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View Full Version : Avatix - Automated Avatar Cycling Site


NetNessie
07-27-2005, 09:18 AM
I've had this idea for a while now, but havent really worked towards it. I decided that now would be a good time to get it started.

Everyone who has an avatar has changed it at one period or another for a celebration or holiday. Every year members of this forum alter thier avatars around to suit Halloween, Christmas, Winter-een-mass etc.

What I propose is a automated system, that does it all for you. You upload your avatars, set what avatar you want for what occasional or time period. And chronological jobs do the rest. For example, when you set up your account, you will have a file like:

<font color="#999999">somehost.com/avatix/netnessie/3drealms.gif </font>

You set up your profile on the forum so that it refers to that file, then whenever its time for a change, Avatix automatically replaces the current avatar with a new one. The forums you visit arent altered a bit in the process, all they do is refer to a file which is replaced routinely.

This system involves using something I've titled as "shuffles". Each shuffle is a specific rotation of avatars, you can see a demo-page here. (http://lazymoon.x3fusion.com/private/avatix/shuffle.htm).

Within each shuffle you setup your avatars. You can specifiy specific holidays, or you can manually enter a date range for your birthday or another event. You can also do a random shuffle, so that when the avatar is not set from a specific occasion, it will randomize between a pool of avatars on a weekly basis.

This demo-page which can hopefully explain this is here. (http://lazymoon.x3fusion.com/private/avatix/details.htm)

Shuffles allow you have have a shuffle of avatars for differnet sites. That way you can cylce avatars for steam on the steam forums, or avatars of Duke for 3DR.

I can do the web design work myself as well as create the relational database, I just need someone to help to put together the server-side code to get this baby started (PHP & MySQL is prefered).

Anyone interested in helping me get this project started?

ADM
07-27-2005, 11:04 AM
hmm interesting idea http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I think I have a good idea at how to program this and could possibly do so but my coding style sucks and to be used on a public site could very well mean the end of the world http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Basically what you do is have a php file renamed with a .gif/.jpg/etc extension and then have a .htaccess file which will automatically run that .gif/.jpg/etc file as a php file.

So then this php can have calls to a user table in a database which will be able to retreive the options set by the user in their control panel.

Should be fairly simple.

avatar_58
07-27-2005, 02:17 PM
I think there is such a thing that rotates signature images....so your idea would not be so far off. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Thats actually a very good idea. The only thing you would need is bandwidth and space to hold the avatar images (which aren't big, but add up)

NetNessie
07-27-2005, 08:39 PM
avatar_58 said:
The only thing you would need is bandwidth and space to hold the avatar images (which aren't big, but add up)



Bandwidth issues I didnt concider. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

avatar_58
07-27-2005, 08:43 PM
NetNessie said:
Bandwidth issues I didnt concider. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif



http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif If I had a server my friend, it would be yours to attempt. I would just set in place a limit for each user account to limit their usage. Too bad you can't just have the server send the avatar to the forum where it is uploaded instead of being used 24/7 off your Avatix server. Maybe that would help? Then again....how do you access the user's account on the forum....

NetNessie
07-27-2005, 09:23 PM
avatar_58 said:

NetNessie said:
Bandwidth issues I didnt concider. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif


Maybe that would help? Then again....how do you access the user's account on the forum....



I dont know if it would work too well, I mean you could program a pretty hefty routine that accesses your forum info and updates it, but that would require the user to enter thier username and password into Avatix, which may result in ID thefts.

For now I want to just get the system running, I could probably use a inviation system so I dont have too many users to start off with, as a trial period to see how it performs.

avatar_58
07-27-2005, 09:32 PM
NetNessie said:
For now I want to just get the system running, I could probably use a inviation system so I dont have too many users to start off with, as a trial period to see how it performs.



I'm pretty sure thats how gmail started out. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Good luck with it. If I knew enough to help you I would. I will gladly test it out WID. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

ADM
07-27-2005, 11:36 PM
NetNessie said:

avatar_58 said:
The only thing you would need is bandwidth and space to hold the avatar images (which aren't big, but add up)



Bandwidth issues I didnt concider. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif



Well just implement caching (server side) and you could cut back any bandwidth issues quite immensely.

NetNessie
07-28-2005, 05:05 AM
ADM said:
Well just implement caching (server side) and you could cut back any bandwidth issues quite immensely.



I have no idea what that is.. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

ADM
07-28-2005, 07:09 AM
Ok think of it this way.

With each shuffle the user is given a url that links to their avatar.. something like this:

http://www.domain.com/username/shuffle1/avatar.gif

In reality the avatar.gif file is actually a php file which has the real avatar url inside which is just echoed out or something.

So what would happen is everytime that avatar.gif file is called it will load that real avatar and thus bandwidth would go through the roof.

So what you do is get the server to cache avatar.gif to a certain avatar url so that way it doesn't load all the time. Then when it's time for the script to "switch" to another image the cache can be cleared and set to the new image and then the cache is set again.

So that way you only have one file (avatar.gif) being called at one time and not two.

You would still need quite abit of bandwidth but not as much.

biXen
07-29-2005, 05:56 PM
Not sure if I understand that plan of yours?! The bandwidth is external, so any client call to that file would still use the same bandwidth. Or were you talking about the internal load on the fetching?!

ADM
07-29-2005, 07:22 PM
The internal load on the fetching.

biXen
07-30-2005, 09:07 AM
Okay, well as you said that's easier to program around. Some web servers would even cache that themself I reckon. External bandwidth is another issue, but images are fairly small. Still it would add up if it's popular.

ADM
07-30-2005, 09:24 AM
Yeah I don't think theres anything to avoid that.. you could always host it on external servers or get the user to host the image themselves.

NetNessie
07-31-2005, 02:09 AM
ADM said:
Yeah I don't think theres anything to avoid that.. you could always host it on external servers or get the user to host the image themselves.



Theres an idea, I didnt concider that either.