Custom card templates

General GTG General Discussion
1

What’s the policy on posting custom Heroes/Villains/Environments on the forums? I thought I had read something before but can’t seem to find it anymore.

Focusing on template design on BGG now.
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/813176

Here’s some box art for anyone that stores their cards in those white cardboard boxes.

Created these templates using Adobe Illustrator CS5 but saved as CS4 so even more people can use them. If you have CS4 and can’t open these correctly, please let me know, there may be times I’ll accidently save as CS5.

Updates
05/06/12 - Updated Hero and Villain Cards. Forgot to add the stroke weight to the HP values for the Hero and Villain cards as seen in the 6th picture.
05/07/12 - Updated Villain and Hero Character Front. Updated each digit for HP as seperate, and centered so when you change one it still looks right. Also a slight change to the Villain name on Villain Chaarcter Text.
05/08/12 - Updated Hero and Villain Cards. Replaced symbol clipping masks with actual halftone textures built into Illustrator.
05/08/12 - Updated Hero and Villain Cards. Replaced the halftones with an improved clipping mask and the description and text bubble areas are improved as well. Tested this on photo paper and looks nearly identical to the actual cards, compared them to the Rook City ones. Aslo combined the Villain character templates into one and created a copy on a second artboard so you can edit the villain all together and even print it out easily and did similar thing to the Hero character templates.
-Update part 2 - Went back and changed the coloring a bit on the description and text bubbles of the Hero and Villain cards, think I’ve got it just right now. Looks a lot darker in the program than what it printed out as on photo paper, other types such as plain paper and cardstock may print differently.
05/10/12 - Reorganized the Hero and Villain Cards, made the base pieces of the cards into symbols so that I only have to modify one to change them all. This also clears up a lot of clutter for people editing these cards and helped me fix a few minor issues. I’ve also added Environment Cards.
05/12/12 - Did some fine tuning on the Hero and Villain Character templates. One thing was the picture frames were supposed to have no fill but accidently had white fill so fixed that so now the picture layer will show through, easy fix for anyone familiar with Illustrator, but still needed to fix the templates themselves. Another was to fix the text boxes on all templates so now you can just type in them and it will wrap itself inside the box as you type.
05/24/12 - Decided to just convert these all to CS4 files for more ease of use for everyone, since it doesnt seem to change anything for me to open them in CS5 if saved as CS4.
06/02/12 - Added Hero, Villain, and Environment deck templates for easier editing of an entire deck of cards. Also updated the Villain Character file and made the villain name into a symbol so you only have to change 1 to change it for all the cards for that villain.
06/07/12 - Made a copy of some templates, the ones with a pattern in the text area, changed the coloring of the text area on the cards to a lighter color, better for printing on paper, the current ones look best on photo paper. Put them in a new folder named “Lighter Text Area”.
07/05/12 - Improved the templates even more, easier to cut out, squared the border, and choice between light and dark text areas as a toggle. Combined Hero, Villian, and Environment cards into a single template, just toggle which cards you need, decks are still seperate.
07/12/12 - Made and merged a B&W version of Hero Deck with the improved one for even better use. Can now go from a playtesting a deck to printing in full color without having to retype stuff, just toggle the cards, the text stays. I also added a B&W option to the Cards Template file.
07/17/12 - Rebuilt my templates and improved them. Added B&W toggles for all of them now, cept for the small ones that don’t need really need it, such as the Hero and Villain Character files. Added improved Photoshop Files, including B&W ones. I’ve also added PDF files of the templates for those that want to print out some for playtesting and just write on them or if they have another way to import them into a program they use.
11/15/12 - Made Oversized Villain template. Minor adjustments to other templates.
01/04/14 - Changed Deck templates to use 3x3 grid. Replaced environment card footer image with the correct image. Also some minor tweaks to some existing files.
01/15/14 - Tweaked my templates a bit and added an optional “Print Border” that you can activate from within the card symbol, to make it easier to print using a place like Printer Studio. Working on a list of tips and techniques for using these templates.
01/18/14 - Tweaked my templates more, changed some colors after comparing them to printed cards, altered size of a few things to match the official cards more.
01/27/14 - Fixed B&W keyword box, embedded new icon image.

Need these fonts to make the templates look right.
http://sentinelsofthemultiverse.com/forum/topic/sotm-fonts

Here are some sample images (Currently outdated))

2

I actually had a topic deleted because of such.

