Gonna use this thread -> beatmapsets/1611719/discussion/-/generalAll
for example of an case of unrelated background ^ use for an anime/video game
that has plenty background from the source material at hand.

Right now currently there is no set or stone way in particular to enforced/encourage mappers to use source material backgrounds so at the very least possibly have a guideline for it for fellow BN/Mappers to go by with something along the lines like this:

"If the song has any source material, then the background of a beatmapset should be related if possible. If there is no good quality background or any alternatives provided, then the mapper is free to use any background that is within community guidelines

Exceptions:
- backgrounds with minimum focus or without character (I.g Scenery backgrounds)"

Of course maybe more to it than this but over-all I think this would help solved certain cases.

imo bg's should generally just fit the maps or songs vibe

A guideline would be nice so fans of certain source materials aren't disappointed when the background is an unrelated one. Example: beatmapsets/1435798#osu/3019749

Choosing the right background is an easy way to instantly make your map better, even if the map itself is the same.

i think this would be fine as a guideline, but only for tv size versions / game equivalents of songs as those are most directly related to the anime whereas full versions are not really related and should not be tied down like that

Nao Tomori wrote:

i think this would be fine as a guideline, but only for tv size versions / game equivalents of songs as those are most directly related to the anime whereas full versions are not really related and should not be tied down like that

yea thats the goal i think, just for tv size and game ver, and only if theres a decent bg from said source

Project Railgun wrote:

Choosing the right background is an easy way to instantly make your map better, even if the map itself is the same.

?

Nao Tomori wrote:

i think this would be fine as a guideline, but only for tv size versions/ game equivalents of songs as those are most directly related to the anime whereas full versions are not really related and should not be tied down like that

i'd agree it shouldn't pertain to full versions but alas the map that I posted as an example, which is a full version, got veto over this beatmapsets/1611719/discussion/-/generalAll#/2792960 thing that i'm making a proposal about.

While I personally disagree with what was said on the thread myself, people do apparently care to this extent about it enough to warrant a veto despite not being neither game nor tv size version of the song.

Considering that, I just believe that having some form of consistency would be nicer to avoid bias situations

Cheri wrote:

Nao Tomori wrote:

i think this would be fine as a guideline, but only for tv size versions/ game equivalents of songs as those are most directly related to the anime whereas full versions are not really related and should not be tied down like that

i'd agree it shouldn't pertain to full versions but alas the map that I posted as an example, which is a full version, got veto over this beatmapsets/1611719/discussion/-/generalAll#/2792960 thing that i'm making a proposal about.

While I personally disagree with what was said on the thread myself, people do apparently care to this extent about it enough to warrant a veto despite not being neither game nor tv size version of the song.

Considering that, I just believe that having some form of consistency would be nicer to avoid bias situations

imho there should still be some context.
yes the map veto'd is a full version but it got made for the source material. it's not a solo artist/group where they got a company ask them if they could use their song.

For example: MYTH & ROID songs are used for the anime "Overlord". Pretty much everymap on osu that uses myth and roid songs that are tied to the anime are using the source material for backgrounds.
But for example: beatmapsets/282345#osu/638493 has not used the source material where the song came from neither the artist or the anime. On youtube for example, you can find both the artist version, and the anime version or opening.

On the map that sparked this discussion that's not the case at all. The song got specifically created for the game/fandom. The artists are 100% part of the projects literally VA of characters of the game and anime. I think clearly not using source material in this case is just silly especially when there is so much to choose from.

beatmapsets/1078344#osu/2256387 is a full song that uses source material. Its literally perfect. Everybody is satisfied, the map's awesome and people who find it through knowing the source material are pleased.
this is the way to do it.

There should still be a distinction about where the song came from: Is there an artist only version available anywhere ? Is there only an anime version ?
A song could be TV size and still made only for the source material like in eroge games/songs.
If the artist is seperating themselves from the anime/game then i'd understand choosing a background that the mapper personally likes whatever it is as long as its somewhat relevant.
But when they artists aren't: there should't be so much leeway where you can use any anime background because the song sounds "anime".

