[BPIP] Forum-based Playing / Trading Cards [BPIP CARD GENERATOR]

[ibminer]

snip

Interesting..  I can't say I really thought of this odd angle you would take against me because you have a grudge.. nor would I ever really think anyone would have an issue with their avatar being used.  *shrug*

.. I seem to recall you having a site which used a background image that had a collage of avatars.. including mine..? *shrug* .. must be someone else I'm thinking of.

Will there be a legal entity behind these cards to resolve issues such as these?  

.. Are you willing to offer some recommendations? It'd be helpful to see a real-life example of what you went through, being able to sell those t-shirts for all these years with Ron Burgundy on them.

Do you feel that project developers being in DT and selling products and services that are heavily influenced by actions of DT members is a conflict of interest?

Most stats included on the card do not involve the trust network at all. How are these heavily influenced by DT members?

EDIT: suchmoon's response below answers none of these questions so now I'm wondering if any of these issues have even been thought of prior to announcement.

What announcement?  This is a poll with examples.

Are you on a power binge again, Og?  Get some rest.

[suchmoon]

EDIT: suchmoon's response below answers none of these questions so now I'm wondering if any of these issues have even been thought of prior to announcement.

I can't start answering your fallacies, all I can do is remove your (or anyone's) avatar if you don't want it to be used. I think that's a good way to address your concern if by any chance it's real.

And who is going to receive the profits from this venture?  Do the users' who are featured on the card receive a complementary copy?

There are no profits. If we ever decide charge a fee it will be used to offset the cost of service - as ibminer mentioned this requires some extra stuff in the backend - and I'm sure it will be a whole new discussion about that. Let's not get ahead of ourselves and stay on topic.

[OgNasty]

Are you willing to offer some recommendations?

I think it would be cool if you got permission from users and shared profits with them.

It'd be helpful to see a real-life example of what you went through, being able to sell those t-shirts for all these years with Ron Burgundy on them.

You like that? It’s actually a drawing I had made of a cross between Ron Burgundy & Guy Fawkes. There’s still a couple available for purchase at: https://NastyFans.org/mint

[webtricks]

Finally a worthy or I would say better alternative to my BTCTalk Cards (ANN). I knew this one will soon come from BPIP.

If you decide to give this a shape of collectible cards, what about using 'Most Recognized' score to determine the card value and suit? Depending upon how many users you would like to consider for creating physical cards, the total number could be divided by 52/53 and given value starting from 'Ace of Spades' to 'Two of Diamonds'.

Here's the comparison between the two, by the way:

 
user's profile: TheBeardedBaby

 
user's profile: efialtis

mine is real-time in true essence  

[ibminer]

Voting with 2 hands UP Everything you guys are doing is amazing and I just love this project.  

I am curious if people are [still] interested.

Hell, yes!  Wasn't there another member who made digital cards for various members of the forum a while back?
-snip-

There was a guy in the Collectable section who made not only digital but also physical cards but never manage to deliver them to the buyers so he turned out to be just another scammer. This one

^ webtricks was the one I was thinking of but I couldn't find the thread, until now.

Finally a worthy or I would say better alternative to my BTCTalk Cards (ANN). I knew this one will soon come from BPIP.

Thanks, you definitely had one of the better attempts I have seen as a generator. I also remember a few interesting card designs created by some others around the time of the art contest as well, but unfortunately those were only for specific sets of users.

If you decide to give this a shape of collectible cards, what about using 'Most Recognized' score to determine the card value and suit? Depending upon how many users you would like to consider for creating physical cards, the total number could be divided by 52/53 and given value starting from 'Ace of Spades' to 'Two of Diamonds'.

There are several future plans that could develop, which go along with my prior post and the potential for various series of cards/decks. There could be a few ways to go with it using BPIP's ranks, using various design changes, and/or different backs of the cards, etc.

Your boy LFC_Bitcoin must be a pretty valuable card (according to bpip any way)

So valuable you can't get one *anywhere*.   I'll probably generate some more samples after the poll runs its course, unless there are any objections, haven't had much time.. trying to get ready for the holidays.  

