Hi. I'm making my main map interface now. But I can't figure out how to make the mask that's required for Coldstone. Can someone help me out? I'm using Photoshop 7.0. Thanks!
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-- Debra
Danillitphil Productions
(url="http://"http://www.danillitphil.com/graphics/index.html")www.danillitphil.com(/url)
(This message has been edited by Debra (edited 11-10-2003).)
General Tips:
1. Make your interface pieces seperately and copy/paste into one big one
2. Make your final image 640X480, 800X600, or 1024X768
3. Use PNG as the file format
4. You don't have to fill in the part of the interface where the game screen goes with white: PS will do it for you on export (though you can if you want to see what it looks like)
Hope this was somewhat helpful 
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CI-I@()s
(url="http://"http://www.world-of-cha0s.hostrocket.com")The Homepage of Cha0s(/url)
Even though the interface mask should only use solid black and white (no shades of gray or colors) the actual file must still be in full-color format. (No indexed color or grayscale!)
PICT works fine, though I suppose you could use PNG as well.
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'You can either be on the stage, just a performer, just going through the lines...or you can be outside it, and know how the script works, where the scenery hangs, and where the trapdoors are. Isn't that better?'
-- T. Pratchett
So if I color everything white except the background, which is black, and save it as the main map mask as pict or png, it should work?
I hesitate to copy and paste pieces because they may not match exactly. I am making the thing in psd layers, but will save it as pict or png. I do think that pict seems to be more stable than png in Coldstone.
I'll give it a go when I finish the main map interface. And, hey, maybe I'll put up a screenshot when I've got it. (I won't have the Hero remade by then though.)
Thanks, guys!
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-- Debra
Danillitphil Productions
(url="http://"http://www.danillitphil.com/graphics/index.html")www.danillitphil.com(/url)
Here's a look at my main interface:
(url="http://"http://www.danillitphil.com/games/index.html")http://www.danillitp...ames/index.html(/url)
I'm using much of Coldstone's other game interface graphics, so I needed to tie to the look of those.
I still can't figure out how to get the mask. I have Photoshop for Dummies at home. SURELY it'll help!!
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-- Debra
Danillitphil Productions
(url="http://"http://www.danillitphil.com/graphics/index.html")www.danillitphil.com(/url)
(This message has been edited by Debra (edited 11-11-2003).)
Quote
Originally posted by Debra:
Here's a look at my main interface:http://www.danillitp...ames/index.html
I'm using much of Coldstone's other game interface graphics, so I needed to tie to the look of those.
I still can't figure out how to get the mask. I have Photoshop for Dummies at home. SURELY it'll help!!
Very nice!!! I like the feel of it. I flows too, sorta like POG but not exactly. And easy on the eyes too. Excellant job!
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-Albadar-
- - - - - - - - - -
Just trying...
Debra, what part of the process is giving you difficulties?
Is it in creating a mask image that matches up with your interface layout?
Is it in saving that image in a format that Coldstone will accept?
Or something else altogether?
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'You can either be on the stage, just a performer, just going through the lines...or you can be outside it, and know how the script works, where the scenery hangs, and where the trapdoors are. Isn't that better?'
-- T. Pratchett
All you have to do to make a mask is:
-Create your map interface as MapInterface.png, with the empty space black.
-For the mask part, change the entire image to pure white except the background, which stays black. The best way to change the whole pic white is to select the black part of the image, and then do a selection inverse. Then just fill in the selection with white.
-Save this as MapInterfaceMask.png.
-Plop these suckers into the Game_Interface folder. Replace the old ones.
You're done. If you still don't know how you do it, then you must be talking about something else.
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"Stiney! Get me a danish!"
Unless the code monkey did something different, all I did was black out the 'playing field' part of the interface.
White:
Black (Mask):
Give me some time, and I'll post a pic of the finished playing field.
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(This message has been edited by dampeoples (edited 11-11-2003).)
Quote
Originally posted by dampeoples:
**Unless the code monkey did something different, all I did was black out the 'playing field' part of the interface.
White:
Black (Mask):
{img)http://homepage.mac....tures/black.jpg(/img)
Give me some time, and I'll post a pic of the finished playing field.
**
Your pic's don't work.
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Thanks,
GrahamVH
graham@warcraftcentral.com
Coldstone Developer (url="http://"http://www.warcraftcentral.net/legends/main.html")http://www.warcraftc...gends/main.html(/url)
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You all have been a terrific help, and it worked! OgreBob hit the nail on the head.
Holy whaa, dampeoples, your interface looks terrific!
On my interface, I didn't like the blue brick, so I changed the color to a dark brown brick. Now it's not distracting. And as much as I liked the top fru-fru thing, it was really VERY distracting when playing the game, so I took that out, too. I also discovered that the game didn't run as smoothly as before. It seemed to run the graphics too slowly when the Player was moving around and the Player seemed to slightly hesitate, so I decreased the size of it. It's still larger than POG though, but it seems to move okay now. Anyone else notice such a thing?
Thanks again! You guys are fantastic! 
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-- Debra
Danillitphil Productions
(url="http://"http://www.danillitphil.com/graphics/index.html")www.danillitphil.com(/url)
Whoa! Dampeoples... haven't seen you on here in a while. You been lurking in the shadows like our buddy andiyar always does :D?
Glad we could help Debra! And yes, I find that if an interface is too large/goes around the whole screen it can get quite distracting. It's good to keep it plain and simple.
Looking forward to your and everyone else's games! (Wait, who else is making a game on here anyways? :p)
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"Stiney! Get me a danish!"
Quote
Originally posted by Debra:
**...
I hesitate to copy and paste pieces because they may not match exactly.....
**
Whenever you are doing anything that involves the same alignment, go with duplicate layer instead of copy and paste. That way, you can merge visible what you are working on, duplicate layer out to a new untitled document, go back to the original file and go back a step in your history, go to the untitled document and duplicate layer back into the original document, (If you followed all of that) and that way, you have your interface in one layer as well as in many layers. Then you can make as many copies of the flattened layer and mess with it as much as you want! This has saved me hours of time and quite a few megabytes on my hard drive. I hope that it will do the same for you.
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-The ZeroWarrior
Thanks for the compliments, yeah, I've been kinda lurking. I recently moved and took a new job that required some training, killing my computer time. I'm still not exactly sure if that's the way the mask is done, the code monkey might have made some adjustments. Funny thing, I built a release earlier today, and forgot to Snapz a pic of the in-game interface. oops.
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Quote
Originally posted by dampeoples:
**Unless the code monkey did something different, all I did was black out the 'playing field' part of the interface.
White:
{snip}
Black (Mask):
{snip}
Give me some time, and I'll post a pic of the finished playing field.
**
Code Monkey! Code Monkey why i oughta.
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Coldstone_Dev Resource: (url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/straytoaster/")Coldstone_Dev Resource(/url)
See Coldstone_Tips at: (url="http://"http://coldroom.150m.com/CGE_Stuff/CGE_Tips.html")CGE_Tips(/url)
Quote
Originally posted by straytoaster:
**
Code Monkey! Code Monkey why i oughta.
**
(url="http://"http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/c/code_monkey.html")Go ahead...(/url)
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