Modulous: A new Smash modding website (Looking for early adopters)

[EIREXE]

Just curious, what happens with names that are typed incorrectly? I mean like, you can have someone use Edel and then Scout etc

I don't really know what you mean, but for the additional authors system to work your partner needs to make it's profile public and accept an invitation.

 

[EIREXE]

Interesting....

I have a small question B4 I join. Does the website host its own images for the hacks? Or uses imgur and other providers like KC-MM does?

Im a BV moderator, and let me say, these other providers for images seems rather risky, as they can change policies in seconds and purge all images like it happened with one of these already.

Modulous hosts all.

 

[MagicManNo9]

I don't really know what you mean, but for the additional authors system to work your partner needs to make it's profile public and accept an invitation.

Bad example sorry, I meant like, I'll use myself as an example, so those who aren't registered you can add in correct? I meant if someone added "Codex9" or "Codex 9" or "Codex_9" tis what I mean haha, sorry for the confusion.

 

[EIREXE]

Bad example sorry, I meant like, I'll use myself as an example, so those who aren't registered you can add in correct? I meant if someone added "Codex9" or "Codex 9" or "Codex_9" tis what I mean haha, sorry for the confusion.

Well I mean, adding another author means allowing them access to the mod, for which they need to be registered.

If you want to to credit an external author then you can do so in the description.

 

[Miacis]

You have my deepest sympathy.

I do wonder how you are going to handle the grey legality of all those files you're hosting on-site, though. Pretty sure most hosts aren't too fond of dem copyright infringements these days, which is why we've always tried to keep everything off-site on KCMM.
I dunno, maybe you have way more ressources and support than we do.

Guidelines could also use some clarifying.
I know there was a great opportunity to make fun of sonic retextures, but that doesn't exactly say where the line is between "basic quality standards" and unacceptable ones. Would a Sonic color pack get excluded simply because it's just a retexture? Where's the line, and who exactly draws it?
What's a "stolen file"? Do you mean mods you don't have the right to distribute? Sounds redundant with guideline #2.
What's an "illegal file"? Edited pieces of a copyrighted ISO are kinda illegal. Would the whole ISO be the illegal thing?


As for other nitpicks, there's a typo on the upload page:
Tags (Sepearated by spaces and using _ instead of spaces)
And most SSBB/P:M mods are essentially interchangeable. You might want to add an option to have both games at once.

I wanted to see what features there are see if there's a convenient way to report issues or ask for modertion, but seems none of the uploads work so far.

Hopefully that doesn't come off as too negative a post. I mean, there's some pretty neat ideas in there, and I admire your ambition and initiative. As someone who's been in the business for eight years or so with KCMM, I wish you good luck. It's not an easy job.

 

[drogoth232]

Not gonna mention design stuff because it's already been mentioned.

Brawl Vault, and by extension KCMM, has been around since the very beginning of Brawl Modding. Pretty sure the number of hacks is in the Millions, if not higher. Yeah, there's a bunch of outdated mods (no one uses the DasDonkey method or hex editing to make vertex edits and whatnot anymore), but there's a charm to them that isn't present in modern day vertexes (and also imports). Chances are, those old (and some that are really awesome) won't get seen or recognized because they're too old and just not as popular as they once were in comparison to "Cloud Strife v100000" or "Nude ZSS v 9001".

Anyways, to the site itself. The layout is nice, but a lot of it seems like you just chose purple because "lol PM" and the rest seems as if it were a default template (but what the hell do I know, I haven't made a website in freaking years). I can't comment much on the aesthetic/layout until there's more of a population.

Now I want to talk about the whole feedback system which you have in place (which honestly, I have no clue how it would work).

I'm assuming, feedback will be done on the page of the mod/hack itself. If this is the case, then I recommend scrapping it. Chances are, it's going to be cluttered with the requests and recommendations of newer members such as "make X character" or (in the odd case that it's only for Brawl) "make a PM version of this". In my opinion, that's probably the worst system I could think of.

Then there's the whole thing that only registered users are able to be credited in the Additional Authors section. And if they don't have an account they can get put in the description. Chances are that the unregistered users will have no recognition just because they're in the description. I'd highly recommend doing something similar to what BV does and put a credit section which can include anyone.

