TCG Fakes Site: EX-CardMaker

R

RegisteelX

Aspiring Trainer
Member
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Welcome to the open beta of my EX era card maker! It's something I've always dreamed of developing and I'm really excited to share it with you guys. It's a beta version for sure, so there might be some faults here and there. Combinations of card types might also result in visual glitches. I'm really exited to share this with you nonetheless! Any feedback or request is greatly appreciated! Have fun.

zapdos.pnglight hitmonlee.pngpalkia.png
zekrom.pngho-oh.pngregisteel.png


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It definitely looks interesting! Also, the fonts look really clean. That’s one of the biggest concerns with card generation programs.
I am curious where you got the art from, though. It wasn’t generated by an AI, was it?
Effect wise, your card balancing also looks believable, with one exception… Giratina not only had unprecedented HP, not only for a Pokémon Star (a subclass whose HP caps at 90), but for basics in general. Only 5 basic Pokémon were printed with this much HP between 1996 and 2010: Chansey Base Set, Chansey ex Ruby & Sapphire, Groudon ex’s first Nintendo Promo, Kyogre ex’s first Nintendo Promo, and the Holo rare Regigigas from Legends Awakened. Only with the start of the Black and White era did 120 (and 130) HP basics become the exception, rather than the rule. I’m also genuinely concerned about how Shadow Force would interact with Blastoise ex and Holon’s Castform, the combination of which could help it reliably fulfill its attack costs while also supporting wall breakers like Lugia ex. We’ve seen offensive Pokémon Star like Latios Star, Latias Star, and even Alakazam Star (ask Tord Reklev) used in traditional Blastoise ex/Lugia ex decks, and I’m afraid this card would theoretically turn this deck into an offensive force. The art looks great, though.
I’d be interested in seeing the dual type blanks for half-Darkness and half-Metal types, which were actually featured in the Pokémon trading card game, generally alongside special, thematic subcategories.
I’d encourage you to keep working on this project! I’m sure it will be of great use to many! I’d probably use it myself, come to think of it.
 
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Thanks for the feedback! No, the art I used were all edited from official Nintendo art, but I was testing around and forgot to change the Illustrator name and trademark. The AI and Stable/Diffusion are placeholders. I haven't done extensive research to Ex-Era balancing and I'll admit I'm pretty bad at it haha. I'll keep that in mind :)


rocket's-nidoking.pngholons-beldum.png

A few more cards I quickly came up with newly added elements. I also changed the way text is aligned. (Stage 1 and Stage 2 are still WIP, hence Nidoking being a basic here.)
 
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RegisteelX said:
When I was younger, I always wanted to make cards from the Ex-Era of Pokémon, because these were from my youth and I just loved the card design.
Unfortunately, using Photoshop templates was pretty hard for a 13 year old. Keeping the positions and text size right was just too finicky and I gave up.

I recently got interested in fake cards again and decided to make a tool that makes these cards for me instead. Here are a few examples:

I used blanks and symbols from metagross101. The card element drawing, positioning, and text size were all done automatically, with an attempt to adhere to the official proportions and spacing as closely as possible. Although the tool is currently unavailable, I'm curious if there is any interest in me completing this project.
Click to expand...
They look great! Fonts look pretty close to perfect, apart from the alignment thing.

Don't forget to update the Illustrator credit, though; as a matter of policy we delete cards with improper credit in an effort to reduce art theft. :)
 
So far so good. As one or two users have pointed out, you need to work on the alignment of the effects of the attacks. Apart from that, it's a good start.
 
cipher's-lugia.png

I've been working on new text alignment and I think I've nailed it down. The positioning and spacing on official cards can be inconsistent at times since they are done by hand, and automating every small aspect is unfortunately impossible. But I hope to get as close as possible ?

Delta Species are also a thing now.
ho-oh (3).png
 
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RegisteelX said:
View attachment 17357

I've been working on new text alignment and I think I've nailed it down. The positioning and spacing on official cards can be inconsistent at times since they are done by hand, and automating every small aspect is unfortunately impossible. But I hope to get as close as possible ?
Click to expand...
Those are looking very good! I’m also liking the dual type blanks. But I’m worried they won’t be quite right for Dark and Delta Species* Pokémon.
I’m trying to upload a picture I saved to my camera roll from TCGPLAYER and I’m only getting a “security error” message, so I’ll need to upload the image later, but, in the case of Dark Pokémon, the coloring from the other type was a little more subtle, primarily being seen on the left “bar line.” It would be nice to see Dark- and Delta Species accurate textures implemented alongside the existing ones someday, but I’m not sure how difficult that would be.

* Apparently that outstanding Ho-Oh was added to the post after I made this comment? More on my enthusiasm for this card below.
 
