Page 1 of 3

Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 1:45 am
by BrainWalker
Okay, so I've been doing some things lately. It's mostly a means for me to test myself so I don't actually forget how to build web pages, but it might actually become a full-fledged website eventually. Probably not, if my track record on creative persuits is any indication.

ANYWAY

Awesomeness aside, I have a question for those of you who might actually know of such things. Is there a way to scale background image size? Scaling regular images is incredibly simple, of course, but resizing a block with a background image just crops the image. I haven't found any Style Sheet razzamatazz involving scaling backgrounds, which means I have to eat more of my precious, limited webspace with images twice as large as they really need to be. Which sucks :( <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 9:28 am
by Jak Snide
While I have no advice to give, when I saw that page I could have sworn it was flash, and was muchly surprised to discover it wasn't!


BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 9:58 am
by Totally Lex
I hightly approve of this. I do.


Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 10:19 pm
by wkz
Have you tried your page with other browsers?

To the best of my knowledge, width=X% and height=X% works the same for background images as it does for normal \<img\> tags. Can you maybe show me the cropped image so I can see the problem?

<p>

Hmmm... A deviantart account, and nothing inside :(
</p>

Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:29 pm
by BrainWalker
That... doesn't make any sense. You can't apply width and height properties to a background in HTML because background is also a property. I thought there might be something for it built into CSS, and it turns out there is, but it's in version 3 which is still in the draft phase currently. Given that browser developers are so damn lazy that they haven't even fully implemented CSS2 yet, it'll probably be awhile before CSS3 becomes useable. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:07 pm
by FF Fanatic 80
Doesn't CSS allow you to place images anywhere on the page, as opposed to normal HTML? Maybe you could define the background as a regular image, scale it to fit the screen, then have everything else drawn on top of it.

*shrug* just an idea, I don't really know enough about style sheets to be specific.


Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:36 pm
by BrainWalker
Yes, yes it does. I've been experimenting with that, in fact, and although it solves the problem of being unable to resize background images, it replaces that problem with another one. For some unfathomable reason, IMG tags inherit the dimensions of their containing block for the purpose of calculating dimensions with percents. For example: I have an image with a natural width of 101 pixels within an anchor tag with a specified width of 76 pixels; therefore, telling the style sheet to magnify the image's dimensions 200% will result in a width of 152 pixels rather than the desired width of 202 pixels.

If I could somehow find a way to have the IMG tags ignore the style of it's parents, or force them to calculate percentage dimensions based on the image's intrinsic dimensions, that would make life a lot easier. If I manually specify pixel-specific dimensions for every single image, it would probably work, but that is way more effort than I should have to go through if I'm using style sheets. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:24 am
by Choark
Sorry, all I can say is "<span style="font-size:x-large;">BW I goddamn love you!" </span>

Goddamn! Love! Wheeee!

<span style="font-size:xx-large;">*biggest hug evar!!*</span> <p><div style="text-align:center"> </div>
<div style="text-align:center"> Image </div>
<div style="text-align:center"> Something cute plots your death </div></p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=choark>Choark</A]&nbsp; Image at: 2/16/05 7:24

Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 10:51 am
by Jak Snide
SCOTT

How are you getting net access?


Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:05 pm
by BrainWalker
*somehow speaks through crushed ribs*

The... power of... Cho's love for... Darkstalkers... overcomes all obstacles. *cough* Ow. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 8:08 pm
by Celeste of Elvenhame
*is mersmerized by felicia's bouncing large breasted form*


It scares me that it's so hypnotic. :( <p>---------------Celeste of Elvenhame ---------------

Aaron Lewis of <!--EZCODE LINK START---Guildportal<!--EZCODE LINK END---: On the up side though, most of the remaining bugs are genuinely evil, sentient beings that actively dodge attempts to thwart them.</p>

Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 9:44 am
by Zemyla
Some of the character sprites don't show up for me when I hover the mouse.

