanely blurry.  Is it time we should be upholding higher standards than "300dpi plz"?  It sounds mean, but what always separates this site from all the others is the consistency in quality.
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EDIT by 4tyGames (July 26, 7:09 PM CDT)

Poll is now up and will run for four days. You can view the results once you vote. You can only vote once and your vote is permanent.

Voting choices:

Orange upper spine, black back:




White Spine, white back

[shenske]

Lumberjack and I will be using his (I have a few covers using it in the works)...while Warlock and Shenske are doing their own thing it looks like.  They won't all match up, so what's the point?  And yeah, I'll admit it.  I'm too lazy to reformat my covers for anybody else's template.  And I'm sure others on both sides are as well..Should we do a poll akin to the "Famicom vs. Family Computer" thing we had going?  Because I can just see people saying "wow, what an awesome cover..oh wait, doesn't match up with the other ones".   

Unrelated but also on my mind: 4tygames made a post in another topic I fully agree with.  About how a lot of covers are very badly stretched out, or insanely blurry.  Is it time we should be upholding higher standards than "300dpi plz"?  It sounds mean, but what always separates this site from all the others is the consistency in quality.

i totaly understand what you are saying.  inconsistancy is very irritating.

First off, i want to begin with lumberjack's template.  I really do like it a lot.  It's very proffesional looking and i have went through each region in his PSD.

I have a weird request but i believe its necessary, if we do have a poll deciding which template is to be the standard then we should do it for each region.
Japan
Lumberjack has a very very nice Japanese template.  In fact i have made one japanese cover(KOF2000) with my template that i considered making in his.
Europe
Without a doubt his template looks perfect.  I'm all for it, wouldn't change a thing. Great Job!
America
I'm sure we can all work something out.  This is the only discrepancy i have.  Lumberjack and I have had a discussion about this before.  Personally i think the template should be all white.  The front, the spine and back.
          The Front:  Theres really no problem there, as we both have the same.
          The Spine:  It kills me to see the top part orange.  Especially around the dreamcast logo, how it is a white box around it.  ( Ithink it should be Japan=orange, Europe=blue, US=white )
          The Back:  I think the black portion should be white that way it meshes with the spine.  Even if we were to change lumberjacks black part to white and leave everything else on the back i would be happy.
(lumberjack, please don't take any of this information as dissing your templates in anyway because they are great)

Secondly, to The Warlock.  The template we use are so similar that through this thread should sort out any problems anyone might have with each others template.

Finally, when lumberjack and i had our conversation about the templates, he made a valid point that he did not want the dreamcast covers to be confused with the wii games.  Its a simple fix if you use any color besides white for the dvd covers (i use orange, so sweet!).  One of the main reasons as to why i'm so avid about making the US. template all white is originally the cd cases the dreamcast games came in were all one solid color (in the US).  the spine and the front were the same color.

Whoever reads this please consider what i am saying, i would really appreciate it.

[Priestess Paula]

I use my own standard template, that I don't release my covers here.

[The Warlock]

I've been using the standard MookyJooky template. I started using it because I printed out a bunch of Eightcell's awesome covers and wanted mine to match. I've done some custom things with the little "supported hardware" icons, I suppose, but it's all pretty straightforward.

What one are you using, shenske?

In any case, having multiple templates is indeed annoying, but if the front art matches, it's not a big deal. The spine is easy to change. Having multiple front artwork would be a pain in the ass, though.

edit: If you'd like to have a vote on spine art, go for it. I'll try to remember to change my posted releases to whatever the consensus is, though I can't promise to test-print them that way.

edit 2: and also, to SMMM, hey, if you want to erase all the streched-out shitty looking Dreamcast covers up there, I certainly wouldn't complain.

