Here's a good place to start for map stuff
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkBj6Kfmxkim3bBQm2F_0ww
Quote from: bayonetbrant on August 24, 2015, 10:27:31 PM
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkBj6Kfmxkim3bBQm2F_0ww
Subscribed for later viewing!
Any recommendations as to a site for free textures and plugins and whatnot?
Quote from: Staggerwing on August 25, 2015, 07:03:09 AM
Any recommendations as to a site for free textures and plugins and whatnot?
"Google Image Search"
:2funny:
What do you mean by plugins, Stagger?
Free textures...there aren't many of those out there. Google that and you'll find several, including http://www.brusheezy.com/textures
check out John Coopers page for some good info
http://www.jrcooper.com/wargameart.htm
Quote from: bayonetbrant on August 25, 2015, 08:26:59 AM
check out John Coopers page for some good info
http://www.jrcooper.com/wargameart.htm
I stumbled on this and thought, WTF?
http://www.jrcooper.com/computer.htm
Then I saw he hasn't updated it in 7 years. The art in your link is pretty cool though!
A word of advice, just because a site says its textures are free, their definitions of free are sometimes blurry.
Read the terms of use.
Many times they are free for personal use only, so anything for commercial use is prohibited.
And if the terms of use is pages long and has been written by a team of lawyers, avoid the site like the plague.
Good advice. Thx. O0
Are the OST textures free to use for KS backers? (J/K :)))
see attached
Adobe certainly has the tools that make designing your own boardgames a possibility. I'm very competent with Photoshop but have stumbled learning Illustrator, which I really would like to use with Photoshop. For those who may ask what the difference is, Photoshop is mostly raster based imaging meaning that if you scale an image, you'll get pixelation that can be quite obvious depending on how much scaling you do. Illustrator is vector based imaging meaning that you can resize the artwork as much or as little and as frequently as you like and it will look crisp and clean no matter. A good example of this is with some pdf's that you get. You may notice that if you zoom in or out, the image "redraws" on the screen and it's just as sharp as it did at 100% zoom factor.
Another tool that Adobe has that is quite useful for game design is InDesign. This is a desktop publishing app that beats the snot out of trying to do it in something like MS Word. I've self-taught myself how to use it recently by watching some online videos like those linked above. This weekends project was putting together charts and references for a tabletop game that I've been tinkering with (see attached). Pretty cool stuff- this is definitely a tool to have in your bag if you're thinking of coming up with some of your own designs!
I have done almost all of my publishing in InDesign
But then again I have almost a 25 year history of working with desktop publishing at this point, & I have worked with almost every app there is. So picking up InDesign was not that tough for me
I found it to be fairly straight forward. There was an initial learning curve where doing things seemed kind of wonky as compared to how you'd do it in say MS Word or Excel but now that I've done a couple of full rulebook layouts and now all these charts, I'm feeling really good with it.
I should add in the Illustrator vs Photoshop chat- someone may ask "well why not just always use Illustrator if it's vector art and looks better?". Answer: Illustrator doesn't have the graphic tools that Photoshop has (for the most part). Photoshop has many built in filters that let's do just about anything with an image. Illlustrator can do some of that but not nearly to the same degree. What would seem natural is if Illustrator and Photoshop were combined into a single package but of course that would do Adobe no good.
Quote from: GJK on August 30, 2015, 02:55:53 PMWhat would seem natural is if Illustrator and Photoshop were combined into a single package but of course that would do Adobe no good.
That was SuperPaint
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperPaint_(Macintosh)
I did a LOT of old bldg. layouts for RPGs with it
I like AI as it is very powerful, and forgiving if you want to make any changes to your work.
I used it almost exclusively for the maps in 'Brother Against Brother'.
But if you want the details you have to use PS.
Most of my projects, I use a combination of the 2.
I also use ZBrush and GIMP for some aspects of a project.
I've just bloodied myself in battle with InDesign for the OST rulebook.
It is also a great program.
To me, InDesign seems to be a close cousin to Illustrator- much more so than Photoshop. I need to keep playing around with Illustrator because I definitely want the ability to do vector art (though Photoshop now has more and more support for it). I think that gets me is the 'paths' with the anchor points and such. That and I keep wanting to do things like how Photoshop does it...."I just want to crop the damn thing, how do I do that!!". Jamm, do you recommend that I keep trying to stick with Illustrator (since I have it and am comfortable with other Adobe products) or is something like ZBrush, Inkscape, Gimp maybe a simpler way to get the basics down before transitioning to Illustrator (in your opinion)?
Illustrator is probably one of the less-intuitive programs in the Adobe lineup (probably the worst out of the bunch now that FrameMaker is long out of the picture). It can be gloriously frustrating sometimes, but I agree, the results are always light-years ahead of what you can do in Photoshop.
Stick with learning AI GJK, it will be worth it in the end.
If you look at the games out there, probably 90 % are made with AI.
But IMHO, most are very simple and uninspired. Or what some might call functional >:D
Once you have a vectored path, or closed path, you can add multiple layers of fills with various effects much like PS.
