In Pursuit (talk), 02:49, May 21, 2011 (UTC) | ||||
A picture is worth a thousand words, but I say a video (with sound) is better. Well, not that I wanna replace the pictures by video clips, but I think it's worth to have both because some ability animation is too dynamic to be presented by 1 or few still images. Although you may upload the video to Youtube then embed them in Wikia, embedding materials from 3rd party location can be problemtic. You might not be able to load the video if it is during maintenance or the uploader or Youtube might just delete the video for whatever reason (assuming the uploader is not cooperating with FF Wiki). Also Youtube's encoding can be hostile to short (below 10 sec) animations. So it is preferable if we upload the video directly to Wikia.
Then you need to care about the format. AFAIK the only accepted video format by Wikia (as well as Wikimedia) is Theora OGG/OGV. You can convert the AVI source video to Theora format by 2 handful and free resources, one is Miro Video Converter (requires MS Network Frame 3.5) . This one doesn't offer a single option to adjust the video quality, although the quality is above average. The other one I recommend is Firefogg "Make Web Video", a plugin for Mozilla Firefox. It has many useful options to adjust the video quality, even to trim the video if you don't wanna edit it in other program. I recommend video quality 5, video bitrate 500, "two pass encoding" and "denoise filter" enabled. The graphic size should be 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. Most importantly, You *MUST* save (or rename) the file by OGG extension rather than OGV, otherwise Wikia will not be able to render the video correctly. The downside of embedding OGG video are: Wikia is (currently) unable to produce the single frame preview image like Wikimedia by adding |thumbtime=(minute):(second)| in the file embedding command. So the embedded frame will look like collapsed before the reader plays it. (embedded Youtube video has the preview image because it is generated by Youtube, not Wikia.) Also the file size, just like other file format, is limited below 10 MB, that means you can't upload long video in large dimension. Some older browser (particular mobile units) is unable to play OGG natively, but OGG is growingly supported so this shouldn't be a problem over time. You can learn more in Help:videos. I've done that to Holy (Ability)#Final Fantasy XII and Arithmeticks. Thoughts please. | ||||
I think that FFXII Holy section looks good once you view the video, but them being collapsed before you click play isn't good. So far only summon animations and Limit Breaks use video, and I wonder if this should be expanded though... In the end most Holy spells look pretty much the same: a burst of white/blue light and ta-da. | |||
In Pursuit (talk), 03:14, May 21, 2011 (UTC) | ||||
I agree that not all abilities dreadfully require video. So what comes to my mind is ability that 1 single image hardly tells anything like Arithmeticks, Shades of Black and many Auto Abilities, game mechanics like effect capacity or a strategic combo of multiple actions. | ||||
I believe we must be very careful on this approach due to copyright issues. For example, all our music samples are restricted to 30 seconds under 80kbps, and music videos are forbidden. Having duUntil this aspect of featuring ability videos is discussed, I believe that it's all right to increase our number of subpages devoted to videos on the article's subject.
The collapsed approach is also the best and it could improve the text-only "appearance" sections. It also cuts the need for those huge galleries on the bottom of the pages. If we're to add huge video boxes, the articles will either be flooded or feature huge white spaces.
Still, I think we should discuss copyright issues first. I have the mild feeling that hosting full videos might be a little overboard. An excellent alternative would be gifs.. - Henryacores^ 13:32, May 23, 2011 (UTC)
In Pursuit (talk), 15:13, May 23, 2011 (UTC) | ||||
Since file size is restricted no more than 10 MB, I think it really discourages user from uploading license-sensitive video which is usually long or high quality. They may prefer to embed Youtube video rather than upload OGG to Wikia, so it's easier to deal with.
About the ability video, If the quantity grows reasonably large for the same skill of different installments, I prefer creating "video gallery" subpage or use <tabber> to allow reader to switch between still image gallery and video table. (You can't embed local OGG video in <gallery> in Wikia currently, just so you know.) Also the inability to generate and display video preview image and other various issues of embedding OGG video is likely because the Wiki software and Ogghandler of Wikia are not as updated as Wikimedia. I've asked in Community:forum:Local video issues and sent email to their support staff. Hopefully they will look into it. | ||||