Forums » Help » Using a full image as RP character page

So, it's a-me again, back with another question.

Considering the rules of the site and the rule of the code of said site imposes:

Is it possible to create a picture of a character that includes all the important info and then use it as its sheet?

This question comes with the fact that the code of a site, although very vast in possibilities, can't hold a candle in pure graphical content than a work done with a program like Photoshop, and I would like to use such freedom if I'm allowed to.

If that's actually possible, what dimensions (in pixels or cm) would you suggest would be best to have a full-page pic to be seen on a desktop configuration?

Thanks for your patience, pals

P.S: I plan to use another section of the character for the more "interactive" (like hyperlinks, sounds, etc.) and "volatile" (like relationships, sources, etc.) information, but all the "meat" of the character would be inserted into said pic.

It's possible, I saw few profiles who did it.

As for the dimensions that depends but usually you should be fine under the 1000x1000 px.

You absolutely can. The question is if it'd be a good idea to.

One issue is that we all access this site from numerous different devices with numerous sizing settings. Some folks have huge screens that an image simply wouldn't properly fill out. Some folks have smaller screens that might force them to scroll weird, if it doesn't just resize the image (so that it may or may not end up blurry and/or too small to see clearly or read). Many folks are only able to access the site through mobile devices.

Another is that we do actually have blind and otherwise visually-impaired users. I'm not sure how many, but images, especially without added accessibility text, are pretty useless to them.

I'm curious what it is you're hoping to achieve that you feel unable to do within the provided constraints. There certainly are limitations, yes, but I keep finding more ways to play with them without even messing with the CSS (which, as an Epic member, I can do on character profiles). Flexibility in design is dramatically increased for those who do access the CSS, though.

Thanks for the input. For the reasons you just described:

1- In the case of impaired vision users I was already planning to write all the chunk of the text on a secondary page, something a text-to-speech could easily read and translate (and something that doesn't need too much effort on the graphical part, aside from the information architecture); after all, it's not a demanding task to add, and it doesn't exclude any of us to do what we love.

2- About the thing I could or I could not do with code instead of a graphical workstation, it comes with two reasons why I prefer this path:

The first reason, as I said already, is that code has limits imposed by both the website and the code itself, traded for other things (like better accessibility of information). At the same time, images lack many features a code could have (hyperlinking, adding images or video, changing parts of it with any devices, etc.) in exchange to absolute control over what the eyes can see and constant integrity in between devices. For example, does code allow writing a text that turns into a spiral but stops midway to intertwine between the last words? That is an extreme example, of course, but it gives a good idea of this concept. About integrity, it means that if I aligned the text in a way that fits in harmony (for my own point of view) with the images, the background and all the other elements, it would stay that way in an independent way from the device used.

The second reason is much more silly, but it's simply because I'm not so proficient with coding (aside from a couple of them), while I know a couple of things with Photoshop and Illustrator. That comes with... well, a more easy approach while also having an excuse to sharpen my skills with tools I can use during my career (coding something aside from RStudio and Python isn't).

One example of this could be this work I've done in the past (it's an old image on the very early stage of a D&D sheet, the final result was much more different, but right now it's the only pic I have saved on my device). I struggle to think this sheet could have been done simply with code (at least here; if I had my own site, with blackjack and..., the story would have been very different ), and if it were, indeed, possible, it would require me to obtain a knowledge I don't currently own despite the fact I have other ways to obtain the same results.



Another, more simple and direct example, would come from this image I used for my character Fenris



This pic is a product of four different images (The humanoid, the Norse framing and the two runes, alongside two grey squares to accommodate such symbols), which were connected into a single piece thanks to Photoshop. A task that took me less than a minute thanks to layers (love and hate ya), but that would have required me much more work simply "to code" my way out of it (particularly since the frame didn't have the centre empty, meaning I would have to cut the image in Photoshop, then upload both of them + the runes and code them for one to be in the exact x+y coordinates from the other, if that was even possible from the start... and also that would require for a rule to keep such measures consistent based on the display the viewer was using).

If you have everything you want edited into a graphic, then could you not upload it to a hosting site then use a single text widget and post the graphic? It effectively gives you a single page display.

You mean uploading the image directly into the RPRepository site, and not a third-image hosting site?
Is that actually possible? If it is, I admit I wasn't aware of such a feature here.
The idea of the single widget was what I was thinking, yes

Well it's gallery widget where you can have 20 images on one character for free, but it wouldn't work that well if you wanted to make fancy formatting. Alternatively you could post the image on imgur/other hosting site and make [img][/img] tag on your profile

Yeah what RimCaster said. On here you can do these steps:

• Create Character
• Use the 'Strike Out On Yur Own/Build From Scratch' option
• Add a page with a title you want.
• Add Text Widget
• Edit text widget title to blank (delete default 'Info')
• Add offsite prepared page using the IMG code into the text field of text widget
• If you use the onsite gallery, you will need to add that widget which will be visible on the page.
• Option is to create a second page for the gallery, or if you have spare character slots, use one as a gallery host by just putting the gallery widget in and uploading your pix then linking to them on the other character page