But the cool thing, when you manipulate it by moving points around, all of the artwork conforms to the new paths.
I'm constantly learning with the program and not close to using it to its full potential.
Agree with Banzai that its not very intuitive. I still have a lot of wtf moments myself. :)
Quote from: GJK on September 02, 2015, 05:46:07 AMTo me, InDesign seems to be a close cousin to Illustrator- much more so than Photoshop.
InDesign was Adobe's attempt to merge the kinds of vector tools found in QuarkXpress into PageMaker.
It was designed to take on Quark and priced based on Adobe's original bundle model rather than Quark's (very expensive) multi-seat license model that made even individual purchases of Quark very expensive.
I probably don't need to tell you who won, eh? ;)
And with that, we can return to the "neat tricks with PhotoShop" intent of this thread.
there's a whole playlist of these
[yt]https://youtu.be/5N-Jyf4AhY8[/yt]
That looks like CS2.
I do all my graphic work in Photoshop. I have tried Illustrator but can't figure it out...or more precisely I don't have time to figure it out when I have projects that need finishing.
For great patterns/textures, brushes and actions go no further than Deviantart: www.deviantart.com
hi all! nice thread! thanks a lot!! :)
for photoshop-users i still can highly recommend 'Blur's Good Brush' by the chinese cg-artist yang xueguo.
his brushes are worth a try and free to use - at least the 4.0 version was free...
later versions are hard to find since his blog vanished some years ago...
(there's v5.1 - in chinese but you're missing nothing if you start playing with 4.0 - it's like an eye-opener for photoshop brush-creation!)
anyhow, have a look! here's an old article from him on cgtalk - back in the day...
(the download link is on the bottom of the second page):
http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/tower_of_evil
cheers and enjoy! O0
chem!
PSD map texture settings
Settings for Forest hexes:
56 Spatter brush, 150 pixels, color: R94, G149, B65, single clicks only!, do NOT click-and-drag.
(1) Outer glow: R39, G138, B29, set to linear burn, 30% opacity, 5% noise, precise technique and 5px size
(2) Emboss: Smooth technique, 400% depth (up), 18px size and no soften
Settings for Rough hexes:
60 Chalk brush, 140 pixel, with a 60% flow on the airbrush setting. R135, G122, B78, single clicks only!, do NOT click-and-drag.
(1) Outer glow, R140, G123, B87, normal blend, 70% opacity, 20% noise, softer technique, 1% spread, and 10px size
(2) Inner glow, R97, G91, B43, dissolve blend, 70% opacity, 10% noise, precise technique from edge, 10% choke, 10px spread
(3) Emboss, Smooth technique, 100% depth(up), 7px size, no soften
Could your techinque in PSD be replicated in Illustrator?
I've made my own "forest" brushes in Illustrator but wasn't to satisfied with the outcome.
I don't know if those can be replicated in Illustrator since they're dependent on the way that PSD creates certain pixels.
But I'll confess that I don't know Illustrator enough to say for certain
Illustrator is all vector-based. You could make some sharp-looking graphics there, but I think it's way too finnicky and not nearly as user-friendly as Photoshop is.
@bayonetbrant - nice idea, working good so far. thank you!
@taijeronv - something like that can also be created in illustrator. just check out the scatter options for newly created brushes,
but beware of a vector overkill! bitty-fricky small vector objects are easily handled as instances (symbols), of course you'll have
sharp and resolution independent images but the printing of these or even rasterizing is hard work for man AND machine!
it's always wise to try and combine both, pixel AND vector, if you'll want/need to stay in illustrator.
@Banzai_Cat - imho, illustrator and photoshop are both very user friendly! true, there are people who prefer one over the other but hey...
i take what's best from different worlds and combine the whole in one or the other - clients and personal work... it really depends.
afaik, it's a sad story - illustrator and photoshop are from different teams inside the same company,
the toolsets that should be the same are different, behaves different and have also different keyboard shortcuts!
so yeah, it's a mess but still, if you're used to both it pays off!!
cheers!
chemkid, I think I'm more leaning towards PS since I started my instructional design career heavily invested in it. I can do some basic things in IL but overall it eludes me why the keystrokes aren't the same in both programs. I think there are some similar commands, but there are definitely things that elude me in IL. IL is definitely great for vector drawings, but I find the graphics I make for my training modules have to be done quickly and I rarely open IL these days, it seems.
Some additional photoshop tutorials, mostly comic book-oriented
http://www.tejbabra.com/2010/07/12/creating-the-graphic-novel-look-using-photoshop/
http://www.photoshoplady.com/tutorial/transform-your-image-into-sin-city-style/7340
http://photoshoproadmap.com/give-your-photos-a-retro-comic-book-effect/
https://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/photo-manipulation/create-comic-book-text-effect-photoshop/
http://www.learnphotoediting.net/blog/cartoon-yourself-the-easy-way-in-photoshop/
http://www.pxleyes.com/tutorial/photoshop/2596/Creating-a-Professional-Cartoon-Effect-from-a-Real-Photograph.html