HQ Cardgen M15/8th/Pre8th/Tokens/Emblem (Updated 2018/01/29)

[ahkren]

Hmm. Ok, so that apparently wasn't it. Do me a favor and attach your config.txt so I can make sure I have the same settings as you.

[shelldell]

Certainly.

[celzus]

Hi,

First of all thanks for this extremely useful tool.

I am trying to generate sets for Xmage, using crops from this forum. However, I have not found an effective way to make deck files that the Cardgen will read that have whole sets in them.

Also I don't know how to set it to generate all the different basic lands. If I create a csv, i specify the quantity title and set, but is there a way to add a card number?

Cheers,
C

[ahkren]

Best way I can think of to do whole sets is create a new csv with the set list and 1 of each card in that set.
For card number use the format: 1,"Name (#)",SET

[ahkren]

New version (9.0.15) is uploaded

[Faraleth]

Let me start by saying this program is great. Please keep up the great work. I've come up with some things that I've found to be helpful. I hope it helps some others as well.

I've found a way to use the XLHQ full images instead of the crops. I found the crops to be hit or miss and generally harder to come by in 300 DPI. I'm using version 9.0.15 of the program. This should also save some space as you can ditch the crops.

I change all instances of "art." found in the "\cardgen-9.0.15\config" folder to the following:

Code: Select all

art.top = -16
art.left = -26
art.bottom = 1062
art.right = 762

I have been refining the art locations. I'll eventually have a setting for each of the configs. Here's one for the m15 config.

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M15
art.top = 8
art.left = -10
art.bottom = 1010
art.right = 728

Since the renderer renders the frame on top of the art. This will place the image so that the art window on the XLHQ card scan is aligned with the art window in the rendered frame. Even though using the XLHQ card scan as the backing image makes the standard frame cards look great, the full art frame lands don't work quite as well. Notice the double frame on the full lands. See the attached 'ZEN Forests' image.

I got around this by cropping the XLHQ full land card scans with the these settings

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BFZ Full Art Land Crops
Top -51
Left -57
Bottom -111
Right -59

ZEN Full Art Land Crops
Top -18
Left -22
Bottom -21
Right -21

See the attached 'Full Art Lands' image.

I'd like to be able to modify the art placement of full land cards separately so I don't have to modify the great scans the community is providing.

I've found is that there are land ordering inconsistencies between the ZEN and BFZ sets. ZEN lands have 8 variations. 1-4 use the full art frame and 5-8 use the standard frame. Where as BFZ lands have 10 variations. 1-5 use the normal frame and 6-10 use the full art frame. This inconsistency causes the renderer to use the incorrect frames on the BFZ lands. See the attached 'BFZ Forests' image.

I ran into an error trying to render the 10th BFZ land

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Line 10: Card not found: Forest (10) [BFZ]
ERROR: Unable to parse decklist: C:/MtG/Apps/cardgen-9.0.15/Land test.csv

There was a 10th BFZ forest in the card file so I'm not sure what was causing this issue. I ended up just removing the line and rendering without it.

*Side note to the devs*
I'd like to be able to modify the art settings for the full art cards separately. Because The alignment is different. Like I stated above the issues using my method and the XLHQ scans. Mainy with the cards that use transparencies or full art like the full art lands (ZEN, BFZ, EXP), Planeswalkers and the futureshifted frames. I can usually get around the rendering issues by replacing the XLHQ card scan with full art I find googling the "(name of the card) full art". After I find a suitable image, I sill have to use an image editing program to modify it so the renderer will place it properly. I don't understand which config file each of the sets are pulling from. I don't know how it would impact the rendering performance but, I think it may be nice to have a config file per set with separate art parameters for each of the types I called out before. I'd also like to see notation in the configs that will help others make changes and improvements in the future. I'd be willing to help with any of this.

[ahkren]

I've got the correction for the 10th picture in place. The regex was only picking up single digit numbers.

Having a separate config file for each set would be a bloating the software, most sets have exactly the same parameters as others. The config files are by frame type (Pre8th, Eighth, M15, Planeswalker, M15Planeswalker, etc.)

The full art lands in the config files are under the heading of [layout - fullartbasicland]

Some of the full art frames aren't perfectly aligned with the normal cards yet, so doing an overlay of the XLHQ version is going to have some issues. I'm working on recreating the frames I have to be more in line with the XLHQ scans, but it has been time consuming and other things crop up.

I'll have a new version with updates up to EMN as soon as I have the EMN transform symbols in better quality.

[ahkren]

9.0.16 Updated in the OP, English EMN added

[Faraleth]

Thank you for the info. I'm able and willing to help with the any of the frames. PM me if you want to talk about it more.

[ahkren]

Working on the new conspiracy frames, so far so good.

[ahkren]

Quick and dirty The Monarch token frame.

[odino182]

is possible to add italian emn? ty

[ahkren]

As soon as I have the data for the language files I'll be updating them.

[proud]

The colorless PT box in the M15 directory appears to be the same as the black PT box, which I believe is a mistake. In real life, the PT box for colorless cards (notably, on hybrid cards) is a bit lighter. (The Eighth edition directory, sure enough, has different PT boxes for colorless and black, so perhaps this is a bug.)

[skibulk]

The new conspiracy frames have some texture on them if you look closely. If someone is willing to create *accurate* card templates, I'd be willing to share some scans. I believe some other frames are missing too? Like the classic split card frame - which used two regular frames side by side, unless that was fixed already. I currently scan more than three quarters of the cards we release on the pictures forum, so I have access to 600DPI images of pretty much every frame.

I like Faraleth's idea to use the XLHQ images as backgrounds in lieu of crops. You'd run into issues with transparent frames where the text might show through from the original cards. In those cases, you'd need to use use actual artwork. Regardless, I think it would be useful to support XLHQ images as a fallback. After all, we only started releasing 300DPI crops around M15. Prior sets only had 200DPI crops. When searching for artwork then, you'd just check for each file in in order:

1. .xart.jpg - Or whatever your convention is for full art
2. .xrop.jpg - 300DPI Crops
3. .xlhq.jpg - 300DPI Cards, You shouldn't need to specify offsets in the config, just center the images under the canvas
4. .crop.jpg - 200DPI Crops, Using the offsets in the config file