I thought I would let people know that Chris Jennings (Thelric) has updated his card editor for Arkham Horror, Strange Eons, so that people can create cards for other games.

As an example he has made a basic plugin using Talisman as a base! It needs a bit of work to be comprehensive with Spells etc enabled, but I will look at that today. You may even recognise the card example he has used!

Strange Eons site - http://www.sfu.ca/~cjenning/eons/

Plugins page - http://www.sfu.ca/~cjenning/eons/plugins/

This is the reason I was holding off remaking the Photoshop templates as I know not everyone has access to the program. This should make thngs a lot easier for people.

First attempts are encouraging...

There is a bit of tweaking to be done on a few of the cards, but all in all it seems to work very well indeed!

Getting closer.....

Very nice! Thanks for sharing the information.

No worries. Last bit of development for now - Expansion symbols....

"Time for bed" said Zebedee..... <boing!>

Mmm. Shame that it requires Java 6...

for anyone with a Mac, you would need to have Leopard on a 64 bit Intel processor to get Java 6.

I have downloaded Java 6, the Card editor software and the plug in for Talisman but I have some problems.

1. The only cardset available to create is the adventure cards. I have no option to create spell cards etc

2. When I click on the adventure card to create a new card i get the following error message

Unable to create the requested editor

java.lang.NullPointerException

Please can someone advise on the steps to take to correct the above

Regards

mmilli said:

I've exactly same error as You ~

mmilli said:

A quick investigation suggests that you haven't installed the ui-grid library (another plug-in that this plug-in requires). I'll have to look into that, as you are supposed to get a message saying it is missing, not a vague NPE.

There is only one card type in the extension on the plug-in page. The others are being add by Jon (talismanisland). As far as I know he hasn't published them yet.

Cheers,
Chris

Thelric said:

Not as yet, but as soon as a couple more kinks have been ironed out I will be doing.

BanthaFodder said:

You can run it with SoyLatte, which is basically a port of Sun's JVM to OS X. However, installing it does require that either you or someone nearby is computer savvy enough to use a Terminal window. Also, SoyLatte doesn't have a native AWT implementation yet, which means that it uses Apple's X11 port... which basically means that the interface is not as "Macified" when run that way. If you are interested in giving this a try, there are some instructions on how to do it on the download page and in the readme included with the OS X download.

Cheers,
Chris

Thelric said:

Chris,

SoyLatte is for Intel architecture only. Those of us with a PowerPC architecture that runs very nicely thankyou are not invited to the Java6 party at all.

<<OFF TOPIC>>

Apple have totally dropped the ball on Java, only recently bringing out Java6 years after every other platform and even then restricting the chipset as well as making it run like a dog.

This is going to be a continuing problem with PPC, Apple's way of forcing users into getting new hardware.

As a business decision, I can see how it makes sense, it must be a nightmare for them maintaining universal code. I don't like it though...

<< OFF TOPIC >>

I am playing with Flex at the moment and was thinking of making a Air app to do something like this anyway... have not had the time recently though and the trial license is dwindling.

Ah, yes. You didn't mention PPC so I assumed an earlier version of OS X or a 32-bit CPU. Can't disagre about Apple's JVM. I think the users would be best served if Apple just donated their implementation to OpenJDK.

Cheers,
Chris

Work continues apace...

Strange Eons is awesome...

talismanisland said:

The art of the necro skull is very very good !!

It looks like a official card !

You did it again Jon

I am looking forward to the new curstom cards that people will make

PS. It's a powerfull treasure card but you need luck to draw it from the treasure deck:)

Onto what would you print these to make it as close to the offical cards as possible? (Paper type I mean)

Matt

I am not sure what weight of paper/card you would need as I haven't investigated that as yet. I will be most likely be using sticker sheets and "real" cards to cover like I did with 4th Edition.

I still haven't decided really as I don't mind that you can tell the cards apart so much. It can even add to the mystery as you know very well that it is a "new" card, but which one? The other problem with making home made cards "official looking" is that the FFG cards are textured.

I am sure someone will give some more insight into the types of paper/card etc that are suitable, but in the mean time there are a couple of "how to" pages about printing home made cards in the Features section of Talisman Island. If someone wants to put one together (hint, hint) for the Revised 4th Edition, it would be good to add that to the page too!

