[Updated] Black Pearl Clarification

The Black Pearl

You need at least 60 days of seniority and 5 karma points to use the Black Pearl.

We'd like to clarify a few things concerning the proposals for the Creative Space. We've had the time to see how things went and made some changes along with some additional advice.

For the Horses, Pegasus, Unicorns, Donkeys, and Ponies.


Using shadows in your creations:


We are probably going to add them ourselves in the future to have something that has the right perspective on the backgrounds, and that has a uniform texture across the coats.

You can use shadowing, but we ask that you keep them very light so that the images will fit with most Helios Ray backgrounds.

Cut out your edges more.


When we place the coats on a dark background in a lot of cases, there are stray light colored pixels all around the drawing. This makes it impossible to use on a dark background.
Tip Please take the time to take a look at your coat on a white and on a black background, in order to get rid of any leftover smudges or pixels. Also, look a little further away on just the outline. Often the coats have a smudge around the corners or along the border of the image.

Use the smudge or blur tool sparingly.


It's a pity to see a coat that has been worked on then filtered with a blur filter, and it comes out all smudgy. It's also a pity to see a coat with smudge marks on one side and not the other.

Be careful when playing around with reformatting an image.


Sometimes we get perfectly nice drawings of Sausage horses because the file has been altered, and the horse has been squashed or pulled in another direction.
This might be a great way of transforming an Irish setter into a Teckel, but it isn't very pretty on horses. Also, avoid making your resolution too low and giving the picture a pixel art look

Backgrounds


Using brushes is allowed.


They can be used as well, but we'd like to also remind you of the Black Pearl page information as seen in the quote below.

“Excess airbrushing is not allowed”. It is allowed but not too much!"

We have received tons of entries like this and have been very cool about it up until now. However, seeing the same tree used 4 times in different backgrounds is starting to get a little old.

From here on out, we'll start to be a bit more strict about this type of thing. This is due to the fact that it's unfair and the aim of the Creative Space is to work things with your own hands, not make photo manipulations. The same thing goes for photos or bits of photos.

Painting, blurring or smudging landscape pictures.


Moving forward, we'll simply remove the right to propose any creations to the Creation space forever for those who do try to do this.

Check the perspectives.


When you make a background, please consider that there has to be something for the horse to put his feet on. It's quite strange the have a picture with a nice pond in the background and the horse is floating in the middle of it in thin air.

The same goes for outer space and clouds etc. Just try and make the backgrounds usable for everyone, not just the Pegasus. Also, make sure that the horses won't look like giants in the middle of a forest when you decide to draw trees or other items.

Rules


Plagiarism is forbidden!
Respect the author's rights: we do not steal images off of the Internet; we do not trace photos; we do not use the basis of someone else if they have not given their authorization, preferably publicly.

What is plagiarism? Plagiarism is taking someone else's work and passing them off as your own.

We can take inspiration from a style, a movement, a mane or a coat without copy-pasting it. It’s the same idea for literature, graphic arts, video games or cinema - there is often inspiration taken from another creation. Inspiration is imbued with another creation in order to interpret it and create something new! Copying is recreating identically. Copying is not having a style or a vision of your own. Try to have the imagination and bring your unique personality to your creations.

Please also note that any cheating can get you excluded from proposing any artwork to the Creative Space forever and/or be followed by sanctions.
Players who submit an artwork not created by themselves, AI-generated or plagiarized will be permanently banned from using the Black Pearl.

Otherwise, all the usual rules still apply.

Before posting:


It is forbidden to mock or ridicule creations/creators
Don't post too many steps regarding your work to avoid flooding of the topic.
IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ASK FOR VOTES!

You are welcome to promote your creations or creations you voted for using #HowrseBP on social media or promote your creations on your profile page.

This topic can be used to help each other understand the Black Pearl rules with respect to your creative content.

Players who do not follow the rules are exposed to sanctions.

