T w e n t y S i d e d
After I showed off my new Wavatars WordPress plugin on Saturday, a lot of people posted just to see what their wavatar looked like. I feel bad, but I’m afraid that initial system had to go and as a result, everyone’s Wavatar has been changed. This was for a good cause. I’ve moved away from PHP generated random numbers to random values derived directly from the hash of the email. To translate out of programmer babble: The plugin will now generate the same wavatar for you no matter where the plugin is running. Different websites running the same plugin will give you the same, predictable results.
I also added a bunch of new parts for greater variety, so the plugin can now generate 956,384 different shapes in 57,600 different color combinations for a total of 55,087,718,400 unique Wavatars. That should be enough combinations for now.
I’ll be releasing the plugin later this week. If you have a WordPress blog then you’ll be able to have wavatars on your own site. I’ve ironed out the installation problems, so that you should be able to simply upload the thing and turn it on. (In theory.)
Also, I can’t take credit for the idea, which I first saw at implemented as MonsterID. (Hat Tip: MetaBLOG.)
Tenpenny Tower
Bethesda felt the need to jam a morality system into Fallout 3, and they blew it. Good and evil make no sense and the moral compass points sideways.
Trusting the System
How do you know the rules of the game are what the game claims? More importantly, how do the DEVELOPERS know?
Good Robot Dev Blog
An ongoing series where I work on making a 2D action game from scratch.
Dear Hollywood: Do a Mash Reboot
Since we're rebooting everything, MASH will probably come up eventually. Here are some casting suggestions.
Artless in Alderaan
People were so worried about the boring gameplay of The Old Republic they overlooked just how boring and amateur the art is.
Very nice.
If you feel like putting more work into your site after this, is there any chance we could get a preview function for comments?
Truly awesome experience running into Wavatars and the general feel for the post and the comments.. awesome!
damn, i need to user another email that is not gravatar-bound..
DGM: I’d like to, but since it’s email and not IP based I don’t have the required value when the page is generated.
Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, maybe there would be a way to do it with some fancy Javascript. I’m rubbish at Javascipt, though. You’d need a way for the user to fill out the comment email field and hit “preview” to see the resulting wavatar. Somehow you’d have to capture the value of the email field and send it to a little 60×60 IFRAME, which would be a PHP page designed to take the form input and show the resulting avatar.
I guess the only part I can’t figure out is how to grab the field contents and stick it into the query string.
Hmmmmm…
looks good so far…
“You'd need a way for the user to fill out the comment email field and hit “preview” to see the resulting wavatar.”
Sorry, I may have been unclear. I don’t want to preview the wavatar, I want to preview what I typed. For spellchecking, making sure my tags worked, etc.
Hah, my new Wavatar looks like its having some major issues. Note to self: turn Gravatar back on tomorrow, lest I get used to that face staring at me.
Now I’ve got to get a Gravatar so I don’t have to look at this this next time I post…
It all looks good, Shamus. Well done on the wavatars.
Aww, I liked my old one, I hope this one is as good!
DGM- ditto on the previews. It’s not quite so important now that there’s the bit of “permitted tags” right above the comment… but it would be kinda nice.
And I keep thinking, it’s sort of interesting… If you don’t feel like creating a gravatar, and want to “browse” for a nice wavatar, you can just keep using e-mail addresses with something different after a +. (many e-mail systems disregard that. I know gmail does.)
55,087,718,400 unique Wavatars,eh?So,at a rate of about 3 minutes per each e-mail for generating it and posting here,Id need about….314427 year.Ok,time to get bussy!
Lesse if this new one is as good as my old one…
Also, I noticed that on the dark theme, the quotes in some of your posts have the same background color. This is most apparent in the D&D Campaign posts.
It’s pretty easy to get the values off your form. Here’s something that should work on this page:
If you wanted to do a preview thing. The easiest would be to submit the form to a “preview page” with a “accept” or “deny” button on it. Have that page then submit all the fields to wp-comments-post.php on accept, and return to the blog page on deny. That wouldn’t require any javascript at all.
