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  #1  
Old Jul 14, 2010, 02:52 PM
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Default Linking unit and sub-artists

A thing I've missed is the ability to link an unit AND the actual members so their discographies are more complete. Well, technically you can, but it's confusing and won't show too well in the album pages.

For example most SNK albums are linked to Shinsekai Gakkyoku Zatsugidan. I could change them to the actual composers, but then the SGZ discography would vanish (not cool). Plus many albums do credit the unit as composer but in the liner notes you can find the actual members.

So I've been thinking, what about linking unit+artists, and detecting the artist 'suffix' to group by unit?

For example, I link:
- Shinsekai Gakkyoku Zatsugidan
- SHA-V, suffix: Shinsekai Gakkyoku Zatsugidan (or SGZ's ID)
- YAMAPY-1, suffix: Shinsekai Gakkyoku Zatsugidan (or SGZ's ID)
- Toshikazu Tanaka (no suffix)
And the album page shows:
- Composers: Shinsekai Gakkyoku Zatsugidan (SHA-V, YAMAPY-1), Toshikazu Tanaka
You could make it collapsable for bonus points.

This would be very nice specially for long standing in-house teams that their original and current members have little in common (ie Falcom jdk).
I realize these tech changes won't happen easily but my 2 cents just in case.
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  #2  
Old Jul 14, 2010, 03:17 PM
Cedille Cedille is offline
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Yeah, totally agreed, and in fact, SS has already mentioned that he has a plan to implement that suffix linking.

Also, as you suggested, rather than adding a suffix for each artist like this,
Quote:
Hayato Sonoda (Falcom Sound Team jdk), Takahiro Unisuga (Falcom Sound Team jdk), Masanori Osaki (Falcom Sound Team jdk), Saki Momiyama (Falcom Sound Team jdk)
I think putting all artists in the unit into a round bracket like below looks less redundant, so could we consider this way as well?
Quote:
Falcom Sound Team jdk (Hayato Sonoda, Takahiro Unisuga, Masanori Osaki, Saki Momiyama)

Last edited by Cedille; Jul 14, 2010 at 03:34 PM.
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  #3  
Old Jul 14, 2010, 06:15 PM
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You know, I could do this. Just last weekend, when I last worked on the product linking, I wrote some code to parse the contents inside parentheses and add them to the link suggestions (since many of our games have the Japanese or English title in parentheses.)

It will require some thought though, and at present I'm busy working on a paper for a conference.
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  #4  
Old Jan 29, 2011, 11:23 AM
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I was fixing some Konami albums and thought it was time for a healthy bump, I really miss a feature like this.
There are many albums with links to just Sound Teams, yet we know the artists who worked on them. But their pages can't/don't reflect it, losing lots of credits.
But we don't want to just relink to the artists and lose Sound Teams links, IMO.

To recap, I really want to link BOTH credited sound teams (Konami Kukeiha, Falcom JDK) *and* the artists that worked on each album; to complete discographies.


Example with Samurai Spirits:

- This is my desired end result:



- This is what we have right now in the album page (plus composer info in the notes section).


We can link all the composers normally, but that's not good enough, confusing.


- Probably the easiest way to implement it (trying to save time to you guys, but the cleaner the better), though clunky, is to add a suffix matching the link we want to 'group'.


> But right before generating the album page, if a link matching the suffixes exists the artists get grouped inside.



- This, however, I don't want at all.


It's redundant and doesn't 'feel' right.
To me it should read "Composed by SGZ (Tate Norio and PAPAYA from said team)".
NOT "Composed by Tate Norio (who happens to be from SGZ), PAPAYA (same)".
(basic suffix usage should be reserved for companies, see below).


- Also I'd use this *ONLY* for credited sound teams.
By this I mean, for example, some OSTs scans credit "Hitoshi Sakimoto (Basiscape)". This just means Sakimoto comes from Basiscape the company, not a sound team like SGZ. We don't want "Composed by Basiscape (Hitoshi Sakimoto)" IMO, but the other way around is ok.

KKC, Alph Lyra, SGZ, jdk, Gamadelic... those guys are well known sound teams and are credited as composers in their albums, so we should preserve such credits. And since the liner notes and staff rolls also give insight on the actual artists, we could preserve those too.
[However! I'd warn people of using staff rolls with care, since often they just give generic 'sound' credits without separating the composers. I've seen wrong credits due to this. I'd personally always check the liner notes for proper credits]


Thoughts...? I think this would be a huge step for the site's completeness.
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  #5  
Old Jan 29, 2011, 01:15 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dag View Post
- This is my desired end result:
Yes, please.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dag View Post
- Also I'd use this *ONLY* for credited sound teams.
By this I mean, for example, some OSTs scans credit "Hitoshi Sakimoto (Basiscape)". This just means Sakimoto comes from Basiscape the company, not a sound team like SGZ. We don't want "Composed by Basiscape (Hitoshi Sakimoto)" IMO, but the other way around is ok.

