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Post by ciabs on Jan 10, 2010 16:09:04 GMT -5
ok, so I've been thinking, what about directly printing paper minis on transparencies..? the bold black outline could be erased altogether, and cutting operations could become as easy as cutting a broad oval around the mini while paying attention just to the basing tab... also - but I'm not sure, gotta confirm it - if laser printer transparencies can be printed on both sides (I'm sure inkjet ones can't since they have a rough and a smooth side, only one of which if for printing onto, but I heard laser printer ones have both sides smooth, so I assume maybe there's no difference on which side you print them) we could also edit the minis in order to have a sheet of fronts and a matching sheet of backs, so no more folding and gluing, just print front/back, do a general cut around the mini and you're done..! what do you guys think of it..? if hype keeps me going I think I may give it a try in the next few days... also, speaking of transparencies, I started a little side project that I'd like to share; first of all, how it all began: I started thinking about some interlocking dungeon tiles, that could be easily swapped from one another in order to have always a new dungeon setup, and transparencies came to my mind as I didn't want to get too much fuss going with basing these tiles on foamboard (you'll understand looking at what kind of connector I've come up with) and I didn't trust cardboard to withstand the stress of connecting time and time again the tiles with one another... transparencies then can serve a new goal of letting me cut really broadly around those dungeon tiles too, so I don't need to spend too much time preparing the tiles... I'm posting some pictures, they are really WIPs, since apart from the flooring there's nothing on these tiles, but detail will come given time... as you can see, any side of any tile can be connected with any other side of another tile, and even if you print two identical tiles you get different layouts depending on how you connect them; I also plan on doing "side mini-tiles" to serve as borders of the dungeons, something smaller than a full tile that just covers the connectors and produces dead ends that are not ugly to be looked at... the last picture shows a detail at 1:1 ratio of my WIP... also, keep in mind that at this moment these tiles can be printed on an A4 sheet and have a 12x12 matrix because each square is 1,5 cm, which in turn means that starting from mini-DP scale you have tiles at 125% their original size... sadly anything bigger - or even a full 1"/square size would result in a matrix so small that virtually nothing could be arranged inside the tile...
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Post by ccreel67 on Jan 10, 2010 20:38:06 GMT -5
Great work!
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Post by ciabs on Jan 11, 2010 4:27:40 GMT -5
thanks creel... ..and I think I also found a way to have white areas on minis come out printed white on transparencies... spot color tutorialfrom what I read spot colours are always actually printed (ie: they don't consider "white" as "no color so that the underlying paper sheet can show its own whiteness"), but they're not usually used because it would be a waste of ink to do so; still, if one's printing on colors other than white, or on transparencies for that matter, it should come up nicely... mmmh... this is totally something I've got to try... downside: from some more research it seems that laser printer transparencies still are one-side-only printable, and that's too bad... still folding and gluing made up of a fraction of a mini's preparation time, and transparencies still grant to save all of the cutting time, which is the biggest time consumer...
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Post by ciabs on Jan 11, 2010 15:48:44 GMT -5
ok, new WIP image which showcases a sample dungeon constructed with this method; it's still missing the "end of dungeon" connectors and shows some tile duplicates (albeit turned around), but it still shows how a finished dungeon can look like... ...and it also shows some new tiles I've prepared today... note that I built this sample by connecting alternating rows of tiles (ie: all of the top line tiles are halfway shifted related to the lower line and so on) since I figured out that the connectors grant me to do so...
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Post by dan on Jan 11, 2010 18:42:40 GMT -5
This is interesting, I had tried printing tiles on sticker paper at one point, so I could peel and stick it to mount it on heavy card as opposed to gluing...it was transparent sticker paper, I should have tried something like this.
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erf_beto
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Post by erf_beto on Jan 12, 2010 8:08:25 GMT -5
this is really interesting. never thought of using transparencies to print tiles or minis (except for "ghosts" or glass, or water.). This adds another layer of possibilities that I have never explored...
(coming to think of it, transparencies would also be usefull for placing magic circles, coin stashes, pit traps and other dangers into any kind of terrain tile... hmm)
I like your connectors. I've contemplated numerous types of connectors but they all end up too difficult to use. Did you print these already? Did they cut/mount easily?