3

I know I can post on BGG since that place isn’t part of >G, was just wondering what I can post here. I have templates made for Villain Character + Cards and Hero Character + Cards. Was wondering if it’d be safe to post those here if I didn’t post any actual character info on them.

4

What do you mean by templates? if it’s just lines and boxes, I doubt it’s a problem. Custom art? Maybe not.

5

I would love to see some templates… Even if they just happened to be me :slight_smile:

6

Added a link to the templates in the first post.

7

From what I understand, and from the way most game companies approach things like this, posting the templates is fine. Posting custom content is what is frowned on.

This is mostly for legal protection. Imagine you post your custom character “The Castigator” an ex-FBI agent who hunts down criminals, and then four months later >G announces a hero called “The Punisher”, an ex-cop. You could argue in court that >G had stolen your concept and thus owed you royalties. In order to prevent situations like this.

I personally believe that the few times it happens are pure coincidence, but considering how litigious society has become, companies have no choice but to be proactive and avoid situations that could lead to lawsuits even under bizarre circumstances. (Some restaurants now leave Wet Floor signs up at all times, because a drink might get spilled and lead to a lawsuit before the sign could be brought out and set up).

8

I’m not the last word on this, but I think the templates are fine.

Basically, the issue comes down to: could it be claimed that >G got the idea for _______ from you? Since the templates are practically the same as assets already in use, posting these alone should be ok. However, what you do with them should generally be relegated to places that aren’t the official forums. SotM fans are all great so far, so I wouldn’t expect any shadiness from anyone at all, but IP law is pretty tricky, so it’s kind of a better safe than sorry sort of thing.

9

Having not yet downloaded the cards, I’m curious how easy it would be to use them. I don’t have Adobe Illustrator, but I do have Expression Blend and Expression Design, which are supposed to be able to use Adobe Illustrator files. If I can just take the HP numbers and just modify it to the number I want by typing, that would be great. Not sure how possible that would be though.

10

I could alter the templates so each digit for HP is seperate, that way you could just type in the number. But only for the hero and villain character cards, the regular hero and villain cards HP has different size for above and below double digits.

EDIT: Got the new files updated with each digit for HP on the hero and vilian character cards as seperate, and centered so when you change one it still looks right.

11

Unfortunately for me, it appears that Design completely destroys the templates on import (no textures, lots of black squares), and while Blend seems to do a perfect import, it converts all text to paths, making it extremely difficult to change any text (I would have to remove the text paths and recreate the text).

12

Just updated my files a lot and been learning a lot more about Illustrator thanks to making these templates. So many things exist that I didn’t know about.

Next on the list is Environment cards. Those will take some time as the footer graphic is different and is an actual picture and each Environment has thier own style HP box.

13

This is where I normally hint about someone smarter and more programey than me looking into the strange eons program to make the templates useable by all.

http://cgjennings.ca/eons/

14

Just added a file for Environment cards, found a decent picture online to use for the bottom of the card. As for the HP boxes, kept the regular ones in it, if someone does create their own Environment, then they’ll have to make their own HP boxes if they want something other than the basic ones.

I also just made my own boxart for the box I keep my cards in, it uses images made by >G so I believe it’s okay to post here. It’s one of those long card boxes so had to make it so it could fit and found the way, just sliced the logo down the middle and then put the 2 halves together. That way I could make it long enough for the entire box.

15

Could you post a copy of these like you already have posted above that are just pictures, only with no text on them? I can get those fonts and recreate the text over them as a picture, but i don’t have the right programs to open the templates you’ve made.

Also, could you post a villain card with and without the HP spot in the corner?

That would be awesome if you could.

This is awesome by the way.

16

If you want to get rid of the target symbol, just hide the layer representing the target symbol.

17

I don’t have a program that can open or use these templates…so I can’t adjust the layers…hence my request for blank pictures of all these over which I could just add my own text.

They are illustrated files are they not? I don’t have that. I have photoshop, but asfar as I can tell that won’t translate correctly.

18

These templates are saved as Illustrator CS5 files and don’t look like they can be opened without anything but that latest version of the program. I’ve tried opening them in Illustrator CS4 and Photoshop CS4 and it doesn’t work. Might be a good idea to save them as an earlier version of Illustrator or even as a Photoshop file that maintains the layers so that they’re usable by more folks.

19

Supposedly both Inkscape and Krita (both of which should be open source free software) are able to import Adobe Illustrator files. Not sure if they can open CS5 or not. If they can be exported as a more open format, such as SVG or such, it would have more support with other applications.

20

Those new files worked for me. I can open them in both Photoshop and Illustrator CS4.