KKC, Alph Lyra, SGZ, jdk, Gamadelic... those guys are well known sound teams and are credited as composers in their albums, so we should preserve such credits. And since the liner notes and staff rolls also give insight on the actual artists, we could preserve those too.
[However! I'd warn people of using staff rolls with care, since often they just give generic 'sound' credits without separating the composers. I've seen wrong credits due to this. I'd personally always check the liner notes for proper credits]
In the case of the Basiscape example, I think only the composer's name should be enough, as the notes section can easily take care of the rest (i.e. keeping the Hitoshi Sakimoto (Basiscape) credit within the notes).

And agreed, in-game credits should be used with proper care/judgment; it never hurts to do some cross reference. Quality over quantity, I say.
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  #6  
Old Jan 30, 2011, 05:38 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dag View Post
> But right before generating the album page, if a link matching the suffixes exists the artists get grouped inside.
This would probably be the best way.

But, what about doujins? Guest arrangers often are credited with their affiliated circle in parentheses -- e.g., Ravy (Re:Volte).

http://vgmdb.net/album/11096

I don't think we'd want to invert the order and group for these, because that's not how they are credited.
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  #7  
Old Jan 30, 2011, 05:53 AM
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I'll like to tackle this, now that I have roughly one week of free time.

Maybe an extra dropdown for selecting a group (currently credited to the album) that the artists are also associated with. This would be an additional field which will override the suffix display.
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  #8  
Old Jan 30, 2011, 07:11 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel View Post
But, what about doujins? Guest arrangers often are credited with their affiliated circle in parentheses -- e.g., Ravy (Re:Volte).

http://vgmdb.net/album/11096

I don't think we'd want to invert the order and group for these, because that's not how they are credited.

I believe Dag addressed that, he didn't want companies or publishers linked, just sound teams.
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  #9  
Old Jan 30, 2011, 12:20 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gigablah View Post
I'll like to tackle this, now that I have roughly one week of free time.
Yay!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gigablah View Post
I believe Dag addressed that, he didn't want companies or publishers linked, just sound teams.
Yeah, current affiliations like "Name (Group)" are fine like that. No real need to alter or link these now, since these groups/companies aren't really quite an 'artist' in the concept we have in the db.


Another secondary use for this feature (though I don't have an immediate need for it) could be for bands (ex), which fans probably only care for general links to it, but we could have also have the actual members that composed or arranged.
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  #10  
Old Mar 7, 2011, 07:12 AM
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*ahem* sooo it looks like it's working, except the artist propagator thing gets confused.

I don't mind linking and editting artist fields manually, may I go ahead or are there other issues...? (I'm so bored at work...)
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  #11  
Old Mar 7, 2011, 07:23 AM
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Sure, you can go ahead and start linking them up. I'll look into the propagator.
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  #12  
Old Mar 7, 2011, 07:38 AM
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This is an awesome tool! I didn't quite understand the "unit" thing until I saw what Dag did with the Ultimate Ecology album.

Last edited by AcidBeast; Mar 7, 2011 at 07:46 AM.
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  #13  
Old Mar 7, 2011, 07:47 AM
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Note that the unit dropdown selection only appears if you link the unit itself along with the individual members.
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  #14  
Old Mar 8, 2011, 06:17 AM
Cedille Cedille is offline
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This album is credited for the unit which consists of multiple units, and what should I do to link individual artists?

N.T = Neptune + Reeb + T-FORCE
Neptune = SOU1

Also, I know this matter isn't particularly confined to unit linking, but if an album scored by the unit consisting of multiple members and we know only part of the individual names. I can't introduce a real case here, but please imagine an album scored by Konami Kukeiha Club and the only revealed composer is Miki Higashino. "Konami Kukeiha Club (Miki Higashino)" can be possibly misleading, as if she looked like the sole composer involved. In such a case, should we avoid adding individuals and keep info in the note? Or could we add some suffix inside the brackets? (I mean like, " Konami Kukeiha Club (Miki Higashino, more)").
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  #15  
Old Mar 8, 2011, 06:54 AM
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You probably hit the most complex example in the DB
Seeing your posts here, since Neptune is a company and not an unit it shouldn't be credited directly (there was a similar case for Minakuchi Staff recently). N.T members are fixed, so it's not so important they show in the page, imo.
Personally the simplest would be credit only N.T. in the album page, and in N.T's artist page link SOU1 with a "Neptune" suffix.