Specifically, Lord Raptor, Sasquatch, Rikuo, Pyron, Bishamon, Anakaris, Demitri, and Victor don't show up, on all three different computers I've tested. Is this a bug, or have you not put them in yet? <p>-----
Do not taunt Happy Fun Zemyla.

<span style="font-size:xx-small;">I think boobs are the lesser of two evils. - Inverse (Pervy)
Dammit, Dan, I'm not dating a damn NPC! - OOC Will (Will Baseton)
Of course! Anything worth doing is worth doing completely wrong! - Travis English
Ultimately, wizards and clerics don't say, "Gee, I want to become a lich because weapons hurt less and I don't have to worry about being backstabbed; that whole 'eternal life' thing is just a fringe benefit."-Darklion
But this one time I killed a walrus with my bare hands, and I suddenly understood spherical coordinates. - KnightsofSquare</span>

Adventurers! | RPG World World | The Phantom Lord's OT Board mkII | Indie Madnesse | Brotherhood of Elitist Bastards</p>

Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 3:50 pm
by BrainWalker
They haven't been added yet. They probably would have been by now, but I've decided to completely reorganize the guts to make the whole thing more efficient. Stupid virgo. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:39 pm
by Endesu
What exactly do you plan on doing, BW? A gallery of all of the characters, with links to moves/endings/images/whatnot?

Oh, and this reminded me of how neat Huitzil, Mr. "Killer Robot", is. <p>

Image</p>

Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:44 pm
by BrainWalker
Yes, actually.

Assuming I ever get it finished. It'd be easier if I would stop changing the code behind it all. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 10:16 pm
by Uncle Pervy
It doesn't work on dreamcast. This makes me sad, as I know exactly what it was and was hoping to trick Sarah into thinking I bummed a Darkstalkers Game off someone.

"Go get your other controller! Crap, it froze!" <p>---------------------------

Your are not supposed to be reading this!</p>

Re: BUTTONS!

Unread postPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 11:34 am
by Zemyla
That's because Dreamcast doesn't support all of the newfangled Javascript and CSS options. <p>-----
Do not taunt Happy Fun Zemyla.

<span style="font-size:xx-small;">I think boobs are the lesser of two evils. - Inverse (Pervy)
Dammit, Dan, I'm not dating a damn NPC! - OOC Will (Will Baseton)
Of course! Anything worth doing is worth doing completely wrong! - Travis English
Ultimately, wizards and clerics don't say, "Gee, I want to become a lich because weapons hurt less and I don't have to worry about being backstabbed; that whole 'eternal life' thing is just a fringe benefit."-Darklion
But this one time I killed a walrus with my bare hands, and I suddenly understood spherical coordinates. - KnightsofSquare</span>

Adventurers! | RPG World World | The Phantom Lord's OT Board mkII | Indie Madnesse | Brotherhood of Elitist Bastards</p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 6:15 pm
by BrainWalker
Ineed it does not. Not surprising, but still lamentable :(

I seem to have run into a big of a snag. Reguarding Dimitri's sprite... see, he's got that aura jazz that's constantly fluctuating between red and yellow. That's not a problem in-game 'cause it can fluctuate at a much higher frequency than animated gifs can. Problem is, I'm using animated gifs. So what I've got is a really painful-looking flicker effect that, although accurate, probably isn't going to work out. I have come up with two alternatives, which I'll toss in this post for viewing and subsequent commentary.

Suggestions appreciated :(

<table style="margin: 0; border: 0; font-size:medium;"><tr><td>Alternate #1: No flashing</td><td rowspan=2 width=10> </td><td>Alternate #1: flashing;
less contrasting colors</td></tr><tr><td>Image</td><td>Image</td></tr></table>

Also, for those brave souls who dare: The original. It might not look too bad at that size, but at 2x it ain't pretty. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 6:17 pm
by Jak Snide
Flashing bad :[


Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 6:38 pm
by Choark
I don't mind honestly. However if others find it harsh maybe a non-flash version with maybe a flash option link somehow added to it later? <p><div style="text-align:center"> </div>
<div style="text-align:center"> Image </div>
<div style="text-align:center"> Something cute plots your death </div></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 2:00 am
by BrainWalker
That's probably a bit ambitious for the scope of this project... I mean, it's just a webpage. I'll think about it.

