Community Project: Definitive OOTP Fictional Facepack

Seviien · 11-11-2004, 08:42 PM

Hi all...
Among all the excellent community mods out there for OOTP, I've always been a little perplexed about the lack of a huge and definitive facepack for use in fictional leagues. I know there are a couple excellent pieces of work out there that collected ~1000 minor league and college photos, and those are what i have used up untill now. It always seems a little odd to me, though, to have a 34 year old slugger with a baby-faced photo...

Which brings me to the MZitlia face generator. It's a website located here: http://www.mzitalia.com/modules.php?name=FaceGenerator

and it produces excellent quality fictional faces. I had thought to create something like 3000 faces myself, all with a standard jersey, but that would take more time than i'm willing to invest right now. My current thinking is to ask for 30 or so volunteers each to make 100 faces which we can then merge together into a large facepack.

There are 3 technical issues though...

1. Images from the website save into .png format while OOTP requires .bmp files.
Solution: I'm sure there's some software out there to batch convert image files... any ideas?

2. There's an annoying yellow bar at the bottom of all images. It's there for input of a player name, but that kinda works against the purpose of generic face pack... It can be blanked out by putting a space in the name field.
Solution 1: Ignore the yellow bar
Solution 2: Depending on how devoted volunteers are, we could agree to use MS paint or photoshop to crop out the yellow bar...

3. The images are not properly sized for OOTP.
Solution: Ignore it. I tested the larger images with OOTP and the program does a pretty good job of rescaling the images.

Logistically it'd go something like this:
1. collect volunteers
2. agree on a standard jersey format, i myself favor one that looks like this: http://home.comcast.net/~zbryanknight/testface.bmp
3. I will type up instructions documenting the standard jersey format and proceedure for making the faces
4. We all create 100 or so faces a piece, filtering out those that look completely silly (about 5% or so of the faces generated look very odd...)
4. Everyone emails their images in a zip file to me
5. I'll batch convert them into .bmp files
6. I'll number the files appropriately so OOTP will recognize them
7. I'll host the facepack using the webspace of my comcast account to the extent it fits... if not we'll find someone else who has the space.

Who's in?

ctorg · 11-12-2004, 03:13 PM

I'm very interested in this, but I only have access to it here at work. I may be able to contribute a few, but not many.

Bonedwarf · 11-12-2004, 04:26 PM

A lot of the problems are easily solved with www.irfanview.com. Download the software. (It's free.) You can do batch conversion (to change to BMP), batch cropping (to get rid of the bar), resizing etc... So long as all the pictures are the same size (which obviously they would be) it'd be dead easy to sort out. So that's no issue at all really. A few mouse clicks and it's all done for you.

Bonedwarf · 11-12-2004, 04:27 PM

Oh yeah, I'd also crop the image pretty close to the head. The less it looks like a soccer player, the better

Count me in. Dead easy to save out 100 faces.

Burto1945 · 11-12-2004, 04:57 PM

Count me in too, but can we get some sort of 'standard' template set up, so that everyone's looks the same? I like your idea with the black uniform and small collar, but I think we should do away with the logo (Nike), which is rather easy, just setting the logo color to the shirt color.

Just let me know how we want all the players to look, and I'll start making my share of faces. (Not to make a decision by myself, but I already have about 50 faces without the logos before I realized I hadn't set it up exactly like the others.)

Oh yeah, and what does everyone think about maybe having several different color jerseys besides just black? I could do it either way, just looking for opinions.

Deitrus · 11-12-2004, 05:47 PM

I would be able to do this. I have Paint Shop Pro 8, PhotoShop 7 & CS. However, is there a way we could get caps on these players (as far as having a template)? Thanks.

Deitrus · 11-12-2004, 05:52 PM

OK, here is an example of what I did.

However, when re-sizing the player to (150x150), the image gets somewhat distorted (IMO it stretches the players a little bit).

Deitrus · 11-12-2004, 05:57 PM

another example;

Seviien · 11-12-2004, 08:57 PM

Hi everyone,

I was really psyched when i came home from work and saw that this was getting support. Consequently, I've spent the last couple hours trying to really get this thing to take off. Here's what i have to show for it:

1. An excel spreadsheet with 6000 random numbers to feed into the generator. There's 30 columns of 200 numbers a piece. I've already done column 1, copying from the sheet and pasting into the face generator. I figured the best way to coordinate this would be for people to just call a column here in the thread, and then email a zip with all the photos in it when they were done. To facilitate getting this facepack out there ASAP, I pledge to do a column for every zip i get with 100 photos in it.
Get the excel file: http://home.comcast.net/~zbryanknight/OOTP_Faces.xls
Email me here: tfwSeviien@hotmail.com

2. 114 properly sized sample photos.
Get the file here: http://home.comcast.net/~zbryanknigh...ck_samples.zip

I had to enter 200 random numbers to get 114 usable faces; that's about a 60% success rate. That's worse than i expected, but it's still managable.
I realize I'm biased, but the photos look fantastic in game. Irfanview does wonders for cropping, so we needn't worry about that anymore. I can do it all myself in about 5 minutes. Thanks a ton for that one, Bonedwarf

All we need now are handful or two of volunteers to share some of the face generating burdeon...

