i got a question that arouse shortly and that is how do you guys make the ships silhouette in the bottom left corner for any ship not yet in this game?

as example there is the tie aggressor of DarthEnderX

Start by finding an image of the ship you want. There are a couple of optimal qualities that you should look for:

• high resolution (we're going to be scaling the image down at the end)
• high contrast (not necessarily on the ship itself, but between the ship and the background)
• correct angle (this is more variable, but generally you want something with a slightly nose-down attitude, top-down or side shots aren't the best)

Once you've found a good image, magic-select the background and delete it. It doesn't matter if you don't get it all in one go, just try not to select parts of the ship (this is why we want high-contrast between ship and background).

You'll end up with a ship and a transparent background. Select the background (global magic-select is useful if there are non-contiguous pockets of background), then make a new layer. Fill the selected area, doesn't matter what colour, then fill the empty area in white (there's an easier way to do this by using selection modes to select everything that's not transparent on the ship layer, but this is my muscle memory for it).

You should get a white ship with whatever background colour. Delete the background colour and the underlying layer so you just have the white ship and a transparent background. Now, flip/rotate the ship so it's facing right, and slightly up/down (this is sort of to taste), then scale the image way down (anywhere from 150-300px longest side is fine).

This produces nicely antialiased edges. Now, change the canvas to a square (although it doesn't matter much), and save as .png to keep the transparency.

Then you can add it in StrangeEons. It'll automatically scale, but adjust scale and position a tad to get it filling most of the circle on the card.

Huge thanks for all your work, HB! One of the X-Wing community heroes!

So true. Thank you for allowing us to go crazy on customized stuff !

Has there been any thought given to adding Heroes of the Aturi Cluster to the program? I've started creating pilot cards for our group's campaign, but being able to use the actual record sheets from the campaign would be even better!

That would be fantastic, as we started a campaign with my group of players... even though i guess that would mean lots of work.

i got a question that arouse shortly and that is how do you guys make the ships silhouette in the bottom left corner for any ship not yet in this game?

as example there is the tie aggressor of DarthEnderX

Start by finding an image of the ship you want. There are a couple of optimal qualities that you should look for:

• high resolution (we're going to be scaling the image down at the end)
• high contrast (not necessarily on the ship itself, but between the ship and the background)
• correct angle (this is more variable, but generally you want something with a slightly nose-down attitude, top-down or side shots aren't the best)

Once you've found a good image, magic-select the background and delete it. It doesn't matter if you don't get it all in one go, just try not to select parts of the ship (this is why we want high-contrast between ship and background).

You'll end up with a ship and a transparent background. Select the background (global magic-select is useful if there are non-contiguous pockets of background), then make a new layer. Fill the selected area, doesn't matter what colour, then fill the empty area in white (there's an easier way to do this by using selection modes to select everything that's not transparent on the ship layer, but this is my muscle memory for it).

You should get a white ship with whatever background colour. Delete the background colour and the underlying layer so you just have the white ship and a transparent background. Now, flip/rotate the ship so it's facing right, and slightly up/down (this is sort of to taste), then scale the image way down (anywhere from 150-300px longest side is fine).

This produces nicely antialiased edges. Now, change the canvas to a square (although it doesn't matter much), and save as .png to keep the transparency.

Then you can add it in StrangeEons. It'll automatically scale, but adjust scale and position a tad to get it filling most of the circle on the card.

thank you but am i right that i need some sort of image programm and its not to be done within strange eons?

i got a question that arouse shortly and that is how do you guys make the ships silhouette in the bottom left corner for any ship not yet in this game?

as example there is the tie aggressor of DarthEnderX

Start by finding an image of the ship you want. There are a couple of optimal qualities that you should look for:

• high resolution (we're going to be scaling the image down at the end)
• high contrast (not necessarily on the ship itself, but between the ship and the background)
• correct angle (this is more variable, but generally you want something with a slightly nose-down attitude, top-down or side shots aren't the best)

Once you've found a good image, magic-select the background and delete it. It doesn't matter if you don't get it all in one go, just try not to select parts of the ship (this is why we want high-contrast between ship and background).