 

[EIREXE]

You have my deepest sympathy.

I do wonder how you are going to handle the grey legality of all those files you're hosting on-site, though. Pretty sure most hosts aren't too fond of dem copyright infringements these days, which is why we've always tried to keep everything off-site on KCMM.
I dunno, maybe you have way more ressources and support than we do.

Guidelines could also use some clarifying.
I know there was a great opportunity to make fun of sonic retextures, but that doesn't exactly say where the line is between "basic quality standards" and unacceptable ones. Would a Sonic color pack get excluded simply because it's just a retexture? Where's the line, and who exactly draws it?
What's a "stolen file"? Do you mean mods you don't have the right to distribute? Sounds redundant with guideline #2.
What's an "illegal file"? Edited pieces of a copyrighted ISO are kinda illegal. Would the whole ISO be the illegal thing?


As for other nitpicks, there's a typo on the upload page:
Tags (Sepearated by spaces and using _ instead of spaces)
And most SSBB/P:M mods are essentially interchangeable. You might want to add an option to have both games at once.

I wanted to see what features there are see if there's a convenient way to report issues or ask for modertion, but seems none of the uploads work so far.

Hopefully that doesn't come off as too negative a post. I mean, there's some pretty neat ideas in there, and I admire your ambition and initiative. As someone who's been in the business for eight years or so with KCMM, I wish you good luck. It's not an easy job.

The big problem with a lot of sites is that they try to have laws instead of rules, the fact that you agree to use my website, means it's a privilege and I'm not bound to specify any rules, this might sound harsh, but the best way to moderate a website is based on common sense, not dumb rules, the only real rule is common sense, it's obvious when a mod is just mediocre, and when it's bad quality, the line is drawn by moderators and I have a final word on it.

If you want to contact a moderator, there's a link on the footer that says contact, that will send an email to me and I might answer it myself or send it to the proper moderator.

 

[EIREXE]

Not gonna mention design stuff because it's already been mentioned.

Brawl Vault, and by extension KCMM, has been around since the very beginning of Brawl Modding. Pretty sure the number of hacks is in the Millions, if not higher. Yeah, there's a bunch of outdated mods (no one uses the DasDonkey method or hex editing to make vertex edits and whatnot anymore), but there's a charm to them that isn't present in modern day vertexes (and also imports). Chances are, those old (and some that are really awesome) won't get seen or recognized because they're too old and just not as popular as they once were in comparison to "Cloud Strife v100000" or "Nude ZSS v 9001".

Anyways, to the site itself. The layout is nice, but a lot of it seems like you just chose purple because "lol PM" and the rest seems as if it were a default template (but what the hell do I know, I haven't made a website in freaking years). I can't comment much on the aesthetic/layout until there's more of a population.

Now I want to talk about the whole feedback system which you have in place (which honestly, I have no clue how it would work).

I'm assuming, feedback will be done on the page of the mod/hack itself. If this is the case, then I recommend scrapping it. Chances are, it's going to be cluttered with the requests and recommendations of newer members such as "make X character" or (in the odd case that it's only for Brawl) "make a PM version of this". In my opinion, that's probably the worst system I could think of.

Then there's the whole thing that only registered users are able to be credited in the Additional Authors section. And if they don't have an account they can get put in the description. Chances are that the unregistered users will have no recognition just because they're in the description. I'd highly recommend doing something similar to what BV does and put a credit section which can include anyone.

It's purple because I like purple, not because of PM.

Also, for the additional authors, that's meant for when two people work together, NOT when someone uses someone else's work with permission.

 

[drogoth232]

Also, for the additional authors, that's meant for when two people work together, NOT when someone uses someone else's work with permission.

In the case that I decide to upload the Chrom that I worked with Kaze on, I won't be able to have him under additional authors because chances are he might not register there. So I get all the credit (even though all I did was basic model fixing plus a bit of rigging) while Kaze gets little to no credit even though he did the heavy lifting.

means it's a privilege and I'm not bound to specify any rules

So it's a dictatorship?

