[DRAFT] IIP-XX Add Alpha Stamp on Illuvitar Image v2

[nova cobalt]

V2 Draft IIP-XX Add Visual Indicator of Alpha Status on Illuvitars

Simple Summary
Members of the community have expressed a desire for Alpha Illuvitars to include a visual indication of the Illuvitar's Alpha status. This proposal would direct the Illuvium team to update the Illuvitars product to include an indicator of Alpha status as a visual element.

Overview
Alpha Illuvitars are meant to be the most exclusive Illuvitars due to their limited nature but are currently visually indistinguishable from the non-alpha Illuvitars. Adding the indicator to the Illuvitars adds value for those who are looking for exclusive collectibles in the Illuvium Universe. As a premium product it is important that users can ‘flex’ the exclusive and limited nature of their Alpha Illuvitars.

Implementation
While a variety of potential implementations have been discussed, this proposal does not specify any specific implementation, the final decision of how to best execute this proposal to improve the Illuvitar product will be left to the discretion of the Illuvium art team.

As this is not a time sensitive issue implementation need not be rushed but ideally would be complete by the end of the Wave 1 Illuvitar sale and must be complete before the beginning of the wave 2 sale.

Goals

1. Visual distinction between Alpha and Unlimited Illuvitars.
2. Indicator should be included when using Illuvitars as profile pictures.
3. Indicator should be included when downloading or printing Illuvitar art image.

Summary
Adding a visual alpha indicator onto the Illuvitar images is a value add for those who have and will purchase Alpha Disks and increases the overall collectability of Illuvitars.

Written by: @fading vapor
CC: <@&814435151307866142>

Changes:
-Further generalized language within the proposal
-Added Implementation section
-Added Goals section
-Wrapped benefits section into the overview to reduce redundancy

Hey everybody! In addition to the revised proposal Ive included a few survey questions below to get a bit more detail on which specific preferences the community has on this issue. Please react below and thank you for taking the time to contribute to this proposal!

[fading vapor]

Which implementation would you prefer

A: A UI overlay on the Illuvium website and ingame.
B: An update to the underlying NFT artwork that would be visible on all platforms.

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Which is a higher priority for you

A: The artwork should not be impacted by an alpha indicator, a subtle indicator is best.
B: The alpha indicator should be very clearly visible, even if it causes a slight detriment to the artwork.

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Which specific potential implementation do you prefer

A: ‘Stamp’ or some kind of static marking.
B: A VFX ‘shimmer’ or similar effect periodically moving across the image.

---

~~Would you want the visual indicator to appear on physical Illuvitar prints

A: Yes, if stamp
B: Yes, if VFX
C: No~~

Removed for simplification

[austere walrus]

I would love if we can add Rogier thoughts on this as he is Lead Concept Artist. He already shared some before. But I think it important to know what he thinks before you vote for any of these.

[ionic jewel]

yes, this is rogiers idea:

[hardy flint]

D: Optional (check box when ordering)?

[fading vapor]

Ideally it would be optional. This is more to gauge whether or not people are even interested in having it as an option.

[nova cobalt]

@proper rock @slim sparrow Just to loop you in as well

[slim sparrow]

It's probably best to include someone with the vfx knowledge as well, or at least a better idea of the technical side. I can't speak for Rogier but I personally have no idea how long it would take to implement vfx into the system. Especially if you're including a deadline in the IIP.
I am however very glad to see people are generally against an actual stamp on the artwork so far

[proper rock]

I dont know how this would look..
u cant really print VFX.. or u;d be printing a single frame of that VFX onto the artfile?
I actually dont know how that would work when generating this 'printfile' plus it will likely look bad.
The print file is very large, the vfx effects will not.

[sour fulcrum]

Any ideas for how prints could show alpha status, if at all?

[proper rock]

it would require an extra path for files and an extra handling in an already somewhat complex on-demand unique product. Id have to think about how this could work and not make it too errorprone

[slim sparrow]

Could we do an actual physical sticker somewhere on the print? Front or back? As its a larger scale it could be a small sticker and it wouldn't affect the image as much

[fading vapor]

I agree with this for sure, I feel like any kind of shimmer vfx printed out would just look kind of washed out and be highly disruptive to the art.

Totally understand that this would represent some extra work for any kind of customization regarding prints. Personally I wouldnt mind a $5-$10 upcharge for doing something special for alpha prints, I already paid around $200 a piece for mega disks so a small upcharge for the print seems low relative to the cost for the actual Illuvitar.

