Thanks! I'll give it a try that way.
Now I need to do the render. Should be easy.
Now I need to do the render. Should be easy.
OLD: The Fake Card Resources and Help Thread
- Thread starter Flame Claw
- Start date
- Status
No worries, hope it helps!professorlight said:
Famous last words of any 3D modeller. Good luck!
For those of you able to open PSD files, I've completed my Neo Neo Redux blanks. Included is a pretty endless (well, okay, more like 152~ish) possibilities. All 18 types (plus the orange Redux Dragon), available in Baby, Basic, Stage 1 (plus Light and Dark), and Stage 2 (plus Light and Dark). Also included as a bonus are two special Colorless textures -- the rainbow-esque texture I use for Pokémon like Ditto, Eevee, Kecleon, etc. as well as a Rock/Ice/Metal combo for any Regigigas fans out there.
For my friends unable to download PSD files, hold tight...I'll upload the blanks eventually. If you need some immediately, let me know and I'll do my best to send them.
Here's a symbolsheet:
(This is just a thumbnail. Please click for the full-size version.)
For my friends unable to download PSD files, hold tight...I'll upload the blanks eventually. If you need some immediately, let me know and I'll do my best to send them.
Here's a symbolsheet:
(This is just a thumbnail. Please click for the full-size version.)
CMP said:
1000px is huge! That would be more than adequate. What is the original size in px?
I think you can reduce the filesize of the PSD by merging as many layers as possible, and then having two downloads, one for just getting the blanks quickly, and one for people who wish to modify them completely (which I plan to do, so I suppose that solution is not needed for myself, just possibly some others)
Thanks mate!
Original size is 2000px wide.Nod3 said:
Unfortunately, the way I have the layers set up, merging a lot of layers isn't really an option (I have symbols on one layer group, stages on another, etc. Other than the reduced size, those will be the only PSD downloads I offer.
I do plan on eventually releasing individual types for those who want quick blanks, but I'm in the process of starting a new job so time is limited at the moment. In the meantime they'll be released on an on-demand basis, especially since most fakers I know are able to open PSDs anyway.
Here's a 166.3MB download (at 1000x1399). Edited into the post above. I scaled the symbolsheet to go with blank size, so just keep the same width on both and you should be fine when scaling the symbols!
So while I was digging out a Doublade evo icon for the Create-A-Card this month, I noticed that Ability names all look more vibrant on Pokemon TCG Online. Previously, every Ability name has been #c23600 in font guides and template guides and all that sort of stuff. If I try to use the colour picker in Photoshop I'll end up with varying colours depending on the pixel, so: I've decided to use #d60410 as my red for Ability names. It's a redder & more vibrant red that doesn't look so faded like the old #c23600 - it's kinda nicer in my opinion.
Reference is Pokemon TCG Online:
And to compare side-by-side with both colours:
#c23600 | #d60410Also wow I should probably rework the type textures some time
What's everyone else's thoughts on this?
Reference is Pokemon TCG Online:
[img=420x585]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97142242/Pokemon%20Trading%20Card%20Game%20Onlin%202014-10-10%2009-28-06-56.png[/img][img=420x585]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97142242/Pokemon%20Trading%20Card%20Game%20Onlin%202014-10-10%2009-36-39-05.png[/img]
#c23600 | #d60410
What's everyone else's thoughts on this?
For those of you with the time/patience/skill to wade into 3D modelling, there are rips of Pokemon XY models floating around the internet. Depending on where you look, you can find either completely rigged/textured models of a select few Pokemon, or blank models with unapplied textures of all Pokemon.
If you're worried about how much time/effort it'll take to apply textures to incomplete models, see this Volcanion. It had no textures applied but the textures were still available. They took 5 minutes to apply:
I figure 3D models can help people make better image-based Pokemon-EX cards, so have at it! ^_^
And obviously, ORAS-exclusive stuff isn't available yet and probably won't be available in those links. I'll be keeping an eye out for that stuff when it comes.
