This system is designed so that you can upload your own personalised graphical adverts (known as Participant Content) from your computer, onto an appropriate sign or screen. Once uploaded, you can then set this personalised content as the background for an advert that you create and hang it in an estate for which you hold the deed. ************************************************ PLEASE NOTE: Only Signs or Screens (or Displays if you are doing video) that have (PC) after its name, can have your personalised graphics displayed on them. If the Sign or Screen you have does not have (PC) after its name, then you cannot put personalised graphics on it. For Example – Gigantium Sign and Gigantium Sign (PC). The second one of these is the only one that you can upload to. ************************************************ Instructions: Once you have purchased a Sign (PC), Screen (PC) or Display (PC), a directory named “Archive” will be created in your My Documents folder, under Entropia Universe\Archive (For example C:\My Documents\Entropia Universe\Archive). You must place files you wish to upload to the Entropia Universe in this folder. The files will then be accessible from inside the Entropia Universe. To access the upload system for Participant Content: “Right Click” the sign/screen/display and select “Edit” from the Menu. This will bring up the Ad System interface. In the bottom right corner you will see a button labelled “User Content”. Click this and the next window you will see, shows the files you currently have uploaded to EU and linked to your account (if this is your first time, it will be an empty list). At the top of this window you will find 2 tabs: “My Files” and “Archive”. Click “Archive” and you should see a list of files that you have added to that directory under My Documents\Entropia Universe\Archive. If there are no files listed, click “Refresh” on the left. Images must be in jpeg/jpg, dds, png or tga formats, with the correct aspect ratio and colour depth and resolution, in order to be uploaded. If your files to not conform to the specifics below, they will either not allow you to upload, or may not even be visible at all! Click on the filename you wish to upload and then on the button marked "Upload" on the menu to the left. If everything is set correctly, you should get a message informing you of the charges to upload this file to the MA servers. After uploading (and removing the required PED from your card) the file will be available as a background for any ad you create on any Sign (PC) or Screen (PC) from this point on. NB: It is worth noting at this point that if you are using the Ad Creation System through a particular sign or screen that you have not designed the graphics for, it will appear stretched or distorted on signs of different aspect ratios (such as a pic designed for an Megaview and viewed as a background image on an Xlite-W). NB: Also worth noting, is that the files remain on your account till you delete them, regardless of whether you remove them from your Archive folder. At this point you will also be refunded a nominal value that you were informed about upon uploading the graphic originally. Don't get excited though as it is a very Nominal amount. ************************************************ PLEASE NOTE: The Ad system is meant to be used for in-world purposes only. Ads for society websites are accepted, but you are not allowed to advertise for real world companies or websites with no connection to the Entropia Universe. (MA Support) ************************************************ Aspect Ratio, Colour Depth, Resolution and Compression: Aspect Ratio Sign (PC) and Screen (PC) come in four different aspect ratios: 1:1, 2:1 and 4:1. Examples: 1:1 – Gigantium Sign/Screen (PC) or Xlite-S Sign/Screen (PC) or Reon-S Sign/Screen (PC) 2:1 – Megaview Sign/Screen (PC) 4:1 – Xlite-W Sign/Screen (PC) For best results when uploading your own images and videos, you must use the correct aspect ratio and dimensions. To make sure your image has the right dimensions (in pixels), its width and height must conform to: Aspect Ratio 1:1 - Size 64x64, 128x128, 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, 2048x2048 Aspect Ratio 2:1 - Size 128x64, 256x128, 512x256, 1024x512, 2048x1024 Aspect Ratio 4:1 - Size 256x64, 512x128, 1024x256, 2048x512 NB: the largest dimensions you can use for your graphics are 2048 pixels in either width or height. Colour Depth Each colour you see on your screen is made up from mixing Red, Green and Blue. Combinations of these will show different colours. It is important to note that while everything displayed on screen is a represented in RGB, the actual document may be in CMYK or Pantone or some other pallet – these examples are primarily used in print media and must be converted to RGB. Graphics programs such as CorelDRAW will default to using a CMYK pallet which is not suitable. All graphics you wish to upload into Entropia Universe MUST by in 24bit RGB colour depth. You can make sure of this when you are creating your graphics by either setting your programs defaults to the RGB pallet or converting it to 24bit RBG when you export your graphics working file to a format such as jpeg. Resolution Resolution for graphics varies depending on its application. Something you might print out for a school assignment or work project might have a resolution of 300dpi (dots per inch) for example. The working resolution for web graphics is generally 72dpi and this is what you must set your graphics to in order to upload them to Entropia Universe. Again, you can do this be either by setting your programs defaults before you create your graphics or converting it upon export. Compression (File size vs Quality) When exporting your graphics to a suitable RGB-24 format, it is best practice to play around with compression settings. PNG format offers very little quality loss, but not much compression. JPG on the other hand offers varying degrees of compression. If you can keep your file size small, while maintaining an acceptable quality for your image, then this will benefit you and everyone greatly. Why? Because every kb you upload will cost you PED/Money, and also smaller files download faster so your viewers don’t have to wait very long for your image to load. As a side note, pictures with lots of complexity and colour will be harder to compress. Think of it this way, the more colours you use, the larger the file size will be when compressed. ************************************************ To help you recap the above guidelines, here are a couple of scenarios… Scenario 1: You've got a Gigantium Screen (PC). Its aspect ratio is 1:1 - its width is the same as its height. It's a Screen (PC) so you can upload your own images. Your graphics are as follows: Filename: My Picture.jpg (correct format) Dimensions: 1024x1024 (correct aspect ratio) Colour Depth: 24bit (correct colour depth) Resolution: 72dpi (correct resolution) Scenario 2: You've got a Megaview Sign (PC). Its aspect ratio is 2:1 - its width is twice that of its height. It's a Sign (PC) so you can upload your own images. Your graphics are as follows: Filename: My Picture2.tga (correct format) Dimensions: 1024x512 (correct aspect ratio) Colour Depth: 24bit (correct colour depth) Resolution: 72dpi (correct resolution) Scenario 3: You've got an Xlite-W Sign (PC). Its aspect ratio is 4:1 - its width is four times that of its height. It's a Sign (PC) so you can upload your own images. Your graphics are as follows: Filename: My Picture3.png (correct format) Dimensions: 1024x256 (correct aspect ratio) Colour Depth: 24bit (correct colour depth) Resolution: 72dpi (correct resolution) ************************************************ HERE ENDETH THE LESSON Many thanks to Vantastic (for educating me on using Corel Graphics Suite X5 and proofing this document); to Unicorn (vis Isclay ) for forwarding a document on Uploading PC Content from MA Support and to any others that may have had a hand in getting this information out to the community.. I hope you find this information as useful to you as it has been to me. If you have any questions, please feel free to PM me and I will do my best to answer them.
