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N4/C1 Token Design Questions

Discussion in 'Rules' started by Lawson, Oct 1, 2020.

  1. toadchild

    toadchild Premeasure

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    I have a 1” punch and just accept that there’s a half-millimeter overhang when I mount them on 25mm plywood rounds.
     
  2. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    I don't think I'd be able to settle for that with my level of anal retentiveness. I'm already thinking about trying to 3D print some sort of device that I can mount an X-acto blade to :-P
     
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  3. Stiopa

    Stiopa Trust The Fuckhead

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    @Lawson you can safely disregard the leatherworking one. I actually do some leatherworking, and I use those; they'll either crumple the paper, or otherwise make for a very unappealing cuts. They work well with leather, but not with paper.

    I've bought a 25mm round hole craft paper punch, but I'm from Poland, so I didn't have to deal with imperial system at all. It looks exactly like this one:

    [​IMG]

    Now that would be awesome
     
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  4. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    We'll have to see about that... my current reasons for not doing it are these:

    1) part of the genesis of this project was that I felt the N4 tokens inconsistently used vector and raster artwork for their iconography and I wanted to change them ALL to a more consistent vector style. That meant the TO Camo tokens specifically were the first on metaphorical "chopping block" along with Dazer and Repeater. I tried to make something that 'worked' as a vector version of the image and it didn't really pan out, hence me pivoting to the current look.
    2) I think the TO Camo tokens are ugly and I don't like the fact that the same art is actually repeated on the non-mimetism camo tokens... which means that both the best and worst types of camo inexplicably use the same artwork.
    3) I can't find a version of the artwork for the TO camo that doesn't kind-of look shitty (and I actually don't think that Corvus Belli can either, since the version they have on their official N4 token looks like a super-compressed jpeg)
    4) creating fundamentally differently designed camo shapes for -6, -3, and -0 camo actually means that they could be colored any way you want... there's nothing stopping someone from doing green -6 camo or bright violet -3 camo now by modifying the tokens, since they are visually different enough in their graphic design that the color isn't really a factor anymore.

    That said, the TO image is just essentially the camouflage image with an edge-detect and glow filters put on it, so I could probably create alt artwork and bundle it with everything when I release all the tokens for those people who want to replace my admittedly polarizing 'digital' camo pattern look.
     
  5. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

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  6. Rumdog

    Rumdog Well-Known Member

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    Same here!

    A little bit late to the party, but would you consider changing regular, irregular and impetuous order colours to more lively, vibrant ones?
     
  7. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    Note: Unless you’re working on a color-calibrated monitor you’re likely not seeing these colors as they’d appear in print. Furthermore, monitors can display colors that are more vibrant than anything possible in print. The reason is that monitors produce light (which is what determines what colors are “inside” the RGB color space/gamut) while ink on paper reflects ambient light (and thus produces colors that correspond to CMYK color space). If you’ve ever tried to paint a sunset and been disappointed by how flat and dim it looks in ink compared to the real thing, you know what I mean.

    Some of the colors used are already too bright for printing, and will lose intensity in the translation from screen to print. This is why I asked if the originals were made in RGB files.

    More on the concept of color spaces, including diagrams, for people new to the idea: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_space
     
  8. Rumdog

    Rumdog Well-Known Member

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    Oh man, thanks, I had no idea!
     
  9. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    I'm realizing I'm going to open myself up to endless revisions by giving more options for Camo token colors and artwork and will never make everyone happy, so rather than taking requests, I'm going to experiment with making a PSD that contains all the options for Camo tokens (including the retina-burning TO camo look) and give people the option to mock up their own and apply hue and saturation adjustments to get precisely the shade they want. Here's a test with the 25mm tokens. @wes-o-matic if you or someone else wants to take a look at this and confirm that it works for them, that would be great and I can apply it to the other Camo sizes:
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SNMKou_UE1J33ZuUTbJfKYzcIEclwOrx/view?usp=sharing

    Currently 600 DPI, CMYK
    The PSD is arranged as follows:
    NUMBERS [Folder] Contains identification numbers 1-9 which can be turned on and off and the Orange Circle that they go on
    MODS [Folder] Contains -3 and -6 Mimetism MODs
    RINGS [Folder] Contains the dark gray inner ring and light gray outer ring as well as the word "CAMO" - this is baked into an image instead of text to prevent issues with people potentially not having the right font.
    CAMO [Folder] Contains, Forest Camo (e.g. -3 mimetism), Desert Camo (no mimetism), Digi Camo (-6 mimetism), and TO Camo (old style, -6 mimetism) - you can put hue/sat/brightness adjustments on whichever of these layers you use to get the Camo to look the way you want it.

    There is no bleed on the token currently.
     
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  10. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    For the most-part I color-picked from the official N4 tokens pdf to get the colors, though because I'm omitting the gradients, in some cases the color matches are not perfect. I've already updated the Irregular order tokens, since those the were the dingiest, but will be doing some proof prints to confirm that everything looks the way I want and may tweak additional colors before finalizing.
     
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  11. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    Okay here's the results of a test print of some select pages of tokens:

    Camo Markers
    IMG_3038.jpg
    The good news is the colors all came out more or less the way I was expecting - you can clearly see here how sharp the camo icon is compared to whatever low-res jpeg the official tokens that came in Operation Kaldstrom

    Where things aren't quite as sharp is the lettering/numbering. This is odd because they're all tack sharp in my exports. I think the results here are attributable to two things...