Anyway, through sporadic laboring practically all day, I managed to completely rewire the CSS, allowing me to use smaller image files, and pretty much rewrote the whole thing. I'm not sure if it's going to work perfectly on all browsers, but I have a few plans of action depending on what goes wrong where. You guys know the drill. Check it out and let me know if anything's funky. Or if anything's groovy. You know, whatever.

Of note: Added Victor, Lord Raptor, Dimitri, Anakaris, and Sasquatch sprites. Bishamon, Pyron, and Rikuo are still MIA, and the random dudes haven't made it back into the revision yet. Also, due to the way things are laid out, all the images should start loading as soon as you open the page, rather than loading one at a time as they appear when you roll over people. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>Edited by: BrainWalker&nbsp; Image at: 2/22/05 2:03

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 3:53 am
by FlamingDeth
In Safari 1.2.4 it seems that everything that's supposed to be working works. Including Hsien-Ko, which is the important part. <p>
<hr width="70%"><center>
This month's "Transformer of the Month" is Grimlock in a Santa hat! He's quite jolly.</center></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 9:14 am
by Zemyla
In IE 6.0, Rikuo, Pyron, Bishamon, and random still don't work. <p>-----
Do not taunt Happy Fun Zemyla.

<span style="font-size:xx-small;">I think boobs are the lesser of two evils. - Inverse (Pervy)
Dammit, Dan, I'm not dating a damn NPC! - OOC Will (Will Baseton)
Of course! Anything worth doing is worth doing completely wrong! - Travis English
Ultimately, wizards and clerics don't say, "Gee, I want to become a lich because weapons hurt less and I don't have to worry about being backstabbed; that whole 'eternal life' thing is just a fringe benefit."-Darklion
But this one time I killed a walrus with my bare hands, and I suddenly understood spherical coordinates. - KnightsofSquare</span>

Adventurers! | RPG World World | The Phantom Lord's OT Board mkII | Indie Madnesse | Brotherhood of Elitist Bastards</p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 11:06 am
by BrainWalker
Quote:
Bishamon, Pyron, and Rikuo are still MIA
MIA = Missing in Action; which is to say, not there. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 4:24 pm
by Choark
Hot damn this thing keeps getting better and better!

Thats all I have to say I suppose.

Hot damn! <p><div style="text-align:center"> </div>
<div style="text-align:center"> Image </div>
<div style="text-align:center"> Something cute plots your death </div></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 4:27 pm
by BrainWalker
IT'S OVER!! :D

Yea, all the positions have been filled, so as far as the visual mechanics are concerned, it's finished. Turns out the last few sprites weren't all that hard to capture and animate. Hell, Rikuo only has 8 frames of animation.

Now I just have to figure out what I'm gonna do with it!

I may tweak things here or there, but no major changes should be needeed. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 5:33 pm
by Choark
I say you make each one a link to a well made Bio screen with sprite captures and background information. Maybe even a gallery!

Least that's what I'd love for you to do. As it is, I totally dig it, though miss the two question mark people you had there orginally ;_; boo hoo. EDIT - I say this and they suddenly mysteriously appear!! HURRAH!

A select ya background might be fun as well - if you can be bothered to try and grab the backgrounds from the game.

You're totally making me want to do DS fanart you bastard. Also: Get the damn comic! <p><div style="text-align:center"> </div>
<div style="text-align:center"> Image </div>
<div style="text-align:center"> Something cute plots your death </div></p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=choark>Choark</A]&nbsp; Image at: 2/23/05 17:34

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 6:05 pm
by FlamingDeth
I vote you make it fully playable! <p>
<hr width="70%"><center>
This month's "Transformer of the Month" is Grimlock in a Santa hat! He's quite jolly.</center></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 2:37 am
by BrainWalker
While I like FD's suggestion, I'm not sure that it is entirely feasible, legal, or that it would fit on my Earthlink webspace :(

Also, I haven't been albe to duplicate the effect Gus seems to be experiencing, but currently Dimitri, Victor, and Anakaris are giving me the most trouble. The problem is that since the images are technically contained in the link, they maintain the link's attributes. For example, if you go straight from Victor or Anakaris to Dimitri, it's not a problem, but if you go from the little mugshot in the grid to the big one in the upper-left corner, and then try to select Dimitri, it won't work 'cause technically the images are layered on top of the links for some reason. I haven't been albe to find a solution for this, but then again it was never at the top of my list.