 

[EIREXE]

In the case that I decide to upload the Chrom that I worked with Kaze on, I won't be able to have him under additional authors because chances are he might not register there. So I get all the credit (even though all I did was basic model fixing plus a bit of rigging) while Kaze gets little to no credit even though he did the heavy lifting.



So it's a dictatorship?

It's not a dictatorship because it's not a nation.

If you are a ****, you are going to be banned.

Democracy does NOT WORK online, but this is more of an "absolute leadership" than a dictatorship.

For the working with friends thing, it's so fast to register I don't see why your partner can't do it.

 

[Miacis]

I suggested clarifications because common sense is surprisingly relative. I've met my fair share of people who had poor opinions of their mods that most people would find a-okay, and even more people who truly don't realize they are producing mediocre content. Especially eager beginners.

Rules may be a hassle to define, but at least they give some limits that your users will be certain to understand properly. Most the rules we added weren't for the sake of voting laws, but because one day, a user would come up with some exceptional case and we'd need to decide what to do with it. Adding a rule means every next user with that special case will know where to stand. Like an Instruction manual.
I dunno, maybe it's because I have a much more community-oriented mind and our KCMM democracy-like seems to have worked so far, but I can imagine some people being pretty pissed to see their mods deleted without warning for reasons they don't understand or couldn't foresee.

Plus, common sense doesn't help any for the whole legal shebang. What most people would answer if I asked "all Smash mods legal?" is "only if you don't make money off of it." which is so incredibly wrong and missing the point of copyrights it's almost funny.

This is all just my advice based on personal experience though. Essentially don't overestimate your audience.

 

[Nezha the Scout]

The big problem with a lot of sites is that they try to have laws instead of rules, the fact that you agree to use my website, means it's a privilege and I'm not bound to specify any rules, this might sound harsh, but the best way to moderate a website is based on common sense, not dumb rules, the only real rule is common sense, it's obvious when a mod is just mediocre, and when it's bad quality, the line is drawn by moderators and I have a final word on it.

If you are gonna be like that, its best for you to disable the option of people uploading mods then.
1) You upload them and share them.
2) So they dont be wasting their time on uploading and waiting on your opinions if its good or not.

Common sense/no rules gives you the liberty to upload anything, but the moderator decision conflicts with this.

But just in case you might say:
"But if your mod is there, that means it has prestige since there are no ****ty mods there."

In which case I'll reply:
"I don't wanna be on a throne."

Thanks, but no thanks. I was really looking forwards to upload and share my things there, but being approved while others are not because they suck? Not my thing. We all start ****ty, even the great PM members. No one is perfect.

For the working with friends thing, it's so fast to register I don't see why your partner can't do it.

If I don't register, that means:
My stuff won't be available on your website, that means the smash 3 stuff won't be at your website.

Smash 3 is a big group, and some of us barely contact each other anymore.

Funny how chain reaction works.


Edit: yeah, yeah, I deleted some things I said, Im not here to make enemies.

 

[EIREXE]

If you are gonna be like that, its best for you to disable the option of people uploading mods then.
1) You upload them and share them.
2) So they dont be wasting their time on uploading and waiting on your opinions if its good or not.
But just in case you might say:
"But if your mod is there, that means it has prestige since there are no ****ty mods there."

In which case I'll reply:
"I don't wanna be on a throne."

Thanks, but no thanks. I was really looking forwards to upload and share my things there, but being approved while others are not because they suck? Not my thing. We all start ****ty, even the great PM members, no one is perfect.



If I don't register, that means:
My stuff won't be available on your website, that means the smash 3 stuff won't be at your website.

Smash 3 is a big group, and some of us barely contact each other anymore.

Funny how chain reaction works.

Alright then, I'm going to work out some rules and move them to production tomorrow.

I apologoise for my mistake, I now see where I was wrong.

 

[MagicManNo9]

In that case shouldn't the site be more of a showcase site of specific mods that you choose at this point if people are going to decide what's good or bad?

Yes, there's tones of bad mods out there, but that goes without saying with every modding community, simple because that's where we start.Hell, there's tones of good and bad mods for Skyrim out there but that site, a site for modding is there for the modding community to gather, new modders to experienced ones, people who want to get involved at the end of the day.