As far as a standard template goes, yeah, the Nike logo is gone; it gets cropped out to make the face larger. I've settled on a plain black shirt with a white V-Neck colar. My preference is for the shirts to all be the same color, but it's not a strong preference, and if anyone has any thoughts I'd be more than happy to listen. Coordination is key, though. If like 90% of the shirts are black, the 10% that are rainbow flavored will look silly. I think all the colars should be the same though.
I'd like to see caps on there, but i just dont think it's feasible. Given how the face generator works, there are just too many variables in play...

Thanks a ton guys!!!
I'm starting to get really optimistic about how good this project could be.

Who wants to take a column?

CHCfan · 11-12-2004, 10:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deitrus

OK, here is an example of what I did.

However, when re-sizing the player to (150x150), the image gets somewhat distorted (IMO it stretches the players a little bit).

Deitrus, a reminder -- the player faces in OOTP are 90x135, not what you stated (those dimensions are for logos). You probably just forgot. When the right dimensions are used for resizing, I think they'll look nearly undistorted.

Seviien -- I'm sure willing to grab a column and start working. What specifically do you want me to do?

Deitrus · 11-12-2004, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHCfan

Deitrus, a reminder -- the player faces in OOTP are 90x135, not what you stated (those dimensions are for logos). You probably just forgot. When the right dimensions are used for resizing, I think they'll look nearly undistorted.

Seviien -- I'm sure willing to grab a column and start working. What specifically do you want me to do?

Opps, LOL! Thanks for pointing that out. I can not believe I did that.

Thanks.

Seviien · 11-12-2004, 11:01 PM

CHCFan:
Sorry if that wasnt clear. Basically, I need people to do the following.
1. Download the excel file and pick a column of numbers
2. post the column you pick here so others know not to pick that one
3. go to the face generator website, and adjust the settings so that the shirts are plain black (no stripes) with a white v neck (as in the samples)
3. copy and paste the numbers from your chosen column into the face generator
4. if the number yields a face that looks realistic, save the picture to disk
5. when you have 100 or so photos, zip them into a zipfile and email to tfwSeviien@hotmail.com

That's it.

I can convert the files into .bmp and crop them so that they are the proper size for OOTP

I'm shooting for 3000 or so faces to put together a facepack that's large enough for most all ficitional leagues.

Seviien · 11-13-2004, 12:02 AM

Columns I've Done: 23, 20, 1

Burto1945 · 11-13-2004, 02:35 AM

OK, I'll do columns 3, 6, 9, and 10.

One question: on the Excel spreadsheet, Sheet 1 is just columns of numbers, but I take it we are supposed to use Sheet 2, where the columns are numbered, right?

Oh, and black uniforms are fine with me. I didn't mean to add any confusion. I will e-mail you when I get them done, and then maybe you could post a confirming message on here, so that we know which columns have been turned in and completed.

This sounds like it just might end up working. Great idea, and I will get mine in as soon as possible.

Bonedwarf · 11-13-2004, 03:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deitrus

OK, here is an example of what I did.

However, when re-sizing the player to (150x150), the image gets somewhat distorted (IMO it stretches the players a little bit).

Erm... As I said, Irfanview. You could resize the image down, then crop it without screwing the image up.

Seviien: Glad I could help you out with the program. I've got some crap on my plate right now, but I'll try and pick up some numbers over the weekend.

I would really like to see a 10,000 face facepack. That way I'd be covered for YEARS!

As for creating bad images... I was experimenting today and it created a guy with no ears

Which is just crying out to be used with something like Desmond "No Ears" Muldoon for a name.

Seviien · 11-14-2004, 01:09 AM

Columns I've Done: 23, 20, 7, 1

Columns Burto1945 has called: 3, 6, 9, 10

Deitrus · 11-14-2004, 01:10 AM

Are you guys putting hats on these players? If so, where is the template? Thanks.

Seviien · 11-14-2004, 01:16 AM

I think caps would have to be added individually, one photo at a time. That'd take a lot of time, and the results would probably look a little funny. So I think hats are out of scope.

The only template is a plain black shirt (no stripes) with a white V-Neck colar. See the samples in the zip file...

Deitrus · 11-14-2004, 02:17 AM

I was actually talking about the cap template. I would be willing to do the caps.