If you're worried about how much time/effort it'll take to apply textures to incomplete models, see this Volcanion. It had no textures applied but the textures were still available. They took 5 minutes to apply:
And obviously, ORAS-exclusive stuff isn't available yet and probably won't be available in those links. I'll be keeping an eye out for that stuff when it comes.
I'm gonna be completely biased and say Autodesk Maya. I've spent the past ~16 months using it for my animation major at university.
There are free alternatives such as Blender, but I've never spent much time with it and find the UI very very hard to work with. Again, biased because I spend more time and effort using Maya instead.
It's also a matter similar to Photoshop VS Gimp. Different software, different UI, but you can make the same result if you really try.
If you do end up using Maya for your 3D Pokemon stuff, I can help out if needed - Maya is pretty much the only dedicated 3D modelling/animation program I really know. I'll probably write up a guide on how to use those fully-completed models in Maya later as well, but right now I'm on the train to uni - got an animation class to go to! ^_^
There are free alternatives such as Blender, but I've never spent much time with it and find the UI very very hard to work with. Again, biased because I spend more time and effort using Maya instead.
It's also a matter similar to Photoshop VS Gimp. Different software, different UI, but you can make the same result if you really try.
If you do end up using Maya for your 3D Pokemon stuff, I can help out if needed - Maya is pretty much the only dedicated 3D modelling/animation program I really know. I'll probably write up a guide on how to use those fully-completed models in Maya later as well, but right now I'm on the train to uni - got an animation class to go to! ^_^
Alrighty, so here's the guide on how to generate renders from the fully-rigged/texture/completed Pokemon models you can find on VG Resource at this page. I'm gonna use a lot of images, most of them are 1080p, and are all hosted on my Dropbox so they'll load a little slower than most people will like. I've resized them for this forum post, but you can right-click and open each image in a new tab to see the images at full size.
So, for this guide, I'll be using Autodesk Maya 2014 and creating a Machamp render.
If you want me to go over anything again (re-explain, clarify, etc) please let me know. Maya can be a bit hard to jump in to and will probably take a loooong time to make 100% sense to you, but hopefully this guide helps a bit. Good luck!
So, for this guide, I'll be using Autodesk Maya 2014 and creating a Machamp render.
Step 0: Getting used to Maya.
Honestly it's been so long since I've had a 'first use" moment so I'll just try to cover the general thing. What you want your UI to look like is this:
It might look like this:
[img=]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97142242/machamp-renderguide/Screenshot%20(171).png[/img]
As you can see, the view you want is the top right box. You can switch which view becomes your 'main view' by hovering your mouse over it and tapping your spacebar. The other 3 are used mainly for lining up models at a pixel-perfect measurement for modelling and animating, which we won't need today.
The view we want is a Perspective View. We can change the angle of our 'camera' (the Perspective View's window) by pressing ALT + left-click and dragging our mouse around. If you can't get an angle you like (or are fed up with how you've angled the camera), you can click on the box in the top right corner of the Perspective View to set the camera to an angle determined by the cube. Ideally, you'd want FRONT on the box to be visible at all times. You'll see the cube in later screenshots.
Step 1: Bring your model in to Maya.
For pre-made models, we want to Import the models by going File -> Import. Don't worry about the box to the right of "Import...", because that's just extra import settings that we don't have to worry about today. Click on "Import..." as seen here:
Now, you should navigate to wherever you saved the 3D Pokemon models. You wanna import the FBX file today.
It's more than likely that you got a pop-up saying there's some errors or warnings when you are importing. Ignore them. Click close. They don't affect what we're doing.
[imghttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97142242/machamp-renderguide/002.png[/img]
Step 2: See what you're working with.
