2D Community Content Guide 
Overview
Pirates of the Burning Sea allows players to use their very own custom flags, sail patterns and even ships in the game. Many of our users have already submitted their creations to our site for peer review, but we want everyone to have this exciting opportunity.
The two easiest areas of artistic expression are flags and sails. The sails on sailing ships are huge, and a bold design emblazoned across your topsails will be seen for miles around. In addition, there’s something almost spiritual about hoisting your handmade jolly roger for all to see. Let’s see what it takes to get these from concept to implementation, starting with the flags.
Flags
Flags can be symbols of national patriotism, they can advertise group affiliation, or they can be unique and personal. They are also very simple!
Orientation
Flags will be attached to their flagpoles along the left edge of the texture.
File Format
When saving a flag file for submission, it must be a 128 pixel x 85 pixel .png file.
PNG format is a web-standard format, like JPEG, and should be available from the save dialog in your graphics program.
That’s it! Flags are easy. Nothing is holding you back—go submit one today!
Sails
If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, or want to make your presence known with an even louder voice, then sail patterns are the project for you.
Base Sail Color
Even just on their own, sails can be set to a variety of different colors. Always keep this in mind when creating sail patterns—you shouldn’t create your logo against a blue background—instead leave the background transparent and your logo will work against any color sail.
Transparency
The PNG file format supports transparency, and you should become very familiar with it when creating sail patterns. Transparency is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal.
Scale
One very powerful feature is the “scale” slider, which allows you to vary the scale of your decal between 100% and 10%. At 100%, your pattern will stretch from corner to corner.
Mapping – Square Sails
When you create your sail pattern, keep in mind the way you want it to be applied to your sail. There are two different ways your sail pattern can be mapped to your sail:
Decal: this places your pattern in the center of your sail, and it will only appear once on the sail.
Tile: the pattern is placed in the middle of the sail, and will tile infinitely, based on the scale you choose with the scale slider.
It’s good to know how you’d like the pattern to map on the sail as you are creating it, since it can have an impact on the design—“decal” patterns don’t generally extend all the way to the edges, whereas “scaled” patterns often do.
The mapping does not matter to the submission process though. All sail patterns are submitted the same way, and are all treated the same once in the game. When a player applies a pattern to their sails in-game, they get to pick which type of mapping they prefer.
Mapping – Triangular Sails
Triangular sails have two unique layout options, in addition to tiled patterns:
Stretched: the decal is stretched across the entire sail as if it were square, essentially cutting it along the diagonal.
Triangular sail layout—stretched across the sail
Shrunk: the decal is scaled to fit in the lower half of the sail, keeping the design intact.
Triangular sail layout—shrunk to fit the sail.
You may also opt not to display decals on your fore-and-aft sails if you prefer.
Decal Color
Another powerful option is the ability to colorize your sail decal! Once you are in-game, you’ll have a color-palette, so that you can choose whatever color you want to tint your image. For those technical folks out there, the blend mode we use for this is multiply.
If you are interested in making a colorizable decal, there are just a couple of tips to keep in mind. The first, keep your basic image relatively unsaturated—shades of gray, or something very close. Blending colors with colors can have unfortunate results. The second is the lightest parts of your pattern will be the brightest with the new tint, and the darkest parts will always stay dark.
Here’s an example of how multiply colorization looks in practice:
File Format
Sail patterns must be saved as 256 pixel x 256 pixel .png files.
What We’re Looking For
What is Flying Lab going to approve? Broadly, we’re looking for submissions that are both appropriate to the setting and high quality.
Appropriate to the Setting
The setting is the Caribbean in 1720. Photos of sports cars would be extremely out of place. But how does FLS judge what is historically appropriate, and what isn’t?
Well, one extreme is obvious. Anyone looking at a photo of the space shuttle knows that it’s not appropriate for the setting. But there’s a big gray area in between, and when it comes down to it, what’s appropriate for our setting is a judgment call on our part.
The best advice is to ask these questions about your pattern:
- Could your pattern have been constructed back in 1720?