Also as a note: having more control on backgrounds would be a nice touch especially for features artists. Having their album cover or background they themselves are affiliated with would be 100% better than what we can have now.

Having some kind of rule to make it more consistent without completely removing the choice of mappers is badly needed

Edit: what i would propose
- For anime and game tagged songs, cut ver/tv size ver/short ver. should have a background matching or closely related to the song/source material.

- For anime and game tagged songs, full ver backgrounds are at the discretion of the mapper as long as the artist provides his own full ver of the song void of the source material (e.g official music video not related to anime/game).
Background should still be somewhat relevant to the song (Similar themes etc or neutral background like for Myth & Roid or Oral cigarettes ranked songs).

- For anime and game tagged songs, full ver backgrounds should match the source material if the songs are/were made for the source material use only (offical music video or alternative not available. e.g eroge game songs like Art as <3).

- For anime and game tagged song, mappers can use other background with matching themes or neutral backgrounds if the source material of the song has a poor number of wallpapers to choose from (up to staff to decide how many) or most if not all wallpapers from sm are already used in other ranked mapsets.

- For featured artists songs, matching background to source material or existing covers from the artist albums or provided by the artist themselves are mandatory.

We could then expand on other genres like electronic, intrumental etc if needed.

deja vu, huh

the closing remark on that previous thread is kinda questionable. but morrighan imo makes a good point about the urgency of this guideline to exist.

Morrighan wrote:

This purely serves to give BN/NAT/GMT members reasonable grounds to force a change or discuss wether a BG needs a change, because as it is by nature subjective, this atleast allows them to have a good reason to try and challenge a background they deem unfitting.

Without this, its going to be always abusable. So this will act as an QoL update to avoid unnecessary debate between mappers, players, and BNs alike.

Fisky wrote:

imo bg's should generally just fit the maps or songs vibe

this

My 2 cents on the proposal:
"Backgrounds should at least provide a relatable context to the songs in its related media. If none applies, a backgrounds should at least match the songs general mood, lyrics, and/or mapping style (?). Use common sense to determine such case."

idk if the "mapping style" should also be included, i feel like its going to be too gray to make an objective cases.

while we're at it (and i also mention on the previous thread), i think there should also be a guideline about using meme edits background in a perfectly non-meme songs. there has been a slip like this beatmapsets/779332#mania/1897756 before, so i think its worth to mention.

imo even full vers should use bg related to source as long as tv size was made first
why should we be generally fine with unrelated bg on full ver but not on tv size when its literally the same song just different lenght? it makes no sense imo

Rivals_7 wrote:

deja vu, huh

oh i was just about to bring this up lol

either way my personal take is this : imo things like this are somewhat overkill to be put in place as an official rule or guideline. i think it would be best just to leave this to each other's conscience and good will, as i believe the mapping community as a whole nowadays is already mature enough to proactively keep things that are way off the rail from passing through (think of how this map's bg caused a big commotion in the past for example, which... i can't say the details in here for certain reasons but if you know, you know)

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also on a completely unrelated note

Project Railgun wrote:

Choosing the right background is an easy way to instantly make your map better, even if the map itself is the same.

i think you're confusing stuffs here as backgrounds are *not* intrinsically tied to a map's quality; while they do bring a certain degree of immersion bgs are, at best, a factor that is independent to how good the map itself is. you can literally have a map's background changed over and over like say 1000x times and the map itself will... well, practically still be the same.

I'm pretty against a guideline for this since it comes down to being so subjective. For example I personally hate official game promotion art and for some games there isn't really other types of art to use. So I would use a different source material.

Honestly think people should just be allowed to do what they want with their maps. If they want a stupid background for their set more power to them.

As someone who just ranked a to love RU song without a TLR background in order to avoid association with the anime, I'm also very against this change; background should be fitting, but to the map in general (like others said above), not just to the source material.

