Korath's Drawcardlib - Nail in the coffin of naff cardart

[Sonic]

In case you've missed all that has been going down recently since the arrival of our latest contributor. Korath has worked his magic again and we're looking to be on our way to finally end the Microprose legacy of cruddy looking cardart.

See viewtopic.php?f=56&t=11099 for current developments.

Just to be first out of the gate to take advantage of this new advancement to our beloved 16-bit obsession. I’ve produced some card templates for people to try out with Korath’s current development version of the Drawcardlib.dll.
And straight out of the box it's looking extremely good – and a major update to the constraints of the 228x325 files we’ve been lumbered with working with for so long... as can be seen below.





Being lazy, and to simplify the process of experimenting with the dll, I took the decision to resize the image files to 308x472 as this meant the card templates could be produced WYSIWYG when viewed in the deck builder working in a window with a screen size of 1280x1024. I believe many of the regulars use this screen resolution anyway, so it seemed a good place to start. Effectively this means the data in the Dual.dat file and the card templates themselves are optimized for this screen size - although, they have been tested at various other CRT monitor resolutions with varying degrees of success.

Give them a try – comments and criticisms are welcomed.

Updated 21st July - now available with added expansion symbols and dll included: http://www.mediafire.com/download/xcxoa ... atesV4.zip

Be aware, this is not a simple file replacement mod – it requires the system installation of a couple of fonts. Instructions for XP are provided if needed.
And please note - These templates will only work properly with duel.dat file provided in the above archive. Be careful not to overwrite the file when installing a new patch release.

For those of you using widescreens, I would appreciate some full size screen shots of the deck builder running on a popularly used widescreen resolution if possible.
I’d like to produce some separate templates for widescreen, but without a widescreen monitor it’s somewhat hard to work out exactly what any new templates will look like once they’ve been stretched and rescaled.

Have fun... Sonic

[gmzombie]

here is a pic my res is 1360x768 due to the old school lcd monitor i have that is the best res for me but i can get others if needed.

I tried others but none looked good at all since it was trying to force a 16:9 image with a resolution that is for 4:3

[stassy]

laptop 1024x768 on 4:3 15" screen



pc 1024x768 on 4:3 15" screen



pc 1920x1080 16:9 32"screen

[Hib]

My desktop with 1600x900.

[gmzombie]

stassy did u put the duel.dat in the duelart folder or just in the magic folder? it should go in the duelart

[stassy]

Blame Sonic for the typo of his folder DualArt instead of DuelArt

laptop 1024x768 on 4:3 lcd 15" screen



pc 1024x768 on 4:3 lcd 15" screen



pc 1920x1080 16:9 lcd 32"screen

[gmzombie]

Something still looks wrong unless u upped the wrong pics..

[stassy]

Yup, and if Hib has the same issue that mean someone ought also to provide the appropriate cardart *wink* Sonic *wink*

[Korath]

Still looks like you have the wrong duel.dat, or duel.dat in the wrong place; otherwise, the text on the fullcards would be black.

[gmzombie]

Good catch korath change your drawcardlib.dll to the new one. The old one is in the new manalink update I believe

[Sonic]

Blame Sonic for the typo of his folder DualArt instead of DuelArt

Yep, my bad.

I've corrected the spelling error and uploaded the archive again (same link as first post http://www.mediafire.com/download/xcxoa ... atesV4.zip)

For those who have already installed the files prior to the date of this post. Check your Magic/Program folders for an incorrectly named 'DualArt' folder with a single Duel.dat file in it. Copy/Move the Duel.dat file from this incorrectly named folder into the correctly named DuelArt folder (which should be full of other files). Then delete the incorrectly named 'DualArt' folder.

Sorry, I suppose I should have originally explained you need the Drawcardlib.dll from the thread link in the first post. As it's an ongoing project and there will be changes, these Cardart files are just to give people a chance to play with it. So check the 'Drawcardlib revisited' thread (viewtopic.php?f=56&t=11099) for further developments of the Drawcardlib.dll itself.

[stassy]

A bit better
pc 1920x1080 16:9 lcd 24"screen


Maybe add the dll and the p/t file in your archive too, Sonic?

[Sonic]

A bit better
pc 1920x1080 16:9 lcd 24"screen


Maybe add the dll and the p/t file in your archive too, Sonic?

Humm! The fonts look wrong. Me thinks someone hasn't read the instructions:

Then install the two fonts. The correct text alignment for the card templates is reliant on having these fonts installed on your system, and the Duel.dat file is specifically setup to use these fonts.

So to you too.

I thought about including the dll in the archive, but then I thought it would only cause confusion if, as an ongoing project, it was being updated regularly.

[stassy]

I did, but for some reasons MatrixMTG font is labeled as Typeface normal, and even after a reboot it's the same...will test it in a not win7 OS tomorrow at work

[Sonic]

I did, but for some reasons MatrixMTG font is labeled as Typeface normal, and even after a reboot it's the same...will test it in a not win7 OS tomorrow at work

OH! GIVE ME A BREAK, the font file in the archive is corrupt.

Give me 15mins and I'll upload the archive again... again.