Regards
The Howrse team

 
Ow
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Retired breeder wrote:

This message has been censored since it does not follow the forum rules.
Before you post questions in a forum, make sure your question falls in with the topic you are asking in future. default smiley (y) You can win them in events such as the one we currently have on at the moment - The equestrian parade that you can see at the top that is next to the howrse logo.
Unknown1
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Could someone tell me the precise dimensions for the landscape? I've tried 2006x840 and 2106x940 and neither of them work for me. thank you!
spirit1032
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spirit1032 wrote:

Could someone tell me the precise dimensions for the landscape? I've tried 2006x840 and 2106x940 and neither of them work for me. thank you!


The template is 2106x940. What file are you using for it?
Unknown1
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spirit1032 wrote:

Could someone tell me the precise dimensions for the landscape? I've tried 2006x840 and 2106x940 and neither of them work for me. thank you!


— The template is 2106x940, but the landscape artwork itself needs to be 2006x840
— You need to add your artwork to the template before submitting
— Make sure you don't have any pixels from your artwork overlapping/covering the template
— Make sure the format of the file is JPEG/JPG
— If you are still having trouble submitting, you can try adding your artwork to the template using a different program/software
AthenaMinerva
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Hey everyone!

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post about this, but has anyone else noticed the huge number of proposed H Ray landscapes that are clearly just images put through filters? And they look like they've all been put through the exact same filter so it's pretty obvious that this is the work of one person?

I've had to report at least 4 of them I came across in voting, and looking through the full gallery reveals at least 20 others, including around half of the last page??

The problem with reporting them is that reverse image search doesn't work on those pictures. They've been cropped and filtered so heavily that Google's image algorithm can't detect what the original might have been so you can't link back to a source, which is a requirement of Howrse's reporting feature for plagiarism default smiley :s

But even without a clear source (and that source could honestly be the submitter's personal picture collection, rendering reverse image search impossible), my artist's gut instinct KNOWS that there's something fishy going on here default smiley :-x

It's really sad there's so many of these fake backgrounds that are taking up slots that could be showing gorgeous backgrounds by artists who put their heart and soul into their creations, and there's nothing I can really do about it because there's no possible way I can find the original unfiltered images default smiley :(
serene.snowbun
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serene.snowbun wrote:

Hey everyone!

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post about this, but has anyone else noticed the huge number of proposed H Ray landscapes that are clearly just images put through filters? And they look like they've all been put through the exact same filter so it's pretty obvious that this is the work of one person?

I've had to report at least 4 of them I came across in voting, and looking through the full gallery reveals at least 20 others, including around half of the last page??

The problem with reporting them is that reverse image search doesn't work on those pictures. They've been cropped and filtered so heavily that Google's image algorithm can't detect what the original might have been so you can't link back to a source, which is a requirement of Howrse's reporting feature for plagiarism default smiley :s

But even without a clear source (and that source could honestly be the submitter's personal picture collection, rendering reverse image search impossible), my artist's gut instinct KNOWS that there's something fishy going on here default smiley :-x

It's really sad there's so many of these fake backgrounds that are taking up slots that could be showing gorgeous backgrounds by artists who put their heart and soul into their creations, and there's nothing I can really do about it because there's no possible way I can find the original unfiltered images default smiley :(


If you cannot find the image,just choose "doesn't respect black pearl rules" in the dropdown menu and list the reasons why it doesn't in the comment field default smiley :) Backgrounds that are just photos with filters are easy to recognize,so they shouldn't get in even if they get enough votes default smiley :)
Shishi no Seirei
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By Retired breeder, 19th March 2022 16:06:45
1
Hi,

The required age has changed:
You need at least 60 days of seniority (instead of a seniority of 150 days) default smiley ;)

https://www.howrse.com/marche/noir/object?qName=perle-noire
So I gotta ask here, if a creator simply "traces" does that go against the rules, because it wouldn't be copying art work, but it still feels wrong.

Like I found this one and it's most def. a breyer horse from when i used to collect. Weather Horses or something like that.
・ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀsᴛ ᴜɴɪᴄᴏʀɴ・
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・ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀsᴛ ᴜɴɪᴄᴏʀɴ・ wrote:

So I gotta ask here, if a creator simply "traces" does that go against the rules, because it wouldn't be copying art work, but it still feels wrong.

