uRiff

As I stated in this thread:

I’m working on a Desktop app to assist people to collaboratively “riff” together, create “Fanficisodes”, and export them in some sort of format, either just as a subtitle file, and/or a custom format that can be used by my future program to play back the Fanficisode.

I’m going to use this thread to chart my progress in making the program, as well as to elicit opinions from the community on what such an application should include.

For starters, I have a basic “temporary” logo that I made in MS Paint as a placeholder:

But I would LOVE to have something better (I am NOT an artist in ANY sense of the word), so if there’s any artists out there that would like to contribute, here’s a request. Please take this idea for a logo, but make it like the MST3K “moon logo” with the U on the first line, and “Riff” on the second line. Preferably with a transparent background, but if not, a solid color should work fine. 3D would be awesome, but 2D would work just fine, as long as it looks better than mine, which should NOT be hard.


Well, work picked up for me, so I haven’t had much free time to work on it aside from the conceptual stage. Work has just slowed down a bit, so I’ve started to make progress, and have created all of the required database tables (that I’ve been able to think of), and started creating the required stored procedures to interact with those tables in a consistent way (fun stuff!):

So that’s where I’m at right now. After I have that all created (using the same tedious mind-numbing patterns for consistency), I’ll start to work on the “API” side that will be used on the C# code side for the program code to interact with the database in a consistent and uniform way.

After that, I start building the actual UI that the user will interact with.

Now, I will be making only a desktop app, because that’s where my professional skills reside (I’m slowly inching my way into the world of web programming), but if there’s any professional web programmers out there that are familiar with any Microsoft technologies that you feel may be a good fit to create a web UI for this application, I sure would love to work with you on making this happen for the web as well! I’ve designed the Model, and am designing the Controller, so I just need someone to work on a web “View” for the MVC pattern to be complete.

If no one is out there that’s interested and skilled in that arena, then once I’m happy with my desktop app, I’ll start to work on it myself, but who knows how long that could take, could be years!

Anyways, that’s what I’ve been up to lately, now I should probably get back to the painful deep hurting of the Stored Procedure and API creation salt mines!

Feel free to drop here any idea or suggestions for features and interface elements that you would like to see in the application!

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Ahoy! I’m a web dev working a shadowrama-esque web app. So far I’ve just got a prototype of webgl robot models animating in front of the embedded youtube Incredible Petrified World, with a few animations driven by users, working on getting that sync’d across multiple users currently. (In between the day job making sure loans get loaned.)

I figured we’d end up generating something like an SRT script by processing the either the voting google sheet, or some product of that voting, then have the web app present the relevant lines to users in whatever format best suits their needs visually.

I’ve caught up on your postings in the Let’s Make an Episode thread, and I get your datamodel, as it relates to script creation using a desktop app. Not sure how that ought to integrate with a live recording of the completed script beyond exporting an SRT-like format. I guess a potential use case is the voting process, where perhaps a more fleshed out version of my web app could be fed (randomly selected?) riffs from your app as the movie plays to a few users, who get to voice the lines and get a feel for them and how they flow.

As for the “don’t get the running gag” requirement, I think I can make a use case pitch: In the voting process, whether a voter may yay or nay on a particular riff might be heavily informed on whether it relies on a prior riff. I imagine a great episode will include a running gag or two, but not too many; but a democracy might favor one-offs unthinkingly. I think a parent_comment_id foreign key from comment to comment would do the trick. Even if you agree with me this sounds like a post-MVP feature.

I think our projects might be complementary, and if it turns out they’re redundant in some feature I’m happy to augment my plans.

(After tonight I should be out until Monday.)

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Well my desktop app is going to be used for the WHOLE process - from the creation of a “RiffProject”, to the creation of the riffs, host segments, etc, all the way down to the playing of the final resulting project itself.

I’m actually planning to make an embedded desktop player that can play the riffs “live” as you’re describing it, but also a “read only” player for those that aren’t a part of the project to view the RiffProjects with the riffs embedded in the video, and (If I’m not TOO ambitious), somehow implementing the created host segments as well right into the middle of the show.

What I’m looking for essentially is a web “mirror” of my desktop app. A place on the web where users can perform all of the same actions that they could perform with the Desktop app, but just in a browser. And that’s why my coding experience fails me, and I need assistance.

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I can make you a moon logo similar to the one I did for the Fanfic project. Only 5 letters should be way easier.

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Yes, like that would be great, but can it be “simple” enough that it won’t look like garbage when scaled down to the following sizes for different size icons:

512x512
256x256
128x128
96x96
64x64
32x32
16x16

Just to cover all the bases. Now I’m not doubting your skills, I have just had experiences with when images get TOO complex and fancy looking, they start to look like crap when scaled down.

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I went for a bit of a 16-bit feel, though I eventually converted the image to a simple 9 color indexed PNG, so it’s still pretty legible down to the 32x32 size.

URiff_16x16
URiff_32x32
URiff_64x64
URiff_96x96
URiff_128x128
URiff_256x256

4 Likes

Perfect! Thank you!

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