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screenshots 101

heaveN

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Jun 7, 2017
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Brussels, Belgium
This isn't a guide on how to edit your screen shots with software, this guide is to explain what to put in your screen shots and how to take them correctly. This isn't something everyone needs to follow, but if you're going out of your way to portray your role play, why not do it well? There's a few important tips in this guide and if one person is willing to learn, that's cool.

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1. Posting quality screenshots.

Editing screenshots is easy. You don't have to be a computer guru to do it, if you want to. The popular style is very minimalistic and there's barely any editing put into the screenshots, whereas five years ago people would add borders, strokes, effects, and put them through all kinds of brushes. Now it's very simple. Just an original picture with well-arranged text.

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2. Arrangement of text.

Properly arrange the text which is relevant. Emotes, what the characters say, transactions. This is important and anything else is out of place. You shouldn't have any useless advertisements popping up between your lines, as well as admin messages, private messages, OOC messages in brackets, and so on — such things shouldn't be shown.

Limiting your script messages is relevant to this. Don't have a screen full of twelve green messages saying you handed someone a gun. Or five yellow messages about handing someone drugs. That's stupid, looks clumsy, and fills your picture unnecessarily. Instead, have an emote describing the contents being handed over.

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3. Irrelevant role play in screenshots.

If you post screenshots, make sure it relates to the faction somehow, or to what we try to portray. Post scenarios which showcase our faction appropriately. Don't post stupid things like you going to the car dealership and negotiating a car deal. Or you buying some house and paying for it. Or two guys eating in a fast food place (without relevant dialogue). It serves no purpose.

Same goes for the characters. Be a tweaker who gets his dope from a PENI member and you're well involved in the faction. Be some independent meth cook who has done prison time and it fits. Don't showcase the life of characters which have nothing to do with us — farmers, rednecks, mobsters, taxi drivers, and others. Unless they directly role play with the faction.

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4. Blank screenshots.

Don't post blank screenshots, unless they have a purpose. That purpose can be them showing a scene, having the "cool" factor, or being self-explanatory (not needing words). Otherwise they're useless to view. Don't show a picture of you sitting alone on a couch. Don't show a picture of you standing next to another guy with no text. That's called filler. The majority of our thread shouldn't be filler. It can pop up here and there, everybody posts a picture like that sometimes, but for the most part you should always aim to have dialogue and actions shown in your pictures.

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5. Group pictures and group gatherings.

Circle jerk group gatherings are usually hard to role play in. Don't post pictures of guys aimlessly standing next to each other, or in a circle, unless it shows the group enganging in conversation or another activity. We're not a faction that shows off how much members we have or how much people are online. Unless you pulled thirty guys somehow, it's not a worthy picture to post.

Group pictures (gang flicks) are common for gangs and if you post them, it should be done if they are role played and it's an actual photograph. Don't tell a group of players "let's all go against the wall so I can post this on the forum later". Such pictures need to happen organically.

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6. Solo role play

Pictures of role playing alone should only be posted if they have a purpose. Like your character bagging up meth for his runs, or you cloning some credit cards, or something involved in a previous scenario. Nobody wants to read about a guy arguing with his NPC mother in a block of text or a guy driving around the city alone. That has no purpose.

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7. No metagame-worthy screenshots.

Did you gossip and talk shit about Mike? OK, keep it to yourself then. If you're talking trash about a character who isn't even there, and you post it — it serves no purpose. The only purpose it serves is to incite Mike to metagame that your character doesn't like him.

In that line of thought, don't post anything about a potentially violent scenario until it's over with. Are you going to talk about attacking a rival faction tomorrow and post it on the thread for everyone to know? Don't do it. Keep a lid on things until they end.

Blur or blank out names if you have to. Sometimes even if you hide the names, people can still figure out who you're talking about, so keep that in mind. Remember to hide people's phone numbers in pictures. If there's a corrupt officer working with you — blur his name too.

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8. No detailed explicit/grotesque/sexual content.

Don't post detailed role play of you fucking some girl in the ass. Nobody wants to read that. Intimate scenes should be approached lightly. Let the viewer know you were with a partner, but don't go in details about it. The same can be said about role play involving torture or rape. Nobody cares that you cut off Dave's balls off and shoved them in his mouth, shoved ice picks in his eye sockets, or made him eat his own tongue. Don't showcase such role play in great detail.

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9. No screenshots of senseless killings.

Only post screenshots of murders if they are thoroughly role played from start to end. The build up, the reason, the planning, how it happened, text, emotes. That's showcasing good role play and giving the scenario validity. Don't just post a picture of yourself aiming over another player in death mode. What does that achieve or showcase? Nothing. Don't just post a picture of a guy with red text over his head. If there isn't no real backstory or role play shown, nobody would care.