There's a high chance that when you imported the model, you didn't see what you imported. And it's highly probably that it's all wireframes. First, zoom out until you can see what you think is the entire model. You can zoom in and out by using the mouse scroll wheel. These Pokemon XY models are huge. Anyway, the wireframe:
Now, press 5 on your keyboard. You should see what sorta looks like a sculpture:
Now, press 6 on your keyboard. You should see the textured model:
What you've just done is switch between model display options. While you can most definitely just skip straight to pressing 6 and displaying the textures, it's a good habit to roll through these views to inspect your model for errors.
4 = Wireframe
5 = No Texture Model
6 = Textured Model
Step 3: See what you wanna pose.
You've probably seen me use the word "rigged" a bit when I talk about models around Fan Fakes. What I'm talking about is the model's animation skeleton. You don't have to worry about editing the skeleton in the completed models, but you still want to be able to see the skeleton. There's menu slightly above the Perspective View called Shading. You wanna go Shading -> X-Ray Joints.
What you've just done is display a whole bunch of skeleton. It looks like pyramids connected via balls. It's weird, for a skeleton. But it's what we use:
It also probably looks like a big mess. It most definitely is a big mess. So what we're going to do to make it easier to see is look at it via a list. So, go up to the menu bar along the top of Maya and go Window -> Outliner. This displays all things in the Maya scene, including each bone of the skeleton.
Now, because of the way the skeleton works, if you select the skeleton in the Outliner it'll select all of the skeleton. This is because the skeleton works via a hierachy.
I've gone ahead and expanded each joint in the Outliner. You can do this by clicking on the + next to the name of the skeleton in the outliner. There's a lot of bones in Machamp!
Step 4: Posing the model.
So, you can see the skeleton and where it sits in the model! Lucky for you, the skeleton is already connected to Machamp because it's a completed model. All we have to do is pose the fella! So, make sure you're using the Select tool to be able to easily select things.
Ideally, you will select the ball parts of the skeleton. I just selected the ball-joint in Machamp's front left shoulder:
As you can see, thanks to the skeleton's hierarchy, we've now selected all joints in that arm. Now we can begin posing the arm. All we have to do with these completed models is rotate the bones. So, click on the Rotate tool:
Now that you've selected the Rotate tool and you've already selected a joint, you'll see the Rotate tool begin working on that joint.
To easily rotate joints with minimal fuss, click on one of either the red, green, or dark (inner?) blue circle and drag it around. Once you've clicked on one of those circles, that circle will turn yellow. I click on the inner/dark blue circle to angle the arm downwards:
When you wanna rotate smaller joints such as joints in the fingers, you may want to use the Select tool again. While you can select joints with the Rotate tool active, you can't click on any joints inside the sphere of the Rotate tool and thus can't select multiple small joints at once. So, using the Select tool on Machamp's fingers:
To select multiple joints (or multiple anythings in Maya), press Shift while clicking. I've gone and selected all of the finger bones in Machamp's hand:
Now, this is where the Rotate tool becomes a little more complex. The fingers are now on an angle because we've moved Machamp's entire arm. If we used the default Rotate tool, it'd be rotating the fingers relative to the entire world. We want to rotate the fingers relative to Machamp's hand. So, we double-click on the Rotate tool and open up the Tool Settings. (You can do this with any tool on that sidebar):
Make sure the Rotate Mode is Local when you're rotating the finger bones.
World and Local are different modes that change the Rotate tool's sphere in certain ways. Experiment with those two settings to see what works best for you. If you botch a tool's settings, click on the Reset Tool button in the top of the Tool Settings Window.
Anyway, to continue with posing:
You can rotate as many joints as you like until you get a good stance for your render. Remember to CTRL+Z to undo mistakes as needed.
For this guide, my Machamp's stance is this:
Before rendering, we wanna get a good 'camera angle' for our render. Remember to ALT+left-click to rotate the Perspective View's camera.
You can turn off X-Ray Joints to get a better view of your model, now that you've finished posing it:
Step 5: Rendering.