You'll end up with a ship and a transparent background. Select the background (global magic-select is useful if there are non-contiguous pockets of background), then make a new layer. Fill the selected area, doesn't matter what colour, then fill the empty area in white (there's an easier way to do this by using selection modes to select everything that's not transparent on the ship layer, but this is my muscle memory for it).

You should get a white ship with whatever background colour. Delete the background colour and the underlying layer so you just have the white ship and a transparent background. Now, flip/rotate the ship so it's facing right, and slightly up/down (this is sort of to taste), then scale the image way down (anywhere from 150-300px longest side is fine).

This produces nicely antialiased edges. Now, change the canvas to a square (although it doesn't matter much), and save as .png to keep the transparency.

Then you can add it in StrangeEons. It'll automatically scale, but adjust scale and position a tad to get it filling most of the circle on the card.

thank you but am i right that i need some sort of image programm and its not to be done within strange eons?

That's correct. I recommend Paint.NET.

Ah, yeah, if it's template-related then I totally sympathise.

I've been scaling to 300px vertically for my VASSAL extension, and yeah, they're better at larger resolutions (I'm still trying to find a variant of the font that scales to look nice at 300px, for example). Looking at the images side-by-side now, the actual biggest difference is how bright the centers of the text fields are compared to the preview cards, but I imagine that's hard to change if the templates are already washed out.

I can see what I can do about the brightness. Thanks for the feedback.

Speaking of font issues, is the bold font for upgrade text not being bolded properly? Even with the full-scale cards it seems thin, and I've been substituting a variant font.

Is it? I haven't noticed. I will have a look at this also. Maybe you can send me the font?

Huge thanks for all your work, HB! One of the X-Wing community heroes!

So true. Thank you for allowing us to go crazy on customized stuff !

It is my pleasure!

Has there been any thought given to adding Heroes of the Aturi Cluster to the program? I've started creating pilot cards for our group's campaign, but being able to use the actual record sheets from the campaign would be even better!

That would be fantastic, as we started a campaign with my group of players... even though i guess that would mean lots of work.

It seems I forgot to reply to this... I guess it would be possible. Adding it to the backlog...

It would not be that much work I think, if I get access to armouredgear7's card artwork that is. We already cooperate with the x-wing symbols and ship fonts

i got a question that arouse shortly and that is how do you guys make the ships silhouette in the bottom left corner for any ship not yet in this game?

as example there is the tie aggressor of DarthEnderX

Start by finding an image of the ship you want. There are a couple of optimal qualities that you should look for:

• high resolution (we're going to be scaling the image down at the end)
• high contrast (not necessarily on the ship itself, but between the ship and the background)
• correct angle (this is more variable, but generally you want something with a slightly nose-down attitude, top-down or side shots aren't the best)

Once you've found a good image, magic-select the background and delete it. It doesn't matter if you don't get it all in one go, just try not to select parts of the ship (this is why we want high-contrast between ship and background).

You'll end up with a ship and a transparent background. Select the background (global magic-select is useful if there are non-contiguous pockets of background), then make a new layer. Fill the selected area, doesn't matter what colour, then fill the empty area in white (there's an easier way to do this by using selection modes to select everything that's not transparent on the ship layer, but this is my muscle memory for it).

You should get a white ship with whatever background colour. Delete the background colour and the underlying layer so you just have the white ship and a transparent background. Now, flip/rotate the ship so it's facing right, and slightly up/down (this is sort of to taste), then scale the image way down (anywhere from 150-300px longest side is fine).

This produces nicely antialiased edges. Now, change the canvas to a square (although it doesn't matter much), and save as .png to keep the transparency.

Then you can add it in StrangeEons. It'll automatically scale, but adjust scale and position a tad to get it filling most of the circle on the card.

thank you but am i right that i need some sort of image programm and its not to be done within strange eons?

Thanks Tipperary for answering that one! Yes you need some kind of image program. Why not use this online tool: https://pixlr.com/editor/ ?

