vrya's policies & FAQ -- BuffyDB & Tangled Synthesis | |
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I'm starting to get quite a large amount of e-mail on a daily basis. In order to cut down on the time I spend corresponding and thus have more time for my creative projects, I'm collecting answers to questions I frequently get here on this page. Please read below for more about my policies, preferably before contacting me. Don't be scared off by the amount of text, I've bolded the most important parts, you only need to read the rest for details. This document covers both of my main web sites: the Buffyverse Dialogue Database (formerly the Buffy Dialogue DB) and Tangled Synthesis.
General1.1 Linking to meYou do not have to ask my permission to link to me;just do it! I have some buttons/banners available (BuffyDB buttons & Tangled Synthesis buttons), or you can use a text link, or make your own. You can link to the main page or to any individual page. Note: linking to http://bdb.vrya.net will work for the BuffyDB and to http://ts.vrya.net will work for Tangled Synthesis, even though when you actually arrive at the site, you'll notice the URL has rearranged itself a bit. 1.2 Contacting meI don't list my e-mail address anywhere on-line because I do not wish to be deluged with spam & viruses. You may however contact me by filling out one of my forms: Buffy DB form or Tangled Synthesis form. Once I reply, you'll have my address. Please *don't* post it anywhere on-line. If you're just writing to tell me something, and would like to save me the time it would take to respond to thank you, just leave out your e-mail address from the form and I'll know you don't expect an answer. If you'd like to send me something, either send me a URL or wait until you have a message from me to reply to with an attachment. 1.3 Getting responsesI try to answer most messages I get, but there are a lot, and sometimes I don't get to it. Apologies if it happens to you! If you have a question, I will try to answer that if I can, but please be patient with me... 1.4 SpoilersWhen contacting me, do not, I repeat, DO NOT spoil me. If an episode has not yet been posted to my site, do not refer to anything that happens in it, or is supposed to happen in it, or that you hope might happen in it. I am usually about a week behind the US airing schedule, I cannot express how very much I do not want to know what happens in an episode before I see it. It completely ruins the fun for me if I'm not surprised. I don't even watch the promos most of the time. 1.5 AffiliationsI'm always very honored when people ask if I'd like to be affiliates. However I have a blanket policy against accepting affiliations. Sorry! You may of course link to me if you'd like. If I use something from your site (images, brushes, etc) I will link to you from the appropriate notes page. 1.6 AwardsAgain, I'm always honored to be nominated for awards. I will however not nominate *myself* at any award site pointed out to me. If someone else nominates me, I'm happy to accept, though if I'm busy, I may have trouble keeping on top of the codes I'm supposed to be displaying, etc. I'm not in this to pick up awards, so dealing with the attendant work is always going to take second place to actually working on content on my sites. 1.7 Requests and "When will you have?" questionsI'm happy to hear requests for projects people are interested in seeing, as long as it's understood that hearing the request does not guarantee I will get around to doing it. Usually what happens is I file the idea away in the back of my head, and weeks or months later I will be inspired and will happen. Attempts to rush me will not speed delivery, and in fact, may tick me off enough to prevent it all together. Ditto goes for "when are you going to post the new Episode" questions. Believe me, I'm doing my best to post as soon as I can! With regards to posting new episodes on the BDB, I can't even get started until somone out on the world wide web posts a complete transcript of the episode to a site like buffyworld.com, so if there's a delay there, there'll be a delay on my site too. See here for details about how much work is involved in adding an episode to the db. 1.8 Format Conversion RequestsSorry,I don't have time to convert video or audio files into different versions per request. You can probably do it yourself just by downloading some software or asking a computer-savy friend to do it for you. Also, I do not have larger versions of any of the pieces shown on Tangled Synthesis, so if your desktop is larger, you'll have to either learn to love the blank space around the edges where you icons can live, or use the "stretch" feature to make the image larger. All of the newer and better collages from BuffyDB have 800x600 versions posted here; others not posted there are available on request, but check this page first. 