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Silhoutte Portrait cutting files for plasticard terrain still around?

Discussion in 'Scenery' started by rhelyk, Mar 7, 2018.

  1. rhelyk

    rhelyk Active Member

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  2. Mob of Blondes

    Mob of Blondes Well-Known Member

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    Let's try something... download this file, and using an unzipper, extract it (drag and drop, force opening, whatever... maybe change the extension).
    KiblamsInfinityTerrain_gifzip.gif
    Not magic, just that if you glue a gif and a zip (in that order), both seem to work with some tools because the bytes required to understand them are at start for gif and end for zip (that is why order matters). Some tools may fail, other will just complain there is useless data at one or other end of the file.

    Yeah, wake up in Nomad mode today.
     
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  3. jherazob

    jherazob Well-Known Member

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    Hadn't seen that trick used in a while :)
     
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  4. rhelyk

    rhelyk Active Member

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    Not seeing a file attached to your post, just a very small .gif of the building, might be the new forum software doesn't allow .zip files to be hosted?

    Got the cutter last night, futzed around for WAY too long trying and failing to cut a few pieces before realizing I had to trace the image into a path for the cutter to actually cut /smackforehead

    Once I figured out that extremely obvious step, I got a working cut of some .020 plasticard right before bed. Looks easy enough to trace existing images into workable paths, at least for hard outlined shapes like the Star Wars Empire symbol. This weekend should be a fun one, got all the 3mm foamed PVC walls cut for 16 buildings and scribed the panel lines, just need set up the tablesaw and cut the roofs, got the cutter to make some windows and ladders.

    MDF building on the right, foamed PVC copy on the left. Lego ladder on the prototype will either be protrait cut plasticard or I may just cut a stencil and paint in the ladders. I have plenty of Sedition Wars doors, they may be plasticard in the future depending on how long they last. Biggest thing I'm looking forward to is cutting some plasticard windows to add to the sides, something along the lines of the District 5 apartment windows or similar should be easy enough to cut from a few layers of .020 styrene (which is why I'm hoping to find Kiblam's old cut files, mostly for windows and doors). Otherwise, I'm looking forward to making enough for a few tables to keep down at the game club instead of hauling my own terrain back and forth
     

    Attached Files:

  5. Red Harvest

    Red Harvest Day in, Day out. Day in, Day out. Day in, DAY OUT

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    Save the gif to your hard drive. (y'know, right click, save image as) Rename it to KiblamsInfinityTerrain.zip and use the appropriate software to open it. Your archive manager should show that it contains 5 .studio files. Extract those and have fun.
     
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  6. rhelyk

    rhelyk Active Member

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    Not working, changing it from .gif to .zip makes the file unreadable. It does change the icon in Windows 10 from a preview thumbnail image to the .zip file icon, but neither double clicking or right-click-extract all works, both give invalid file type errors. I also tried downloading the image through MS Edge since I never use it and don't have any kind of adblocker for it, same results. Tried to save a second copy the .gif, zipped it together with the renamed file and that .zip file works as normal, but still get errors from the original when trying to extract or view it.

    I'll try it again when I get home, I'm using just the default windows 10 zip file software (I don't want to put WinRar or 7-Zip on my work comp), but everything reads it so far as just a small 100x57 pixel gif
     
  7. jherazob

    jherazob Well-Known Member

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    Tested it, it's both a gif and a zip, maybe it's the Win10 Zip handler that goes nuts with the header but it works, throw it at a more competent program.
     
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  8. Mob of Blondes

    Mob of Blondes Well-Known Member

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    Forum only allows (based in how the "upload a file" sets up the file browser) .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .png & .pdf.

    The gif+zip is 63924 bytes, first 6018 bytes are the gif, from there to end, the zip. Another method would be to copy that last part to a new file... but only know about Unix methods to do that (dd or xxd come to mind)... well, quick search, there is one tool named PartCopy that can do it too. Tutorials that mention this trick recommend WinRar, 7-Zip or WinZip, so I too guess that the tools included in MSWindows are not happy with it. Also I don't know the current situation of extension hiding/protection in that OS, which could be part of the problem.