Edit: Ninja'd

Have you thought about putting the source code for the plugin up on GitHub? This way people could contribute patches and fork it as well to help create an Imperial Assault plugin.

I just downloaded Strange Eons and the X-Wing plug-in. Great work! I have noticed the Special Tags are not working for me. I have tried both the 32bit and 64bit versions on Windows 7 Pro (64bit) and Windows 10 Pro (64bit). Both systems have Java 8 Update 45 (32bit) installed and I get the same result. Any suggestions?

2016-01-21 UPDATE: I discovered my error this evening. I did not realize that the "Unique" checkbox must be selected, before the tags would work. My "DUH!" moment.

I'm loving this program, but I'm finding there's one thing I really want to have added... Have you thought of incorporating "Promo" card templates for Pilots and Upgrades?

Hey great work with this tool!

I used to tailor some customized pilot cards by cutting the pictures in powerpoint ... tidious work and not always to my full satisfaction. With strange eons there is a awesome alternative, thanks for making this available .

since I played Tie Fighter on my very first PC I ve been a huge fan of the Tie Avenger so this was the first ship I desined cards for with strange eons. Having the possibility to incorporate the sengars loop and/or the taloon roll in the maneuver dial seemed like the right thing to do to me so I tried and found that the roll will not show up in the actual dial.

I used some of the hints from HB to take a look into the plug in source to see if I would be able to fix it myself - unfortunately, allthough I found the obvious lines where the RR and LR (= right roll and left roll) commands were missing, I was not able to get it going on my own.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

HB any chance to get a bugfix for this?

Thanks a lot and

best regards,

Retri

Have you thought about putting the source code for the plugin up on GitHub? This way people could contribute patches and fork it as well to help create an Imperial Assault plugin.

That is actually a great idea, especially since I don't have much time for this project right now.

I just downloaded Strange Eons and the X-Wing plug-in. Great work! I have noticed the Special Tags are not working for me. I have tried both the 32bit and 64bit versions on Windows 7 Pro (64bit) and Windows 10 Pro (64bit). Both systems have Java 8 Update 45 (32bit) installed and I get the same result. Any suggestions?

2016-01-21 UPDATE: I discovered my error this evening. I did not realize that the "Unique" checkbox must be selected, before the tags would work. My "DUH!" moment.

Glad you found it. Sorry for not answering earlier.

I'm loving this program, but I'm finding there's one thing I really want to have added... Have you thought of incorporating "Promo" card templates for Pilots and Upgrades?

Thanks! Yes I would love to add promo cards but I don't have access to any good scans (see also these posts: here and here )

Hey great work with this tool!

I used to tailor some customized pilot cards by cutting the pictures in powerpoint ... tidious work and not always to my full satisfaction. With strange eons there is a awesome alternative, thanks for making this available .

since I played Tie Fighter on my very first PC I ve been a huge fan of the Tie Avenger so this was the first ship I desined cards for with strange eons. Having the possibility to incorporate the sengars loop and/or the taloon roll in the maneuver dial seemed like the right thing to do to me so I tried and found that the roll will not show up in the actual dial.

I used some of the hints from HB to take a look into the plug in source to see if I would be able to fix it myself - unfortunately, allthough I found the obvious lines where the RR and LR (= right roll and left roll) commands were missing, I was not able to get it going on my own.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

HB any chance to get a bugfix for this?

Thanks a lot and

best regards,

Retri

Thanks! Sorry about the bug. I will fix it and deliver it shortly.

Pretty much what Tipperary said. Personally, I use Photoshop. Find an image of the ship in space. Select the background, then select the inverse, paint over the selection with white, cut it out, load it into a new image with no background.

It's a pain in the ass, and is the thing about making a new ship that takes the most work, even though it's just a tiny little thing in the corner of the card.

Have you thought about putting the source code for the plugin up on GitHub? This way people could contribute patches and fork it as well to help create an Imperial Assault plugin.

Github project is now available here: https://github.com/Hinny/strange-eons-xwing-plug-in/

Contributions to make this tool better is most welcome!