[Vod]

You should consider Lambda for your card generation on demand.  The more services you put on a EC2, the slower each gets and you need to needlessly upgrade to a bigger box.  Plus if you use graphics based Lambda functions, you'll reduce those costs further.

I only keep IIS on EC2 and run everything else on specialized services like DynamoDB for the bitcoin blockchain.

Source:  Been studying to be an AWS architect for a year now.

[mprep]

You should consider Lambda for your card generation on demand.  The more services you put on a EC2, the slower each gets and you need to needlessly upgrade to a bigger box.  Plus if you use graphics based Lambda functions, you'll reduce those costs further.

I only keep IIS on EC2 and run everything else on specialized services like DynamoDB for the bitcoin blockchain.

Source:  Been studying to be an AWS architect for a year now.

For anything larger, heavily relying on cloud vendor specific services is a very bad idea if you ever intend for the possibility of migrating away from AWS (unless you enjoy headaches of rewriting code that used to run completely fine on a vendor's proprietary offering). Also, I really do hope that by "on-demand" you mean "very rarely" since at-scale (as in if it's being hit by traffic constantly), serverless tends to be pretty expensive compared to just running a web server. And even for that task, you could just create a new DB table and have a background script poll it periodically and generate the images that way (outside the request-response cycle). If it were up to me, I'd personally offload generating the card visuals to the clientside (via JS or something that compiles to it), while only recording the data serverside.

TBH, unless you manage to stay within free tier quotas, enjoy burning money (e.g. large companies / websites where the additional cost is just a drop in the bucket) or really like overcomplicated pricing schemes, I don't really see the reason of using any of the major cloud providers for running what is effectively a very overpriced VPS. There's plenty of smaller yet still large cloud providers (e.g. DigitalOcean) that can give you a box that performs just as well at a fraction of the price.


As for the cards themselves, I like the concept but (no offense) the designs could really use some work (from someone with substantial experience in graphic design preferably). The color palette, the backgrounds, spacing between elements and font choices are very rough. A lot of the designs (again, IMO) scream 90s in the worst way possible. While certain things are definitely dependent on taste (e.g. color palette and use of gradients), certain things are just bad design (e.g. layering text on top of other text in the background).

If I had to pick, the two cards at the bottom are probably best looking ones since the dark one leverages that old-school late-night neon feel while the golden one's tackiness fits because, well, it's golden and that's the intended style (the sharp contrast between the background and letters also makes it very vibrant and easily readable while also adhering to the intended tackiness of the 'gold version of thing X' design language).

[ibminer]

For anything larger, heavily relying on cloud vendor specific services is a very bad idea if you ever intend for the possibility of migrating away from AWS (unless you enjoy headaches of rewriting code that used to run completely fine on a vendor's proprietary offering).

Thanks for the input here, I haven’t read up much about Lambda but we probably would want to stay away from proprietary solutions like this. Although, I believe we do currently have a decent plan in place with the new server to deal with the performance issues.

If it were up to me, I'd personally offload generating the card visuals to the clientside (via JS or something that compiles to it), while only recording the data serverside.

I actually did start out using a JS-based method of doing this, we moved to a server-side implementation in order to offer additional security for the stats which are overlaid on top of the image.. to minimize any client side manipulations. This overlay may be part of the issue with the fonts as well, as the site would use a different font than what I have on the design, based on the theme selection.

While certain things are definitely dependent on taste (e.g. color palette and use of gradients), certain things are just bad design (e.g. layering text on top of other text in the background).

The stats you see overlaid near the top-left, I’m hoping, would become part of the QR code verification/hash in some fashion, which maybe shows just the ‘valid’ date under the QR code itself, and the rest of the dates appear on the verification.

These are not final versions of the cards, and I realize the copyright text on the backgrounds also hurts the presentation with these designs, so I'm not sure if they are the best samples to judge in this context.

As for the cards themselves, I like the concept but (no offense) the designs could really use some work (from someone with substantial experience in graphic design preferably). The color palette, the backgrounds, spacing between elements and font choices are very rough. A lot of the designs (again, IMO) scream 90s in the worst way possible. While certain things are definitely dependent on taste (e.g. color palette and use of gradients), certain things are just bad design (e.g. layering text on top of other text in the background).