I started off terrible, if I posted my SNES Golf Mario wayy back in the day and the vault decides takes it down because it's not good or up to someone's standard who I'll probably never meet in my entire life, then I would have been put off ever wanting to mod in smash at all.

Hell I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for people's thoughts and criticism, which is also a thing I want point about about web dev, no matter how young you are, it's vital to take and learn from it, specially in the design element, though I'm starting to get off track here...

Anyway, I now I have a version 4 with a lot of fixes and improvements, still trying to get better and CSP despite what the positive feedback I get, but that's because because people gave me an opportunity to improve and help me get better, if you're pushing modders away from that chance to even post their mod because it looks bad, then there's going to be hardly anyone around, and hell, there isn't many modders in Smash these days and that's hard to watch as it is.

All modders start off bad, even the most amazing ones could tell you that and it takes a lot of time to get better and better, I won't make anymore claims at this point as I'll leave everyone be in this thread and such.

My point is, you might as well say this is a showcase site at the end of the day based on this entire back and forth argument I'm reading from everyone else's replies.

 

[Nezha the Scout]

[snip]

No thats a nice way to do it, you get the quality control you need, without making yourselves look bad.

 

[Luis Alonso]

So will the website be update to make distinctions between each of the smash games, as well as mods vs. brstms, etc. etc? Also, could you put a space between Project and M? That ProjectM thing is killing my slight OCD.

 

[EIREXE]

I would like to announce an upvote-downvote system is going to be available soon, this affects the visbility of your mod and it's rank in searches.

Also I would like to say I'm still trying to sort out bugs with the mod packs and I'm going to be working on a better solution for BRSTM

 

[L-a-t-e-r-a-l-u-s]

All registered up. I'll be utilizing this website.

 

[AuroraM]

A new feature has now been uploaded to the server, you can now credit authors from OUTSIDE the site, this was a very requested feature and we have now enabled it.

 

[EIREXE]

I just made a post about the Mod Manager, let me know what you think http://modulous.net/blog/3

 

[GravityZ]

Well, I'm excited for your site! I wish you good luck with it! ^^

 

[EIREXE]

Mod Manager demo video, the thing is still in the works, so expect a release soon.

 

[EIREXE]

I made a new video showing the automated mod installation from the website

 

[EIREXE]

The manager is now out:

http://modulous.net/mod_manager

 

[L-a-t-e-r-a-l-u-s]

I watched both of those videos, but I don't quite understand what's automated about the actual installation of the mods. Does it set up a folder that's used like the SD card so you don't need to create an sd.raw every time you want to work with a mod?

 

[EIREXE]

I watched both of those videos, but I don't quite understand what's automated about the actual installation of the mods. Does it set up a folder that's used like the SD card so you don't need to create an sd.raw every time you want to work with a mod?

Dolphin SD.raw support is coming soon, at the moment, the software allows you to automagically install BrawlEX characters copy and overwrite files, and hex edit htem during installation.

 

[L-a-t-e-r-a-l-u-s]

Dolphin SD.raw support is coming soon, at the moment, the software allows you to automagically install BrawlEX characters copy and overwrite files, and hex edit htem during installation.

All I'm seeking right now is a more convenient method of mod installation that doesn't involve creating an sd.raw file. I'd much rather have a folder that acts as an SD card with the appropriate folders and such, so I could just drag and drop modified files instead of making an SD.raw file every time I want to test something. Is that a feature of your application in any way shape or form?

 

[EIREXE]

All I'm seeking right now is a more convenient method of mod installation that doesn't involve creating an sd.raw file. I'd much rather have a folder that acts as an SD card with the appropriate folders and such, so I could just drag and drop modified files instead of making an SD.raw file every time I want to test something. Is that a feature of your application in any way shape or form?

The idea in the future is that the program keeps a folder that acts as an SD card and modifies the SD.raw file on the fly.

