- Joined
- Oct 3, 2004
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- 1,460
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- Favorite Pinball Machine
- Trigon
I am pleased to announce that the first major batch of images have been sorted, and are now up, and the shivaSite Image Resource Archive is now live as a beta. this is sorted into 4 main categories, and has a total of just under 6000 images for the initial upload. The Arcade section is also sorted by company name/ table name, unless there are a lot of tables, I made sub-sections for them. This also has a brand new system, that is far more feature rich, and is a "smart" system, it will adjust itself based on your browser and screen resolution etc.
This archive was designed for one thing, a one stop place to look, find, and get all needed resources for a particular table, and all in one place. No searching google, no going from place to place, spending hours trying to find a target image, and at the absolute best quality that I have been able to find. Everything I have for a particular table is all available in one table album.
As it stands, there's more to come. I did a quick look through all my archives, and pulled out the images very quickly, to form the base. Since then, I have been going through every one of my folders, and going through each image, and picking out the absolute best I have of each type. If I didn't have a suitable image, or I had images that I judged where not to my standards, they were not added, so some sections are very barren compared to others. There is just one image of each type, it didn't make much sense to have multiple images of the same thing, other than the stripped play fields. I have included target and spinner images, bumper caps, aprons, cabinet artwork, backdrops, decent flyer images, decent full on playfield images, and plastics. At the moment, I have finished all the Bally's, and will start on Capcom shortly on the full sort, but every section still has a lot of images available.
The other main sections include a small photo resource section for people who build table objects and need reference pictures, a pinball prototype section of those that didn't make the grade, and a larger VP image resource, with all the images needed to build your table. This includes ball images, metal sides, light lens decals, post side images etc.
I am also including a very large selection of my own custom images, most of which were never released before, and also is sorted along with images from other authors. This includes not only graphics I have done before, but also includes newer graphics from the xse tables I have never released. As well, all the graphics that were offered from the previous site are also there as well.
The New System
There is no membership required to use the site.
The new system I am using is far more advanced, and comes with a lot more features. It's shareware, and some things can not be changed, but the benefits far out weigh the previous gallery skin. This is based on Jscript, and moo tools, but also has basic html support as well, depending on what you have. It will auto scale the "medium" image depending on your screen resolution, and there are features that protect the site and the bandwidth from site strippers and image harvesting bots. When you find the image you want, you can view the image as full size by clicking the download icon on the bottom right, it will open up a new tab in your browser. It's no different than most systems, just a different way, and is far more secure.
It's pretty fun just playing around with this skin, there's all sorts of nifty stuff with this gallery. :)
Lot's of mouse overs, I added music support, and has zoom as well. To get the main menu, click the view gallery button to open the fly out menus. You can navigate to anywhere in the archive instantly. There's also a help icon, in case you need it, and a comment system. There's a new beta of this skin, with a whole bunch of things, but it is a paid thing as well.
I was really tempted to buy a lite license and unlock all the features actually, but I set up the entire structure of the site for expansion as opposed to convince, with a eye towards upgrading down the road if needed. The new version has front page support, e-commerce, rss etc.
Uploads and Submissions
There are a lot of gaps in terms of images here, and though I have done the best that I can, this really relies on authors and other people to add to this. I have added a very simple (and I am sure quite familiar one to old-timers) for small amounts of images, and also a contact system for larger file size or collections directly by email. It will accept zips, and all files submited to me will be sorted through, organized, and placed in the best location by me. All people have to do is send it. With VP9 having a export capability now, it makes it far easier for people to send graphics, and it will help a lot of people make and actually release tables, especially those that are graphically impaired.
I will only accept images if the author uploads them, or there is permission by that author. If you zip it up, please make sure the authors name is included, so proper credit can be given in the image. I have added the authors name to each file that I could, and that is policy. (I made the attempt to find the authors name on some images, but couldn't find who did them, so if you know please let me know)
I have made previous attempts at this, but it's never been really successful. I do hope people will finally do this, it's as simple as possible, you don't need a membership, and every image you upload could help someone get closer to making and releasing their own table. We all sit around talking about the lack of new authors, and the lack of new tables, this is one of the biggest reasons why, a lack of proper resources. I have released even my hand drawn playfields and plastics, I'm putting my money where my mouth is, and I am willing to do a lot more if others follow my footsteps.
The New Address
I decided to move the archives to here, so the URL is familiar. It's also far more stable, and if I get a lot of submissions, it's easy to upgrade my account to a paid service, and will be able to have the room to expand with space and bandwidth. Because of the features within the new gallery skin, I'm not as concerned about the bandwidth, but I still ask that people be considerate of others that might want to use it.
Have fun guys. Please note there may be a few minor issues, but I wanted to get it up. It took 16 hours of upload time through ftp, but now that it is up, be easier to update and fix any issues. If you see something, like a problem or a duplicate image, please let me know, so I can fix it for future updates.