Thanks a lot for the software. It is so easy to use and saves massive amounts of time.

If I had something like this years ago when I've made 400+ airplane icons for Hears of Iron II...

Again, thanks a lot!

Have you thought about putting the source code for the plugin up on GitHub? This way people could contribute patches and fork it as well to help create an Imperial Assault plugin.

Github project is now available here: https://github.com/Hinny/strange-eons-xwing-plug-in/

Contributions to make this tool better is most welcome!

I just made a github account to contribute my german translation there instead of our email conversation.

As far as I got it I would have to

- fork the project

- add a branch with my changes

- make a pull request to your master branch

?

Have you thought about putting the source code for the plugin up on GitHub? This way people could contribute patches and fork it as well to help create an Imperial Assault plugin.

Github project is now available here: https://github.com/Hinny/strange-eons-xwing-plug-in/

Contributions to make this tool better is most welcome!

I just made a github account to contribute my german translation there instead of our email conversation.

As far as I got it I would have to

- fork the project

- add a branch with my changes

- make a pull request to your master branch

?

I have never done this before, but I think you got it right. Great idea btw.

Hi!

I've been working on X-wing cards for a while, but making them by hand in PS was getting tedious, so finding this program+plugin was a serious blessing. Making the little icon is still the most time consuming part though

It's rude to make a request in the first post, but while creating a card for the Shadow Droids, I noticed that the unique option needs to be ticked if I want the little symbols(in this case critical) to work in the rule text, but this in turn places the unremovable 'unique' dot to appear on the card. As I was making a spammable ship with a special rule, this would call for photoshop. So I'm mostly asking for a possibility to get the tags working without needing to choose the unique option.

Other workaround would of course be to make a title card like FFG does tied to that ship type, or word the rule so that no symbols need to be used, but in a way it seems like an easy feature to implement without the need for multiple cards to give a ship a special rule. Or in this case... unimplement a feature?

Many thanks to both the Strange Eons team and those working on the X-wing plugin

I also never done this before.

We need a github expert here ;-)

I'm loving this program, but I'm finding there's one thing I really want to have added... Have you thought of incorporating "Promo" card templates for Pilots and Upgrades?

Thanks! Yes I would love to add promo cards but I don't have access to any good scans (see also these posts: here and here )

I can try and scan some of my promo cards, if you think that might be enough for you to work off of? No promises that my scanner is good enough for your needs though!

I'm loving this program, but I'm finding there's one thing I really want to have added... Have you thought of incorporating "Promo" card templates for Pilots and Upgrades?

Thanks! Yes I would love to add promo cards but I don't have access to any good scans (see also these posts: here and here )

I can try and scan some of my promo cards, if you think that might be enough for you to work off of? No promises that my scanner is good enough for your needs though!

I'm wondering if it would be feasible to add a "dual card" checkbox, that changes the card back to a duplicate of the front format, and allows you to edit it accordingly...

Just wanted to pop in and say this was seriously awesome. I was just talking to another guy at the hobby shop this evening about finding a program to make custom content for X-Wing "like Strange Eons does for Arkham Horror" and then, sure enough, I find SE already has it! Talk about instant gratification

Is there a way to make extended art cards in this as well ?

Thanks for this amazing tool. I will chime in that if you have the time, a full/extended art option would be awesome. However, as is, this is a fantastic tool and I wanted to thank you for all your efforts.

Thanks for this amazing tool. I will chime in that if you have the time, a full/extended art option would be awesome. However, as is, this is a fantastic tool and I wanted to thank you for all your efforts.

Totaly agree. Would love a full adt template matvhing the generics from the system open tourneys. And just add a box for the pilot abilities for uniques

Ever thought to use your skills to create a plug-in for the Star Wars RPG? Been hoping for someone to do this for years. I tried to delve into the code once but it was beyond my skills and available time. It would be great to be able to make custom gear, adversary, and vehicle cards for Edge of the Empire. I've created gear cards by hand, but it would be great to have an automated process for gear, adversaries, and vehicles.

EDIT: Yes I know easy to ask, hard to do, but I had to try.