 

[hotdogturtle]

Is the only preview picture for each mod the one that's in the "header" on the download page? As someone who was mostly involved with stage modding, I can say that 1 picture was often not enough to show the whole stage or every detail (and based on BrawlVault experience, most people suck at taking descriptive screenshots to begin with). And the fact that it's only a header means that you can't even see the whole picture on the page.

 

[EIREXE]

Is the only preview picture for each mod the one that's in the "header" on the download page? As someone who was mostly involved with stage modding, I can say that 1 picture was often not enough to show the whole stage or every detail (and based on BrawlVault experience, most people suck at taking descriptive screenshots to begin with). And the fact that it's only a header means that you can't even see the whole picture on the page.

You can embed pictures in the description, you will need to host them yourself.

 

[Inawordyes]

I looked to see if this had been asked and answered already and didn't find anything, so I figure I'd post here. How exactly do you set up a folder to be a surrogate SD for Modulous purposes? I ask because when I select my folder, it comes up that it needs a valid Gecko Brawl or Project M installation to use. Obviously I've tested it with PM and it works, but I don't know how to make it work with Brawl because I don't know what it's missing exactly (or rather, what's required to be in the folder) I've added Gecko to the folder and it still doesn't seem to recognize it, so I thought I'd ask!

 

[EIREXE]

I looked to see if this had been asked and answered already and didn't find anything, so I figure I'd post here. How exactly do you set up a folder to be a surrogate SD for Modulous purposes? I ask because when I select my folder, it comes up that it needs a valid Gecko Brawl or Project M installation to use. Obviously I've tested it with PM and it works, but I don't know how to make it work with Brawl because I don't know what it's missing exactly (or rather, what's required to be in the folder) I've added Gecko to the folder and it still doesn't seem to recognize it, so I thought I'd ask!

You need to create the private/wii/app/RSBE/pf folder structure just like in any gecko brawl SD, did you do it?.

 

[Inawordyes]

You need to create the private/wii/app/RSBE/pf folder structure just like in any gecko brawl SD, did you do it?.

I did, i followed the instructions that I saw from the GitHub branch issue thread back-and-forth (wow, that's a mouthful), but it didn't work.

...Except I somehow missed the pf sub-folder, which left everything in the RSBE instead. Okay, now it works!

Other than the fact that it refuses to save the Dolphin directory when I go to it, and doesn't seem to want to load from ZIPs and gives me an unhandled exception prompt when I try to download through the site. I've re-downloaded it three times but it doesn't seem to want to work in that regard. But at least I got the Gecko Brawl installation part running, haha.

 

[EIREXE]

I did, i followed the instructions that I saw from the GitHub branch issue thread back-and-forth (wow, that's a mouthful), but it didn't work.

...Except I somehow missed the pf sub-folder, which left everything in the RSBE instead. Okay, now it works!

Other than the fact that it refuses to save the Dolphin directory when I go to it, and doesn't seem to want to load from ZIPs and gives me an unhandled exception prompt when I try to download through the site. I've re-downloaded it three times but it doesn't seem to want to work in that regard. But at least I got the Gecko Brawl installation part running, haha.

Of course it won't install any zip now because zips need to be prepared to work with the mod manager in a very specific way, but there are no mods available for it yet, once there are mods available the list is going to fill up and then the download button will work.

 

[EIREXE]

We twitter now https://twitter.com/ModulousSmash

 

[EIREXE]

You can now report any issues with the site in the issue tracker:

https://github.com/ModulousSmash/Modulous/issues

 

[ConDeeCas]

Whenever I open the site all I get is a 502 Bad Gateway error.

 

[EIREXE]

Whenever I open the site all I get is a 502 Bad Gateway error.

forgot to bring it up after fixing a thing, should work now

 

[TheDarkMysteryMan]

forgot to bring it up after fixing a thing, should work now

Okay for some future uses. What is the ideal image preview size for the mods?

I'm talking about the image that is displayed before clicking it. Any ratios i should know so it wont duplicate to the size?

 

[EIREXE]

Okay for some future uses. What is the ideal image preview size for the mods?

I'm talking about the image that is displayed before clicking it. Any ratios i should know so it wont duplicate to the size?

The image that appears before clicking is the same as in the header of the mod page, the ideal size is as big as you want, the bigger res the better.