For the second, I have mixed feelings (more discussion here).
But I'd start with simpler albums and leave complex cases for later discussion, adding the known credits in the notes for now.


Btw Cedille, based on Gigablah's example I think we are supposed to credit composers with brackets, as shown in the album page.
ex "Falcom Sound Team jdk (Hayato Sonoda, Takahiro Unisuga, Saki Momiyama, Masanori Osaki)", even though currently the "propagator" in the artist page thinks it's wrong (you have to do it manually).
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  #16  
Old Mar 8, 2011, 11:26 AM
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Oh, thanks. I finally figured out what's going on. So we have to keep the text in "UNIT (ARTIST, ARTIST, ARTIST...)" format yet assign and link them manually (and that would be why nobody is crazy about this yet).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dag View Post
Personally the simplest would be credit only N.T. in the album page, and in N.T's artist page link SOU1 with a "Neptune" suffix.
I tried to do it, but it seems a unit member can't have a suffix. Also, by so, I'm not sure this album appears on SOU1's discography (which I think is the main point), but perhaps I'm still devoid of understanding...

I've tentatively linked both SOU1 and N.T. to the album, but if there is a better way, please fix it.
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  #17  
Old Mar 12, 2011, 05:04 PM
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I may be missing something, but at the moment, can we put into the parentheses only the artists with their own entries?

I want to do like "ACE COMBAT5 Chorus Team (Yukie Honma, Miho Asai, Michiko Inoue, Tomoka Hattori, Reimi Saito, Hiromi Uchiyama, Asami Oda, Machiko Yamada, Akiko Arai, Saori Nohara, Junko Hirakoso, Hiroki Yamashita, Kiketsu Seki, Shunsuke Tsuda, Jun Sasaki, Takayuki Kondo)", but ends up as now it is. I think aside of the two, the rest hasn't been so active in the game and anime scene (at least, as far as we know), so I don't want to create an entry for every member.
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  #18  
Old Mar 16, 2011, 06:12 AM
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Wow, triple posts, but when an artist has the credit both separately and collectively, is it fair to duplicate the artist name? For example, in this album, Ayana Taketatsu is the main vocalist, yet is also part of Sakurakou K-ON Bu which is credited for the third track. If we avoid credit duplication, it will be like below, but technically this isn't correct. So I'm currently adding artists twice. It doesn't affect the artist discography either way.
Quote:
Ayana Taketatsu, Sakurakou K-ON Bu (Aki Toyosaki, Yoko Hikasa, Minako Kotobuki, Satomi Sato)
(Another question is whether to see Azusa Nakano as the alias of Ayana Taketatsu, but I should bring this matter to the right place, not here).
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  #19  
Old Mar 16, 2011, 07:09 AM
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I haven't looked into the technical details of the unit-subartist linnking, but my feeling on this would be that it makes sense to link them both for the individual credit and for the group credit in cases where they really are separate things.

We might want to change the discography code to say something like (for your example):

for Aki Toyosaki
K-ON! character image song series Azusa Nakano PCCG-00985 Performer with Sakurakou K-ON Bu

and for Ayana Taketatsu
K-ON! character image song series Azusa Nakano PCCG-00985 Performer, Performer with Sakurakou K-ON Bu
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  #20  
Old Mar 16, 2011, 08:23 AM
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About "ACE COMBAT5 Chorus Team" I personally don't mind adding more artists even if they only have one album associated. It does tell you the person did only one album, plus you can link to his homepage, etc.
I guess for technical reasons it will only work with artists linked to units.

For the second question I think it's ok to credit it twice (within reason, ie. if the vocalist wasn't really part of the unit for one song).


But I wonder, if an unit will only have one album credited maybe they aren't really a real unit, but a just a 'special album credit' of sorts and could be ignored (dunno about your example).


Quote:
K-ON! character image song series Azusa Nakano PCCG-00985 Performer, Performer with Sakurakou K-ON Bu
The other way around with in the unit page would nice too:
K-ON! character image song series Azusa Nakano PCCG-00985 Performer (Azusa Nakano, x, y)
But since unit names tend to be long it could clutter the pages a bit. (maybe a way to hide/show?)
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  #21  
Old Mar 28, 2011, 03:47 PM
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I don't know if this issue is unique to unit linking, but I think there are some cases when the credits on one album and its reprint should be different.

