The avatar challenge

[David]

This has come from a bit of a childish argument between the staff: who can compress their avatar the most?

I thought this would be a great idea for a competition.

%age compression is what matters. Post your old avatar and your new small one. Avatars may not change, you may only compress it / remove frames / resize.

To start you off here is mine. Was 16K, now 1K.

New size is 6.25% of the old one.

Also, who can get the smallest one. Mine is a mere 1015 bytes :D

David

[Lusankya]

remove frames = change
resize = change

[David]

Originally posted by Lusankya
remove frames = change
resize = change

I meant change as in they must be essentially the same avatar. Just alter it slightly to reduce size. For example, my avatar is the same one that I had, except I resized it and increased the compression.

David

[Lusankya]

Why exactly do you want to do this? Just out of curosity.. what is the point?

[donny_paycheck]

To reduce the load on the server's connection. Skip had to fork over $400 extra last month because we went over our bandwidth allocation, I believe...

In any event, it will speed up the forums and allow improvements in other areas because skip won't be shelling out so much for bandwidth.

[David]

Its just to show that we can save bandwidth and help the forum by reducing avatar sizes. If we reduced it to 25k we would save hundreds of kilobytes each minute.

David

[Captain Slug]

Everyone could just switch over to JPEG or lower the avatar limit down to 60k

[David]

For example, Lusankya, your avatar is currently 94K approx. I have removed a few frames and reduced the number of colours used. New size is about 16K less, at ~78K.

So if you used this one, you lose little or no actual content, and if a thread you post in is viewed 75 times, about 1MB of bandwidth has been saved. If 1000 members did this, 1GB has already been saved.

David

http://www.davidjnelson.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Lusankya2.gif

[Oni]

Originally posted by David
So if you used this one, you lose little or no actual content, and if a thread you post in is viewed 75 times, about 1MB of bandwidth has been saved. If 1000 members did this, 1GB has already been saved.

Ph33r my 3k!

I might be able to take it down more, but idk. I'll run it through PSP and see what it tells me.

[Dreamkiller]

I got mine from 10k to 2k, not bad though.

[David]

Originally posted by Dreamkiller
I got mine from 10k to 2k, not bad though.

Cool. Thats not bad at all, its now only 20% of the original size then.

David

[nightowl]

Mine was 7.3k to start with, now it is down to 979 bytes.
I think this is a really good idea :D

[David]

Might be good to see how many kB we can cut down on in total...

David

[Penguin4x4]

Well.........................can't open animated GIF's in PS.:( Lemme see if I can find a free animated gif proggie. :)

[Theorie]

ok well i dont want to use this, but here is one for ya:

54 Bytes BIATCH!

[filip04]

i got mine down from 2822 bytes to 919 bytes... im only at 33% of the original size... but sizewise, it puts me in #1 SO FAR!!! we'll see what all the other ppl can cut down to

i couldn't find psp, so i used ulead photo impact 7.0

[Penguin4x4]

Originally posted by Maestro


Here is your avatar compressed retaining the GIF format. Original size 11.8k now down to 5.6k... I doubt you can see the difference. If I compress it much more it might be noticeable.

Enjoy


Maestro

How'd you do that?

[Penguin4x4]

Originally posted by filip04
but sizewise, it puts me in #1 SO FAR!!! we'll see what all the other ppl can cut down to


<----------------0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000 Bits. :p :p :p :p :p :burn:

[filip04]

uhh, ur avatar quality is soooo bad, that you can't even see it :P

[David]

Originally posted by Penguin4x4



<----------------0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000 Bits. :burn:


:rolleyes:

1 byte minimum.

David

[filip04]

THIS IS SOOO MUCH FUN!!!!

here's fujikuro's from 29182 bytes down to 7469, down to 25.5% of the original size

[CPFitz14]

darn it, penguin beat me to it. lol:D Guess i'll have to bust out psp.

-CPFItz-

[Morbid]

Reduced 83%

Was 60x60, now 30x30 pixels

Was 3.9k now only 649 bytes.

Anything for these forums :)

[DAGO]

Just changed back to my old avatar, which is technically not what this thread proposed, but still within the spirit of the thing...
Went from 91.3 to 4.91 KB...
Might get it lower, but it'll do for now... :D

[filip04]

i think this thread should get copied into every single other thread.... because i know for a fact that most of the people don't even READ general chat...

just my opinion

[Penguin4x4]

Originally posted by Oni


Ph33r my 3k!

I might be able to take it down more, but idk.

More than 50% Reduction, Oni.

1.23K Now, :)

[IFMU]

Just thought I would throw mine into the pot.
Everyone that sees my posts should know my original, its size is, 53,248bytes ~ 120x120
My new, is 2,672 bytes ~ 90x90
Think this ones pretty much got the same quality, loose the ani, but doesnt matter too much.
That equals a total of 5.018% of the original.

[nightowl]

I have made mine a little smaller (80x80) and have got it down to 858 bytes :p

[Malpine Walis]

At 6K the candle was already a tiny bugger but I removed 5 out of six frames (I never noticed that the flame flickered), changed it to a jpg and compressed that by 90%. For ten minutes of work I removed 98.4% of the actual bitmap leaving me with a 2K file.

