Few Smily Questions

[cheat-master30]

Just curious about smilies in a few ways:

1. What type of smilies are best out of the default vBulletin, Invision, phpBB etc sets?

2. Should I replace the default vBulletin smilies at my own forum? I added about 200+ more to the list, but should I overwrite the defaults with something? How about some custom smilies which are more themed towards the site?

3. Any comments on the skills of myself and one member at my site:

Sample of smilies from me:



Sample from said member:



4. Finally, should I release a smily set here? And what style would be a popular one?

[cheat-master30]

Any answers? Oh, and adding more smilies for myself soon, thanks to an unamed free source...

[Shelley_c]

Some people like to keep the default vbulletin stock smilies whilst others choose to replace them for custom made variations. Basically, it's really your choice whether you feel they will fit on your forum. Personally, I would change them for custom smilies, something fitting for your forum.

Your attempt at creating smilies seems prity good from the preview. Did you create those smilies from scratch? in any case, some nice work.


Again, it's your choice whether you want to release your work here. That way, people get to enjoy your creations.

[cheat-master30]

Originally Posted by Shelley_c

Some people like to keep the default vbulletin stock smilies whilst others choose to replace them for custom made variations. Basically, it's really your choice whether you feel they will fit on your forum. Personally, I would change them for custom smilies, something fitting for your forum.

Your attempt at creating smilies seems prity good from the preview. Did you create those smilies from scratch? in any case, some nice work.


Again, it's your choice whether you want to release your work here. That way, people get to enjoy your creations.

Thanks. Just need some ideas whether to switch, because the defaults for most software aren't the nicest designs in the world, and also aren't transparent annoyingly (why don't many make fully transparent images still?) Still, if anyone wants to see the set I made as possible Generic replacements for the defaults, I'll post them.

As for the custom smilies, the ones made by me such as were custom, the second set were by a Lead Moderator, and also custom. If some old ones seem poorly done, it's because I improved as I kept trying to sprite images.

They were designed by the pixel. Literary. They were drawn by scratch by the creators (myself and Nintendan), and sometimes the colours were taken directly from official art by using the colour picker tool.

The reason I am asking though about what style is that I want to know what kinds of smilies have not been released online much. I've seen tons of generic sets, dancing bananas and culture ones, and personally wonder if there are objects people want smilies of that have not been created before.

P.S. Which default sets are better anyway?

P.P.S. Thanks for releasing smilies here, I also downloaded many of them and currently use them as generic smilies.

[Shelley_c]

Well. I think you should switch the vbulletin default stock smilies. They aren't really the type of emoticons that blend in on your board so a switch would be a wise move imo.

Transparency is always a good thing for images when implementing them to a background or any for that matter because you don't have to worry about excess/redundant edging as long as the image is static and it can be saved in that format (.png) but looking back at my history and I have included many emoticons with animation so I can't save to .png and have to resort to .gif which has trouble displaying in some browsers so a matte option for me has always been a good choice to counteract this grievance. In anycase alot of designers choose to opt for anti aliasing and this makes things difficult when saving to full transparency for animated smilies and the save for web/matte options works well and envolves more work when making modifications for people that request.

Anyway, to answer your question. I find the vbulletin smilies better than other boards (except wtcbb because I designed them )because I'm not a fan of pixel orientated emoticons which other board software choose to use as their default.

[cheat-master30]

Thanks. That and what's wtcbb? And thanks, will consider all suggestions.