First of all, you want to make sure you're going to render the way you want to. You can do this by going into the Display Render Settings option - it looks like that last movie clapper on the right, near that top menu.
The first setting you want to change (there's not many we wanna change, don't worry) is the render file type. We just want an image with transparency, so our end-result is the Pokemon with no background. Maya defaults to something called a Maya IFF, which honestly I've never seen anyone use. I prefer rendering to PNG files for my Pokemon renders:
Next, we want to change the image size. Maya defaults to "HD 540", a ridiculously small render size. When you're editing something like a render, you typically want as large and image as possible - you can scale it down for your custom TCG card later, but you can't scale it up. So, start big. I go with 4K (4096x4096).
Now, you can render a big 4K image! Hopefully it shouldn't take too long. Anyway, to start this process, click on the "Render The Current Frame" button near the top menu. I've circled this one for convenience:
Wait just a minute! Our render is overly-bright! Something's gone wrong!
In most (if not all) of these completed models, the texture material is a little too bright to be useful to us. We can change that by editing the texture material itself. So, first, click on the model. You should see on the right of Maya, there's an Attribute Editor:
Things like "Machamp", "MachampShape", "skinCluster1", and "MaterialFBX982562908527" are visible along the attributes there. What we want to edit are the attributes with Material in their name. There's usually a few of them on each model:
See the Ambient Color on the material's attributes? It's grey. Because it's Ambient Color, it means that no matter what lighting we do, the model will always be a little brighter than it's supposed to. So, click on the slider and drag it to the left, making the Ambient Color black:
Now we can render it again. It looks much better, right? Well, now we can go File -> Save Image and save the render to a location on the computer:
If you do this a lot, you'll end up with a folder full of renders...
As you can see, you now have a transparent 4K Pokemon render!
Hopefully you can make many, many more! ^_^
Step 6: Putting the render in your custom card.
You now have several options here. If you drag 'n' drop the render from your PC to the custom card, you'll end up with something a little hard to edit.
If you open the render in Photoshop as its own file (as opposed to putting it on a custom card's file), you can more-easily edit the render and then copy-paste the render to your card when you're ready.
Some good tips for using the render in a card:
- To give the model some texture, you can use a clipping mask. This makes it look more realistic and high-quality. Personally, I have a seamless/tiled sand texture edited to be black-and-white, which I overlay on the model with a clipping mask. It makes the model look like it has actual skin, which is real neat.
- Cut and chop and move parts around. You have a 4K render. Most peoples' custom cards aren't taller than 600 pixels. Editing and chopping and moving body parts around in Photoshop is best done while editing the 4K image. You might need to do this if your model is too 'big' for a typical card's artbox.
- Give the render's layer in Photoshop some effects and stuff. A plain render isn't that great - decent FX and background art is really handy in making your render shine.
Honestly it's been so long since I've had a 'first use" moment so I'll just try to cover the general thing. What you want your UI to look like is this:
It might look like this:
[img=]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97142242/machamp-renderguide/Screenshot%20(171).png[/img]
As you can see, the view you want is the top right box. You can switch which view becomes your 'main view' by hovering your mouse over it and tapping your spacebar. The other 3 are used mainly for lining up models at a pixel-perfect measurement for modelling and animating, which we won't need today.
The view we want is a Perspective View. We can change the angle of our 'camera' (the Perspective View's window) by pressing ALT + left-click and dragging our mouse around. If you can't get an angle you like (or are fed up with how you've angled the camera), you can click on the box in the top right corner of the Perspective View to set the camera to an angle determined by the cube. Ideally, you'd want FRONT on the box to be visible at all times. You'll see the cube in later screenshots.
Step 1: Bring your model in to Maya.
For pre-made models, we want to Import the models by going File -> Import. Don't worry about the box to the right of "Import...", because that's just extra import settings that we don't have to worry about today. Click on "Import..." as seen here:
Now, you should navigate to wherever you saved the 3D Pokemon models. You wanna import the FBX file today.