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Charmaster:) said:
Those are looking very good! I’m also liking the dual type blanks. But I’m worried they won’t be quite right for Dark and Delta Species Pokémon.
I’m trying to upload a picture I saved to my camera roll from TCGPLAYER and I’m only getting a “security error” message, so I’ll need to upload the image later, but, in the case of Dark Pokémon, the coloring from the other type was a little more subtle, primarily being seen on the left “bar line.” It would be nice to see Dark- and Delta Species accurate textures implemented alongside the existing ones someday, but I’m not sure how difficult that would be.
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There was no template that matches the design of Dark Pokémon. I'd like it to be able to make as many different cards as possible, so I made one ?

dark-arcanine (3).png
 
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RegisteelX said:
There was no template that matches the design of Dark Pokémon. I'd like it to be able to make as many different cards as possible, so I made one ?

View attachment 17366
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Perfect! I just checked it against Dark Houndoom, and it matches perfectly! By the way, would you be able to share those templates with the community? We have regular Create a Card contests here, and sadly we can’t use card generators, since 1) as you mentioned, even the best generators can’t perfectly match official font placement, and 2) a lot of people spend hours at a time on their entries. Having the Darkness blanks in Pokébeach’s resource archives (or the Discord, or DeviantArt, both of which get updated more frequently) would also help to consolidate the resources for people who prefer making their cards manually.
The delta species blanks also look perfect! You’re doing great! That Ho-Oh is especially stunning, with a skillful integration of the Year of Legends artwork and a 3D rendered backdrop strongly reminiscent of the Holon settlement! @CardPone , you’ll want to see this!
I’m looking forward to this generator being available. I have a long overdue Crobat Star project that someone went to great trouble to modify art for. I might need to greatly simplify the effects to make them fit, though. (Unless it would be possible to add text scaling farther down the line? One thing I’ve struggled with while toying around with Kangaflora’s favorite Sun & Moon/Sword & Shield generator is not being able to fit in longer effects, and I’ve often wished I could decrease the font size. I’m sure implementing that would also involve having to fiddle around with those spacing settings again, however, so that might be a lot to tackle.)
 
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RegisteelX said:
I've been working on an E-Reader blank. I still need to make an EX variant, but it's coming along nicely ?View attachment 17386
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Another blank not yet available in the resources databases! You’re knocking out these variations one by one! How long do you think the generator will take to program once you’ve finished making blanks? This will be an astounding resource for the community!
 
Charmaster:) said:
Perfect! I just checked it against Dark Houndoom, and it matches perfectly! By the way, would you be able to share those templates with the community? We have regular Create a Card contests here, and sadly we can’t use card generators, since 1) as you mentioned, even the best generators can’t perfectly match official font placement, and 2) a lot of people spend hours at a time on their entries. Having the Darkness blanks in Pokébeach’s resource archives (or the Discord, or DeviantArt, both of which get updated more frequently) would also help to consolidate the resources for people who prefer making their cards manually.
The delta species blanks also look perfect! You’re doing great! That Ho-Oh is especially stunning, with a skillful integration of the Year of Legends artwork and a 3D rendered backdrop strongly reminiscent of the Holon settlement! @CardPone , you’ll want to see this!
I’m looking forward to this generator being available. I have a long overdue Crobat Star project that someone went to great trouble to modify art for. I might need to greatly simplify the effects to make them fit, though. (Unless it would be possible to add text scaling farther down the line? One thing I’ve struggled with while toying around with Kangaflora’s favorite Sun & Moon/Sword & Shield generator is not being able to fit in longer effects, and I’ve often wished I could decrease the font size. I’m sure implementing that would also involve having to fiddle around with those spacing settings again, however, so that might be a lot to tackle.)
Click to expand...
Glad you like it! Scaling text is currently done automatically. I don't think I'll be adding a function to scale text, as it messes with the positioning and requires a pretty big overhaul to how it's done currently.
Charmaster:) said:
Another blank not yet available in the resources databases! You’re knocking out these variations one by one! How long do you think the generator will take to program once you’ve finished making blanks? This will be an astounding resource for the community!
Click to expand...
I'm currently rounding up all variants and the only cards I'm missing are Team Aqua/Magma cards. I'm still on the fence on that one, I can always add those later. The only thing holding me back from putting it up is there is no user interface as this time and I'm making cards from configuring the program in code. So once I'm done with the UI, I'll put it up. Probably won't take too long. Don't worry, I'll also make all my blanks publicly available ?

In the mean time, I finished my E-Reader ex template and finally got to implementing Stage 1/Stage 2.
snorlax (2).png
 
The text formatting is still a bit off, but otherwise this is pretty solid <3
 

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lilmuku said:
The text formatting is still a bit off, but otherwise this is pretty solid <3
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Thank you for your feedback! I work using a 1440p screen, and it seems that smaller resolutions cause the text positioning to break. I'm on it!
EDIT: This issue is fixed.
 
