Looking for some graphics help with Stargate

[Alastair]

I'am interested in making some new virtual sets for the Stargate TCG and while I'am experienced enough in plugin creation, maintaining them and other bits of coding what I really lack is any ability with graphics.

What I'am seeking help with is to make a series of blank card templates similiar to those posted at http://andrewheintz.googlepages.com/home2. However there's a few problems with those and making them work with MSE (Magic Set Editor). As outlined by one of the MSE Template developers:

1.) They aren't completely blanked; there're still text elements on them. Now, I can see that the person using them would take these little pieces of text and paste them over the other text elements, but you can't do that in MSE - the various elements used need to all be exactly uniform in placement. For instance, on the Asgard-Support frame, the floating 6 can't be bigger than the floating 5 - they have to be exactly the same.

2.) Following from that, the template would be extremely large because you can't just type in your own typeline - you have to change frames to change type (which means lots more memory occupied by the template). If the original creator had just stripped that bit of text off, there'd be one Asgard frame, one Ancients frame, etc., and it would be much easier to work with. There also wouldn't be missing frames. And of course, you could make new card types and stuff like that.

3.) They're low quality. He was probably working from a card database or preview images or something, which I explicitly say is a bad idea in my "standard response". To get quality, you really need to work from good scans.

So, I was wondering if we have anyone in the community capable and willing to help me out with this endeavor?

[Tokimo]

I can probably do this. I presume the source images you'll be editing are in the existing plugin? What textless cards do you need to be made?

[legend zero]

Also, there's a great (simple) image editor called 3DFA out there. It's what we use to make the Hax cards. It's object oriented and lefts you move stuff pretty dynamically, even if it's not the best (It is free after all).

I can get you a key if you want to give it a shot for the 7 day trial.

http://www.3dfa.com

[Alastair]

Actually I have a series of images that are of a bit better quality than what's in the plugin (havent had time yet to include them in the plugin ). For editting I've found a great freeware application called Paint.Net, ya might wanna take a look at it Zero. It has most if not all of the functionality of Photoshop and it's totally freeware, opensource.

[legend zero]

Al-la 3dfa, Gimp, and now I can add this to the list.

There's a bunch of freeware programs out there, which one a person uses just comes down to preference and luck, in the end.

[Alastair]

I can probably do this. I presume the source images you'll be editing are in the existing plugin? What textless cards do you need to be made?

Quite a few actually. Basically there'd need to be all the ones shown on the webpage as "blanks" and a couple of new ones ontop of those.

[Tokimo]

Are the source images the bmps then?

Some of these are essentially the same, like Event and Gear. Do you want the type text removed so you only have one card type there, or do you want the type left alone?

[Alastair]

I'll have to get the new images uploaded to my server sometime in the near future, so they're not available at the moment. As I said in my original post the images in that link are not high enough quality to work for a MSE template. As to the different types, honestly I dont know what MSE needs. The quote suggests that a base would be needed, which could then be altered for the different types (Events, Gear, Support, etc..)

[Tokimo]

Well, if you put up some base images chance are I can hack out the non-essential parts.