It's more than likely that you got a pop-up saying there's some errors or warnings when you are importing. Ignore them. Click close. They don't affect what we're doing.
[imghttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97142242/machamp-renderguide/002.png[/img]
Step 2: See what you're working with.
There's a high chance that when you imported the model, you didn't see what you imported. And it's highly probably that it's all wireframes. First, zoom out until you can see what you think is the entire model. You can zoom in and out by using the mouse scroll wheel. These Pokemon XY models are huge. Anyway, the wireframe:
Now, press 5 on your keyboard. You should see what sorta looks like a sculpture:
Now, press 6 on your keyboard. You should see the textured model:
What you've just done is switch between model display options. While you can most definitely just skip straight to pressing 6 and displaying the textures, it's a good habit to roll through these views to inspect your model for errors.
4 = Wireframe
5 = No Texture Model
6 = Textured Model
Step 3: See what you wanna pose.
You've probably seen me use the word "rigged" a bit when I talk about models around Fan Fakes. What I'm talking about is the model's animation skeleton. You don't have to worry about editing the skeleton in the completed models, but you still want to be able to see the skeleton. There's menu slightly above the Perspective View called Shading. You wanna go Shading -> X-Ray Joints.
What you've just done is display a whole bunch of skeleton. It looks like pyramids connected via balls. It's weird, for a skeleton. But it's what we use:
It also probably looks like a big mess. It most definitely is a big mess. So what we're going to do to make it easier to see is look at it via a list. So, go up to the menu bar along the top of Maya and go Window -> Outliner. This displays all things in the Maya scene, including each bone of the skeleton.
Now, because of the way the skeleton works, if you select the skeleton in the Outliner it'll select all of the skeleton. This is because the skeleton works via a hierachy.
I've gone ahead and expanded each joint in the Outliner. You can do this by clicking on the + next to the name of the skeleton in the outliner. There's a lot of bones in Machamp!
Step 4: Posing the model.
So, you can see the skeleton and where it sits in the model! Lucky for you, the skeleton is already connected to Machamp because it's a completed model. All we have to do is pose the fella! So, make sure you're using the Select tool to be able to easily select things.
Ideally, you will select the ball parts of the skeleton. I just selected the ball-joint in Machamp's front left shoulder:
As you can see, thanks to the skeleton's hierarchy, we've now selected all joints in that arm. Now we can begin posing the arm. All we have to do with these completed models is rotate the bones. So, click on the Rotate tool:
Now that you've selected the Rotate tool and you've already selected a joint, you'll see the Rotate tool begin working on that joint.
To easily rotate joints with minimal fuss, click on one of either the red, green, or dark (inner?) blue circle and drag it around. Once you've clicked on one of those circles, that circle will turn yellow. I click on the inner/dark blue circle to angle the arm downwards:
When you wanna rotate smaller joints such as joints in the fingers, you may want to use the Select tool again. While you can select joints with the Rotate tool active, you can't click on any joints inside the sphere of the Rotate tool and thus can't select multiple small joints at once. So, using the Select tool on Machamp's fingers:
To select multiple joints (or multiple anythings in Maya), press Shift while clicking. I've gone and selected all of the finger bones in Machamp's hand:
Now, this is where the Rotate tool becomes a little more complex. The fingers are now on an angle because we've moved Machamp's entire arm. If we used the default Rotate tool, it'd be rotating the fingers relative to the entire world. We want to rotate the fingers relative to Machamp's hand. So, we double-click on the Rotate tool and open up the Tool Settings. (You can do this with any tool on that sidebar):
Make sure the Rotate Mode is Local when you're rotating the finger bones.
World and Local are different modes that change the Rotate tool's sphere in certain ways. Experiment with those two settings to see what works best for you. If you botch a tool's settings, click on the Reset Tool button in the top of the Tool Settings Window.