I really like @slim sparrow idea for a sticker, I was actually thinking the same thing. A smallish sticker (around 5-7 cm) in like an opalescent or holofoil color would really pop on the plates. Potentially the user could select whether they want it on the right or left corner, or not at all, so individuals would get to make the decisions about how or whether or not it would cover the art.

I dont like the idea of it on the back though. Nobody is gonna see the back once they get hung up so its kinda pointless there imo.

I'd say the main takeaway from this one so far is that people ARE interested in having some kind of alpha indicator for the prints as well if possible. This is probalby the lowest priority item though so if it doesnt work out it then it doesnt work out.

[nova cobalt]

This is what I was thinking, Laser it on the back of the Alphas somewhere with the qr code link to the asset

[proper rock]

u got some extra time to Dev besides ur community work? 🙂

[nova cobalt]

You say jump I say how high ser

[austere walrus]

I'm not really a fan of showing alpha something on plates. For one, I'm not sure why you would want that. You're buying art for yourself because you like it, putting a alpha sticker kinda ruins it for me. And if there is to be something, i wouldn't want it bigger then a little signature in the corner or something.

But I think we should do what is best for Illuvitars, and then after that adjust for plates if necessary. Not other way around.

[slim sparrow]

5-7 cm seems awfully large...
I suggested the back because we could go much larger without any worries about disruption to the image, and it's also pretty standard for any stickers of authenticity, signatures, and other details/extras to go on the back of artwork

[echo bison]

while I am a fan of adding some type of alpha stamp/indicator on the NFTS, I don't think changing any of the physical printing is necessary. It seems that most people would print for the artwork only. I would also recommend that for the next sale we change the color of the actual discs to differentiate between alpha vs non-alpha. I know many people have opened alpha discs by mistake and wanted to open up their normal ones.

[fathom patio]

Im still very much against this idea any option should only be optional and not enforced on all buyers

[fathom patio]

my suggest still is if anything give all alpha buyer a free alpha Badge they can bond inplace of say a coin if they want ??? not sure if that would work or how time consuming that would be to implement

[obsidian mulch]

VFX seems insane. So much additional work. May not work with printing the plates. Also seems weird to not have the alpha stamp visible on all platforms if we are going to do it on ours.

[fading vapor]

VFX was rogier’s idea cause he didn’t want a stamp blocking the art. I’m with you 100% a stamp on the actual NFT art seems like the most straightforward and comprehensive solution

[fading vapor]

So I guess what we really need here is some feedback from one of the VFX artists who would be able to tell us whether or not this is even feasible or not?
Cause if VFX turns out to not be a reasonable solution then its back to the drawing board I guess.

[obsidian mulch]

@alpine sonnet can you weigh in here please

[alpine sonnet]

Okay, so from what I understand, we need a vfx to be displayed on alpha illuvitar's, I guess this will be a common one for all of them. (for example: An icon in a corner with a scrolling holo effect on it?).
Creating that effect will not be a problem from an asset standpoint, but having it implemented in our page(dev work) is something I dont know much about.

[austere walrus]

What Rogier already commented is:

"I would be hard against a STAMP on the art. its already very busy, and will block the 'art'.

*An UI effect of a shimmer going over the illuvitar once every 30 seconds or something , id be way more in favor of. *

for example if there was a shimmer going over the portrait yeh, that would be a small piece of vfx that could be implemented everywhere within Illuvium"

But it is true what Sumoh is saying, it has to be implemented everywhere as well: in every game, on website, on a launcher, etc. Therefore it's also work for the devs.

[proper rock]

its mostl likely going to add some proper work for a lot of different people yes.

Also i'd like to suggest we keep the physical product out of this IIP , there's a whole extra can of worms and processes that will be added if we go down that road and it has much more implications than just adding a sticker somewhere 😄

i hacked together a very rough preview of what i stated in this discussion earlier. I dont who/how/when it could be implemented, but atleast its some sort of visualization of the idea i suggested.
This would not loop as quick, but every few seconds or so, and a lot cleaner.

[ionic jewel]

yes, this would be cool. physical alpha is not so important

[worthy garnet]

I’m really pleased with the way the community raised the issue, brought a number of ideas and listened to the Dev team on risks and advantages of several solutions. Bullish on this same approach continuing (especially with the gameplay IIPs sure to be coming as we get into launch phases).

[fading vapor]

Im happy to remove the physical print aspect from the IIP, seems like its becoming a bit of a distraction from the main point.

