Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

I'm thinking we can make our own emoticons (I know it's already been suggested), but agree on what it is we're missing and also make a .pak file so it's easy to upload and install. I volunteer to contribute to the effort and make the .pak files if there's a general consensus.

Some suggestions:
1) Clarity - no wondering what something is
2) Faces - main focus on faces and some objects (e.g. trillian's emoticons)
3) Transparency - no rectangular stuff unless it's supposed to be.
4) No Redundancy - although SB expressing different emotions would be OK, 7 Strongbads just because they're available is silly.
5) Respect Board Values - avoiding some of the pitfalls of some smiley paks I've seen.
6) Size - no more than 24 px tall, rarely more than 24 px wide.

Any thoughts? Didymus requested a Stinkoman K.

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Even though I don't use the emoticons myself, here's what probably, at the very least needs to be done:

1) One of the two Strong Bad icons needs to be junked. They look exactly the same. Why have two?

2) The Poopsmith needs to be added, merely so all the main characters can finally be represented in emoticon form.

Beyond that, it really doesn't matter much to me, though maybe a few more Sweet Cuppin Cakes things could be added since we already have half of its cast emoticon'd. Maybe Marshie too, for maximum distrurbing/creepy factor.

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Yeah. Shut up, kid.

ABP'D! I think.

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DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ADJUST THE JUMBOTRON, veterans, I'm really back.

If you guys create some emoticons for our forum, great; just don't assume that if you create them we'll upload them. If it's high-quality and meets our standards and isn't one we already have (or is a good replacement for one we already have), then there's a good chance we'd put it up. Just make no assumptions. Here's what matters, at least to me, in an emoticon:

1. Appearance - It has to look good. That means no jaggies, good use of transparency, and recognizability. We have to be able to tell at a glance which character it is.
2. Size - Our The Cheat emoticon is edging on too big, as is Strong Mad. If it's bigger than those, it's too big. You should aim for smaller. The Strong Sad and Strong Bad emoticons are pretty much the ideal size.
3. No animations - I help out on another forum that has animated emoticons. They're cute.. for about 2 minutes, and then you just want to strangle the artist until they die.

Those are my guidelines. Unless you're a superb artist, I recommend against trying to draw one from scratch. You're a lot better off taking a screenshot from a toon and cropping and resizing it. That's how all of our newer emoticons (excepting Trogdor) were made. It's a challenge to get rid of the background without leaving jaggies, but my advice is to start with a picture of the character on a single-color background and get rid of the background before resizing.

Emoticons that could be replaced: :goblin: :20x6: :copter:

The Poopsmith is a tough one. I know Tom spent a lot of time on a Poopsmith smiley, but in the end it never worked out (his hair tends to disappear when resized).

I just fixed the double Strong Bad problem. In the process, I also accidentally deleted , so when I added it again it showed up at the bottom of the list. I'll have Stu fix that.

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Eh? All Points Bulletin'D? Ant-Phase Domain'D? Agriculture Protection Board'D? I'm lost as to your acronym. Fill me in'D!

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I have to do everything around here. Why can't you just let a guy get some sleep.

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I'm guessing Already Been Posted'd.

Yes, It has been posted before (as I noted in the first line of my post). I simply thought a topic dedicated to it (rather than offhand notices in other threads, which was all I saw before) would consolodate requests and specifications.


I figured it'd be a process of meeting a need (or want) on behalf of the community, not a maverick art festival with unreasonable expectations. We'll make "release candidates" until we have a .pak the admins like, if the admins are willing to have that level of involvement.


SS is 23x23 pixels, hence my initial suggestion of 24x24. There are 4 animations in the current setup, all standard phpbb fare. While I'm not a big fan of animation-for-the-sake-of-animation, would a small amount (as in ) be acceptable on a few of them? One of the other pitfalls of animation is that if someone clicks on most kinds of links, the animation stops... so an animated emoticon has to be meaningful in all frames.


I am less of an artist and more of an engineer. Cropping and resizing is a good practice except for things like subtle lines (e.g. PS's hair), though resizing and tracing may be a viable alternative.


I like the and the , but is not so great, while should just be a face as I initially posted. I'm kinda surprised that :goblin: and :copter: got their own emoticons since they're so peripheral, but now that people have used them we don't want to just remove them. When I realized that :20x6: was supposed to be the 20x6 H*R, it made more sense, and I like it. I also think could be improved upon. No offence to the hard-working real artist(s) such as Tom who put time into them!


Another one I'd like to see is the H*R logo itself. I can try a PS as well, we shall see.