To be added: Accurate information on file upload costs. Files acceptable as multimedia (animation) files. Guide on making adverts at some point. Screenshots for various steps.
Hey snape can you find out what kind of files are acceptable as multimedia (animation) files? I haven't gotten to serious research yet but information is sorely lacking and I prefer not to test too much with the pedcard. edit: oh i found -> http://arkadiaforum.com/showthread....tv-for-apartment&p=39813&viewfull=1#post39813 <- that post from Jenny.
Certainly. I'm compiling a list of information I want from Support to add to various tutorials for PC stuff. If anyone has any additional ideas or stuff they want to add, post it here and I'll add it to the list
Great thread Jim a lot of good info .. but i Know a very nice man ...ooooh a very nice man .....that sorts this stuff out for me ... but saying that fantastic information
Just a quick question to the MegaView Sign PC. I miss use the sign as a picture frame in my condo and I want the picture stays on the sign static after I uploaded it from my archive folder. Seems the duration is only 300-9999 something, and then the screen goes black again after it expires. Cost me alot of ped to activate that thing every now and then. The instructions however says I can make it temp or "forever" running. At least in the malls and shopping both it seems to work for some traders.... How can I make it static? Thank you
Quite possibly you have not repaired it to OVER 90% condition. Basically, if you target it and you see a coloured health bar above the name of the sign then it should be working (you may need to right click and select "Operate" to turn it on) if not, then take it to a repair terminal and repair it till you have it above 90%. Every time you place a new ad or sign on it, it will degrade/decay the TT value of the sign and when this decay passes the 90% mark, the sign will no longer operate and display your adverts.
Snape, it was repaired otherwise it would not charge me to post the add/picture. The problem seems after I was charged some peds to get the add online on the board, the time duration the add is displayed expires after some time (9999s) I did not find settings to skip the time duration (300s-9999s in create message/ duration seconds menu) and change it to maybe... "forever" or constant or something. The add just expires after I set it to the highest possible settings duration length 9999s and I have to pay ped again to get it displayed on the screen
Hmmm, if there is only 1 ad on the sign it shouldn't be expiring. And the time limit is the setting for frame rotation (IFF you are using a sign (PC)). The other thing is sometimes the signs can appear to be not working because the graphics haven't loaded from MA's servers. I might have to catch up with you over the weekend and see if i can help you figure this out.
Snape, this would be wonderful. All what I want is to set an uploaded pic from my archive (already uploaded to the MA server) to be displayed as a background on the board. No text on it and no picture rotation. Weekend works fine. PS: Item description says MegaView Sign (PC). I hope I did not get the wrong sign, but as told - I did see those boards in malls/ shops too and they always show the same stuff.
Do I have to have my Estate Deed "carried" to change the Ad on my signs or screens, I have returned to edit my screens and when I click "create" it displays a warning saying "Only Estate Managers can create ads" I have checked and I am still the manager on the estate terminal, the only thing I can thing of is that I left the deed in storage? Will this limit me? Cheers in advance Macca.
I guess, I always carry my deeds so I guess if you have issues doing ads and you don't have your deeds on you then that confirms it.
Well I have travelled back to storage and grabbed my estate deed, I have confirmed for all, that you require to carry your estate deed to be able to change the participant content on one of your signs.. thank you Snape for your quick reply above. Oh BTW, Maccadoodles Discount Warehouse now has a functioning Sign.. thanks to this thread.. Cheers Macca.
I've been playing around with a sign lately, and I'd just like to add some updates. .png format is no longer accepted, sadly. On the flipside, I can confirm that 90% condition is no longer required for a sign to display properly. The minimum condition is now about 10%, or perhaps even lower.
Can you confirm that this is the case with all the other conditions (DPI and palette) correct? I suspect you are correct though as I went to do some uploads a little while ago and I had to change to jpeg.
I can't say for sure that it works for other conditions, as I've only uploaded one 24-bit, 72dpi jpeg image.
