Charas v2?

[sub7]

Hi there, I'm Jake Cattrall a web developer from the UK.
I am also a long term lurker here at the Charas project and have always been fascinated by it's potential.

Alex & I have spoken about the potential of bringing Charas up-to-date with a modern, slick version 2.
This means it would work with newer versions of RPGM as well as other engines. I would also like to integrate a system where users can contribute their own creations for preview and up-voting.

Some ideas that come to mind are...

• New sprite categories (32x32).
• Tiles/Item resources.
• Online Map Editor (Previewer) with TMX output.

Let's open the discussion for your ideas.

In a perfect world, what would you like to see in a Charas v2?

Some suggestions

• Update the forum design
• Special page on the site (separate from the forums) for completed games.
• Search resources by tags

[Dr. Ace]

A new / updated forum.

[A Forgotten Legend]

Depends on the sections of charas you're planning to update.  With the generators, I think what you've said is easily the top things to be added.  I think other parts of the site need just as much attention though.  The forum doesn't bother me a whole lot, but I think a section separate from the forums would be good for complete games to live.  Having forum topics for completed games seems like it's easy to loose them.  The complete resources is also kind of broken.  When uploading resources adding in search tags might make it easier - not to mention the empty () after each category the last time I looked.

Overall, good luck.  I'm sure the rest of the community has some better thoughts on this than I do, I tend to disappear for weeks at a time.

[Momeka]

I'm all for a new improved forum.

Also maybe move away from being just a rpg maker community and make it a more general gamedev community/resource site. Add support for resources that isn't just strictly made for rpg maker such as more generalized sprite sheets, code snippets etc.. If not that at least add support for the newer rpg makers and update the generators to be able to output to those.

[sub7]

I'm all for a new improved forum.

Me too! My idea is to design a new branding color palette on the main website and then tweak the forum accordingly. There are also a few nice methods of dealing with spammers so we can perhaps lighten up on the captchas. I have not discussed website/forum updates with Alex yet, so nothing there is official.

make it a more general gamedev community/resource site.

With the right foundations, it's possible to support whatever we want with resource sets. The community will naturally grow along with that.

[Moosetroop11]

I think the key things to sort out are improving the chara generator and making submitting resources easier/possible (is anyone doing vetting them now or do they just not get on the site?)

[sub7]

Just dug this up from last year: http://www.charas-project.net/forum/index.php?topic=28672.75

Some great ideas there.

[DragonBlaze]

Haha yeah I started that thread.

Charas was a pretty nice site back in the day, but since it was created, it has fallen pretty far in terms of modern technology. I realized that it would essentially be easier to start over from scratch than to try to edit the current site, but if you go with that approach, then you're actually creating just creating a new site. If you had access to the server files (which I didn't), you could tweak things and add some new functionality, but I'm skeptical about trying to do any sort of overhaul with it.

I'm still interested in it, it's just that I don't have the time to take on such a large project. I'd be happy to help out with things though. I switch back and forth between being an iOS developer and website developer. For the server portion, I've worked a lot of Java stacks as well as Node.js, Express, and Mongo stacks. For front ends, I've been doing a lot of Angular and webGL/HTML5 canvas recently, and I know Ext.js and jQuery. So if you're using any of these things, or want help with basic html, css, or javascript, let me know!

[sub7]

Video update:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xddoAz56VXs

[Prpl_Mage]

That looks great man

[Momeka]

Awesome to see some progress. I can help out with the sorting if you want.

[Apex]

Sorting that many files could drive a man insane. If it's possible, I'm sure we'd love to help you out there.

[Dr. Ace]

There are no tags in the database that would allow the sorting process to be sped up automatically instead of manual labour? I mean, I would expect a charset to be tagged in some way to recognise it. Then it would be a simpler process to run through the files and filter out the bad ones manually instead.

[sub7]

At this stage I need a minimal effort solution just to get the usable stuff into the right categories. Tags will eventually be available amongst many other features, but not right now.

Tell me your github usernames and I will add you to the project.

[Alex]

Jumping in just to confirm all of this is real. And I'm very happy to see Jake already made something thanks to the dump I provided.
I saw the video, and I just have one thing to say. the CH of Charas is not spelled soft as in "car", but hard as in "China"
Best luck!!!!