They’re cute, but I was kinda hoping they’d be dice…
Love the all the updates, Shamus!
I’m on yer webpage, testing my wavatar.
:D
testing!
testing!
I don’t know. Do you think the wavatars fit in well enough with the dice theme of the blog?
PBBBBT!!
=)
I like these. They’re kind of cute! I’m not sure they fit on m blog but they are geeky-cool.
testing
Sheer Curiosity Drove me to this. Damn you Shamus, damn you and your kooky website coding. ;)
A fine job tho, almost makes me wish i stuck w/ CS in college, almost.
I like the new text for the “anti-spam word” protection code…doodad…..thingy.
You know what I mean.
Just wanna see mine, without a big-ol’ search…
yrdyomh 2.3.4 (that’s testing 1,2,3.. for those wondering)
Just checking out my Wavatar too.
Never heard of a wavatar until now.
Is it luck of the draw about the security word?
Great.. _Now_ my Gravitar decides to start working.. lovely.
So.. my wavatar is..
also just testing today
Hoping for a better wavatar!
Let’s see, let’s see…
Davesnot: I would guess your Gravatar was probably not working because of capital letters in your e-mail. Shamus seems to have fixed it. Thanks, Shamus!
I just failed my saving throw against posting a pointless comment just to see my wavatar. Sorry?
To prove this post, I wanna say: Damn you Shamus, for getting me interested in D&D!
Well, I don’t post often, but now that it is ironed out, I’ve got to know what face I get to display here.
You know, for science.
I second that, this post is purely for science. It’s not about curiousity, it’s about putting order in the world, and for the betterment of mankind.
I can’t wait to see my very own personal wavatar
Ooo! I love it
Hmm. The default Wavatars remind me of a game called “Snood.”
This Weblog looks deep within my soul and assigns me a wavatar based on the email with which I joined. -Homer Simpson, sort of…
This will work fine until some jerk takes the wavatar of someone else and uses it as their gravatar, along with the person’s name, just to confuse people.
Testing… Please oh please nothing boring or dorky… An evil monocled one would be good LOL…
Gaaaaaaah!
(beats head on desk)
I think my campus e-mail one looks cool. Sunglasses and an “o-face” for the win2k!
Oh damnit I’m gonna have to stick with this one now, it’s too hilarious!
I guess if all the cool kids are doing it…
Test 1, test 1, 2
Testing my wavatar, like so many others.
Having fun, Shamus?
Shameless wavatar check.
So… Let’s see how this thing looks!
aw, I liked my old wavatar better. Still, they’re awesome :)
Let’s see what happens…I’m hoping for a slightly more cheerful look than last time :D
Had of course to check, I did.
Wavatar test ^^
also testing
Shamus, your comments feed (?feed=comments-rss2) is broken, as of the 15th. You’ve got a long title including malformed stubs for lots of entries and no description.
Since I don’t much like posting without some kind of content, here’s a link to an unfinished novel set in the future of the Legends of the Five Rings universe circa 2000 or so.
http://www.lowfierce.com/kazenoshiro/Rokugan2000/l5r2k/stryindx.html
I wonder what mine looks like.
… because everyone’s doing it. And I’m curious.
But I liked my old one :(
I am curious also…
Not too shabby, even if mine does look like it’s giggling…
And as I’d like to see wavatars too here’s my bit of random content which shows you how to make a digital whiteboard using a wii remote and a couple of red led lights.
oops: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ
Here goes…
I might be beating a dead horse, but thank you for ponstig this!
I R N Epic Thread :)
These wavatars are great ideas Shamus. I’m rolling the dice here and hoping mine turns out alright! :)
Not that I post here much, but I just have to know what my wavatar would look like…
haha Wow, that’s freaky. It’s got my specs AND my evil grin down pat. :)
Hope mine looks good.
