deckmaking - Credits-style [updated 09 Aug]
Last Updated: 09 August 2011
A change in template comes with a change in the way things are done for deckmaking, so a new tutorial is necessary! 95% of things are still same old though, so don't worry about having to learn from scratch! You may want to pay extra attention to the way images are pasted in the template. /o/
The templates may look a tad intimidating with all the layers, but we promise that they're very easy to work with. |D However, there are some very important points we would like you to take note of, concerning layer opacity of the coloured border and the layer mask. Everything that you need to know about deckmaking at Credits are hopefully covered here - it's incredibly detailed, mainly for my sake because I'm very forgetful... but I hope it'll be useful to you as well!
Things to note:
-Please include a Notepad file with all the details of the deck! The details include the deckname, which series it is from, which OP/ED it is, who the deckmaker is, and who the donator of the images is. Copy/paste this form into a Notepad file and fill out the details for every deck you complete:
Deckname:
Song Name:
Series:
Sequence: Which OP/ED it is [eg: Opening 2. For variant OPs, Opening 1 Variant 2]
Deckmaker: the name of the deckmaker
Images: the name of the donator - if you gathered the images yourself, list your name here
-You need the Legend font! You can get it here.
-You also need Photoshop. I use CS5 Extended, but as long as you have a recent version, you should have no problems!
-for regular/special cards, the dimensions of each card are 100x75. The mastery banner is 150x75.
-I will be making puzzle decks, but just for your information, for puzzle cards, you need an image that is 400x400. The mastery banner is 150x80.
1.
This is what you get when you first open the PSD. There's a temporary layer with filled color - it's just there so that you can see all the borders but you won't be needing this when the deck is completed and the layers are ready to be merged. So if you like, you can even delete this completely from your template.
2.
There's really no set way to go about doing things - if you want to put in images first, you can! Change border colors, sure!
For now, I've decided to change decknames. Unfortunately, I haven't found an easy way to do this yet, so it's just a lot of careful copy-pasting...
Important Note:
For consistency sake:
-spaces are fine
-!, ? and '-' [dashes] are fine, but no commas or overly fancy symbols like music notes and stars please. ;_; The simpler the better, but since we already have "!" and "-" used in decks, go ahead and use those to keep things consistent.
3.
My habit is to save the PSD after changing the decknames. Be sure to name it the deckname!
4.
Now to input images! You can do this any way you want [watch out for brightness, saturation etc], but to put in the image, just click on the folder you want it to go into and paste it there! Your image should be inside the folder, that way the layer mask will work automatically!
5.
Same goes for Image 02 and so on. Each folder corresponds to the card, so it's easy to figure out. /o/
6.
When shifting around your images, be sure not to leave gaps anywhere in your cards. Look out especially for the coloured border area. For darker-coloured images, the gap will be obvious, but you'll need to be careful with bright images. No gaps, please!!
7.
Yay, no gaps. :D
8.
When you're done, you should have something like this!
Important Note:
-Please have a variety of shots for your card images - many OP/EDs tend to have scenery shots, long shots, action scenes and the likes so be sure to include them instead of focusing solely on the characters. Keep the card images in the order that they appear in the OP/ED clip - for the mastery banner, I personally prefer to use the final scene but you can use any scene as long as it looks good.
-As a guideline, each row of cards in the PSD should not have overly similar images. I already see a few in my above example, so I'll have to go back and fix them!
9.
Purple doesn't really suit Namida no Mukou, so let's pick a better colour!
Important note: As shown above, when you open the PSD, the layer opacity of the relevant layer [inside card border - color] is at 75%. When you want to change the colour, crank the opacity up to 100% first, and then fill all the borders with your colour. To fill the whole color bar layer with a new color, you can just hold Ctrl and click on the layer "icon" (the tiny preview picture) to select the whole layer. Then press Alt+backspace to fill it with your foreground color. When you're done, tweak the layer opacity back down to 75%.
