Player Photo Import Support Idea

[Garlon]

Wouldn't it be cool if there was an option for importing player photos from a customized photo database. For example, when you import a season or rookies OOTP asks you for the stats/lahman database that you use...what if it then followed this up by asking you for a photo database? The database with the photos could be made to have the same file names as the player ids from lahman. Babe Ruth for instance in lahman is ruthba01, the modders who make face packs and such could set the Babe Ruth photo in their facepack folder to ruthba01.bmp. So as OOTP grabs the lahman id to create a player it also would grab the corresponding bmp in the facepack folder, which would have the same file name as the lahman id, and apply it to the player card.

The facepack creators could then just make one ultimate facepack database that everyone could use.

[f.montoya]

It would be a great idea, especially with the jpeg's being compatible in the new version.

[WrightWing]

What a great idea! Makes perfect sense to tie the database name to both pieces.

I think that would also help lend itself to a master database of player photos. A kind of "greatest hits" if you will. I would think drawing the best photo of a player from the multiple facepacks out there would yield a first-rate product for all. Hopefully, other facepack authors wouldn't object to the idea. I know I wouldn't.

The problem I see, though, is that it would be a HUGE file. My facepack of 7500 players is 85MB in size and takes up 101MB on my hard drive in JPG format. That could be a major download problem for a lot of people.

Hopefully, there is a work-around for that. I think the idea is certainly worth pursuing and I would be willing to help in putting it together should it come to fruition...

[Garlon]

WrightWing - A master database of the best player photos culled from the various facepacks woul definitely be the way to go as you said. Someone, or perhaps a team of facepack designers, would have to get together to rename all the player photos to correspond to the lahman ids.

Perhaps we can rally some support for the concept and Markus could introduce it in a patch at some point.

I've always wanted photos for my players, but have never had the patience to do it manually for every guy.

How many MB would your facepack folder be if you zipped it?

[sebastian0622]

The workaround is that the photos would be offered by year. So you'd just download the photos for the years you were going to import--say 1974 through 1980. When you unzipped, you just click yes to all to overwrite, and when you were done, you'd just have those players' photos in the right directory, without duplicates, and you'd be set for quite a while without killing your hard drive and spending a day downloading.

[WrightWing]

Garlon -- If I remember correctly, zipping JPG files doesn't reduce the size of the file for all intents and purposes. I went through this when I FTP'd the files to jazzrack. I got virtually no compression when I zipped them, so I sent unzipped files to jazz. He did zip them for his website and they were virtually the same file size as my unzipped files.

sebastian -- I'm not sure I follow. Let's say I wanted to start my league in 1923. If you place only players who debuted in 1923 into the 1923 file, you'll miss importing all the other players who were already playing. I'd get Gehrig, but miss Ruth, Cobb, Johnson, et al. Conversely, if you put all players who played in 1923 into the 1923 file (Gehrig, Ruth, Cobb, Johnson), you would also need to do that for 1924 (Gehrig, Ruth, Cobb, Johnson), 1925 (Gehrig, Ruth, Cobb, Johnson), etc.. Is there another way to do this that I'm not seeing?

[sebastian0622]

Originally Posted by WrightWing

sebastian -- I'm not sure I follow. Let's say I wanted to start my league in 1923. If you place only players who debuted in 1923 into the 1923 file, you'll miss importing all the other players who were already playing. I'd get Gehrig, but miss Ruth, Cobb, Johnson, et al. Conversely, if you put all players who played in 1923 into the 1923 file (Gehrig, Ruth, Cobb, Johnson), you would also need to do that for 1924 (Gehrig, Ruth, Cobb, Johnson), 1925 (Gehrig, Ruth, Cobb, Johnson), etc.. Is there another way to do this that I'm not seeing?

Each year would have all of the players that played that year. So they'd still be reasonably large files, but nothing impossible. You'd download the years as you go, or for, say, the next 5 years at once at the beginning, and unzip them into the same directory. A lot of the files will overwrite (file names would be the same for a given player in every year since the ID is standardized), sure, but that won't hurt anything. It's a ton more maneageable than either just doing debuts each year (you'd have to go back 20 years before the dynasty's opening year) or doing one large file (not too practical).

[WrightWing]

Originally Posted by sebastian0622

Each year would have all of the players that played that year. So they'd still be reasonably large files, but nothing impossible. You'd download the years as you go, or for, say, the next 5 years at once at the beginning, and unzip them into the same directory. A lot of the files will overwrite (file names would be the same for a given player in every year since the ID is standardized), sure, but that won't hurt anything. It's a ton more maneageable than either just doing debuts each year (you'd have to go back 20 years before the dynasty's opening year) or doing one large file (not too practical).

The problem I see is the sheer amount of work that would be required to do that. Let's say that you garner 10,000 player photos from the various facepacks. Now let's say that the average career spans 3 seasons. That's 30,000 photos that would have to be manually placed into their respective years.

While I am not trying to downplay your idea, looking at it from the standpoint of one who does a facepack, it doesnt seem worth it. I would rather a user spend 15-30 minutes of his time loading 20 years worth of photos in his league to start than a facepack developer spending weeks/months sifting through 10,000 photos and their copies placing them into the appropriate folder(s). Additionally, after the first year, you would be at the same point anyway, i.e., uploading that particular season's photos.

I am very much intrigued by your idea of a "no-hassle" photo upload when starting a league, I just can't get a handle on how to do it. I'll keep thinking on it...

[Draft Dodger]

I guess I just don't see how this would be useful. or maybe I'm not understanding it.

if you've already got your Babe Ruth photo in a folder on your HD, "importing" it when the player is imported happens automatically already (the game searches the photo folder for babe_ruth.png or .jpg).

Using lahman's id's would help with players with duplicate names (there are 2 Tony Pena's, 2 Jose Reyes and 3 Luis Gonzalez's playing this year, for example). And also cut down on guys with shortened first names - is it Matt Cain or Matthew Cain this year? Gary Mathews, or Gary Mathews Jr. But you're talking a really, really small percentage of a league.

It's also possible to download photos of current players from MLB's site automatically (this is how I create some of my facepacks), but surely for legal issues you wont see this in the game. Would be a nice touch, though.

[RANGER11JP]

Couldn't we just have one set folder for photos that any league would access? If I'm running more than one solo league or deleting any, I have to move all the photos.

I know this will rile some of you, but wouldn't a Last Name_First Name format of the photos make more sense when sorting or searching for what players go with what pictures?

Just a thought.

JP

[endgame]

With the sheer numbers of players, beyond even the traditional major league level, that are going to be available in this version I'd settle myself for a wide variety of default photos / designs collections to choose from. Maybe change the theme for each league, etc..