9 replies to this topic

[sikarkades]

Hello,
Just wondering if anyone knows of an easy way to create instruction cards for use with hyperpin or if there is a place to download them in the correct format. Thanks again.

[unclewilly]

I could give you guys a quick tutorial of how i make them. It just requires illustrator or a program that can save files as .swf format.
Let me know and i'll get a tutorial together.

[gStAv]

Yeah! I´m interested!

[sikarkades]

Make that two please, or even the name of the program if there is a free version available.

Edited by sikarkades, 10 April 2010 - 08:02 PM.

[oooPLAYER1ooo]

the easiest way is to do them directly in flash, in my next releases i will include animated i/c with theme music i have them working on my cab already.

[gStAv]

Oh! That sounds awesome!!

A step-by-step tutorial of hown to do that would be great.
And if you could zip the one you have done I wouldn´t mind either!

Maybe little OT but: on some tables when you press the instruction button 'I', the table puts out a error message, but not on all of them.
Can you add som lines in the script to stop this from happend as it crashes the on going game?

Cheers!

[lettuce]

the easiest way is to do them directly in flash, in my next releases i will include animated i/c with theme music i have them working on my cab already.

So for all tables in your cab you have this setup already?? Will you be release all the ones you have as a pack at all?

[oooPLAYER1ooo]

the easiest way is to do them directly in flash, in my next releases i will include animated i/c with theme music i have them working on my cab already.

So for all tables in your cab you have this setup already?? Will you be release all the ones you have as a pack at all?

i have only done about 20 but the reason i don't share is because they have my cab logo "Pinsanity" on them , i try to customise my cab as much as i can including all custom wheels and i have even created some Fully animated f4v table video's that had animated artwork and when going through tables it sort of looked like hyperspin. but i wasn't happy with how it looked so i gave up on it.

maybe soon i will post an .FLA file so people can see how to make Instruction Cards properly , it isn't just sticking a jpeg into an .swf you need to retype and redraw every part of the ic so it can be scalled using hyperpin without any loss of quality

as for tutorials i can't help you there i'm not very good at explaining things to people.

Sorry Guys i'm a Good Learner, Bad Teacher.

[unclewilly]

table videos would be nice. I wish I could redraw stuff. I'll post a tutorial of how I've done all the ones for the media packs for my tables. I actually don't redraw them. I use PDFs from kens site and vectorize them in illustrator. it also allows me to add images behind the cards if I want to. I have been really busy at work and trying to finish monster bash, so be patient and I'll have it done soon.

the easiest way is to do them directly in flash, in my next releases i will include animated i/c with theme music i have them working on my cab already.

So for all tables in your cab you have this setup already?? Will you be release all the ones you have as a pack at all?

i have only done about 20 but the reason i don't share is because they have my cab logo "Pinsanity" on them , i try to customise my cab as much as i can including all custom wheels and i have even created some Fully animated f4v table video's that had animated artwork and when going through tables it sort of looked like hyperspin. but i wasn't happy with how it looked so i gave up on it.

maybe soon i will post an .FLA file so people can see how to make Instruction Cards properly , it isn't just sticking a jpeg into an .swf you need to retype and redraw every part of the ic so it can be scalled using hyperpin without any loss of quality

as for tutorials i can't help you there i'm not very good at explaining things to people.

Sorry Guys i'm a Good Learner, Bad Teacher.

[Carny_Priest]

I had been looking for a good tutorial on making high quality instruction cards. Never saw one. So here is what I wound up doing.

 

I've been generating media for my project, a mini-DMD / flash player for instruction cards and coin cards that are displayed in-game on the apron within VP

 

http://www.gameex.in...-splash-viewer/

 

I need very high quality to at least increase my chances at keeping images and text legible. I also need the cards rotated for proper display in a cabinet. I don't have a Flash creator to work with what is available in the existing media packs, so I've been starting over from the excellent sources at Peter Inkochnito's for factory reproductions

 

http://www.pinballre.../pinball/cards/

 

The necessary tools are freely available. I found some links to an old version of Adobe Creative Suite. This a bit of legal grey area here. It is Adobe that made these links available when they did away with their authentication servers for this product, but they did it to provide support to the existing base that still relies on the suite. On the one hand, this was meant to be for license holders. But on the other hand, there is no access restriction either. Anybody on the Internet can access these links straight from the manufacturer. It's old software, but what we need to do is not complicated. It will do the job.

 

Here's a set of direct links. I downloaded Acrobat Pro and Illustrator. Also the WWE Extras file in case I found that I was missing some fonts on my system when working with source files in Illustrator. I might get lucky and find what I need among the extras.