1.9 CorrectionsThe BuffyDb in particular is rife with mistakes, and I'm always happy to correct obvious ones if you'll point them out. However *please* be 100% sure of yourself before you contact me. Have someone else double check you, listen to the dialogue on your copy several times and if it's a DVD, check the captioning. I can't count the times someone has contacted me about a possible mistake, and I've spent a good chunk of time locating the appropriate tape, fast-forwarding to just the right moment and listening to the portion only to find that the correction was not needed. Don't do this to me, it makes me cranky. 1.10 "your site needs more pictures" or "fanfic" or "spoilers" or "news", etc.On more than a few occassions, I've had people write me, mostly with regards to the BuffyDB, that I should have a picture gallery or other sections that one finds on typical Buffy websites. The Buffy Dialogue Db has a rather limited, but work-intensive mission: to collect dialogue. Anything else is icing on cake, and I see no reason to compete with the myriad other Buffy niche sites doing a far better job than I could hope to do at fulfilling demand for whatever your fandom niche needs are. If, however, you're a BuffyDB visitor looking for more images or other multimedia, please head over to to my multimedia site, where you will find, yes, you guessed it, multimedia. 1.11 DowntimeOccassionally, there will be server downtime. I pay for hosting, but I don't pay a *lot* for hosting, so unless you'd like to fund a high-profile-corporate-caliber web hosting account for me, please do not contact me to grumble about server glitches, site inavailability, etc Most of the time, there's nothing I can do except bitch at tech support. This is a hobby site, it's really not the end of the world if it's down for a few hours. Just try again later. If however you think there is a programming error I may not be aware of, please do let me know so I can fix it! 1.12 the file marked "duh"Buffy, Spike, Willow, etc are not real people, they are characters on a television show. You cannot contact them by sending them a message on my form. You cannot contact them by sending a message on *any* website, since they don't exist. Also, you cannot contact Sarah Michelle Gellar, James Marsters, Joss Whedon, etc from this site, as I am completely unofficial, and have no contact whatsoever with the makers of the show. I do not know what will happen next on the show, or when DVDs will be available in your area, or what time it's on in your city, or have any contacts that will help you get on TV. Also, while I'm gratified to hear that you are the "biggest fan ever" or that "so-and-so is hot", you don't have to write soley to keep me up to date on that front. Thanks though. Using My Stuff2.1 Things that are okay by me
2.2 Things that will tick me off
Graphics3.1 What program do you use?I use Photoshop 5.0 (there are newer versions out, but they're expensive, so I'm sticking with 5.0 for now). If you don't have $600 to drop on Photoshop, I have seen a lot of great work made with such programs as Paint Shop Pro, Ulead & Photoshop Elements. 3.2 How long have you been playing with graphics?I started dabbling here and there around 1996, but I didn't really start practicing on a nearly daily basis and trying to seriously improve my skills until summer 2001. Since then, I think I've made a fair bit of progress, though I of course have a long way to go! You can see my work evolve by loading this chronological listing. 3.3 How did you do X?I always try to note new things I'm trying out in the notes attached to each image at Tangled Synthesis. If you've only seen my work via the BuffyDB, head over there for more information. I also have a tutorial page wherein I try to share as much as I can of my techniques. 3.4 Where do you get your screen caps?I make my own. It's really the best way to get just what you're looking for. See here for more details... If you don't have the software/equipment to capture or access to mpegs/avis, there are always several fine sites that can provide you with a nice selection of caps. They come and go, but here are links to my current favorites:
Some of my favorite sites for publicity/magazine images are: For brushes, try: As you progress, you may also find a need for stock pics to fill in texture and design interest. My favorite sources for stock pics are: 3.5 How can I get good?First, devote large chunks of time to figuring out every detail of how your image editing program works. Read the help files, follow on-line tutorials, and most importantly, screw around and see what you can come up with. Then, seek out digital art on the net. Do more than say: oooh, pretty! figure out what it is about each you like. What makes it so cool? What characteristics does it have? How do those individual characteristics contribute to the overall impression the piece makes? How would you do that same thing yourself? Study other peoples' work, and think carefully about your own. Don't just crank out 20 minute pieces, really linger over everything you make, considering the alternatives, moving things around, trying different colors and textures, and contrasts. Figure out what you like, and what you're good at, and build from there. Practice, practice, practice. 