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There's a new and icon nowadays. They look good. Anyone want to make them transparent around the edges?

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Y'know, if you were using a better browser, they would be transparent around the edges.

Expect it to be taken care of soon.

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Oh, Heh, PNGs. "Conquering Jaggies with Alpha Transparency." If it is, as you say, "corrected soon" by turning them into GIFs, you'll have to deal with jaggies a little more. I occasionally use NS 7.1, or Opera 7.22, both of which show PNGs correctly. However, they don't support filters, and they have a more strict object model. Therefore, most of my clients prefer IE compatibility... so I use the inferior industry standard more often than the superior niche browsers. I guess I'll live with an experience of intransparency due to my own retrotechnicality.

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I thought we could use some 20X6 ones, so I tried making a Strong Bad one (). And here's my Homestar: and my Pan Pan: .

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[porplemontage studios]
>>internet entertainment

Those are actually pretty good! We should use them!

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219104018227|Town: FunLand|Name: [Cmar]

I agree that the 20x6 emoticons are pretty swell and would be good in the list. Also, there's an addon I've worked out for PhpBB that will make PNGs transparent in IE but won't affect other browsers. Joey Day just has to say the word if he wants it.

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I'm interested in hearing about this addon. How's it work?

It's actually phenominally easy from an installation point-of-view.

There's a 1x1 clear-pixel GIF, an htc file, and you add one line to the CSS.

From a technology point of view, you add "IMG { behavior: url(png.htc); }" to the CSS. That causes IE to load the htc file and attach it's javascript code to every IMG tag. Opera, and NN (and presumably Firefox, Konquerer, etc. too) do not implement the behavior style, nor do they do anything with htc file contents, so there's no slowdown for brosers that support PNGs already!

png.htc is a "component" which contains javascript. The JavaScript attaches to the IMG tags and reads the src attribute. If the image is a PNG, it stores off the source and the dimensions into variables, and changes the IMG to that blank GIF. Then, using a binary visual filter that ships with IE (another thing other browsers would have ignored), the AlphaImageLoader loads the PNG with the alpha channel as a filter over the blank image, making the browser's appearance as it should be.

There are two notable drawbacks for IE users only: first it's a little slower because the javascript has to run and because the AlphaImageLoader has to load and run from some DLL, second the img tag's src attribute has been changed, making right-click downloads fail. These drawbacks both happen in the htc javascript, and so they don't make any dice for the FireFox user. This is for those kids browsing on the forum who aren't allowed to download and install software on their parents' computer, and grownups like me who don't think they should have to buy a new car just because the gas station decided it's only going to dish up ethanol .

I actually remember whan you could buy gas with lead in it. And I've been using this change in my board for a few weeks. I was thinking of submitting it as a MOD to PhpBB, but I'm not sure if I can take the level of emails I'll get asking for support.

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We could use those for "20X6 vs. 1936"(see my siggy)

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We at least need a Stinkoman emoticon

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Agree'D I think Porple's is OK above.

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I think we should have more Peasentry themed emoticons. Like...rather dashing, a thatched roof cottage, and a peasent that is on fire. They have all become popular H*R symbols.

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Better idea. We can make TGS styled emoticons. Like thomas with a bat!

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219104018227|Town: FunLand|Name: [Cmar]

Dosen't HSRforums already have a Stinkoman Emoticon?

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You mean this one?

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We could have one of those interesting censor'd icons. Especially for when the mods are censoring things.

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Yes! That one!



I too like those.

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We could also remove , , , .

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I like but I guess it could easily be replaced by in most circumstances. I don't think we really need or - I don't think I've ever seen them used. I really like the Censored one; it looks a lot cooler than [CENSOR'D!].

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Not that my opinion matters, but I for one really like those 20X6 emoticons that porplemontage made, I think we should add them to the list. I also like the CENSOR'D one. As for deleting un-used emoticons, and are the only ones that I think should be deleted, because they really don't serve a purpose.

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I hate to say, but the bat stays... for personal reasons

I really see no need to delete any of them anyway. We tried to get the most popular ones to show up on the main emoticon menu. The others, even if they don't get used, aren't hurting anyone. It's the same argument against 0-post users... there is little reason to do anything more about them.

Bottom line is, we mods are busy with other things. Being troubled with something small (like this) isn't really going to make us happy. right now I am on head cold medicine, so I am happy.

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Those 20X6 ones rock. I also agree with the censor one. It's better than -CENSOR'd!!-.

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A proud member of P.O.S.T.E.R.S.! No room for the banner, though.