As far as time to implementation, one of the points that several people brought up was that having a distinguishing feature for alphas would potentially make them more attractive in the wave2 sale and boost sales for the alpha disks compared to wave 1.
Thats still about 3 months away which I assumed would be plenty of time to implement this, but timeline can always be adjusted if its just not feasible.

[storm condor]

Literally what I had in mind

[nova cobalt]

https://tenor.com/view/its-like-we-share-one-brain-dude-ton-ton-matt-hill-dinotrux-we-think-alike-gif-17471768

[fathom patio]

thats officialy half a brain 😉

[sand wolf]

One idea would be to explore a CSS animation might be quickest easiest way to get on Illuvidex?

[buoyant flower]

Pretty much what Rogier also suggested
#1087787693020291072 message
Great minds

[sand wolf]

oh yeah 100% just riffing off Rogier's mockup. The main suggestion was a possible easy tech solution to implement. Might be too heavy on the page if you have loads of images all doing this same CSS animation, but I created this effect with pure CSS.

[austere walrus]

But in the end that doesn’t translate to other places like in game for example. Therefore I’m not sure it’s worth it. And in the end with CSS you won’t get the quality you would get otherwise from the team.

[digital hare]

I hate you all

[digital hare]

it's not a solution as you guys trying to flex on other platforms as well, and not just platforms, but in-game too

so it has to be an baked in animated file, which puts us into the option of using terrible gifs or quite a big file mp4.

icons not gonna work, as on the preview you won't see anything

amazing flex huh?

anything static so far looks terrible, because of the complexity of Illuvitars + backgrounds

[fading vapor]

Based on the sentiment voting it seems like people are fine with a VFX and that pretty much only works within the Illuvium Ecosystem.

This is something where there are gonna have to be some compromises to get something that makes sense. Personally I still prefer a stamp but its most important that there is SOMETHING, not necessarily the thing I want.

Still need some feedback on what implementation on the Illuvidex/ingame would require as far as workload. Does anybody know who could give us an idea?
Assuming we went with something along the lines of Rogier's suggestion here
https://discordapp.com/channels/760344898200666112/1087787693020291072/1088037886928101376

[digital hare]

we're looking into the workload atm.

1. only in illuvidex (I think the quickest and easiest) using come CSS
2. baked whatever we do into the illuvitar so it could be fetched from whatever.

option 2 is the most complicated, as we need to updated all the existing alphas + make it work for the future one as well.
it also has to be dynamically updated on bonding event, like has to take that overlay out, bond and put that alpha status back on top
it's not my field of expertise, but feels quite complex

also with Rogier's idea, how you gonna flex that in twitter or other platforms with static pfp?

[verbal sluice]

how about any kind of accessory that says Alpha that can only be bonded with alphas?

[fading vapor]

Dunno if you saw this when I did the edit reply, if so sorry for the double ping

If option 1 is actually quick and easy I think its a reasonable path to take. It doesn't give us everything we wanted but its something, and something is certainly better than nothing.

Baking all the Illuvitars into MP4s sounds like a tremendous amount of work and I would say its worth staying away from that to focus resources on other priorites.

As far as using it for a PFP, I remember you guys were talking about adding an option to download the high-res version of our Illuivtars. Would it be possible to take essentially a still frame of what the VFX would look like, maybe with a shimmer across the top left and bottom right corner, and have that be an option to add to the downloadable for alphas?

I definitely dont see it working with circle PFPs because the only potential locations where it doesnt totally fuck up the art is the corners. Plenty of platforms use square PFPs so maybe we could get something that works for those?

If the bottom line is a static indicator for PFPs doesnt work then we might just have to throw out that idea and just do the parts that work.

If we do go the CSS route heres an idea of how it could potentially just be exported for dowload as a still image showing the shimmer effect.
Obviously its not perfect but its enough to be recognizable without ruining the art. Could be just a simple overlay that can be applied with a checkbox when downloading the Illuvitar Image.

[digital hare]

yeah sure.
we will discuss it further internally, and once happy will present some options

[slim sparrow]

No can do. Accessories are a huge amount of work and there honestly isn't room for any more accessories unless it comes at the expense of one of the existing ones

[austere walrus]

That was my idea before. Just double the badge accessory and instead of obelisk use alpha sign. But then you have bonding, % for accessory and so on so it never got any traction.

[slim sparrow]

What if you dont want an accessory on your alpha though, what then? Tough luck?

[austere walrus]

Yeah, or you want something else in that spot. I agree with you now that it’s not a good option. But it was a good idea to explore for a while.

[cunning robin]

its 2023 we need 1tb gifs

[agile imp]

Is this happening?