3.6 How long does it take you to make a collage?Of course this depends on the complexity of the piece, but typically, 1-4 hours each, with most coming in at around 2 hours. And of course if I'm making my own caps, you have to factor in an additional couple of hours to browse through the episode looking for the exact right frame to use... 3.6 Can I buy?The collages I create are not of high enough resolution to make it worth making prints, even if I were crazy enough to risk Fox catching on to me for trying to make money off their intellectual property, so no, this is *not* a commercial web site and you cannot buy any of the images that you see here. However, if there are images that you own the copyright too that you would like to have me work with, I would consider working something out on an hourly-fee basis. Never done it before, but it might be fun, and of course, who couldn't use extra cash? Other Multimedia4.1 Where do you get your sound clips?Like screencaps, the best way is to make your own. If you already have video files of the episodes, you can extract the audio using a video editing program (this is what I do), but you can also do it very low-tech by just hooking your VCR up to your computer's sound card. You'll need to stop by radio shack for a 1/8" phone plug/ phono (RCA) plug cable, list price 4$. Plug the RCA end into your vcr's audio out, the other end into your soundcard's input or mic jack. Find a program that records audio from the mic (soundrecorder, for example). Set your soundcard's input to the appropriate option, push play on the VCR and record on the sound recording program and you're in business. 4.2 How do you mix the sound clips together?I currently use a program called Techno E-jay 2 (free demo here) to create my mixes. I got mine by buying a spindle of 25 Imation CDRs running the RIP reward point promotions, after which I was given the option of purchasing E-jay for a mere $6. (I've also been meaning to give Acid Xpress a try, as it's free and made by the same people who made my video editor (see below). I haven't gotten around to it yet, but you might want to...) E-jay comes with little snippets of music called samples, and then provides you with 16 tracks on which to arrange the music samples and the snippets of dialogue (in wav format, see above). I'm rather uncomfortably on the tone-deaf side of the musical-talent spectrum, so I really have no idea what I'm doing, I just stick things in and hope for the best... 4.3 How do I capture video and still images of my own?The most important thing you need to capture from VHS or live from the cable/airwaves is a tuner/capture card (mounted internally in your computer) or a break-out box, which intermediates between your VCR and your computer. Best Buy/Circuit City/etc can hook you up with that. Last time I checked, prices ranged between $100-$250. Once you have video files captured to your harddrive using the above equipment (or borrowed from someone who *does* have that), you can use a program like VirtualDub (most video editing software will work) to actually extract the screen shot. If you have a DVD drive installed on your computer, and you want to capture from DVDs, you don't need any of the stuff mentioned above, all you need is a piece of software to allow you to make the captures. I've heard good things about PowerDVD, though I haven't tried myself as I don't have a DVD drive. 4.4 How do you make your music vidoes?I use a program called Video Factory, which as near as I can tell does just about everything that Adobe Premier (the program most of the best vidders use) but at a fraction of the cost ($70). They do make you jump through a few hoops RE: plugins, which is a little annoying, but the program itself is stable and userfriendly and a pleasure to work with. Beginners may want to play with Windows Media Maker, which comes preinstalled on all Windows machines from ME and up before deciding whether or not to invest in dedicated software. As for getting the video to play with, the easiest way is to have a capture set up (as described above) and a big pile of VHSes. You may also be able to download episodes from the internet, depending on your filesharing savy. (Just a warning in this regard: there was a recent big emotional flareup in the on-line vidding community caused by people poaching footage from other peoples' vids to use in their own. Serious vidders *hate* this, don't upset the people whose work you respect by doing it yourself!) Misc5.1 What are the pictures on the left of this page from?They're from the now defunct Nickelodeon show Invader Zim about a maniacal little alien trying to take over the earth. I wanted to use something non-Buffy to decorate this page with, and I had these caps on hand, so I thought I'd used them. 5.2 vyra?No, it's vRya, r before y. like vria. But with a "y" instead of an "i" because I'm shallow and I think y's are cooler than