Anyway, to continue with posing:
You can rotate as many joints as you like until you get a good stance for your render. Remember to CTRL+Z to undo mistakes as needed.
For this guide, my Machamp's stance is this:
Before rendering, we wanna get a good 'camera angle' for our render. Remember to ALT+left-click to rotate the Perspective View's camera.
You can turn off X-Ray Joints to get a better view of your model, now that you've finished posing it:
Step 5: Rendering.
First of all, you want to make sure you're going to render the way you want to. You can do this by going into the Display Render Settings option - it looks like that last movie clapper on the right, near that top menu.
The first setting you want to change (there's not many we wanna change, don't worry) is the render file type. We just want an image with transparency, so our end-result is the Pokemon with no background. Maya defaults to something called a Maya IFF, which honestly I've never seen anyone use. I prefer rendering to PNG files for my Pokemon renders:
Next, we want to change the image size. Maya defaults to "HD 540", a ridiculously small render size. When you're editing something like a render, you typically want as large and image as possible - you can scale it down for your custom TCG card later, but you can't scale it up. So, start big. I go with 4K (4096x4096).
Now, you can render a big 4K image! Hopefully it shouldn't take too long. Anyway, to start this process, click on the "Render The Current Frame" button near the top menu. I've circled this one for convenience:
Wait just a minute! Our render is overly-bright! Something's gone wrong!
In most (if not all) of these completed models, the texture material is a little too bright to be useful to us. We can change that by editing the texture material itself. So, first, click on the model. You should see on the right of Maya, there's an Attribute Editor:
Things like "Machamp", "MachampShape", "skinCluster1", and "MaterialFBX982562908527" are visible along the attributes there. What we want to edit are the attributes with Material in their name. There's usually a few of them on each model:
See the Ambient Color on the material's attributes? It's grey. Because it's Ambient Color, it means that no matter what lighting we do, the model will always be a little brighter than it's supposed to. So, click on the slider and drag it to the left, making the Ambient Color black:
Now we can render it again. It looks much better, right? Well, now we can go File -> Save Image and save the render to a location on the computer:
If you do this a lot, you'll end up with a folder full of renders...
As you can see, you now have a transparent 4K Pokemon render!
Hopefully you can make many, many more! ^_^
Step 6: Putting the render in your custom card.
You now have several options here. If you drag 'n' drop the render from your PC to the custom card, you'll end up with something a little hard to edit.
If you open the render in Photoshop as its own file (as opposed to putting it on a custom card's file), you can more-easily edit the render and then copy-paste the render to your card when you're ready.
Some good tips for using the render in a card:
- To give the model some texture, you can use a clipping mask. This makes it look more realistic and high-quality. Personally, I have a seamless/tiled sand texture edited to be black-and-white, which I overlay on the model with a clipping mask. It makes the model look like it has actual skin, which is real neat.
- Cut and chop and move parts around. You have a 4K render. Most peoples' custom cards aren't taller than 600 pixels. Editing and chopping and moving body parts around in Photoshop is best done while editing the 4K image. You might need to do this if your model is too 'big' for a typical card's artbox.
- Give the render's layer in Photoshop some effects and stuff. A plain render isn't that great - decent FX and background art is really handy in making your render shine.
If you want me to go over anything again (re-explain, clarify, etc) please let me know. Maya can be a bit hard to jump in to and will probably take a loooong time to make 100% sense to you, but hopefully this guide helps a bit. Good luck!
Anyone interested in print-resolution jumbo Classic/Gym Japanese blanks?
Start here and use the links in the description to navigate: [x]
I've started on a font guide, but I'm not sure if I'll finish it. I can upload the PSD of what I have if anyone's interested.
This isn't even the full size. xD Click for full view.
Start here and use the links in the description to navigate: [x]
I've started on a font guide, but I'm not sure if I'll finish it. I can upload the PSD of what I have if anyone's interested.
The PokemonCardResources group on deviantART has resources for every era. =)
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