I am working on a pretty big expansion to talisman right now, with a kind of cool concept. Though I don't have any idea what I am going to use for card backs. I think I will have about 90 cards, but then some may be duplicated to good, evil and neutral. (could be up to 120)

Would it be neat to use Good, Neutral and Evil alignment card backs, or just confusing? Maybe adjust the coloration, or borders on them?

Thanks for any input.

I have divied my cards into 6 specific groups. I kind of think a colored scheme with similar logo's would be cool.

Are they alternative adventure type cards that have an alignment slant to them? Or are these cards drawn according to alignment? What is the purpose of the cards if they are not to be mixed with any of the standard decks?

The cards in effect will be similar to Warlock quest reward cards. They can be awarded by Alignment and Character type.

Do the backs have to be all the same, or do the backs have to indicate any differences related to the card fronts? But no matter what, if you're looking for custom back, then you're going to have to make it yourself. Some of us here might be able to help out, but not without knowing a whole lot more about the project and what you need.

You really should check out the Strange Eons program and Jon New's Talisman plugin for it. I believe Jon may have rigged a generic Talisman card frame back into which you can any type of back graphic you want.

That sounds great.

I am thinking that the cards will have the same graphic, but with coloration differences. Probably best to tie them all together theme wise.

Thanks for the links and the info. I appreciate it.

OK started I started playing around with the Strange Eons, but that is a whole different monster than anything I've toyed with before.

What format should I do to create cards to import to the program? Jpeg, Corel, paintshop pro?

Do they need to be a specific size?

Trying to learn as I go, but it's like being thrown in the ocean.

Thanks for any pointers.

I am not deeply familiar with SE, as I use Photoshop, Illustrator, and a lot plugins for greater versatility, control, and higher resolutions. Hopefully someone here more familiar with SE can jump in. Until then...

danjr said:

Just to be clear, you are not importing creates into SE but creating the cards therein. You'll me importing or placing artwork and illustrations. You should use JPG or PNG formats. Almost any graphics program on the planet can save to these formats.

danjr said:

Mosts of the templates in SE are set up for 150ppi [pixels per inch] resolution (I work at 300 or 600 when using Photoshop, then reduce to 300 for final card output). If you put a graphic with a higher ppi or larger pixel dimension, you can scale it down inside the program. Same for images that are low ppi or scale. But either with produce different forms of image degradation. Maybe nothing severe, maybe to an acceptable degree, but that's something you'll have to decide.

If you are composing images in another program, you have better tools to pre-reduce/enlarge and image to the appropriate dimensions for the programs output; SE is a layout program, not a graphics program. Always consider the size of the card, then the size of the illustration area... both in either inches or mm. Then multiply that by the ppi of the output to be produced, in this case 150.

A Talisman card's dimensions in inches are W 1.625 x H 2.5. The actual illustration window in card template is 1.34 inches wide; I don't remember the height of the illustration windows for the two standard template types. (I use my own developed custom template with a floating midbar that let's me use any height of illustration area).

So, at 150ppi and 1.34in wide, you exposed illustration will be 201 pixels wide. To avoid having to align the image perfectly, always give yourself a minimum 5% overlap (or underlap) area. In this case, you'll want you illustration sized to about 210 or 215 pixels wide. Now you should be able to figure the height need by doing a rough measure of real cards you have.

ALWAYS CALCULATE IMAGE DIMENSIONING IN PIXELS. Yes most programs do offer all the real world measure units, and then you set the ppi per inch, mm, whatever. But in the end, you need to know those pixel dimensions one way or another. Because all other processes in a raster graphics progam always work in pixels - the only real unit inside two dimensional electronic and print illustrations. Real world measures are "faked" inside such for the convenience of users. Thinking in pixels will help you understand the nature of reszing in raster graphics as well... as the pixels are not stretched... ones are added or subtracted. New empty ones, pixels combined as ones are deleted, are filled in by various mathematical processes.

During resizing pay attention to method settings offered in your graphic's programs popup dialog. There are good and bad ways to reduce or enlarge image dimensions. If your program does not offer such, dump it! Go out and get the free and cross-platform graphics program called GIMP on the internet. Lack of good resize methods (and diverse ones) is one sign of graphics crapware.

Overall, most programs (including Photoshop) do a lousy job at enlarging unless the output is for printing at resolutions of 600ppi and up that will hide blowup artifacts... some what. I use fractal based enlargement plugins to improve upon Photopshop's (or all graphics programs') limited enlargement capabilities. Reductions however can be accomplished fairly well in most graphics programs, and even enlarging in a graphics program produces better quality than you will get in stretching an image inside of SE.

During size change, look for what is usually called "resampling" settings in any resize dialog and choose something similar to the following found in Photoshop:

Enlargement - "Bicubic Smooth"
Reduction- "Bicubic Sharp"

Avoid any kind of Bilinear or Bilateral setting. These are okay for a crude GIF or image where minimized file size is sought. Otherwise they produce CRAP! And guess what method is used by most layout programs, because it is the quickest reduction/enlargment calculation?

This may be a long winded explanation, and some of it you may already know... I just had to guess. But you will need to understand some of this to get the best quality out of your cards... no matter what programs you are using.

danjr said:

That's the downside of diving into something new for which there are no real standards and no teachers or tutors readily at hand. It's pain, eh?

I appreciate the time for you to explain things.

I just hope what I'm working on will be of use, once I give it to everyone.

Can't wait to start working on it tomorrow when I have the time. I'm kind of excited to bring something to my talisman experience, even if it's only me who ever uses it.

Mock it up and share it in a new topic. There'll be people around who'll be interested and might have some notions to consider as well. I may very well be putting something myself in another week or so for people to provide feedback on and in process notion I'm returning after having abandoned it a while back.