Commons talk:Stroke Order Project/Graphics guidelines

General

We don't write pinyin on the bottom of animation because pinyin can be add after, by using a database such en:CEDICT with the pics. Yug (talk) 23:37, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Great project idea. Just a recommendation: Put more specific rules on the creation of the images. For example instead of saying grey say an RGB value. Specify whether or not anti-aliasing should be used (I would advise it should) and what color the background should be: probably white instead of transparent, unless you plan to use transparent pngs that allow the anti-aliased characters to still look okay. Anyway, good luck with the project everyone. user:67.164.101.238

We already did It in the full protocol page, I added this information to the short protocol. Yug (talk) 23:37, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Vector

Hi.

It would be nice if every animated picture would have it's vector picture and I would just like to point out that it's very easy to create those images even with GIMP alone. If you have the Chinese font and GIMP you can use this steps:

1. Use some freely licensed font (note that picture you will create must have the same license as the font).
2. Write the character in a new picture with the text tool.
3. Choose "Create path from text" from text tools options.
4. Go to paths menu.
5. Right click on path and choose "Export path".
6. Saved path should be a correct SVG file and may be uploaded to Commons without changes.

Nux (talk··dyskusja) 11:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Free to download Chinese fonts?

I wonder if the fonts link provide by the page is legal or not. I noticed that the webpage mentioned about http://www.sj00.com, which is a famous prirate webpage for fonts. -- 218.189.215.150 02:32, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. This website doesn't seem to be referred to anywhere any more. --Swift (talk) 05:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

It's referred to on the web page of the university. I don't know what to make of that either. --Tauwasser (talk) 14:54, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm a little worried about the legal status. I used a hex editor to look at the recommended font file HDZB_36.TTF and found the following string at the end of the file "(C)CopyRight 1994-1997, BeiJing HanDing Inc (JOSSQ)". While the font glyphs are not copyrightable (at least in the US), the font itself appears to be copyrighted.Stout256 (talk) 01:49, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Red.png with more than 8 strokes?

Hey, I just wanted to ask how it's done properly with more than 8 strokes? I used the red chart provided, but now my version differs greatly from the other versions (as I have had to repeat colors and other images don't). Please look at File:鼠-red.png and tell me how to proceed from there :D Also, I noticed that starting with the kanji being all black (as suggested by the protocols) is bothersome, because you can then starting with the first stroke overwrite existing strokes (as you have to use "lighten only"). It is by far better to start with a white character and then move on with darken only as you cannot paint over already colored strokes. --Tauwasser (talk) 23:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Wrong fonts used

Yeah, I noticed yesterday, that I was using the font "Kai Ti" (which is non-free) instead of the free fonts because GIMP didn't list the correct fonts in the font dialog, because the free fonts we use have BG2312 encoding only.

I went ahead and built Unicode mappings for three fonts, HDZB_36.ttf, HDZB_7.ttf and HDZB_74.ttf. I'll put them online here, and they behave properly and can be selected in GIMP. I also posted the bug on the GIMP bugtracker and it seems the root of this evil is actually a typo in fontconfig...

So, not to say my work was redundant or anything (yeah...) but I'll still upload the unicode mapped fonts and maybe we can put them on Commons, since they only fix the encoding maps? --Tauwasser (talk) 17:17, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Here are the edited fonts: Drop.io/sala6re

Oh, well. I guess you can consider these practice. Good that you caught it early on!

That's also useful to know for the tutorials. Regarding the HDZB fonts: Do you know which glyphs variants they contain? You've uploaded a number of Japanese files stroke orders. Are you sure one of these fonts include Japanese glyphs?

Just in case you're still shopping around, I've found http://www.unifont.org/fontguide/ and http://www.wazu.jp/ particularly useful for fonts. --Swift (talk) 19:18, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Font licensing

I'm interested in contributing a bit, but I'm not sure if the licensing lines up. Originally, I was using "Kai Ti," but saw this and quickly switched to AR PL UKai (based on AR PL ZenKai,) which is under the APL. Can I just use the {{SOLicense}}, or is there more to it, or do I have to find yet another font? --ImPerfection (talk) 22:56, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe the AR PL's terms are not met, since we are not distributing the font as a whole, but in form of raster images of single characters. As such, copyright laws are not applicable -- at least in the US, where this project is situated. See Template:PD-font for a template that is used on Commons. I am personally only concerned with the red-gradient images, so this does not apply to the SVG part of this project (of whose font situation I am uncertain).

