See Your Design As A Main Menu Theme In-Game!

Started by Ellowee, 2021 Jun 26, 18:41:14

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Ellowee

2021 Jun 26, 18:41:14 Last Edit: 2021 Jun 26, 18:53:34 by Ellowee

Hey there, everypony!

We're hard at work on the next update for Legends of Equestria, and we're looking forward to showing you what it's all about soon. Right now, though, we'd like to talk about something from our previous update: the new main menu background.

When we created this background, we intended to have it followed up eventually with more random choices, until, hopefully, we'll have a good selection of themes that you can experience every time you launch LoE. While working on it, though, we realised that this might be a good opportunity to feature some community ideas, similar to our previous design-a-dress and hairstyle contests!

So, if you'd like to see some artwork of your own featured as one of our main menu themes, we're now taking submissions for consideration! Here's what you need to know:


  • The design must include Prologue, as seen above. For those that don't recognise him, Prologue is the purple unicorn featured on both of our current menu backgrounds. He doesn't need to be the focus of the image, but he should definitely always be there. The setting for the design should also be somewhere that feels suitable for Equestria. Prologue is usually seen reading a scroll; maybe it's a map, and following it has led him to some strange places? You can decide where it's taking him next!
  • Please bear in mind the tone of LoE, and ensure that your submission is appropriate for our game. If you're unsure if something is suitable or not, you're welcome to ask us, or to submit it and get feedback!
  • Don't include any of the user interface elements - like the login buttons, the exit button, the version number in the bottom-right corner, etc. We'll handle that part!
  • Only submit your own creative work. If you think someone else's design is perfect for this, encourage them to submit it themselves, rather than submitting it for them! If you'd like to include other ponies, characters, or elements from LoE, or of your own design, that's completely fine; just please make sure that you have permission to use any elements that aren't your own or from LoE, and that they don't belong to another person or group (e.g. copyrighted/trademarked characters from television shows).
  • You're welcome to use whatever art style or theme you like; something that feels like it would fit well alongside other designs based on LoE might work well, but if you've got a creative idea for something entirely different, we've love to see it!
  • We'd rather have brand-new, original designs for this, but if you have already created fanart that you think is perfect for this, we'd encourage you to check that it follows the guidelines here, and submit it!
  • We don't have a strict rule on the image size, but we'd recommend working in a high resolution format, preferably 2K or 4K, to ensure that the design looks its best on everyone's monitors. Please make sure that you keep the aspect ratio to 16:9, though!
  • You know the 3D effect on the current backgrounds when you move your mouse around? To achieve this, we have different elements of the image separated on different layers, which respond differently to mouse movement. To incorporate this into your own design, please think carefully about what elements of your image might be considered 'foreground' and 'background', and separate them out appropriately so that we can do the same for your design! Here's an example of what it looks like, as both a .PDN project file and as separate .PNG images. While 'foreground' elements should have transparent backgrounds, please make sure that the ultimate 'background' layer is a full and complete background, without any transparency (like the Ponydale backdrop in the example .zip provided above!)
  • We'd recommend including a watermark or signature of some kind on the design, so that people can tell who made it; alternatively, if you don't want to add a signature to the artwork but still want us to credit you, we can add it ourselves in Unity. The top-left or bottom-left corners are probably the best place to do this, as they don't currently feature any menu elements that might block it. If you include a link (e.g. to an art portfolio), please make sure that there's nothing unsuitable for minors in that location, otherwise we won't be able to include it in the game! If you want to submit it completely anonymously, without any signature or watermark, that's also fine, just make sure to let us know when you submit it!

If you'd like to submit something to us, please make sure to include all the assets in a .zip folder, similar to the example given above. You can send it to us in one of two ways:
  • We have created a channel in our Discord server, #menu-art-submissions; you can post your design there publicly, if you'd prefer, or to get feedback from both ourselves and our community.
  • Alternatively, if you'd rather submit it privately, you can send your design to [email protected]. Bear in mind that we can't promise to include every submission as a menu theme, but each one will be carefully considered; if we think that we can provide feedback to you to improve the design and re-submit, we will do so!

Please bear in mind that if you submit any design for this, you are giving us permission to use it for one of our main menu backgrounds, and to potentially alter it as necessary to fit within the template above if necessary. You still own the artwork, and can do whatever you like with it; effectively, you are providing Legends of Equestria with a license to use it! This is achieved under an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) License, the details of which you can find here.

We'll still be working on our own designs for menu themes, of course, but we thought this might be a fun way to have our fantastically talented community's work highlighted and included in the game!

If you don't feel like a menu design is your area of expertise, but you'd still like to try and contribute to the project, please check out our recruitment post - we're always on the lookout for passionate people in all sorts of fields to join the team, and help us bring Equestria to life!

We hope to see plenty of creative ideas soon, and look forward to sharing them with everyone else as a main menu theme!

superedan

2023 Mar 12, 23:50:16 #1 Last Edit: 2023 Mar 13, 01:18:12 by Howitzer Reason: weird URL
The developer or publisher could hold a design contest, inviting fans to submit their own original designs for a main menu theme.

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