i's. You get to do that swoopy thing. You know... that fun swoopy y thing where you curl the tail all over the place? um, that may just be me. esp. since I never *write* it anywhere, it's strictly a screen name. Because V 5.3 how much work is it to add an episode to the BuffyDB?Kinda a lot, actually, and I don't even type up most of the transcripts (if I did, that would be an extra couple-three hours). Generally takes me an hour or two to read through a transcript and reformat it to fit with my site, split up the scenes, make up titles, etc. Then another 1/2 an hour or so to actually insert it in the database, and an additional 1/2 hour to add all the extra information (episode info, plot summaries, akeaes, arcs). And that's not even counting the time for making the collages (1-3 hours, plus screen capture time, 1-2 hours). When you look at it that way, it's really amazing I've done as much as I have.... fortunately, that's work strung out over 2+ years, so it's not quite as crazy as it sounds. 5.4 What is hotlinking, and why do people get so cranky about it?Hotlinking is when you use an img tag or similar tag to embed a picture or video or sound file that is hosted on someone else's website to make that object show up on your own site, or on a bulletin board as part of your own post. Most often it is done with images, by making the src of the img tag the URL to someone else's image. Hotlinking is a practice universally and correctly considered completely inappropriate behaviour. People who pay for hosting get a certain amount of bandwidth every month. Every time someone loads a file from their website, part of that bandwidth is used up. People really don't like having their bandwidth being used up by *other* peoples' sites, because basically that person is getting the benefit of having a file displayed on their site without paying the price for the hosting. Put simply, most people consider it theft. Even those who don't find it morally wrong don't want to see their website go over-quota (and thus get shut down for the rest of the month) just because someone else decided to hotlink files from their site on a very popular page that will be loaded and reloaded every few minutes (ie a bulletin board, live-journal, etc) Don't do it. Proper etiquette is to post a *link* to the file. 5.5 What happens now that Buffy is over?After this season -- Buffy's last -- ends on May 20th, 2003, it will be business as usual on my sites. I intend to keep them up for as long as there is interest in visiting them and I have the $ to fund the hosting. Of course I won't have any new Buffy episodes to add to the BuffyDB, but I have a few biggish projects lined up for it nonetheless. Namely, I intend to try to get all the dialogue for AtS in as soon as possible. I was originally shooting for the beginning of the new season, but with new job, new class and computer problems all falling into my lap at the same time, I think that's going to be bumped back to "by the end of 2003". I also intend to continue making Buffy art for Tangled Synthesis. It'll depend how inspiration strikes, but I don't see it stopping completely. So don't worry, I'll be around... 5.6 Who played [obscure guest character] on that one episode way back when?Fortunately for me, there's another site keeping on top of things like this (for Buffy, for other tv shows, and for movies too!) It's called the Internet Movie Database and it's fabulous, if you haven't heard of it before, add it to your bookmarks now. The BtVS Guest Appearances list can be found here and >AtS Guest Appearances are here 5.7 What is that song that plays in the background [name the scene]?I don't keep track, but there happens to be a bang up site that has your answer. Just step on over to The Buffy and Angel Music Pages and prepare to be delighted... Dec 2003: sadly, it seems buffymusic.net is no more. Try here for a list of Buffy music and here for a list of Angel music instead. 5.8 If I wanted to make a database-driven site like yours, how would I go about it?First you need a host that supports PHP/MySQL. If yours doesn't I will shamelessly recommend Powweb, which is my host, because if you sign up through this link, I get a credit to my account, and believe you me, that would be really cool for me ;-) Plus it's a good deal, I'm the queen of cheap, so you have it on good authority (Get 650 MBS of space, 45 G monthly transfer, lots of e-mail, PHP/MySQL, 30 day trail, etc for $7.77/mo. Add domain registration costs, that's still only around $9/mo.) Once you have an account capable of supporting PHP and a database, you need to learn how to actually program in PHP, for which I recommend the fabulously helpful and frequently amusing WebMonkey Site. 5.9 How can I make a form that mails me information?I use PHP for mine, but if your host doesn't support that, you can do more or less the same thing with a simple mailto form. Here's a nice example I found via google: Simple Mailto HTML Form by Artistingold
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