In other news... Chris Jennings is fast becoming the new Santa Claus...

...watch this space...

Hi

There are three ways to make playable costumcards

1. scan and reprint the orginal cards on own paper , so you can use your own costumcards on the same paper (maybe lamineded)

(you need much time and work)

2. use sleeves

(not usefull to shuffle - hope it is the right word for it the cards and have bad style )

3.use thin Photopaper - self adhesive and put it on orginal cards

(not cheap but the best way, 10 sheets A4 for 13€ and you need min. a *second copy from the org. game or expansion*)

*well these will be the smallest problem for Jon hihihiihih

1. Forget about trying to make your cards exactly like commercial ones. It doesn't really work. I can always tell the difference by sight and touch befor I look at a card when a label has been applied to the face of a commercial card... an most players won't care.
2. Setup the card backs to print in a grid on card stock, with chop marks;
3. You'll need to learn / practice proper trim order for lining up cut halved, quartered, sixteenth cuts (meaning down to single cards) to make these blanks come out the same size. DO NOT TRIM THE CORNERS YET.
4. Once printed and cut, you now have blanks to use that are all the same size.
5. Print your own cards on full sheet label paper with crop marks.
6. Repeat step 3 to create peelable labels of card fronts to apply to your backs.
7. NOTE: the reason you don't try to print front and back on card stock is because home printers have too much drift. The fronts never line up properly with the backs.
8. Laminate using any type of ready made material for such.
9. NOW TRIM THE CORNERS!

OR...

1. Step all your cards in sheets, both front and back
2. Print to PDF
3. Take or send to a local copy shop
4. Ask them to print on semi-gloss card stock and cut by crops on the backs not the fronts.
5. Laminate yourself.
6. NOW TRIM THE CORNERS IF YOU WISH.
7. Finished deck usually costs less that an 1/4 of buying commercial cards and re-facing them

I've done both and its a toss up as to which is better... depending on personal preference.

Amazingly good news, and good work Jon.

Let me know if you need any tweaking help.

Hi Peter!

Chris has done the majority of tweaking. I've been more of a bull in a china shop when it comes to that!

Well, after much tweaking and a huge amount of work by Chris, the Talisman extension for use with Strange Eons is now updated and ready for download.

The latest version of SE is 2.002 and is available here - http://www.sfu.ca/~cjenning/eons/

( There is a patch from 2.00 or 2.00.1 if you have those already )

The latest version of the extension is 3.1 and is available here - http://www.sfu.ca/~cjenning/eons/plugins/

It works really well and can produce most cards for Talisman and it is possible to adjust it to your tastes (with a bit of work) so you can add card types and the like.

I plan on making a "how to" article for Talisman Island and will be posting a few alternative plugins with a few different options in time.

Using the tool is pretty straightforward, certainly more so than using expensive graphic apps, so give it a try! There are a huge range of features in the base program, including the ability to organise your individual creations into a page for printing and much more.

Sorry for the size of the image that follows, but I wanted to give an example of what can be made with Strange Eons.

Thelric said:

Yeah, Apple do the same... probably about 50% of their install base. Never mind. Not going there again....

Apple? give away software? Probably the same day M$ release a stable operating system...

I installed on Ubuntu ok. I tend to do image processing on the Mac but I can share files. All points mute anyway until I get more time

in my life...

I could not find any installation instructions for the plugins so just tried stuff it and it eventually worked, although I did need to get an extra library.

Looks pretty slick. Well done.

JON... Quick question about the character card. Does it print out the size of 4ER (FFG) or did you rework to the more compact dimension of 4E (BI)?

BanthaFodder said:

To install a plug-in file, drag and drop it onto Strange Eons or use the plug-in manager: click on the Toolbox menu, then click Manage Plug-ins, then click the big add button (plus sign), and finally click on Install Plug-in File. Regular plug-ins can be used immediately, but extensions, libraries, and themes require you to restart the program before they can take effect.

Alternatively, you can copy the plug-in file to Strange Eons plug-in folder and (re)start the application, but if the plug-in includes installation notes they will not be displayed when installed this way.

The Talisman plug-in does require that you also install ui-grid.selibrary (on the same download page ).

Cheers,
Chris