Bonedwarf · 11-14-2004, 11:16 PM

That's probably going to be a huge undertaking, adding caps to several thousand images!!!

I'll see what I have going on tonight and might dip back in and see about making some pictures. (I really don't want to say "yes" and then have something come up and not be able to do it.)

11-11-2004, 08:42 PM	#1
Seviien All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 925	Community Project: Definitive OOTP Fictional Facepack Hi all... Among all the excellent community mods out there for OOTP, I've always been a little perplexed about the lack of a huge and definitive facepack for use in fictional leagues. I know there are a couple excellent pieces of work out there that collected ~1000 minor league and college photos, and those are what i have used up untill now. It always seems a little odd to me, though, to have a 34 year old slugger with a baby-faced photo... Which brings me to the MZitlia face generator. It's a website located here: http://www.mzitalia.com/modules.php?name=FaceGenerator and it produces excellent quality fictional faces. I had thought to create something like 3000 faces myself, all with a standard jersey, but that would take more time than i'm willing to invest right now. My current thinking is to ask for 30 or so volunteers each to make 100 faces which we can then merge together into a large facepack. There are 3 technical issues though... 1. Images from the website save into .png format while OOTP requires .bmp files. Solution: I'm sure there's some software out there to batch convert image files... any ideas? 2. There's an annoying yellow bar at the bottom of all images. It's there for input of a player name, but that kinda works against the purpose of generic face pack... It can be blanked out by putting a space in the name field. Solution 1: Ignore the yellow bar Solution 2: Depending on how devoted volunteers are, we could agree to use MS paint or photoshop to crop out the yellow bar... 3. The images are not properly sized for OOTP. Solution: Ignore it. I tested the larger images with OOTP and the program does a pretty good job of rescaling the images. Logistically it'd go something like this: 1. collect volunteers 2. agree on a standard jersey format, i myself favor one that looks like this: http://home.comcast.net/~zbryanknight/testface.bmp 3. I will type up instructions documenting the standard jersey format and proceedure for making the faces 4. We all create 100 or so faces a piece, filtering out those that look completely silly (about 5% or so of the faces generated look very odd...) 4. Everyone emails their images in a zip file to me 5. I'll batch convert them into .bmp files 6. I'll number the files appropriately so OOTP will recognize them 7. I'll host the facepack using the webspace of my comcast account to the extent it fits... if not we'll find someone else who has the space. Who's in?

11-12-2004, 03:13 PM	#2
ctorg Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Queens, NY Posts: 9,848	I'm very interested in this, but I only have access to it here at work. I may be able to contribute a few, but not many. __________________ My music "When the trees blow back and forth, that's what makes the wind." - Steven Wright Fjord emena pancreas thorax fornicate marmalade morpheme proteolysis smaxa cabana offal srue vitriol grope hallelujah lentils

11-12-2004, 05:47 PM	#6
Deitrus All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: United States Posts: 535	I would be able to do this. I have Paint Shop Pro 8, PhotoShop 7 & CS. However, is there a way we could get caps on these players (as far as having a template)? Thanks. Last edited by Deitrus; 11-12-2004 at 05:58 PM.

11-12-2004, 05:52 PM	#7
Deitrus All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: United States Posts: 535	OK, here is an example of what I did. However, when re-sizing the player to (150x150), the image gets somewhat distorted (IMO it stretches the players a little bit). Attached Images Last edited by Deitrus; 11-12-2004 at 05:59 PM.

11-12-2004, 05:57 PM	#8
Deitrus All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: United States Posts: 535	another example; Attached Images

11-12-2004, 04:26 PM	#3
Bonedwarf All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 1,339	A lot of the problems are easily solved with www.irfanview.com. Download the software. (It's free.) You can do batch conversion (to change to BMP), batch cropping (to get rid of the bar), resizing etc... So long as all the pictures are the same size (which obviously they would be) it'd be dead easy to sort out. So that's no issue at all really. A few mouse clicks and it's all done for you.

11-12-2004, 04:27 PM	#4
Bonedwarf All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 1,339	Oh yeah, I'd also crop the image pretty close to the head. The less it looks like a soccer player, the better Count me in. Dead easy to save out 100 faces.

11-12-2004, 04:57 PM	#5
Burto1945 Minors (Double A) Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Springfield, IL Posts: 144	Count me in too, but can we get some sort of 'standard' template set up, so that everyone's looks the same? I like your idea with the black uniform and small collar, but I think we should do away with the logo (Nike), which is rather easy, just setting the logo color to the shirt color. Just let me know how we want all the players to look, and I'll start making my share of faces. (Not to make a decision by myself, but I already have about 50 faces without the logos before I realized I hadn't set it up exactly like the others.) Oh yeah, and what does everyone think about maybe having several different color jerseys besides just black? I could do it either way, just looking for opinions.