I did not help the bandwidth very much but now it is almost pure header. Do any graphics wizards know if I can do anything useful with the header?

[Dreamkiller]

I lowered my icon's size even lower this time from 2303KB to 1480KB.

I took out all the other stuff that doest need to be looked at and just have the car on it.

[skip]

Thanks for all of the Help guys.

We are currently using about 9GB per day. At this rate our monthly hosting will be around $1200 just for the bandwidth. That does NOT include the server or Rack Space.

Every bit we reduce it will help a bunch.

Forums will be faster too :D

[filip04]

what was the use before?

[Tismedt]

I have no idea how to reduce my av but if 1 of you would like to try be my guest.

$1200 WOW and I thought $49.95 for dsl was expensive.

[David]

taddaaa. 9.1K from 35K

[filip04]

beat me to it... im still in the process of downloading a gif animator

[bubba gump]

well hermm now that i know the price that you guyz are paying im thinking of making mine a bit smaller in size(not img size but file) jeez

tismedit thats totally right, wow thanx loads skip if no one else has told you b4 :)

/me bows down to the almighty.

[bubba gump]

well my avatar is now about 11kb, used to be i think like 15 well i know i didnt get it much smaller but it might help. adios!

[Tismedt]

Thanks David I have done my part and I'm now useing the small avatar. I try to help when I can and this is easy.

[bubba gump]

hermmm, im thinking of just taking out the title part, and then bringin the other stuff back to normal, would take out 10 frames :]

[bubba gump]

wow thx loads maestro that will help, gracias senior/seniora

[Tismedt]

Originally posted by Maestro
If you see other members with Avatars over the limit pass the word I WILL HELP ALL WHO ASK ! So the more I help the better forums will be and the happier members will be to keep there present avatars. I am guy by the way :D

Maestro

I will keep an eye out for others. The new ISP has helped a bunch but every little bit counts. If every member reduced the size of thier av by 25% it would save skip a bunch on bandwidth.

[asj]

Well I got mine from 10kb to 4.64kb!!!! I also kept it at the same size!!!! It looks ok but did lose some detail!!!! Oh well it will help anyway!!!! I think thats a 53.6% reduction!!!!!!

[Mr.DLucey]

I can't seam to get mine to compress any further. Any suggesting? LOL

[sfa ok]

1968 bytes to 965 bytes. Might not have the best percentage reduced, but it's quite good for the size of the file....

[Tecumseh]

Hey, let's not forget perhaps the best solution: Don't have an
avatar at all. You can also have a bigger impact by setting your
preferences to not show avatars.

I know a lot of people are really into them and spend a lot
of time perfecting them, but if the current service provider
is charging for extra bandwidth (I Don't know if they are.) then
we need to make some changes.

:D Just say NO to avatars. :D

[bubba gump]

well heres some tips Mr D.Lucey, if you havent run it through Photoshop or PSP, do so now, convert the image to .jpg/.jpeg and then go to the compression utuility in whicever program you are using (these options are not offered in MS Paint :cool: ) then see which one looks the same, but if you say have phothsop, wat i wold do is load the img up, and then start taking away colors and see still if it looks good. im not sure if PSP offeres the compression that Photoshop does, for all i know it oculd be better, ive never used it. well i hoep this helps!

@Maestro ok your a guy, not sure coz i didnt want if u were a chick to think my phrase was sexist :D

[TheFrag]

anyone wanna try to compress my avatar?

[Shadow ÒÓ]

Heads-up.....the end of this week I'm going to start a witch hunt. After a conversation with Skip tonight, this would definitely benefit the forums to have avatars scaled down, so I'm going to start activly seeking large avatars and removing them.

Back up the one you have now as I will not be saving a copy for you!

If by chance you do lose yours, use your browser to browse "off line) and go through your history.......you'll be able to find a copy that way more than likely.

Shadow ÒÓ

[Tecumseh]

Originally posted by Shadow ÒÓ
Heads-up.....the end of this week I'm going to start a witch hunt. After a conversation with Skip tonight, this would definitely benefit the forums to have avatars scaled down, so I'm going to start activly seeking large avatars and removing them.


Shadow ÒÓ

:eek: The marching band kicks in....the crowd cheers:clap:
The Storm Troopers march in. The BW wasters weep. :cry:

IMHO, this move is a long time over due. It's the right thing to do.:clap:

[bubba gump]

well ive sent a pm to one person who's avatar was about 76kb :o and then i told him to either post in this thread or PM maestro to ask if he would compress the avatar b4 the "witch" hunt happened. well, i hope he gets the thing compressed soon, was a kik ass ava......

[bubba gump]

well the person hasnt sed nething to me yet, but who knows, they might just not know that there avatar gonna be feeding a hungry belly :/ lol well i hope they get it out soons, i liked it :D

the person was also online yesterday, so i hope they checked there pm's and got the msg, well adios

[parkan]

My tweened avatar was near impossible to compress without losing quality... so I made a new one.