Choark gets pretty close to what I was sort of thinking of ultimately doing with this thing... I need to look into my user agreement and figure out what the limitations on my Earthlink webspace are.

Also, I am getting the comics. Just not very quickly. Stupid mail. Go draw some fanart, limey :( <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=brainwalker>BrainWalker</A]&nbsp; Image at: 2/24/05 2:43

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 3:08 am
by Justice Augustus
When you select certain characters, the mini-portaits towards the left seem to vibrate or jiggle a bit. For an example look at Demitri's portait when you select Victor. Other than that it seems perfect. <p>
No man can be judged a failure if he has friends. - It's a Wonderful Life</p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 5:22 pm
by FlamingDeth
BW wounds me. :( <p>
<hr width="70%"><center>
This month's "Transformer of the Month" is Grimlock in a Santa hat! He's quite jolly.</center></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 7:43 pm
by BrainWalker
I have temporarily suspended any and all progress on this project because I absofuckinglutely hate and despise the internet. I can get it to look beautiful in Explorer, or I can get it to look beautiful in Netscape and Firefox, but I'll be damned if I have ever been able to get anything to look exactly right in both. Except that character select thing, miraculously, which is probably why I was actually able to finish it.

No wonder there's so many drab and boring websites out there. You have to be a Master to get something outside the norm to work in both, or redesign the thing for each browser you want it to actually work in.

<span style="font-family:comic sans ms; color:red;font-size:xx-large;font-weight:bold;">HATE!</span>

[/angst] <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=brainwalker>BrainWalker</A]&nbsp; Image at: 2/25/05 19:44

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 8:54 pm
by FlamingDeth
:(

If it helps, it looks fine in Safari and Firefox. <p>
<hr width="70%"><center>
This month's "Transformer of the Month" is Grimlock in a Santa hat! He's quite jolly.</center></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:54 pm
by BrainWalker
Well, I haven't actually uploaded any of the changes I was working on all that time because none of it worked no matter what I did. I completely re-thought my strategy and started completely from scratch four times and I barely got anywhere. I would say I didn't get anywhere but it turns out I actually got really close the fourth time.

God I hate compability issues. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 4:50 am
by FlamingDeth
You could just assume that Internet Explorer is stupid and not concern yourself with it. You know, because Internet Explorer is stupid. <p>
<hr width="70%"><center>
This month's "Transformer of the Month" is Grimlock in a Santa hat! He's quite jolly.</center></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 5:35 am
by PriamNevhausten
This is why a lot of pages have "this page is best viewed with a computer and monitor" or somesuch. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 12:39 pm
by BrainWalker
It sure is!

Too bad I'm an incurable perfectionist. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 3:02 am
by Uncle Pervy
FD has the proper solution to this quandary!

I suggest taking it a step further and never using Internet Explorer again, until you forget it exists. <p>---------------------------

Your are not supposed to be reading this!</p>

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 7:17 am
by PriamNevhausten
Alternately, I believe that programming cures ALL perfectionism. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=priamnevhausten>PriamNevhausten</A]&nbsp; Image at: 2/27/05 7:18

Re: Holy interactive menus, Batman!

Unread postPosted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 6:04 pm
by BrainWalker
Slowly I am learning the wisdom of Priam's words.

What Pervy and FD fail to realize is that no matter how little I use Explorer, it doesn't matter 'cause people who are, in fact, not me will still continue to use it. I know, I keep telling everybody they should model their lives after me, but nobody ever listens. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>