0100801~2   : G.S.T. -Gust sound team- (Toshiharu Yamanishi, Daisuke Achiwa, Akira Tsuchiya), J.S. Bach, J. Pachelbel
KDSD-10003~4: Toshiharu Yamanishi, Daisuke Achiwa, Akira Tsuchiya, J.S. Bach, J. Pachelbel

Gust seemingly stops using "Gust Soundteam Atelier So-La" apparently after Atelier Iris. I know one can say it's not a big issue, since a reprint doesn't appear on the discography.
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  #22  
Old Mar 28, 2011, 07:59 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cedille View Post
I want to do like "ACE COMBAT5 Chorus Team (Yukie Honma, Miho Asai, Michiko Inoue, Tomoka Hattori, Reimi Saito, Hiromi Uchiyama, Asami Oda, Machiko Yamada, Akiko Arai, Saori Nohara, Junko Hirakoso, Hiroki Yamashita, Kiketsu Seki, Shunsuke Tsuda, Jun Sasaki, Takayuki Kondo)", but ends up as now it is. I think aside of the two, the rest hasn't been so active in the game and anime scene (at least, as far as we know), so I don't want to create an entry for every member.
It's possible, I just need to relax the check that allows the unit dropdown to show up. I'll get around to it later today.
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  #23  
Old Apr 9, 2011, 10:51 AM
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So, is this worth doing for any kinds of Units ? (as bands..etc..?) or is this just worth for sound units ?

Ex: i created artist entries for: Yui Ogura & Kaori Ishihara which are part of the 2 members unit YuiKaori.
Should i do the unit/sub artists link for this album ?
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  #24  
Old Apr 11, 2011, 10:11 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gigablah View Post
It's possible, I just need to relax the check that allows the unit dropdown to show up. I'll get around to it later today.
Any progress with this issue? I hope this gets fixed sometime soon since it makes the unit/sub-artist thing a bit unattractive if one has to submit so many one-entry-artist to the database.

Last edited by AcidBeast; Apr 11, 2011 at 10:24 AM.
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  #25  
Old Apr 11, 2011, 03:28 PM
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It's done. Now all units that are linked to a particular role can be associated with artists also linked to that role, whether or not they're members. Although you're prevented from associating a unit to itself =)
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  #26  
Old Apr 11, 2011, 04:50 PM
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Thanks for hard work, blah. Much as I hate to send one request after another and I might be missing something, what I (presumably AcidBeast, too) require is that a linked group could include artists that are assigned yet not linked to that role.

G -> The unit consisting of A, B and C.
A -> having the artist page.
B -> having the artist page
C -> having no artist page.

The ideal linking is G (A, B, C), but I think it currently ends up with G (A, B) C.

This inclusion seems to be very necessary since I don't think every artist needs an artist page. For performers who are part of a 70 piece orchestra, not infrequently is the only info we have his/her kanji name, with no photo, no reading, no gender, no birth date/place, no external link, so their respective artist pages are bound to be "empty" (unless the person is credited across multiple albums). An example is most individual members of Keiko Abe Strings here.

I would also appreciate the function of batch linked/assigned artist deletion, since we sometimes have to "insert" groups into the mass of already assigned artists. Another issue is if we try to link the same artists both separately and part of group (like this), the secondary assigning requires some additional works, but I don't know how to solve it.

Anyway, I don't intend to annoy you with repeated requests. I'm just suggesting, and please consider it in your spare time.
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  #27  
Old Apr 12, 2011, 12:24 AM
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I must have been half-awake because I totally forgot to consider that scenario. Sure, I'll patch that up tonight.
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  #28  
Old Apr 12, 2011, 01:58 AM
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Hey, thanks for the prompt action as usual!

Another random thought of mine is to close the string of artists in the bracket by default, and when one clicks something, the bracket is opened. While I like the idea of linking groups, I admit it makes the artist table a bit messy, and a white "(" at each end doesn't help it. That IM@S album above is a nice example of the mess I'm talking about, as most artists are credited twice, and there can be even a case where we'd credit the same artist thrice...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Myrkul
Should i do the unit/sub artists link for this album ?
I think so.
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  #29  
Old Apr 12, 2011, 03:58 AM
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I could make the list of group members expand-to-view by default if the number of members goes over a certain threshold, but what's really needed here is a redesign of the album display page =)

I guess I could take some pointers from all the various doujin album pages I've visited.
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  #30  
Old Apr 12, 2011, 04:14 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cedille View Post
Hey, thanks for the prompt action as usual!

Another random thought of mine is to close the string of artists in the bracket by default, and when one clicks something, the bracket is opened. While I like the idea of linking groups, I admit it makes the artist table a bit messy, and a white "(" at each end doesn't help it. That IM@S album above is a nice example of the mess I'm talking about, as most artists are credited twice, and there can be even a case where we'd credit the same artist thrice...


I think so.
Another alternative could be to try a different color or font style/size for the names that are in the parentheses.
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