2D Tutorials & Resources

[Marion vanGhent]

Welcome to the wonderful world of making Flags & Sails for Pirates of the Burning Sea! Look here for tips, tricks, tutorials, and resources to help you perfect your designs. If you know of a resource that's worth sharing, feel free to post a link!

Some Official Resources with which everyone should be familiar:

User Content Overview

Illustrated 2D Guide

[Marion vanGhent]

Three commonly used programs for flags and sails are:

• Adobe Photoshop. The most expensive, but also the most powerful. Great if you have other heavy-duty graphics-creating needs.
• Corel Paint Shop Pro. Very reasonably priced, and more than capable of doing all you need for flags and sails.
• The Gimp. Totally free, and just as capable of creating flags and sails as Paint Shop Pro.

There may be other programs available. The basic requirements are A) the ability to work with layers; B) the ability to work with transparencies (alpha channels); and C) the ability to save in PNG format, with or without transparency (24- or 32-bit color space).

[Marion vanGhent]

FLS has made a 2D Content Preview Tool for all you flag- and sail-makers! Grab it and use it to get an idea of how your content will look in game

NOTE: The 2D Content Preview Tool includes a slider that lets you adjust the transparency of your sail. This is not an in-game feature.. This preview enables you to try different transparencies against a sail background, to then adjust directly in your sail decal itself.

[Marion vanGhent]

Vector Magic is a free, Web-based tool that takes bitmap (pixel-based) images and traces them as vector graphics, developed and hosted by Stanford University. What's that mean? It means smooth, anti-aliased edges that will look much better in your flags and sails! Check it out: http://vectormagic.com/

[Sadet]

I've created a flag tutorial using the free GIMP image editing program. It's fairly long but hopefully will be worth it! The tutorial will take you through every step from beginning to finished flag. Enjoy!

http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2564



Updated the tutorial for the latest version of GIMP on 3/9/09.

[rustyhumpf]

I know everybody struggles with the problem, "How to easy make a great tattering". And so was I until I tried to use the "Smudge tool". The "smudge tool" is very logical and easy to use and if you´re not happy with the result, just remove with the "eraser tool". The secret to get a great result is to start with a large "smudge tool" and then use smaller and smaller tools to get the impression of tattered fabric. I attached some pictures showing how I used the "smudge tool" to create a, in my opinion, nice tattering.


Pic.1 (If you don´t know) Here you can find the "smudge tool" in Photoshop


Pic.2 Start to fill about 2/3 of the flag with a color. I use the "smudge tool" (settings:Normal, 30 pix, Strength 55%) to get a rough picture of the tattering. Always work in straight horizontal lines to the right.


Pic.3 I change to a smaller "smudge tool". Settings to 10 pix and keep working in straight horizontal lines to the right. If you´re not happy with some of the tattering so far, just use the "eraser tool" and adjust with the "smudge tool" again.


Pic.4 Now I change the settings to 5 pix and make the final tattering adjustments until I´m satisfied with the result.


Now when you have created a great tattering and you don't want to make a new tattering for every new flag you make. The easiest way to use you tattering for all your flags, is to save every new flag as a "Texture" and just add the flag texture to the tattering. Save your flag texture by clicking edit => define pattern and save it. To put the flag texture on the tattering, use "Layer effect" => "Pattern Overlay"


I hope you guys find this little tutorial useful, maybe it wasn´t that easy after all and if I have forgotten something, please remind me.

[Sadet]

I designed a VERY SIMPLE tutorial with LOTS OF PICTURES and as few words as possible in order to demonstrate some examples of common errors that occur in flag making, which might cause a design to be rejected. Enjoy!

http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2792

[Sadet]

Originally posted in the beta forums by Marion....

"I don't know why I haven't posted this here yet, but better late than never!

How to Get Transparencies in Paint Shop Pro

1. Get your decal (or flag) image visible with nothing showing behind it -- nada, zippo, just the default "transparent parts here" background. Make sure you've saved a backup of your file, just in case!
2. In the Layers menu, choose "New Mask Layer." The option you want is "from source opacity." This, basically, takes a flattened snapshot of your image as it shows in the current window, making it solid where there is color and transparent where there is none.
3. Same menu; "Save Mask to Alpha Channel." The alpha channel is an 8-bit data layer that many many programs will read as transparency. 8-bit means it's greyscale with 256 levels of grey, so in theory you can have that many levels of transparency in something. But I digress.
4. Resize your design to the appropriate dimensions -- 128 x 85 pixels for flags, 512 x 512 pixels for sail decals.
5.File > Export > PNG Optimizer... Make sure it's 32-bit: 24-bit (256 colors) + 8 bit (256 greys, the alpha channel). This works correctly in Paint Shop Pro X. Menu options may vary slightly in different versions. Paint Shop Pro 7 had a bug that would not save alpha transparencies with PNGs, so hopefully no one is still using PSP7


Troubleshooting Transparencies

If you preview your submission in the 2D Content Previewer and notice a halo of white around your decal, try the following:
1. Follow the above up to the point of saving.
2. Before proceeding further, create a new layer beneath everything else. This will be a temporary background layer.
3. Flood-fill this background layer with a neutral color, e.g. a slightly darker shade of whatever your main decal color is.
4. Then proceed with the export.

This should guarantee that, if for some reason your transparency isn't coming through cleanly, that anything that shows through will be a color that matches your design."

[Sadet]

FLAG MAKING TUTORIAL originally posted in the beta forums by Znox...
http://archive.burningsea.com/forums...highlight=ZNOX


FLAG MAKING TUTORIAL originally posted in the beta forums by Captain Goarj...
http://archive.burningsea.com/forums...ad.php?t=21526


FLAG MAKING TUTORIAL by Riverside...
http://riversidemod.wordpress.com/20...t-ive-learned/


FLAGS OF THE WORLD website to use for inspiration...
http://www.1uptravel.com/flag/flags/index.html


WEATHERING TEXTURES originally posted in the beta forums by emwsand...
http://archive.burningsea.com/forums...t=14868&page=4


Websites devoted to PIRATE FLAGS...
http://www.bonaventure.org.uk/ed/flags.htm
http://www.kipar.org/piratical-resou...ate-flags.html

A good general flag website...
http://www.midcoast.com/~martucci/fl.../vexigrap.html

[Sadet]

1. The single best weathering texture I have ever found was created by emwsand. It's too good not to post here.

2. The next one was originally posted in the beta forums by Cpt.BlackJack.


And some of my favorite flag/sail making links...

This one is simply awesome--> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page .......Search for "heraldry"
http://www.heraldicclipart.com/catalog/index.html
http://www.cgtextures.com/textures.php?c=151&page=1
http://gimp-tutorials.net/
http://www.gimptalk.com/
http://www.1001freefonts.com/
http://www.historicenterprises.com/colors.php
http://www.wikipedia.org/