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Post by ciabs on Jan 12, 2010 9:03:24 GMT -5
I just printed some prototypes out of cardboard and normal paper; they cut out really easily since you only have to cut the outer border (of course doing this on cardboard leaves the "blank" spaces white, but they're prototypes for a reason...); the first ones I did had the "male" connector too long and that resulted in some difficulties assembling the tiles, the smaller ones now work better... in truth I'm awaiting to actually print the thing on transparencies, as the medium's thickness is crucial while connecting, since 200g/m^2 cardboard tends to be thick enough to give some minor problems (another reason why the connectors need to be as small as they can be without resulting ineffective)... anyway I already thought about magic circles, traps and whatnot to be used with transparencies as well... the possibilities are definitely there, it just needs to be perfected to something with ease of use... oh, and I've been thinking about scale too; since - as you have seen from my last pic - it's easy to create multi-tiles as well (as long as you stick with attaching that one side with the other), one can "lose" some modularity, create bigger multi-tiles to accomodate bigger scales... heck, one could even generate unique dungeons not to be moduled with any other tile, sacrificing modularity for uniqueness, that's only a matter of taste...
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erf_beto
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Post by erf_beto on Jan 12, 2010 13:32:14 GMT -5
... the first ones I did had the "male" connector too long and that resulted in some difficulties assembling the tiles, the smaller ones now work better... in truth I'm awaiting to actually print the thing on transparencies, as the medium's thickness is crucial while connecting, since 200g/m^2 cardboard tends to be thick enough to give some minor problems (another reason why the connectors need to be as small as they can be without resulting ineffective)... You mention the size of the connectors, can you be more specific (as in actual measurements)? Even with your reduced scale, I'd like to know what works... As for materials, I think I can understand why the transparency sheet is superior, but is cardboard really that bad? I'm using 180g/m² paper here and I think if I apply an adhesive contact sheet over it (before cutting), it will be sturdy enough to handle multiple connect-disconnects. Am I right?
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Post by ciabs on Jan 12, 2010 14:26:17 GMT -5
uuuh, what do you mean with adhesive contact sheet..? that could be interesting... in that case anyway one should work to fill the empty spaces with some rock texture since otherwise, printing the templates on cardboard they'd end up being white blank spaces... cardboard doesn't connect badly, it just tends to wear and tear easily after a few connections; if the material you suggested kinda plastifies the cardboard (at least that's what I managed to wonder about those thingies you mentioned ) then it could be an alternative, but still I think the only way to test the thing is to try it; from a money point of view, transparencies are kinda expensive (50 sheets stand at about 40$/€; yes, change sucks here in europe, 1€ = 1$ most of the times... -_- ), but still you save more ink/toner (not coloring the blank spaces in the tile) and the cost of your contact sheet, so it's hard to say which is the best way... if one thinks about it from a modularity point of view I'd say it's best to use the best materials, since that way you can print every tile once and stick with it virtually forever, but also that it's a matter of taste... anyway, speaking about connector sizes, at the moment they stand 3cm wide and 0,75 cm high at the top of the male connector, while the first I tried were 4,5cm wide and 2cm high... I'm going with 3cms as they're 2 squares in mini-DP scale, so I need to be sure covering those 2 squares at each connector in order for it to be covered when tiles are united; it's also true I could always just trace the border of the connector to help me cut it out and leave it blank so that it doesn't matter where it is placed, but as things are now they also grant me a basic template to achieve maximum modularity between tiles... as a side note, I began thinking that maybe multi-tiles are the real way to go, since they let me create more complex room layouts that can be actually used strategically while in combat, in contrast with small rooms and corridors that usually have no gameplay impact at all, since every corridor and every rectangular room can be considered the same as another one, and fighting in such settings becomes boring quickly... I was thinking about creating multi-tile "encounter layouts" consisting of a setting of about 2-4 tiles put together in a specific manner, possibly with multi-level platforms (as the one you can see with the wooden gangways in the multi-tile on the last pic) each with a specific strategic layout in mind, to maximize the usefulness of each setting, but I think I need some more experience in texturing and photoshop before managing to reach these levels then every encounter-layout could be connected with each other, thus granting a better game experience at the cost of some of the modularity; at that point each single tile can work as a printing standard and as a storing standard above the plain modularity... anyway, anyone with any drawing experience want to contribute with some high-resolution dungeon features - you know, those magical circles, money stashes, but also some heightened structure like a better-drawn wooden gangway (mine really sucks, I know ) ecc - to come with this hypotetical modular system..?