(for those who do not know, the slay commands kills all processes run by the target user, including his or her login shell, effectively kicking him or her off the system)

[parkan]

Heh, I did that in about 2 seconds as well... but the pixelation and loss of gradients/transparency make it not worth it.

[Deathknight]

Hrm this sounds an awful lot like the game parents like to play with their kids:

"Ok kids we are going to play a game. Lets so who can go the longest without talking!"

[BigBlockk]

I'de like to see um do away with the "avatar's" all together.

You don't need um to post here.

It would make pages come up faster for me (56k on AOL you know. Can I have a pity party right over here.).

It would save even more of that wide stuff ya'll be talkin 'bout.

Wouldn't be payin so much for the "bands" .

By the way, when was the last time any ya'll laid out some green to help pay for all this here.

I better stop there. Damn Turkey doin more typin than I am.

BigBlockk

Later.....

[bubba gump]

Originally posted by Deathknight
Hrm this sounds an awful lot like the game parents like to play with their kids:

"Ok kids we are going to play a game. Lets so who can go the longest without talking!"

its sort of like that, but this actually has a good outcome, instead of making your parents happy we make skip happy :P but i mean, were trying to make everything run more efficiently :)

[kaillum]

well, i just got mine down from 8270bytes to 1297bytes :) an no real loss of quality... :) me likes Photoshop7 :D

[JimmyG]

I don't know how to compress my avatar. Can anyone help?

[bubba gump]

I am glad you came to Maestro JimmyG, your avatar is really good. And i personally like it :], you will help more than just yourself by doing this. :) good luck!

[mayagrafix]

okey guys, maybe this is overkill, but heres my 2 centavos worth:

For the big time compression:
use Macromedia Fireworks and Flash to make the thing as small as possible (BTW: can avatar have sound too?)

For middle weights:
Use Adobe Image Ready - Try reducing number of colors, DPI (recomend 72 PPI) or using indexed colors

Also try PNG format instead of GIF or JPEG

Remeber: compression is a loosy scheme... tha means the more u compress it the more quality u loose (duh!)

for all the rest: get urself a copy of GIF builder and create a miracle!

[Caffinehog]

Hows my avatar?

[JimmyG]

Thanks for the help Maestro!!

[lee]

heck, i challenge you folks to just dump your avatars and save skip all the hassle he has w/them, period................think of the saved-bandwidth from losing something that is pretty insignificant anyway - i know, someone will raz me but thats how you save money / bandwidth............compression is great but with the # of members in the forum, you still are going to have a boatload of usage............

[specific]

<==========weighing in at a slim 3.5, w/o alteration i might add.
don't blame me, i'm doing my part.
some of these avatars crack me up!
the forums wouldn't be the same without 'em.

[NeoMoses]

my avatar's been the same since I joined. And it weighs in at....610 bytes!!! No changing necessary. I used to brag about that in my sig, but then realized that was wasting valuable bandwidth, too!

[Maxvla]

Originally posted by BigBlockk
By the way, when was the last time any ya'll laid out some green to help pay for all this here.
couple weeks ago... http://members.directvinternet.com/maxvla/dunno.gif

[Captain Slug]

Originally posted by mayagrafix
(BTW: can avatar have sound too?)

Internet = peace and quiet

Web sites with sound are obnoxious, especially when they interrupt my relaxing music

BTW,
<----- my new avatar is miraculously tiny... (17kb)

[Tismedt]

Originally posted by BigBlockk
By the way, when was the last time any ya'll laid out some green to help pay for all this here.

Right behind Maxvla about a month ago. Wasent much but I'm sure it was appreciated. BTW you can disable avatars if you have problems.

[bubba gump]

oh yes, lee, i decided to take up with out an avatar for now, ehehh mine wasnt to great, and its not like i put much time into it (all i did was mod the originaly tux image) so, hey i accepted ur challenge :D

[filip04]

i dont' really agree with completely removing avatars... this is what makes us unique from other users...

we don't want to be just anonymous users in here... if you come and think about it... why did we get the option to chose our name??? maybe we should've been all numbers??? some avatars tell other people ABOUT the person... i will definitely stick with avatars, but i say the limit should be around 25k...

[bubba gump]

Hermmm, with the identification, i see what you mean Flip, i may change my no avatar, to a newer one, just not sure what i would change to. Ill be looking around, and i doubt my next one will be animated.....

But yes, some peoplel think that they cannot be represented by a image under 50k(which i consider a lot for 120X120) So, i guess they would be fine with no avatar, until they find one. You make a good point. Lol, imagining how this forum would be with # identitys.

[skou]

Hey, I can't play. No avatar, never had one, probably never will.

steve

[bubba gump]

well, i currently am on the hunt for one......might end up modding a pixy soon, but ehhe im still lewking.

[Gnerma]

Alright I managed to shrink my 13k monster of a mug to 3k. First I cut it down a bit then changed it from a GIF to a JPG (compressed to 40%).

[Doofie27cp2]

slug thats such a tihgt avatar... all your avatars have been tight. But i like mine (JENNA!)

[Captain Slug]

<-------- New avatar down to 3.3kb