11-12-2004, 08:57 PM	#9
Seviien All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 925	Hi everyone, I was really psyched when i came home from work and saw that this was getting support. Consequently, I've spent the last couple hours trying to really get this thing to take off. Here's what i have to show for it: 1. An excel spreadsheet with 6000 random numbers to feed into the generator. There's 30 columns of 200 numbers a piece. I've already done column 1, copying from the sheet and pasting into the face generator. I figured the best way to coordinate this would be for people to just call a column here in the thread, and then email a zip with all the photos in it when they were done. To facilitate getting this facepack out there ASAP, I pledge to do a column for every zip i get with 100 photos in it. Get the excel file: http://home.comcast.net/~zbryanknight/OOTP_Faces.xls Email me here: tfwSeviien@hotmail.com 2. 114 properly sized sample photos. Get the file here: http://home.comcast.net/~zbryanknigh...ck_samples.zip I had to enter 200 random numbers to get 114 usable faces; that's about a 60% success rate. That's worse than i expected, but it's still managable. I realize I'm biased, but the photos look fantastic in game. Irfanview does wonders for cropping, so we needn't worry about that anymore. I can do it all myself in about 5 minutes. Thanks a ton for that one, Bonedwarf All we need now are handful or two of volunteers to share some of the face generating burdeon... As far as a standard template goes, yeah, the Nike logo is gone; it gets cropped out to make the face larger. I've settled on a plain black shirt with a white V-Neck colar. My preference is for the shirts to all be the same color, but it's not a strong preference, and if anyone has any thoughts I'd be more than happy to listen. Coordination is key, though. If like 90% of the shirts are black, the 10% that are rainbow flavored will look silly. I think all the colars should be the same though. I'd like to see caps on there, but i just dont think it's feasible. Given how the face generator works, there are just too many variables in play... Thanks a ton guys!!! I'm starting to get really optimistic about how good this project could be. Who wants to take a column? Last edited by Seviien; 11-12-2004 at 09:24 PM.

11-12-2004, 11:01 PM	#12
Seviien All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 925	CHCFan: Sorry if that wasnt clear. Basically, I need people to do the following. 1. Download the excel file and pick a column of numbers 2. post the column you pick here so others know not to pick that one 3. go to the face generator website, and adjust the settings so that the shirts are plain black (no stripes) with a white v neck (as in the samples) 3. copy and paste the numbers from your chosen column into the face generator 4. if the number yields a face that looks realistic, save the picture to disk 5. when you have 100 or so photos, zip them into a zipfile and email to tfwSeviien@hotmail.com That's it. I can convert the files into .bmp and crop them so that they are the proper size for OOTP I'm shooting for 3000 or so faces to put together a facepack that's large enough for most all ficitional leagues.

11-13-2004, 12:02 AM	#13
Seviien All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 925	Columns I've Done: 23, 20, 1 Last edited by Seviien; 11-13-2004 at 12:33 AM.

11-13-2004, 02:35 AM	#14
Burto1945 Minors (Double A) Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Springfield, IL Posts: 144	OK, I'll do columns 3, 6, 9, and 10. One question: on the Excel spreadsheet, Sheet 1 is just columns of numbers, but I take it we are supposed to use Sheet 2, where the columns are numbered, right? Oh, and black uniforms are fine with me. I didn't mean to add any confusion. I will e-mail you when I get them done, and then maybe you could post a confirming message on here, so that we know which columns have been turned in and completed. This sounds like it just might end up working. Great idea, and I will get mine in as soon as possible.

11-14-2004, 01:09 AM	#16
Seviien All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 925	Columns I've Done: 23, 20, 7, 1 Columns Burto1945 has called: 3, 6, 9, 10

11-14-2004, 01:10 AM	#17
Deitrus All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: United States Posts: 535	Are you guys putting hats on these players? If so, where is the template? Thanks.

11-14-2004, 01:16 AM	#18
Seviien All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 925	I think caps would have to be added individually, one photo at a time. That'd take a lot of time, and the results would probably look a little funny. So I think hats are out of scope. The only template is a plain black shirt (no stripes) with a white V-Neck colar. See the samples in the zip file...

11-14-2004, 02:17 AM	#19
Deitrus All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: United States Posts: 535	I was actually talking about the cap template. I would be willing to do the caps.

11-14-2004, 11:16 PM	#20
Bonedwarf All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 1,339	That's probably going to be a huge undertaking, adding caps to several thousand images!!! I'll see what I have going on tonight and might dip back in and see about making some pictures. (I really don't want to say "yes" and then have something come up and not be able to do it.)