[Lumberjack42]

Lumberjack and I will be using his (I have a few covers using it in the works)...while Warlock and Shenske are doing their own thing it looks like.  They won't all match up, so what's the point?  And yeah, I'll admit it.  I'm too lazy to reformat my covers for anybody else's template.  And I'm sure others on both sides are as well..Should we do a poll akin to the "Famicom vs. Family Computer" thing we had going?  Because I can just see people saying "wow, what an awesome cover..oh wait, doesn't match up with the other ones".   

Unrelated but also on my mind: 4tygames made a post in another topic I fully agree with.  About how a lot of covers are very badly stretched out, or insanely blurry.  Is it time we should be upholding higher standards than "300dpi plz"?  It sounds mean, but what always separates this site from all the others is the consistency in quality.

i totaly understand what you are saying.  inconsistancy is very irritating.

First off, i want to begin with lumberjack's template.  I really do like it a lot.  It's very proffesional looking and i have went through each region in his PSD.

I have a weird request but i believe its necessary, if we do have a poll deciding which template is to be the standard then we should do it for each region.
Japan
Lumberjack has a very very nice Japanese template.  In fact i have made one japanese cover(KOF2000) with my template that i considered making in his.
Europe
Without a doubt his template looks perfect.  I'm all for it, wouldn't change a thing. Great Job!
America
I'm sure we can all work something out.  This is the only discrepancy i have.  Lumberjack and I have had a discussion about this before.  Personally i think the template should be all white.  The front, the spine and back.
          The Front:  Theres really no problem there, as we both have the same.
          The Spine:  It kills me to see the top part orange.  Especially around the dreamcast logo, how it is a white box around it.  ( Ithink it should be Japan=orange, Europe=blue, US=white )
          The Back:  I think the black portion should be white that way it meshes with the spine.  Even if we were to change lumberjacks black part to white and leave everything else on the back i would be happy.
(lumberjack, please don't take any of this information as dissing your templates in anyway because they are great)

Secondly, to The Warlock.  The template we use are so similar that through this thread should sort out any problems anyone might have with each others template.

Finally, when lumberjack and i had our conversation about the templates, he made a valid point that he did not want the dreamcast covers to be confused with the wii games.  Its a simple fix if you use any color besides white for the dvd covers (i use orange, so sweet!).  One of the main reasons as to why i'm so avid about making the US. template all white is originally the cd cases the dreamcast games came in were all one solid color (in the US).  the spine and the front were the same color.

Whoever reads this please consider what i am saying, i would really appreciate it.

Like I said in our earlier discussion, the reason I made the us spine the way it is, is because I wanted my Dreamcast games to pop on my shelf. So I bummed the idea from the PSOne DVD covers here (which are just a different extrapolation of the retail PS2 spine,) but using Dreamcast Orange with A white Box around the  Swirl ala the PSOne version.

Dreamcast....                        PSOne....                                 PS2


On the rear, I kept the black info box like many of the older DVD covers mainly as an excuse to not have to clean up every type icon on the back, also I think it makes the MPEG/ADX and any other logos stand out more. Also, if you haven't noticed, the text on the back is verbatim the same as the their retail counterparts, same for the catalog numbers on the spine and front. I have tried, to the best of what's available, to make them as close to the retail version as possible, including all company logos and descriptors as I can.

My Sonic Adventure Rear Info Box



shenske's Sonic Adventure Rear Info Box



Everything in my template is as high res as I can get (many thanks to SMMM for providing my with a lot of high res logos for it and proofing it to make sure it was high quality.)

So Far, this is what all of the covers I have completed look like on a virtual shelf.



If we put it to a vote, that's cool.

Lumberjack42

[shenske]

I've been using the standard MookyJooky template. I started using it because I printed out a bunch of Eightcell's awesome covers and wanted mine to match. I've done some custom things with the little "supported hardware" icons, I suppose, but it's all pretty straightforward.

What one are you using, shenske?