UPDATE: Various graphics archives can now be found here:
This archive was designed for one thing, a one stop place to look, find, and get all needed resources for a particular table, and all in one place. No searching google, no going from place to place, spending hours trying to find a target image, and at the absolute best quality that I have been able to find. Everything I have for a particular table is all available in one table album.
As it stands, there's more to come. I did a quick look through all my archives, and pulled out the images very quickly, to form the base. Since then, I have been going through every one of my folders, and going through each image, and picking out the absolute best I have of each type. If I didn't have a suitable image, or I had images that I judged where not to my standards, they were not added, so some sections are very barren compared to others. There is just one image of each type, it didn't make much sense to have multiple images of the same thing, other than the stripped play fields. I have included target and spinner images, bumper caps, aprons, cabinet artwork, backdrops, decent flyer images, decent full on playfield images, and plastics. At the moment, I have finished all the Bally's, and will start on Capcom shortly on the full sort, but every section still has a lot of images available.
The other main sections include a small photo resource section for people who build table objects and need reference pictures, a pinball prototype section of those that didn't make the grade, and a larger VP image resource, with all the images needed to build your table. This includes ball images, metal sides, light lens decals, post side images etc.
I am also including a very large selection of my own custom images, most of which were never released before, and also is sorted along with images from other authors. This includes not only graphics I have done before, but also includes newer graphics from the xse tables I have never released. As well, all the graphics that were offered from the previous site are also there as well.
The New System
There is no membership required to use the site.
The new system I am using is far more advanced, and comes with a lot more features. It's shareware, and some things can not be changed, but the benefits far out weigh the previous gallery skin. This is based on Jscript, and moo tools, but also has basic html support as well, depending on what you have. It will auto scale the "medium" image depending on your screen resolution, and there are features that protect the site and the bandwidth from site strippers and image harvesting bots. When you find the image you want, you can view the image as full size by clicking the download icon on the bottom right, it will open up a new tab in your browser. It's no different than most systems, just a different way, and is far more secure.
It's pretty fun just playing around with this skin, there's all sorts of nifty stuff with this gallery. :)
Lot's of mouse overs, I added music support, and has zoom as well. To get the main menu, click the view gallery button to open the fly out menus. You can navigate to anywhere in the archive instantly. There's also a help icon, in case you need it, and a comment system. There's a new beta of this skin, with a whole bunch of things, but it is a paid thing as well.
I was really tempted to buy a lite license and unlock all the features actually, but I set up the entire structure of the site for expansion as opposed to convince, with a eye towards upgrading down the road if needed. The new version has front page support, e-commerce, rss etc.
Uploads and Submissions
There are a lot of gaps in terms of images here, and though I have done the best that I can, this really relies on authors and other people to add to this. I have added a very simple (and I am sure quite familiar one to old-timers) for small amounts of images, and also a contact system for larger file size or collections directly by email. It will accept zips, and all files submited to me will be sorted through, organized, and placed in the best location by me. All people have to do is send it. With VP9 having a export capability now, it makes it far easier for people to send graphics, and it will help a lot of people make and actually release tables, especially those that are graphically impaired.
I will only accept images if the author uploads them, or there is permission by that author. If you zip it up, please make sure the authors name is included, so proper credit can be given in the image. I have added the authors name to each file that I could, and that is policy. (I made the attempt to find the authors name on some images, but couldn't find who did them, so if you know please let me know)
I have made previous attempts at this, but it's never been really successful. I do hope people will finally do this, it's as simple as possible, you don't need a membership, and every image you upload could help someone get closer to making and releasing their own table. We all sit around talking about the lack of new authors, and the lack of new tables, this is one of the biggest reasons why, a lack of proper resources. I have released even my hand drawn playfields and plastics, I'm putting my money where my mouth is, and I am willing to do a lot more if others follow my footsteps.
The New Address
I decided to move the archives to here, so the URL is familiar. It's also far more stable, and if I get a lot of submissions, it's easy to upgrade my account to a paid service, and will be able to have the room to expand with space and bandwidth. Because of the features within the new gallery skin, I'm not as concerned about the bandwidth, but I still ask that people be considerate of others that might want to use it.
Have fun guys. Please note there may be a few minor issues, but I wanted to get it up. It took 16 hours of upload time through ftp, but now that it is up, be easier to update and fix any issues. If you see something, like a problem or a duplicate image, please let me know, so I can fix it for future updates.
UPDATE: Various graphics archives can now be found here:
Support File - shivaARCHIVES graphics, sound and table repository
Shiva is very kindly sharing well over 1300 of his resources at the link provided. You may download by individual resource or by set of files. Note: attached samples are at preview quality. Be sure to use the marked d/l links to receive the...
pinballnirvana.com
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