- Is the content of your flag appropriate to 1720?
- Is the visual style consistent with the artistry of 1720?
If the answer is ‘yes’ to all of these questions, then your submission is likely to be appropriate to our setting. If you answer ‘no’ to one or more, try to figure out what you can do to adapt your pattern so that it does satisfy these questions.
Avoiding the “Jaggies”
The jagged or “sawtooth” edges you often see in computer images can be minimized in two main ways:
Anti-Aliasing: work with a graphics program that naturally supports anti-aliasing in its toolset.
Work Large and Scale Down: many people work at double their target size, and once they are finished, they scale down to the proper size using a program that will anti-alias when it scales. If you don’t have a tool that does this, just ask for help in the user-content forums—the folks there would be happy to assist you!
For more information on jaggies and “anti-aliasing”, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aliasing.
Color Choice
There are many colors you can use on computers that are uncommon in the real world. Unfortunately, those colors tend to be the ones that paint programs offer in their default palettes. Try to avoid extremely bright, vivid colors. Instead, think about the dyes available in 1720. Colors in flags are often bold, but it would be virtually impossible in 1720 to get the perfect, pure white so easy to achieve with computer graphics.
“Weathering”
Weathering is an optional, advanced technique—it can take your design to the next level, but it can be tricky to find the right balance. Once you’ve picked good colors to begin with, think about how that flag would age over time. Would it pick up some stains? Would it get bleached in the salty sea air? Would it fade in the sun? Would it wear evenly? This is an advanced technique, but can often make a great looking flag look fantastic!
Examples
Below are several examples that demonstrate what FLS is looking for. All of these are strong designs whose content is appropriate to our setting. In each pair, the designs are very similar (or the same), but the flags on the right demonstrate the difference color choice makes. Simply by avoiding those super-bright “computer” colors, the flags on the right end up looking much more realistic, and much higher quality.
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FAQ
Do flags support transparency? For instance, can I make a “swallow-tailed” flag?
Yes—flags support transparency, and it can be used to great effect. However, transparency in flags is also very easy to overdo, so we have left this as an advanced, optional feature.
Remember that the flag attaches to the flagstaff along the left edge. And when in doubt, just leave your flag 100% opaque. Normal flags look great, and a poor job of transparency can kill an otherwise solid design.
Does my flag need to be “weathered” in order to be approved?
No—“weathering” is a technique that can enhance the appearance of your flag, but it is not required. In fact, when overdone, “weathering” can actually detract from the look of your flag, so it’s a delicate and subjective balance.
Does my flag need to be “textured” in order to be approved?
No—like weathering, subtle “texturing” can enhance the appearance of your flag, but it’s even easier to overdo texturing. These flags may be a dozen feet wide in the game—with flags so big, you probably wouldn’t even be able to see the texture of the fabric.
What about “rippling”? What do the devs think about flags that have “rippling” or “waving” effects painted into the texture?
The flag geometry itself ripples and waves in game, so painting “rippling” or “waving” effects into the texture is probably not necessary. Having said that, FLS will not reject or accept flag designs based on having built-in ripples. The effect will be considered for quality alone.
Can my sail pattern include a replacement for the base sail texture?
No—for two reasons:
First, the texture resolution of user-created sail patterns is much lower than the resolution we use for our base sail texture, so the resulting user-created pattern would look blurry and ugly.
Second, the “scale” controls would not work properly with the pattern if it also included a sail texture.
How do I submit my designs?
If you’re new to making flags and sails for Pirates of the Burning Sea, we suggest starting by posting a preview in the Flags and Sails Forum. Open a new, clearly titled thread (example: Red Roberts’ Flags and Sails) and post your designs directly in your thread for the first round of feedback.
Once you’ve done this and are satisfied that your designs are ready for the game, you may the submit your work for staff review.
Where can I learn more?
The best place to learn about 2D User Content is in the Flags and Sails Forum. Much more specific 2D User Content Guidelines are available there as well.