What about a texture exchange server?

[belford]

I'm just as happy to skip "texture packs" entirely. It's reasonable to ask people to download big files one at a time.

We are, to be practical, going to have to pay attention to minimizing bandwidth. My point is we want to do that by keeping out robots, not strangers. Strangers who want to use our art are friends, not enemies. Because, even if strangers outnumber forum regulars five to one, they still won't use a tenth the bandwidth that unrestrained robots and hotlinkers will.

Doesn't a login system already inhbit hotlinking quite effectively?

Yes, but do you really want to require someone to log in to *browse* the site? (Remember, hotlinking will be to the thumb-sized or palm-sized images on the index pages. Nobody hotlinks a fifty-megabyte hi-res texture as a forum avatar.)

If you put the index pages and galleries behind a login wall, the site is effectively opaque to visitors. Nobody registers for a web site that presents nothing but a "please register" front page.

[Trylon]

Yes, but do you really want to require someone to log in to *browse* the site? (Remember, hotlinking will be to the thumb-sized or palm-sized images on the index pages. Nobody hotlinks a fifty-megabyte hi-res texture as a forum avatar.)

I always log in to read this forum - it's no biggie, especially with autologin cookies.

If you put the index pages and galleries behind a login wall, the site is effectively opaque to visitors. Nobody registers for a web site that presents nothing but a "please register" front page.

Your point being ....?

It's primarily intended to be a place where we can share our textures, (without expressly limiting it to us or uru, ofcourse), so those who want to use it, will know of it through here or parallel places and register if they see fit.
Ofcourse, a few teasers on the front page could work too - or something like a limited random catalog for people who aren't logged in...

[Dachannien]

Trylon's got a good point there. People who are specifically interested in Age building will know what's behind the login wall already (at least in a general sense). We don't really need a bunch of people leeching textures when they have no intention of contributing to MORE, so a little obfuscation isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[belford]

My point being, any site restriction that doesn't solve a *real* problem -- or that solves it badly -- is one more reason for people to call us "elitist" and "selfish".

Server bandwidth is a real problem, but I am not convinced that there's a big gap between *all humans* who visit a site (excluding robots) and *all registered humans* (people who sign up for a free account).

What if we set it up with minimal restrictions first, and then added more limitations if these "leeches" appear?

[Trylon]

Belford:
I get your point, but I don't think that requiring a free registration will be reason to call us "selfish" or "elitist" - anyone can download them, as long as they tell us a little of who they are...
I think that that is only reasonable.

But I agree that we should see when leeches will be becoming an issue, before acting too hard on it.

[Lontahv]

Another reason to have a "register" page is so that we can:

1)see how many people are using the texture server
2) see how much each person uses (and warn them if their 10gig downloads are going to make the server-quota run out)
3) you can contact them if they start a hackin'
4) give anyone who uses the textures a chance to upload their own

We are less elitist than the normal guild, there is no reason to think that. Think about it, all or most of the other guilds have a MembersOnly area where joining the forum isn't enough to join the guild.

If we're going to have texture-site-lurkers, don't you want them to have names not just IPs?

[Dachannien]

By the time it's discovered that leechers have become a problem, the money is already spent. (Or, it is too late for the pebbles to vote, or something like that. ) I'm happy to contribute financially to a texture server, but I'd somewhat less happy if my contribution got eaten up by some jerk who downloads the entire collection with no intention of making an Age out of it.

As for elitism, well, there is a threshold for entry, at least as I see it, and that's that a person's interest in the textures is related to an interest in MORE. I'm not saying that every single person who downloads a texture has to come up with an Age later, but I do think that the people accessing the site should be doing so because they like the Myst games, they're interested in the Uru concept, and they're interested in at least learning about what goes into making an Age. Besides, if people want their textures available to the public for general use, they can upload their texture to CGTextures or wherever in addition to this texture site.

[Lontahv]

Dachannien hit my nail right on the head.

[Trylon]

So, what's the current status on the TEX server?

[Sudre]

The idea of a texture server sounds great. The cost sounds like the difficulty. Has anyone thought of, or is it even possible, to do them in P2P way. Many an MP3 has been downloaded in the past using this kinda database and no main server was needed to store all the stuff. Sure it may leave out many features that are needed but it'd be practicaly free, except for the time to create the software. My computer is always on and I am sure a few others too. Several of us could have the textures which would decrease the need for a single person needing a huge bandwidth.
A forum style system could be setup to explain the textures and give smaller sample pictures.

just an idea.