07-11-2021, 07:13 PM
Hey guys, long-time viewer and occasional contributor. I feel like a jerk by bringing this up, but it's probably for the best.
I'm a staff editor and Image Person at Zelda Wiki (https://zelda.fandom.com) and there have been a handful of times that images I produced have shown up in DYKG videos. This is cool! Usually I just leave a comment like "I made that image :3" and drop a Like on the video (which I usually do anyway).
This past week I've seen no less than 4 images I've made for Zelda Wiki appear in YouTube videos for major channels (concluding with the Majora's Mask 3D model of Happy Mask Salesman in the latest DYKG extra), and each video's description included sources and credits.... but not to Zelda Wiki.
Please understand, I am not upset and not personally asking for credit. It just made me realise that I should explain a couple things, since this likely happens to other wikis too!
At ZW we make sure to categorise all our images, and we have a unique tab-based template for the "main article image" that displays the subject from each available combination of game and image type, including: Artwork, Render, Model, Sprite, Screenshot, and occasionally others. Artwork and Renders, while they may have been cleaned up and/or had backgrounds removed by ZW users, are supplied by Nintendo (or other publisher). Sprites are ubiquitous and not something we'd expect credit for, and Screenshots are rarely unique enough. That leaves Models, which I do most of my work on. In many cases, these involve a lot more work than just removing the background from a screenshot. I've made all sorts of custom hacks over the past few years to get the best available unobstructed image quality. And, well, even the ones that don't take a lot of effort, are still "creative works" in the sense that they were posed and edited by someone, specifically to contribute to Zelda Wiki. For those reasons, I kindly ask that you check the source and attribution when yoinking an image from a game wiki and consider crediting that wiki if it's something they (ie. its users) produced.
On a more helpful note: Zelda Wiki recently moved to Fandom hosting and integrated into their systems. One of the drawbacks is that nearly every image displayed is a WEBP compressed copy, which can cause some serious quality degradation and colour-bleeding. It also essentially turns all APNGs (animated PNGs) into static images, which is a bit of a gut-punch. And at least for the time being, clicking "Full-sized image" or "Original file" or whatever, does not display the original, uncompressed versions. I've been putting bugs in ears to try to do something about this, but the "helpful" part is, for any ZW images you'd like to yoink, I can do my best to supply you with the higher-quality versions that the site isn't showing you. Without speaking for other wikis, I'm sure most of them have people who would make the same offer.
Thanks for reading!
I'm a staff editor and Image Person at Zelda Wiki (https://zelda.fandom.com) and there have been a handful of times that images I produced have shown up in DYKG videos. This is cool! Usually I just leave a comment like "I made that image :3" and drop a Like on the video (which I usually do anyway).
This past week I've seen no less than 4 images I've made for Zelda Wiki appear in YouTube videos for major channels (concluding with the Majora's Mask 3D model of Happy Mask Salesman in the latest DYKG extra), and each video's description included sources and credits.... but not to Zelda Wiki.
Please understand, I am not upset and not personally asking for credit. It just made me realise that I should explain a couple things, since this likely happens to other wikis too!
At ZW we make sure to categorise all our images, and we have a unique tab-based template for the "main article image" that displays the subject from each available combination of game and image type, including: Artwork, Render, Model, Sprite, Screenshot, and occasionally others. Artwork and Renders, while they may have been cleaned up and/or had backgrounds removed by ZW users, are supplied by Nintendo (or other publisher). Sprites are ubiquitous and not something we'd expect credit for, and Screenshots are rarely unique enough. That leaves Models, which I do most of my work on. In many cases, these involve a lot more work than just removing the background from a screenshot. I've made all sorts of custom hacks over the past few years to get the best available unobstructed image quality. And, well, even the ones that don't take a lot of effort, are still "creative works" in the sense that they were posed and edited by someone, specifically to contribute to Zelda Wiki. For those reasons, I kindly ask that you check the source and attribution when yoinking an image from a game wiki and consider crediting that wiki if it's something they (ie. its users) produced.
On a more helpful note: Zelda Wiki recently moved to Fandom hosting and integrated into their systems. One of the drawbacks is that nearly every image displayed is a WEBP compressed copy, which can cause some serious quality degradation and colour-bleeding. It also essentially turns all APNGs (animated PNGs) into static images, which is a bit of a gut-punch. And at least for the time being, clicking "Full-sized image" or "Original file" or whatever, does not display the original, uncompressed versions. I've been putting bugs in ears to try to do something about this, but the "helpful" part is, for any ZW images you'd like to yoink, I can do my best to supply you with the higher-quality versions that the site isn't showing you. Without speaking for other wikis, I'm sure most of them have people who would make the same offer.
Thanks for reading!