Like I found this one and it's most def. a breyer horse from when i used to collect. Weather Horses or something like that.


If a player traces an image then Howrse runs the risk of getting in legal trouble. They could get sued by the Breyer company if they found out they were using this creation for their own profit. It's not just that it 'feels wrong'.
If you find a creation to be this way then you'll have to contact the team and provide viable evidence that shows that the image was traced by giving them overlayed images and other evidence (like publishing dates and timestamps) then hopefully the creation will be taken down from the selection of coats. Hope this helps.
nash12
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I created a coat many, many years ago the first time I played. It's still active, but is so old it's not Helios compatible.

Is it acceptable to resubmit my old coat, making any format tweaks to bring it modern?
wuukiee
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Is it common to get your passes returned early if your coat doesn't get enough votes?
I'm guessing they are going through and refunding people as they go.

But kinda disappointed coming online on the 25th with everything returned. Also took me a while to figure it out. No message or notification telling me either. You should get notified if stuff happens.
KurlozMakara
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If the coat is breaking some rules (and been reported),the rejected art usually has a note next to it "doesn't respect the rules" or something like that...then again never had any issues with my coats,so can't say for sure.
Shishi no Seirei
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Shishi no Seirei wrote:

If the coat is breaking some rules (and been reported),the rejected art usually has a note next to it "doesn't respect the rules" or something like that...then again never had any issues with my coats,so can't say for sure.

Then it must have been a early refund when they provided the vip coat selection! My brain just over thinks things most of the time.
KurlozMakara
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How does one get to vote on the submitted images? I have never been able to figure that part out.
Emerald01
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Are we allowed to retire our coats in the future?
SilverPuppy
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As in submit it as a GA/RA coat, but if we want to are we allowed to retire it at a later date? I'm flipping between GA and RA and I want to know if I can should I change my mind!
SilverPuppy
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SilverPuppy wrote:

As in submit it as a GA/RA coat, but if we want to are we allowed to retire it at a later date? I'm flipping between GA and RA and I want to know if I can should I change my mind!


Pretty sure you can't! You have to choose unlimited or limited! But if you want your coat to stick around longer you could increase the limited number. it starts at 100, highest you can go is 900! They last a little while longer. But lower numbers are more desirable for collections.
KurlozMakara
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I know we get our passes back if our submissions don't get enough votes BUT I can't remember, do they still stay in the running for the next round of votes or will I need to submit again?
smashlei
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By Retired breeder, 25th May 2022 14:34:03
You will need to submit again! But don't worry, plenty of great coats have to go through voting quite a few timesdefault smiley (l)
it keeps saying

Your coat does not use the compulsory format (display format for the Golden Apple, for Helios' Ray)

help
letsplaysomemusic
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letsplaysomemusic wrote:

it keeps saying

Your coat does not use the compulsory format (display format for the Golden Apple, for Helios' Ray)

help


Are you doing a background or a coat?
nash12
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i honestly dont get it either because it says mine does not meet it either. im trying to submit a ga coat. it is 400 x 400px and below the minimum size limit. what am i doing wrong?
ᵉᵖʰᵉᵐᵉʳᵃˡ
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By Retired breeder, 14th August 2022 22:40:36
2
I'm concerned about Black Pearl and Helios' Ray, with AI art generator so good...


Just wait for the "artists"
By Retired breeder, 22nd August 2022 11:00:29
1
ᵉᵖʰᵉᵐᵉʳᵃˡ wrote:

i honestly dont get it either because it says mine does not meet it either. im trying to submit a ga coat. it is 400 x 400px and below the minimum size limit. what am i doing wrong?
You need to put it into the frame:

The frame shouldn't be changed, so your coat must be smaller than 300x300px to fit in there.
Make sure your work is png in the end and the space between the coat and thr frame stays translucent.
How do I keep it transparent?
zra
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