    For completness, the gif alone:
    KiblamsInfinityTerrain.gif
     
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  9. Red Harvest

    Red Harvest Day in, Day out. Day in, Day out. Day in, DAY OUT

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    It works perfectly in Archive Manager, the default for Linux Mint. A Windows 10 problem? How can that be?

    I suspect that the Windows file manager still hides file extensions by default. Lolcats.jpeg.exe and boom, your machine is mining cryptocurrency for the Russian Mafia ;)
     
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  10. rhelyk

    rhelyk Active Member

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    Perfect, thanks guys! Soon as I got home and saved it to my personal PC & changed the extension, Winrar recognized it and opened it right up! This is a huge help
     
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  11. Red Harvest

    Red Harvest Day in, Day out. Day in, Day out. Day in, DAY OUT

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    Good to hear.

    Now, one last thing. We didn't all post advice in this thread solely out of the goodness of our hearts. We expect you to post photos of your terrain so that we may appreciate it. Quid pro quo and all that :D
     
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  12. rhelyk

    rhelyk Active Member

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    Oh, that's not something you'll need to worry yourself over. There's already a bit of magic in the air tonight and I'm still just playing around with the initial settings, I got the whole weekend ahead for me and my new toy...
     

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  13. Captain Spud

    Captain Spud Maker of Things

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    Today I learned that knife printers exist and I want one. @_@
     
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  14. jherazob

    jherazob Well-Known Member

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    Papercraft hobbists have used these for years now, for example WorldworksGames used to deliver files for those machines (while it was still properly attended, too bad they have pretty much abandoned the company, i bet they'd have become a Corvus Belli official partner with no effort). The discovery was that they could work with plastic card, which made them amazing for us. In fact, for detailing cardboard might be far more than enough, and plastic card only used for the structural pieces, that should keep the blades running well longer.
     
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  15. Captain Spud

    Captain Spud Maker of Things

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    I'm assuming it wouldn't have any problems cutting through soft craft foam, then? If so, this may be a great solution for me-- I love making foamcore buildings, but HATE cutting out panelling to texture the outsides. If I can just draw up the designs and have a machine cut them out for me, I will be a very happy potato. <3
     
  16. jherazob

    jherazob Well-Known Member

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  17. Captain Spud

    Captain Spud Maker of Things

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    Hmm. The cuts don't look super clean, but I don't mind running a knife over them again to release the pieces at the end. Still a massive time-saver compared to transferring patterns to the foam by hand.

    If you'll excuse me, I think I need to go give Amazon some money...
     
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  18. Red Harvest

    Red Harvest Day in, Day out. Day in, Day out. Day in, DAY OUT

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    Does Amazon accept the loonie? :P Shop around a bit. Some of those hobby stores, A.C. Moore, Hobby Lobby, Jo-Anns, Michaels etc. have the 40% coupons. You might get a better deal. Money not spent on the cutter is money to be spent on supplies. :)

    And they do work with the plasticard... interesting...
     
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  19. Mob of Blondes

    Mob of Blondes Well-Known Member

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    There are heavier dutty models for a bit more money (hundreds), like KNK, up to to industrial tech and prices (low thousands) that can cut and mark Foamed PVC, like Roland.
     
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  20. rhelyk

    rhelyk Active Member

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    Right?! See, I was stoked before, but now apt Spud is in on it and I can't wait to see what he comes up with for it.

    I was hoping to get the tablesaw set up and cut out my foamed pvc roofs and maybe some building addons today, but of course it's been sunny all week until today, when it starts raining :( At least it gives me more time inside to play around with designs, got a bunch of those same doors cut out of black .020" (0.5mm) plasticard and decided to completely change up the windows from Kiblams design. I kept th stretched octagon outer frame, added some braces in the center and then added a layer of masking tape to the sheet before sending it to the cutter. Cutter went right through the tape and scored the plasticard below beautifully, so now I can just prime and paint the frames with a spraycan, then remove the tape to show the bare black plasticard below as windows. If I don't want straight black windows, I can airbrush some lines in as window glare/reflections before adding the masking tape layer. MUCH easier than my original plan of cutting the frames, plucking out the centers, then layering that over a layer of acetate or other material for the window glass. Hopefully it'll clear up enough to spray a few test windows
     

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