Getting Fallen Empires draft to work

[friarsol]

Actually even if this wording is problematic (you can't really phrase it right in English) it's still way more readable than the original one, and the card is one of the biggest "TLDR I won't even bother" cards in the history of magic. Yet, with a Homarid Spawning Bed out, or if you've been stacking Vodalian Soldiers behind a Vodalian War Machine, it kills the other guy dead.

I don't like the "as long as" pre-verbiage for the last ability. It implies it's a static, when it's actually a trigger.

[lujo]

Yeah, I know, that was the "compromise" I wasn't happy with what it implies too, but I was happy to see a somewhat clear and readably templating on the infamous Tidal Influence. Still, your point is more legit than mine, gotta find a different solution (damn you english, in my native tongue it works, in english, it doesn't).

[lujo]

Much Progress!





Still needs a bit of tweaking, but thanks to a graphics savvy, long time MtG player buddy I got a little basic photoshop lesson and upgraded my paint to a 6 year old paint.NET (woooot), and now I got the expansion symbols suitably distinct. Big win! (Also went back and worked on the font placing, color, sizes and all that)

Also, I figured out what was causing the blurryness and the pixelization, so that won't be a problem, I just have a few details to iron out and that's it as far as art is concerned. Although fixing the saturation on the FE-ALL era cards can yield interesting results, since I'm using Mirage era more saturated frames, getting the FE art to liven up is rather tempting.

For Example:

This is the original picture with the Mirage frames (needed for the bigger text box):


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And this is what I got when I went to make the frames less saturated, but ended up livening up the art a bit:


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Really intersting, no? (Those are experiments from before I figured out what was causing blur/grain, it'd look much better now). I bet there's a bunch stuff that could use a little livening up A lot of needlesly drab art which only came out that way in printing all over the set. I'll go for a tasteful touch up here and there, won't overdo it.

Anywho, the art part will be done by the end of the weekend, then I readjust the pick list a bit and put up some results-so-far in some form, video or decklists or something i promise. And something to download and try out I hope

EDIT: Scratch that, just about all of these arts (or at least scans) are between 10 and 20 contrast off from where they're supposed to be, adding that to most of them is simply remarkable. And the results of adding a bit of saturation to most of them have to be seen to be believed. After going through all of them and fiddling with knobs I'm willing to bet that someone just plain screwed up on a big bunch of these when setting them to print because what happens on a ton of them when you up saturation is that you discover that they're not actually cheap trash arts at all (all of a sudden they have actual lighting and colors and perspective and... It's unbelievable).

[mastroego]

:O

Impressive work!
What I don't get is why all the hassle with the pictures. Wouldn't it be enough to just have Forge show an updated text in the card panel, as it happens already in a lot of cases for old cards?
Not a criticism, I'm sure I'm missing something here..

[lujo]

Well, it's mostly about the work on the whole frame (and now that I've figured out that the contrast and saturation is way off on most of the FE cards it's about that too). The FE text boxes are smaller than those of post-mirage cards, which means more lines of text, which means problems with wording. Then there is a fact that the card type line is pre-Urza's Destiny, which is different than what you'd expect today (creature types have been updated since then, enchantment types too, and there is no more interrupts now). And of course the rarity isn't displayed on the card.

When you're drafting, or just browsing through cards you got from a booster, it's much, much more beneficial if all this relevant info is displayed on the card rather than split between several panes. I'm using full card arts in Forge so I can see all arts if there are several available for the same card (as there are in FE), so for many old cards I can't get all the info I need without paying attention to 2-3 panels, and this way I (or anyone) can see most of it on the card itself.

The rarities are in fact important, as you can clearly see which card is a rare and which are uncommons and which rarity is missing from a booster you've been passed without mousing over the cards, even if you don't know all the cards in a set. It'll be clear what I'm talking about when I get them all done and do a video - I'll be able to simply enlarge the drafting box without a need for side panels at all (besides the deck building one).

And, well, now that I've got experience with this I can probably fix all the heavily oversaturated cards in the Invasion block which have been about equally mangled during scanning as the FE cards were, but in the opposite direction. Not to mention that if a card art has saturation problems, the way I'm doing it I can fix the problems with the art without over-saturating or over contrasting the frame which is also a problem with a few set scans, so Forge kinda ends up with the best card display art in the neightbourhood

It's a bit of a detour, but well worth it, and once FE draft tweaking is fully done, I'll do it first thing for the next set I work on so I don't have to dissapoint people who're expecting more tangible updates on the project.

However, maybe I'm missing something XD

[lujo]

Does this look like an appealing card?


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How about this?


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Ok, so maybe I've overdone it a tiny bit on the bottom one, but seeing the card suddenly appear in actual color with shading and stuff before my eyes stunned me. That's gratuitous oversaturation thare, just an experiment, dialing it down a bit looks even better. With actual color, not being 20-40 off contrast (and thus murky), not being washed out so all elements melt into a boring gray mess and with an expansion symbol telling you it's an uncommon, you'll pay attention when this board sweeper (only one in the set) appears in your booster.

It's like every damned card in the set has a 2-inch layer of dust on it, and when you blow it off it's like seeing many of them for the first time. I think they would've never layed of Richard-Kane Ferguson if they just ever printed his cards the way he drew them (u'll see when I'm done). A whole bunch of stuff which look like throwaway rush-jobs are actually not ^^

Worthwhile work, I think

[mastroego]

Hi lujo, any update on this undertaking?
No pressure!

[lujo]

Unfortunately I've been weighted down with a project I couldn't refuse. I decided to clear it on time instead of trying to divide time so I've put the draft on hold until it's done, and that'll be kinda soon, so I'll get right back to it. Gave me time to clear some hardware issues that were plagueing me, too, which is nice.