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I made my first card with the cardmaker! The illustration was modified from a piece of Xous54 "Ken Sugimori style" artwork by a member of the Pokémon TCG Fakers Community, and I must say I was impressed with how much care they took into making the piece. It looks like a real Pokémon Star illustration, even without the Cosmos Holofoil edited in (yet). This is hardly the final product (I'll need to track down the original, hi-res file and Katsu's DeviantArt username, in addition to double-checking my wording), but in this case I was using it as a test of the program.
(Yes, the image I used was saved on my iPhone, and there wasn't enough space to download the high resolution version when I wanted to move it over. That's why there's an exclamation mark in the bottom right.)
crobat (3).png
My first thought was "wow! Everything fits! I'm impressed!" I'm not sure if you added text scaling after all or if this was already part of the code, but congratulations! The ability to fit in this much text is an invaluable asset to users, and I thank you for taking the extra mile to implement it!
One thing I was curious about was the fact that set numbers are programmed to always be in "_/_" format. This is to be expected from normal set numbers, but in the cases of promos, it would be advantageous to be able to remove the "/_" part of the set number.
One problem I noticed with the formatting around the image frame was that the illustration seems to be covering up the tail of the "δ" that was woven into the "Basic" stage plaque. I'm guessing this is an issue that occurs primarily with the "δ delta species" blanks, but it might be worth looking into how other blanks could be affected.
The "Poké-Power" blank feels a little blurry, by the way, but it's probably not a big deal. It's probably the largest you can find, and I'm sure upscaling it isn't a big priority. I have heard there are AI that can upscale smaller blanks fairly easily, though. You might want to talk to Nekoban Ryo about that. He recently upscaled a couple of his older holofoil patterns, including a custom "windmill foil" pattern. But as I said, probably not a priority or worth very much time.
Overall, I'm impressed with how it's come along so far! Keep up the good work!
 
Charmaster:) said:
I made my first card with the cardmaker! The illustration was modified from a piece of Xous54 "Ken Sugimori style" artwork by a member of the Pokémon TCG Fakers Community, and I must say I was impressed with how much care they took into making the piece. It looks like a real Pokémon Star illustration, even without the Cosmos Holofoil edited in (yet). This is hardly the final product (I'll need to track down the original, hi-res file and Katsu's DeviantArt username, in addition to double-checking my wording), but in this case I was using it as a test of the program.
(Yes, the image I used was saved on my iPhone, and there wasn't enough space to download the high resolution version when I wanted to move it over. That's why there's an exclamation mark in the bottom right.)
View attachment 17404
My first thought was "wow! Everything fits! I'm impressed!" I'm not sure if you added text scaling after all or if this was already part of the code, but congratulations! The ability to fit in this much text is an invaluable asset to users, and I thank you for taking the extra mile to implement it!
One thing I was curious about was the fact that set numbers are programmed to always be in "_/_" format. This is to be expected from normal set numbers, but in the cases of promos, it would be advantageous to be able to remove the "/_" part of the set number.
One problem I noticed with the formatting around the image frame was that the illustration seems to be covering up the tail of the "δ" that was woven into the "Basic" stage plaque. I'm guessing this is an issue that occurs primarily with the "δ delta species" blanks, but it might be worth looking into how other blanks could be affected.
The "Poké-Power" blank feels a little blurry, by the way, but it's probably not a big deal. It's probably the largest you can find, and I'm sure upscaling it isn't a big priority. I have heard there are AI that can upscale smaller blanks fairly easily, though. You might want to talk to Nekoban Ryo about that. He recently upscaled a couple of his older holofoil patterns, including a custom "windmill foil" pattern. But as I said, probably not a priority or worth very much time.
Overall, I'm impressed with how it's come along so far! Keep up the good work!
Click to expand...
Thank you for the kind words and the feedback! ?
Yes, text scaling was already a part of keeping the text within the cards boundaries. Glad to hear you like it! ?
As for your points:
- The weird bug with the Delta Species border has been fixed.
- I've replaced the Poke-Power/Body images with high-quality variants, forgot to upload those haha.
- Leaving out the set-number now places the number without formatting it like "_/_".
 
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Ooh! Custom templates are a fun prospect! The template itself looks very clean. Pokémon Prism Star should go to the Lost Zone when Knocked Out, though. Shining Pokémon already exist if people are looking for a “one Pokémon ____ with the same name in your deck” gimmick. I know the lost zone didn’t exist yet, but, well, neither did Prism Star Pokémon.
 
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