Look, I’m not a “professional” designer by trade. Never said I was. Overall, I think they came out pretty good. I don’t really agree with the idea that there is supposed to be a cookie-cutter way to do art… meaning, I apparently haven’t used one of your approved and/or learned fonts, background styles, or color palettes.

I intentionally tried to vary the designs in order to cater to other tastes outside of my own. The Golden/Dark Silk are also my personal favorites.. and, I admittedly spent a little more time on those designs. My least favorite, personally, is probably the first card I started making which was the techtro/blue card (no offense to Vod who I used for that card in this thread, just happened to be the theme I was using when generating the card!), but there are a handful of people I've shown these cards to (outside of this forum) and one of them liked that one way more than the others. *shrug*. I'm fine with that.

I do realize most people are not going to like every design but keep in mind I designed these in my personal time, and there was never intention on making a profit. Please feel free to recommend someone you know that will fit your perception of someone with “substantial experience in graphic design” who will be willing to design the cards for free. I can overlay the text/stats wherever they want them on the design.

[mprep]

I actually did start out using a JS-based method of doing this, we moved to a server-side implementation in order to offer additional security for the stats which are overlaid on top of the image.. to minimize any client side manipulations. This overlay may be part of the issue with the fonts as well, as the site would use a different font than what I have on the design, based on the theme selection.

Once the card is turned into an image, there's pretty much no way to stop people from doctoring it. The only way to prove it's legitimate is the aforementioned idea of a QR code that references an authoritative source (e.g. a page on BPIP), which lists the exact stats of that specific version of a card. So, from a security perspective, there's not much to win from doing it serverside.

Look, I’m not a “professional” designer by trade. Never said I was. Overall, I think they came out pretty good. I don’t really agree with the idea that there is supposed to be a cookie-cutter way to do art… meaning, I apparently haven’t used one of your approved and/or learned fonts, background styles, or color palettes.

Yes, art is indeed very subjective hence why I've mentioned that it's only my opinion. However, in contemporary design there are some widely accepted general practices that lead to a better product / design (e.g. adequate spacing between a long personal text and the borders of a box said personal text is in). Those are also opinions, but they're a bit more widely held than just by me.

I do realize most people are not going to like every design but keep in mind I designed these in my personal time, and there was never intention on making a profit. Please feel free to recommend someone you know that will fit your perception of someone with “substantial experience in graphic design” who will be willing to design the cards for free. I can overlay the text/stats wherever they want them on the design.

My opinion was intended as just that - a critique from a single subjective point of view. You're free to take it or, if you find it irrelevant / unreasonable, leave it. If there's anything that should be taken away from my advice, it's that I (heavy emphasis on I) think that you should lean into the design language of the last 2 cards. That and if you know someone who does graphic design as a job (or even as a side gig), let them have a quick look at whatever you come up as a v0.9 of those designs and ask them for their most brutal criticism.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

There was a guy in the Collectable section who made not only digital but also physical cards but never manage to deliver them to the buyers so he turned out to be just another scammer. This one

Holy crap, I think I must have missed that thread entirely!  I do remember that making physical cards was being discussed last year, because I voiced my support for such an idea quite a few times, but the thread it was being discussed in just kind of fizzled away with nothing being done.

I love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this.

I probably couldn't have put it better myself.  Even if I didn't have a card of my own, I would still be interested in buying a set as a collectible--and I'm not even into collectibles all that much.

Baseball cards are usually based on a specific snapshot in time of a player's statistics.. is printing them a waste?

Nope, baseball cards have always been great, and they've always been just that: a snapshot in time.  In fact I'm pretty sure I wrote about exactly that aspect of a bitcointalk trading card when it was being discussed last year.  Wouldn't it have been nice if Bruno had had a card before he died?  Or Zepher?  Any set of cards with any set of particular members would be one hell of a great thing to have 10-20 years down the line for those of us to whom the forum is so important.

[ibminer]

So, from a security perspective, there's not much to win from doing it serverside.