In any case, having multiple templates is indeed annoying, but if the front art matches, it's not a big deal. The spine is easy to change. Having multiple front artwork would be a pain in the ass, though.

edit: If you'd like to have a vote on spine art, go for it. I'll try to remember to change my posted releases to whatever the consensus is, though I can't promise to test-print them that way.

edit 2: and also, to SMMM, hey, if you want to erase all the streched-out shitty looking Dreamcast covers up there, I certainly wouldn't complain.

i too originally started with eightcell's template (i agree his covers are awesome).  I changed a couple things here and there, made everything one color.
since starting off with his template i have added a few things and have completely redone my layer structure.  So the template i'm using is mine.

and i'm all for getting rid of the stretched out shitty ones too (but if they are high rez, would it be possible to just put them back into the RAW section so we can crop them correctly and possibly remake a cover or two).

[Priestess Paula]

I'd post mine, though they ain't very good.

[The Warlock]

Like I said, I could give a fuck about the spine artwork, to be honest. I like Mooky's cover because it matches what a DC jewel case spine looks like, although it (and Lumberjack's, too) does have the downside of forcing a white background on the spine art, which can be annoying. There was a template floating around on the PA forums based off of the semi-official Under Defeat DVD case that dodged that problem, but I don't want to convert and re-print my 20+ covers I already have, so fuck it.

As for the back: this is a tough one. The original Dreamcast covers just put the logos, icons, etc. right on the artwork, but they were on space-constrained jewel cases. I'm going to say right now that Lumberjack's looks better than mine or shenkse's, but man I don't have the patience to transcribe all that legalese for each game.

As for black background vs. white background, I don't even see that as something that needs to be standardized; just use whatever works better for that particular game's art.

sidenote: could we please have templates also uploaded as .png, for those without photoshop? It worked for my PC template, after all.

[shenske]

how about a compromise


(it's in png form too  )


i hope you don't mind, i just took your template and changed some colors like i was saying



(p.s. i do agree my template does need some work with the info on the back)

[Lumberjack42]

how about a compromise



i hope you don't mind, i just took your template and changed some colors like i was saying



(p.s. i do agree my template does need some work with the info on the back)

See, that's whay I kept the back black, so that I wouldn't have to clean up every individual icon on the back.

Lumberjack42

[Priestess Paula]

I like lumberjack's europe spine, but I'll use my template instead.

[The Warlock]

how about a compromise



i hope you don't mind, i just took your template and changed some colors like i was saying



(p.s. i do agree my template does need some work with the info on the back)

I dunno, I really like what Lumberjack's done with the back template.

Like, "tempted to go back and change my last few covers".

Also, nitpicks: you probably shouldn't put the shadow right in the template because that makes it hard to do it the Right Way, through layer options. Also, the Online Multi-Player icon (while being kind of stupid, but that's Sega's fault) probably should be separate so that it isn't on offline games and so that you can put it on without it having its own shadow.

[shenske]

i didn't have the online logo right there in my template, i had it more off to the right.

i know what your saying about the back being skecthy with all the icons (i made very quick changes and didn't have time to fix it).  But i could clean that up and a add a little drop shadow even (like i did in my template)

[The Warlock]

i didn't have the online logo right there in my template, i had it more off to the right.

i know what your saying about the back being scechy with all the icons (i made very quick changes and didn't have time to fix it).  But i could clean that up and a add a little drop shadow even (like i did in my template)

The thing is, it's not just the icons, it's the developer logos and such that are different for each case. It's really easy to take a white-background logo and make it have a black background, but it's a huge pain in the ass to take a black-background logo and make it have a white background.

On the other hand, I'm using an inkjet printer, and having spans of solid black warps my paper.

You know what, it's 1:30 in the morning and I'm going to bed. You guys figure it out yourself. Just don't do anything crazy like change the front artwork and I'll be okay with whatever you pick. Spines are easy to change, after all.

[Lumberjack42]

i didn't have the online logo right there in my template, i had it more off to the right.

i know what your saying about the back being scechy with all the icons (i made very quick changes and didn't have time to fix it).  But i could clean that up and a add a little drop shadow even (like i did in my template)

Let's see what the mods have to say first.

Lumberjack42