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10. No "character introduction" screenshots.

Don't post screenshots of your character standing in front of a wall with a bunch of emotes explaining his whole background or persona. Emotes how someone is a resident of the area, goes to school but plans to drop out, lives with his abusive mother, drives a dirtbike, likes going to the swap meet, and so on. It's information nobody needs to know or wants to know. Show such traits in-game through role play. If you want to write an actual story about your character with actual text — feel free to do so instead. Don't follow this stupid "character introduction" screenshot trend.

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11. Don't quote piles of previous screenshots you posted.

Don't clog the thread unnecessarily by quoting your old screenshots as some prologue to your new screenshots. Put them in spoilers instead. If people want to see old screenshots — they would go to old pages or look through your posts. Put build up screenshots in a spoiler if you want to include them. There's no need for people to post the same screenshots multiple times through quotes.

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12. Don't double post.

This is for the faction thread. Double posting is spamming and considered rule breaking. Don't post two times in a row. Instead, wait for someone else to post, then post your next batch of screenshots. That's the proper etiquette. In that line of thought, don't post your screenshots in the bottom of the page, and then quote them on the new page. That's spamming.

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13. Toggle the HUD.

Disable your radio HUD if you're going to post screenshots. Looks out of place if it's on them. Same with the health bar, the map radar, and the money bar. Don't have those on screenshots you post. If you follow proper software guides, they won't be on there. The command to remove the radio HUD is /toghud.

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14. Don't include ENB in your pictures.

It's considered bad taste and looks out of place. Opinion.

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15. Don't use high poly high quality skin mods.

It's considered bad taste again, looking out of place. Opinion.

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16. Have appropriate skin mods.

If you want to use mods, make sure you have appropriate mods to match our vibe. Don't have businessmen or biker skins installed on slots of members you role play with. That kills the vibe for yourself and for the viewers if you post screenshots with a skinhead character looking like a mobster. It's lazy and you should fix it. Skin mods aren't a requirement, you can always play without mods, but if you install any — make sure you install right ones, otherwise it will be a disaster.

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17. Portraying the environment in pictures.

Adequately portray the scene you role play in. If you're in a wealthy or middle-class neighborhood (like Santa Maria), don't portray it as some ghetto. Don't use mods which make the environment look different than it should, such as texture mods, graffiti which wouldn't be there, or snow mods.

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18. Don't take shots at other factions.

If you post pictures, don't take some subliminal jabs towards other factions. Pictures which can be funny or disrespectful towards a faction. Also don't include sly OOC messages or PMs included in the pictures. Like you beating up a guy and including his PM bitchfest in the picture in an attempt to embarrass him.

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19. No videos of mass killings.

No videos of mass-killings should be posted on our thread. That's fast food popcorn role play and it's on the bottom of the chain, as far as quality goes. We're not out there to shoot up a bunch of factions, put a shitty song to it, and brag on the forums. That's not our style.

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20. No fake role play (on movie servers or actual RP server).

Don't go on movie servers to take some fake pictures of what would have happened on a roleplay server. Don't act out premeditated scenes which didn't happen in-game. Most of the time you can tell they're bullshit. The pictures should come from scenes which happened on RCRP.

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21. Look after your grammar.

Everyone makes mistakes now and then, but grammar is important. Your pictures would look bad if you continuously make errors in your speech. Use more basic words if you have to. It makes your text harder to read if there's a typo every few lines.

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22. Be sure what you role play is correct.

If you ever get technical in your role play, you need to be sure you have the correct terms and idea of what you're role playing. If you're cutting your dope with another substance, research the correct one. If you're buying ingredients to cook meth, make sure to pick one that a store might sell in real life. If you're a gun dealer role playing in-depth around weapons, make sure you're aware of the models you're handling. If you're fixing a vehicle's part, make sure you know what you're doing. Examples can be endless. If there's a mistake in your role play, the whole scenario wouldn't be valid and people can rightfully call you out on it.

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23. The quality of the picture file.

Unless you're going for some try-hard blurry distorted picture quality for some reason, you would want your pictures to be crystal clear. If they're low in quality or are blurry around the text, it may be because your software lowers their quality or the image site you upload them to does it. For example, if you upload big pictures to a site like Imgur as an unregistered member, their quality gets decreased. If you save your pictures as JPG instead of PNG on some versions of Windows Paint, their quality gets decreased. You can work around these problems if you want your picture quality to be better.

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24. Make sure your text is readable.

Always make sure your text is readable if you include it. Don't scale down the text of your screenshots too much, to the point where it's too tiny to read. Don't butcher your text's outlines or colors, to the point where you can barely see it. The text is the most important part of the picture.

Credits: Douglas Nyswonger
 
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