    1) converting the images from png exports (uncompressed) to pdf ended up producing more compression artifacting than I would have liked, which softened the images a bit - I will reduce the pdf compression on the next export, which I think will help
    2) PDF only seems to support up to 300dpi. I may see if my print shop can print at 600 dpi and if so export higher resolution versions of these in psd or png.

    Nonetheless, at table distance, they are all very clear and perfectly legible. Realistically this works because you're never going to be looking at anything this close.

    Comparison if IMM-A and IMM-B
    IMG_3039.jpg
    Again, I think the colors are really good (recall that I went with one tone of orange for negative status effects, so IMM-B does not match the real N4 token). Again, I think the text elements feel a bit soft in the print and I'll be working on correcting this.


    Regular and Lieutenant Orders
    IMG_3041.jpg
    I think the colors and the halftone look really good on these (and really vibrant). I may go a hair brighter on the BG color of the Lieutenant Order just to get a bit more contrast out of the halftone. Also get a load of how WORN the Kaldstrom tokens are even though I've only handled them for a few games - they look like they've been at the bottom of a lake. I own 150+ games and I've never had tokens chip/wear so quickly. The orders do get handled a lot during a game, but sheesh.

    Unconscious
    IMG_3042.jpg
    I like the Unconscious tokens but I think the orange feels just a hair too dark (it's currently in-between the orange for the bg of 'orange coded' markers such as the "IMP-1" on the right and the orange of the negative states such as the "Unloaded" that you see below it). I'm going to brighten it up just a hair to match the negative states. Incidentally this will brighten up the border on the NWI/Dogged markers as well, since they use the same color as Unconscious, so I'm going to brighten up the red field on those as well to just match the red of the Wounds.
     
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  12. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

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    Love it.
     
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  13. Leviathan

    Leviathan Hungry Caliban

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    Print shops can often accept TIF or PNG formats as well, but without clear instruction they may get the scaling wrong. Something to consider anyway :)


    They look fantastic and I can't wait to get my hands on the final proofs to print my own tokens.
     
  14. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    Okay I've made a few more tweaks to color based on the printouts, mostly lightening stuff up just a bit here and there and adjusting some hues, along with a few more technical fixes of errors. I've added an 11th page with additional group-numbered orders - it's starting to get a bit out of hand so I won't be taking any more token requests just for my own sanity and will instead work to get things up and running with @toadchild to work on giving everyone all the options they want, including custom build-able camo colors. N4_TOKENS_PROPOSED_LAYOUT_v04_000.jpg N4_TOKENS_PROPOSED_LAYOUT_v04_001.jpg N4_TOKENS_PROPOSED_LAYOUT_v04_002.jpg N4_TOKENS_PROPOSED_LAYOUT_v04_003.jpg N4_TOKENS_PROPOSED_LAYOUT_v04_004.jpg N4_TOKENS_PROPOSED_LAYOUT_v04_005.jpg
     
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  15. Thomashkis

    Thomashkis Active Member

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    THIS
    IS
    BRILLIANT
    !

    And on a more serious note: job well done! I must admit I will wait for a customable token sheet generator, but your brilliant work, openness to ideas and responsiveness made it all possible, so thank you very much!
     
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  16. Mob of Blondes

    Mob of Blondes Well-Known Member

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    For completeness you may want to add the Silhouette Templates too... I noticed they were funny sized in the book... someone else noticed they are also wrong in the current PDF from download section (the one mentioned as trigger for this project).
     
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  17. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    Oof, really? That's hilarious. Let me take a look. Not exactly sure how I'd mount silhouettes (and I have the ones that came with my C1 set so I don't think I need updates personally) but if there's a problem that needs fixing...
     
  18. toadchild

    toadchild Premeasure

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    For what it’s worth, I’ve resisted adding officially-sized templates to my tool because I don’t want to get caught up in trying to guarantee everyone is printing things off at the correct size.
     
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  19. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    What in tarnation? IMG_3045.jpg IMG_3046.jpg

    Good Lord, @Mob of Blondes you're totally right. I don't even know how they could have messed it up like this...

    Some stuff is correct - S6 and S7, and Large Teardrop (and the HoloEchos are correct 55mm size)
    Some stuff is a little bit off - circular blast template, just by a few mm

    And some stuff is just insane... like, regardless of scale the S3 and S5 templates aren't even internally consistent to each other and they're both supposed to be 40mm bases (S3 is 51mm and S5 is 42mm).

    Realistically there should be no print size errors since the pdf prints at 100% settings will be universally correct (note that the cutoff at the bottom of the S5 token isn't because the print is improperly scaled, but because the document is framed for A4 paper and my printer uses 8.5x11") - but the lack of internal size consistency is icing on the cake.
     
    #139 Lawson, Oct 13, 2020
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2020
  20. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

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    This is an egregious fuck up. I am not even surprised. That's what I expect from CB's quality assurance these days - there being none.

    What a shame. I'd really love it to be different, but CB would have to first recognize there's a huge issue with their quality control and hire somebody to rein all of these issues in. I hope they eventually do or it will always be a cheese with more holes than the actual cheese.
     
    #140 Nuada Airgetlam, Oct 13, 2020
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2020
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