It sounds like you agree something is won in terms of security and doing it server-side, which is ultimately why we did it.. to make it as secure as possible and avoid client-side manipulations before a card is generated.

Yes, art is indeed very subjective hence why I've mentioned that it's only my opinion. However, in contemporary design there are some widely accepted general practices that lead to a better product / design (e.g. adequate spacing between a long personal text and the borders of a box said personal text is in). Those are also opinions, but they're a bit more widely held than just by me.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with some of your critiques, they are appreciated, and I will adjust. I was intending to go through various adjustments once the QR code was established, so I could work it better into the design. The main goal for the beta version was to just get this generator working and be able to put out usable images, which I think it does currently, and will ultimately do better with a new server.

That said, I didn't think I'd get this level of criticism on the design itself or I would have re-fined them, and would have had the QR code on them before ever posting. I really just wanted to gauge the current interest here before moving forward with additional developments, which could be started before the server is ready. I just felt like samples had to be shown to get an idea of what we are doing.
 
Nonetheless, you've shown enough interest to critique them in the first place, so I'll take this as a good sign.

That and if you know someone who does graphic design as a job (or even as a side gig), let them have a quick look at whatever you come up as a v0.9 of those designs and ask them for their most brutal criticism.

Can't say I have anyone in my local circle that I'd trust to do this part. However, outside of my personal issues with using particular palettes or backgrounds, I do get what you are saying here with some of your critiques. And, for the most part, I'd have to agree with them. The designs will get refined.

Wouldn't it have been nice if Bruno had had a card before he died?  Or Zepher?  Any set of cards with any set of particular members would be one hell of a great thing to have 10-20 years down the line for those of us to whom the forum is so important.

Agreed. Memorabilia is definitely a great way these cards could be used.

I love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this i love this.

I probably couldn't have put it better myself.  Even if I didn't have a card of my own, I would still be interested in buying a set as a collectible--and I'm not even into collectibles all that much.

Thank you both!  
And, I'm sure you'll have a card.. maybe many.

Maybe like other collectables, the cards can come with some BTC embedded?

This thought has crossed my mind, but I don't think we're there yet. As for glass, sure, there are a lot of printing options which could be a possibility.

One reason I wanted to be able to hide/show the playing card symbols is to allow flexibility for other printing options. I've ultimately tried to find a good balance between a high resolution image that is large enough for bigger prints, but not so large it becomes too resource-intensive to generate.

[ibminer]

Updated OP with modified designs, re-organized, and added a few more. I hid the playing card symbols for most of these.. and obviously didn't do anything yet with the dates in the upper-left corner.

edit: Removed watermark on sample images. Authenticity will ultimately be determined using the QR code.
Also missed a row of users I was going to include in these samples, so.. a few more added, again. 

Happy New Year (hopefully), Bitcointalk! 

[ibminer]

Well, I must admit, I was hoping for more responses to the poll at this point... but, I think there is enough support to continue at least some development. We'll try taking this horse to the old town road.

I'll lock the thread for now. Suggestions, ideas, or critiques are welcome. Feel free to PM them, or ask me to unlock the thread.

[ibminer]

Thread unlocked. Has it been over a year already??   Thanks again to everyone for the comments & suggestions.

It was a long 2021 for me, and I admittedly haven't made as much progress as I'd like with this.. but I wanted to update this thread with the main [updated] designs that will be pursued, and some samples generated.

Still no real professional help (sorry, mprep! ), just the suggestions generated by this thread and many youtube & adobe tutorials, but any comments or suggestions are still welcome. They [eventually] printed out decent enough on my printer, but if all goes as planned, another set will be generated and sent away to be printed hopefully next week to get a better idea of what they look like from a more professional printer.

In regards to RPG/CRPG game mechanics, I don't have anything concrete enough to modify the design elements to fit something like this better.. not my forte.

Higher resolution
(clickable)


Backs:
(clickable)


Samples below are loosely based on the 'most merit' list of BPIP, with some extras added in.. these are lower resolution and not in any particular order. Card symbols are not shown, and need a little work on placement.


(clickable)


Balloons - Tom MacDonald