Just wondering what my wavatar will look like.
Wavatar test
Wavatar test?
Nice! I’ve been I’ve been thinking about installing a gravatar-plugin on my blog for a while, but never did so as a lot of people just don’t have them. So yay, the Wavatars will make both gravatar users and regular non-geeky people happy. :D
Wavatar test
Sweet! I like the new Wavatar thing… but you might want to add caching to it (this page has been loaded for over a minute, but it’s still filling in wavatars…. ssssllloooowwwlllyyy).
Deoxy: It does cache them, so that isn’t the problem.
I loaded this page and it took 8 seconds instead of 3, so I am seeing an effect. The page loaded normally, and then the little icons appeared one at a time.
My first instinct is to blame Gravatars.com, since it redirects back here to the wavatar if a Gravatar isn’t found. That trip might be adding some unwanted overhead.
I’ll investigate later today.
Well, I didn like my old one anyway.
I do like that one though! This thing is shiny. :D
Well, let’s see if I get as good a wavatar this time as last…
Hmmm… not experiencing much lag from here with the wavatars. It’s a great idea, thanks for making it!
Jeez, I hope this one doesn’t look as constipated as the last wavatar did!
Oh, man! Even worse! It looks like he ate 20 pounds of iron rations, heavy on the cheese! Back to the gravatar!
That really is a great plug-in.
Good job!
I say Gravitars be damned… I’d rather have a wavatar.. now I’ve had to dig up an all-but-defunct e-mail address to get my wavatar because that gravitar decided to start working… akk!!
Sorry but I must try out how a wavatar looks like based on the fact that I want to see one I create with this type of message.
I got a bad feeling about this…
you try some simple javascript like:
function fillWavatar(){
var foo = document.getElementById("email").value;
document.getElementById("previewIMG").src = "previewimg.php?email="+foo;
};
that way you can write a PHP script to handle deciding on the image based from the email, certainly would be a better solution for you to edit than entirely javascript.
Beg for mercy, poor server, as we base minions test our Wavatars!
Admit it, you’re just fishing for comments!
That’s a lot of wavatars!
OK, I just have to know what my Wavatar is now…
I love it!
Curious like a cat.
hmm.. I have a feeling I’m going to need to disable my gravatar somehow (just came from their site and there appears to be no way of removing a gravatar or deleting your account.. bugger
Let’s try sticking in a plus..
ooh, good one
can’t resist a little experimentation though
that sucks…
ok, this is the last, I swear
middle one turned out to not be broken… I actually kinda like it
So.. addicted.. can’t.. stop commenting
Because I too want to see what mine looks like.
I could use these things for different moods…
Yep, I’m one of the sheep. What do I look like now? I just need to know what will be hidden below my gravatar.
Ooh, wow. I’m snaggle toothed with glasses. No wonder my avatar looks so unhappy.
I like the wavatars Shamus though I think I’m going to go back to my gravatar.
Avatars are a really great idea, Shamus. Thank you for setting it up.
I’m trying my gravitar first before switching to a wavitar.
D’oh, I’m now a piece of geometry. Ah well, only three sides means I’ll render well.
Shamus, you’re awesome.
No mercy for Shamus’s server!
Server overload, man the life boats!
testing…
Sorry for the spam, but I couldn’t resist to test mine out :)
o/` I feel pretty…
testing!
Test
wavatar test (I hope it’s a happy face!)
Just had to jump on the bandwagon
Ignore this comment. wait, too late!
Oh, now that is wickedly rockstar cool.
Test :o)
i am curious
test-a-mundo
Trying this out with a new email, see if it is any better than the old one.
testing…1…2…3
Testing
Lol, not exactly what I was hoping for but alright.
Let’s try my other email…
oh geez. Apparently turquoise is my color. :P
what will it look like?? so exxciteddd!
why so sad…?
test~
cool~!
It could be more beatufitul…
Lets see
Love the all the updates, Shamus
poto donk
Hi