 

http://www.xyclopsof...free-adobe-cs2/

 

I had my eye on a promising solution using Inkscape and some open source conversion tools that could possibly be automated or semi-automated, but the results coming from Adobe products is simply higher quality. Bad part is that it's definitely a manual process. Order of the workflow is as written, just work through the sections. I'm using Windows 7 x64. Don't know if the Mac version is any different on the steps:

 

Acrobat Pro

File > Open - source PDF

Tools > Advanced Editing > Crop Tool - draw a box around the card - click Enter

Crop Pages dialog - Pull down CropBox

Units: Inches

Margin Controls - fine tune by adjusting Top, Bottom, Left, and Right margins - Cropped page size should be the precise size of the card

Now make note of cropped page dimensions - you will need this to setup the next part 

OK

 

 

Need to clean printer marks?

Tools > Advanced Editing > Select Object Tool - select printer marks one by one and delete

File > Save As - a PDF with a new name

 

 

Illustrator

File > New, Artboard Setup - use page dimensions noted earlier

OK

 

 

File > Place

Select new PDF, Link is checked

Crop to: Bounding Box

OK

 

 

Need Yellow background for a modern Stern card?

Object > Flatten Transparency

Raster/Vector Balance: 100

Line Art and Text Resolution: Max is 2400 ppi

Gradient and Mesh Resolution: Max is 400 ppi

Check Convert All Text to Outlines

Check Convert All Strokes to Outlines

Check Preserve Alpha Transparency

OK

Object > Ungroup

Select > Deselect

Direct Selection Tool - use to select individual objects

Select Color Swatch Sunshine - that color will work just fine

Repeat with the Direct Selection Tool for any other objects that require color

 

[UPDATE - Note on simulating print on yellow stock. I checked some photos of cards on IPDB.org. To me, it looks like a fair approximation is the result of running Colorify at the same RGB settings as Sunshine on the pdf within The GIMP. I simply used the Color Picker Tool to find the correct RGB settings and used them on non-white objects in Illustrator. As there are a number of different Stern cards that call for printing on Sunshine stock, it would be a good idea to set up some custom color swatches.

 

Black - R 29 G 21 B 0

Light Grey (inner border) - R 205 G 153 B 0

Darker Grey ("Super Value") - R 99 G 74 B 0

 

I had a much harder time with the red credit buttons on the score cards. They are made up of a number of circle segments, and I can't just swap out colors with another swatch either as individual objects or the collective group. Perhaps would not want to anyway because there is a bit of a gradient. I wound up selecting all the objects that make up the shape and running a series of color filters to try to get somewhat close. Rather than guessing, I used AutoIt3 Window Spy, part of AutoHotkey to report the pixel color under the mouse.  

 

Lasso Tool and grab all of the circle segments for the credit button

Filter > Colors > Convert to Grayscale 

Filter > Colors > Convert to RGB

Filter > Colors > Adjust Colors

Check Preview

Blue - reduce to -100%

then after some trial and error, wound up with

Red - increase to 5%

Green - decrease to -9%

Blue - reduce to -100%

Check Convert

OK

Stroke lines for each circle segment are transparent, so yellow lines show up through the image. Not much I can do about that, so not perfect but pretty good.]

 

 

Any clip art?

Direct Selection Tool - use to select individual objects, select the clip art image

Object > Live Trace > Tracing Options

Tracing Options dialog 

Preset: depends on the image - likely ones would be Comic Art, Black and White Logo, or Type

Adjustments Mode: most likely Black and White

Trace Settings: Fills should be checked

Check Preview - Does it look OK? 

If not, can play with the settings and see a real-time preview of the result

Trace

Tracing Toolbar opens

Click Expand button

 

 

Did the Live Trace on the clip art produce some broken or faint curves?

Direct Selection Tool - use to select individual objects that are within the new traces; select ones that you want to fix

Compound Path Toolbar opens

Stroke: Select Black

Stroke Weight pulldown: 0.25 pt (or higher)

Repeat with the Direct Selection Tool for any other objects that require enhancing the traces, may need to View > Zoom In really close to catch all of the areas that need fixing

 

 

Need Yellow background for clip art on a modern Stern card (line drawing)?

Object > Live Paint > Make

Direct Selection Tool - use to select individual objects that are within the new traces; these are the areas that require color

Select Color Swatch Sunshine - that color will work just fine

Repeat with the Direct Selection Tool for any other objects that require color, may need to View > Zoom In really close to catch all of the areas that need color

 

 

File > Export as a new file Macromedia Flash (*.SWF)

Export As: AI File to SWF File

Uncheck Generate HTML

Check Clip to Artboard Size

Check Export Text as Outlines

Check Compress File

Method: Preserve Appearance

Curve Quality: 10

Image: Image Format: Lossless

Resolution: Max is 600 ppi

OK

 

 

Now, check the result by dragging and dropping the file into your browser. 

Can compare to the source pdf and against an original scan. 

Inkochnito hosts his original scanned sources as well. Look under the Search button.

 

Here are some great collections of custom cards

 

http://www.pinballcards.com/

http://pinballcards.blogspot.com/

http://www.pinballre...ction/index.htm

 

Members at Pinside post some good work too.

Edited by Carny_Priest, 13 August 2015 - 03:52 AM.