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Post by ciabs on Jan 12, 2010 16:22:09 GMT -5
by the way, don't worry too much, I'm totally into publishing those tiles if there's anybody interested in them, as well as any .psd/texture/whatever involved in creating and modding them, as long as no one profits from it...
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erf_beto
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Post by erf_beto on Jan 13, 2010 5:25:04 GMT -5
uuuh, what do you mean with adhesive contact sheet..? that could be interesting... I don't know what they are called in english. In Brazil, we refer to them as "contact": they come in rolls, and you buy them by length (i.e. 1 meter). They even come in different colors and textures, and are mostly inexpensive. They are used to coat surfaces or book covers, to do a low-cost "laminated" paper. They are like thin transparent plastic that you peel from a paper in the roll, like a sticker. Think clear/transparent "duct tape" - which in fact works really close to what I'm talking about. When I've used them, I'd print the minis on 180-200g paper, cover the whole sheet in "contact" and then fold and glue. The end result is a sturdy mini that looks almost professional. But there's one downside: it's too glossy, IMO. The plastic is very reflexive. Sometimes it detracts from the overall quality of the paper model. Another problem is with the applying technique: if you're not VERY carefull you end up with air bubbles. Oh, I found a video that shows what i'm talking here: One image really is worth a thousand words... EDIT: Duh! Found the manufacturer's website: www.vulcan.com.br/en/produtos/con_tact/transparencias.htmlAparently, the product is called Con-Tact... you learn something new everyday
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Post by ciabs on Jan 13, 2010 5:51:30 GMT -5
I think with something like that the connectors could wear significantly less than if they're naked;
keep in mind, anyhow, that 180-200g paper has its own thickness, which is already enough to give you some minor curving problems at connections; said curvings cancel each other out as you keep connecting more tiles, but I think on the outer tiles some could persist (haven't printed so many prototypes to test it yet), and adding the contact would only increase - albeit in a small measure - said thickness...
transparencies on the other hand can be directly printed on, are already plastic sheets, are kinda thin and the most treatment they need is to be matte-varnished with a spray to be sure not to damage the print, so maybe they're somewhat more user friendly...
anyway any of these questions can be solved with some minor testings, what concerns me more at this point is to think of some easy texturing and coloring solutions to create something that's not only eye-candy, but that can be used strategically inside a game system...
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erf_beto
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Post by erf_beto on Jan 13, 2010 14:19:11 GMT -5
I hope I'm not throwing sand in you project, but since you are using interlocking tiles, why not just conform and print them in big 12x12 squares?
Take a look at games like WizWar and Dungeon Twister on boardgamegeek to see what I mean.
Forget the transparency, use thick cardboard and foamcore: before you print, fill the blank areas with dirt (and a few buried skeletons and treasure chests), and you probably don't even need connectors, as bigger tiles are not so easily disturbed. You'll probably spend less time cutting those square tiles and less money buying those transparencies than you would by printing it.
Have you also considered taking these to a - whatstheword? - 'printing place'? You know, so you can print stuff on A3 or bigger formats.
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Post by ciabs on Jan 13, 2010 15:52:05 GMT -5
you know what, you're probably right; I often get myself involved in high-hype projects that are not so sure of producing something really useful, since I tend to overcomplicate things too much anyway, regarding miniatures and 2D props I still think that transparencies are something that can actually work... still gotta think about things... luckily I didn't print anything big yet, and I can still be happy with the new things in photoshop I learned from the experience
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Post by erf_beto on Jan 14, 2010 4:28:35 GMT -5
High-hype overcomplicated project that will never be used for anything and just stay in your closet so you mother constantly whines about the lack of storage space in the entire house?!? I have no idea what you're talking about
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