My personal feelings (don’t take it seriously):
Just remove mappers’ permission to change the bg of the set and let the bn/nat to do it to avoid ‘irrelevant’ bg and keep ‘high quality’ ahahaha. ppl just don’t like astolfo:(

Kwstv wrote:

My personal feelings (don’t take it seriously):
Just remove mappers’ permission to change the bg of the set and let the bn/nat to do it to avoid ‘irrelevant’ bg and keep ‘high quality’ ahahaha. ppl just don’t like astolfo:(

People like astolfo dw it just didn't make sense for this map.

Nevo wrote:

I'm pretty against a guideline for this since it comes down to being so subjective. For example I personally hate official game promotion art and for some games there isn't really other types of art to use. So I would use a different source material.

Honestly think people should just be allowed to do what they want with their maps. If they want a stupid background for their set more power to them.

It's really not subjective tho. If you were proposed to map for a feature artist announcement you wouldn't use a random background. you'd take from the source material to respect the artist and the song.
Why not extend this to every game/anime song ?

I just think more importance should be given to background. Atm its just dismissed as an afterthought, aka just slap whatever sticks.
This should change especially since players are the people who literally play the map and see the background the most(especially new are the ones who will get the most out of this).

People remember maps by their backgrounds. There's trends for songs of the same artists (e.g oral cigarettes). People are exited for maps with cool backgrounds. Backgrounds are literally used as clickbait to drive players to play them (looking at all the maps focusing on anime girls in bikinis with huge breasts lol) and it works...

Backgrounds are important & too many mappers just don't care cause they've been left to not care for way too long.
Way back in the days background dim wasn't a thing. Imagine if you had a shitty background. I'd be a total letdown. People are too used to people playing with 100% dim for pp when not everybody plays like that and new players stick in the first place by playing their favourite songs with background on, video on etc and they weight just as much as anyone else imho

Nevo wrote:

I'm pretty against a guideline for this since it comes down to being so subjective. For example I personally hate official game promotion art and for some games there isn't really other types of art to use. So I would use a different source material.

Honestly think people should just be allowed to do what they want with their maps. If they want a stupid background for their set more power to them.

in that case i feel like there should be something to discourage vetos for bg. im fairly neutral with this, but i think a stance has to be made toward either side. either make a loose guidline, or discourage people from doing dumb bg vetos in some way. people have got punished for diff name vetos in the past such as the "mama mia" incident, so why shouldnt it be the same for dumb bg vetos if we're going for the stance that theyre stupid?

Abielove wrote:

If you were proposed to map for a feature artist announcement you wouldn't use a random background. you'd take from the source material to respect the artist and the song.

o as someone who has been working on a bunch of fa showcase maps i can tell that this very much not the case lol. us showcase mappers (and all other fa mappers by extension) are not and have never been obliged to use "the source material" -- be it album cover or anything else -- as our map's backgrounds; in fact we are very much allowed to use anything as long as it's cleared for usage in osu! (hence why left-field background choices such as this and this are not that uncommon)

...but that's a different topic altogether i suppose. by posting this i don't want to particularly derail the thread from its original intent; instead i was just tempted to... provide an insight/clarification on your statement.

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also (i wanted to comment on this one as well but forgot to do so earlier whoops)

Ablelove wrote:

- For featured artists songs, matching background to source material or existing covers from the artist albums or provided by the artist themselves are mandatory.

ngl this proposal sounds really catastrophic orz because this will only unnecessarily limit your bg choices when you're mapping stuffs such as kinema106 or undead corporation D:

Niva wrote:

ngl this proposal sounds really catastrophic orz because this will only unnecessarily limit your bg choices when you're mapping stuffs such as kinema106 or undead corporation D:

Then we can just made so if there's not enough backgrounds to choose from, you can use a neutral background. Just like i proposed for anime full ver songs background in my message earlier.