However, I think it couldn't hurt to change the license template (we are currently working on a new license template, though everything is slow proceedings, as always on Commons) to include a link to the AR PL and their website. I am no pro at licensing and find it utterly confusing to be honest, so I used the AR PL fonts in good faith. The current license is outdated and will be replaced by bot when we finally take off with the new SOP license, so keep that in mind please. --Tauwasser (talk) 20:38, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm actually working on red-gradient vector images. Will you accept those? I'll upload when I'm more certain about what license to use. Do I need to wait for the new license, or is there something else I can use in the meantime? I suppose if the licensing doesn't line up, I could just rasterize the images and upload them until a suitable license is available. If necessary, I'll try to help with the new license template. --ImPerfection (talk) 07:06, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what Yug is up to at the moment. His latest updates on that were that he wanted to create a script/program that constructs animated stroke order SVGs from single radicals and he's up to 128 on that. I don't know what font he uses for that, since all our creation guidelines seem to be outdated for vector images, sadly :( --Tauwasser (talk) 02:46, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Tutorial?

see Commons:Stroke Order Project/Graphics guidelines/Bitmap animations

Would it be possible to get a short animation tutorial? Although I am pretty good at photoshop, I'm not sure exactly how you are doing these animations smoothly. I'd also like to know how the third stroke on this image was done, where the inside portion is perfectly stroked instead of just a round brush tool: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:方-order.gif

Are you just painting a small section, then creating a new layer and painting more of it? If some info was provided, there could be greater consistency amongst the created animations in the future. Bluesoju (talk) 09:47, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I guess we'll try to contact the original authors of the animations. I'll review and rectify the current guidelines in a week or so. The guidelines really could be clearer, I agree ;) --Tauwasser (talk) 23:54, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Making more and smaller steps for each stroke should make them smoother. Download one of these images and use an image maniuplation software to split up the animation to view each step.

I suspect that the third stroke was done precisely as the others, by selecting a region to make sure the stroke was bounded by it.

I understood the guideline as adding every step to the same layer. I don't see any benefit in extra layers. Just save the file after every step. --Swift (talk) 10:07, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I do have photoshop and experimented with brush effects and layer affects to where I could paint over the gray characters and stroke them black but didn't get the desired results I want. My method should be the same as the original authors so it looks consistent. I'd like to contribute to this project as well since I have a Korean wiki where I will also make the same animations for Korean characters. Bluesoju (talk) 10:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Can you upload examples of your work? --Swift (talk) 15:59, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I've made a new tutorial, you can check it here, I hope it helps. And about how to stroke characters, have in mind that they are drawn with a brush. I created this image for you to see how to stroke a character, so the rest is up to you. FanNihongo (talk) 01:58, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

As for those guidelines:

Note: Those guidelines are now obsolete. See: Bitmap animations using GIMP for the newer and official guidelines.

FanNihongo (talk) 22:18, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

EDITED. Sorry Swift, I thought it was a separate tutorial :\. Anyway I'll make some hangeul ones and post some links in here to see if they meet the standards. Perhaps if i get it down well enough I could make an in depth tutorial. The only problem I'm having is I'm not liking some of the anti aliasing after I paint over it. Bluesoju (talk) 10:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, It's part of our project. --Swift (talk) 09:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

QUESTION (feb 2011): hi there, I am new to editing in wikipedia, so I hope I am writing the question in the right place... the question is: if I do not have photoshop is there another alternative to create the stroke order images (black and white) ??

Software

Hey there, it would be nice, if free software instead of photoshop would have been recommended.

Proposal

To speed up this project, software needs to be written and hosted somewhere. The software should start with the outlines, which are certainly readily available in Unicode font files, and display a large zoomed character to be traced in proper stroke order. A website visitor should be able to run an applet to trace the character, and the strokes should be entered into a server database. Some validity checks should be made:

• The center of the brush must remain within the strokes of the font.
• The entire glyph must be covered by the elapsed area within a brush radius of the center of the brush.
• A double-entry (or multiple-entry) system could be used whereby some averaging occurs. Outliers could be considered invalid.
• Some minimum and maximum elapsed time constraints could be enforced.

That said, in the absence of such software or anyone willing to do it or anyone willing to host the project, until there is some headway made in that direction, the current project should continue so that the project doesn't die of the Osborne Effect.

Hi, this is only my opinion, but to me that software project seems too complex to do. So I suggest the use of Script-Fu, which comes within the program GIMP, because it was created to ease the work, to make repetitive tasks and to concentrate on the creative work. I even create a code in Script-Fu, you can check it here, it eases the work but according to the tutorial. FanNihongo (talk) 20:08, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Is it OK if I use this font?

I was about to do gif animations. I am a linŭ user, And the first thing I need is the font, so as in the section Bitmap Animations/Fonts/PRC characters: 汉鼎简楷体 (for Windows) I downloaded that font and it didn't show the characters as it should be. I tried the second link below but it only take me to a website, not to a font to download. So at the end I did download a font from that site. With the help of google translate because that page was in Chinese. That font is called "TW-MOE-Std-Kai Regular", here is the link https://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/Files/site_content/M0001/edukai.pdf , So it OK if I use this font? FanNihongo (talk) 04:42, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

I could downloaded 汉鼎简楷体 (for Windows) by doing this: I googled "汉鼎简楷体 font" and I opened the first link where I could do it, Here is the link. FanNihongo (talk) 13:24, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

edukai.tff (edukai-4.0.zip) (CC-BY-ND-3.0—Taiwan Ministry of Education / 中華民國教育部 - english) Yug (talk) 20:11, 27 October 2021 (UTC)