It might seem pretty roundabout but there's two reasons for this. First, if you just filled the border with a different colour without adjusting the layer opacity, the colour will actually come out lighter than what you want. A more useful reason is that if we ever need to remake decks [[for example, you made a deck using a clip with credits, and then a few weeks later, you found a creditless one D:]], you'll be able to reuse the original colour you used for the original deck by just increasing the layer opacity to 100%, and then grabbing the colour from the border. Very simple.
tl;dr, to change the color of the borders,
-Increase layer opacity to 100%
-Fill all the colored borders with your desired color - hold Ctrl, click the layer 'icon' to select the whole layer, press Alt+Backspace to fill them with your foreground colour
-Decrease layer opacity back down to 75% [important!]
When you're done, you should have something like this!
10.
Forgot about this step, but using the same colour as your coloured border, fill up the solid-colour dotted line now. The lines are on another layer [inside card border - dark color]. Good thing is these don't need any tweaking, so you can just fill it up with the colour.
11.
You should have something like this! Looking better, yes? :D The colour is up to the deckmaker - if a player donates a deck and requests a specific colour, then we'll use the requested colour for the deck. But if you think the deck will look better with another colour, feel free to use the colour you've chosen instead.
12.
Double click on Stroke to change the stroke around the deckname and numbers! For the colour, use a colour that is deeper than the colour of the border, so that it's easier to read the deckname and numbers. Please don't use stroke colours that are lighter than the border! It makes it harder to read, especially on cards with a lot of white colour.
13.
When you're satisfied with the colour you've picked, just right click on the layer and pick Copy Layer Style.
14.
All the layers with text/numbers have been linked, so just click Select Linked Layers after that.
15.
Paste Layer Style...
16.
And there we go!! /o/
17.
When saving, use "Save for Web & Devices". No need to merge layers!
18.
Ignore the Edit Output Setting thing, but this is what you should have. I've fixed them so that the splices save properly as PNG now!! /o/ I've also edited the settings so that the files will be named without any underscores - let me know if you have problems with the settings.
19.
Save All Splices! Make sure your filename is the deckname.
20.
Once you're done, a folder called "images" will show up on your desktop. In that folder is your card images. Run through your cards to see if there're any errors - decknames being too close or too far from the borders, typos, that sort of thing. There should be no underscore - if there is, you can follow Step 12 in the old tutorial. deckname21 is your filler card, so name it to deckname00. deckname22 is your mastery banner - that should be renamed to decknamemaster. deckname23 is blank, it's an extra splice that Photoshop automatically generates, so just delete that.
21.
Perfectly named cards! :'D
22.
Chuck in the PSD file and the Notepad file for the deck into the folder and rename the folder to the deckname [eg: namidanomukou]. Zip up the folder, name the zip file the deckname again, send it my way and you're done!
The zipfile should open up to the folder.
23.
And in the folder, please have the PSD file and the Notepad file (with all the details, of course) along with the card images. If you don't have the Notepad file, I'll just cry a bit and move on with life. But please include the PSD file!! If you don't, I will cry a lot. ;_;
tl;dr:
-check to make sure your cards are in .png format
-check your cards for errors
-deckname21 should be renamed deckname00
-deckname22 should be renamed decknamemaster
-deckname23 should be deleted
-include the PSD file and the Notepad file with all the deck details in the folder
-rename the folder to the deckname
-Zip up the folder, rename the zipfile to the deckname and upload it
This was something which we realized is necessary. Sometimes, if you download just the OP/ED clips from Youtube or other sites, the OP/ED clips are in the wrong aspect ratio. Always grab caps in the right aspect ratio - otherwise, you're going to end up with cards that look distorted.
As an example, I grabbed a Slam Dunk ED clip off Youtube, and it was in 16:9.
Are basketballs oval?
VLC Player has an option for you to tweak aspect ratio of the video [I'll cover that in a minute] - after adjusting to a ratio of 4:3;
Our basketball is perfectly round now! :D
To adjust the aspect ratio, just head to Video, Aspect Ratio and then choose the right ratio:
My example was in 16:9 when it was supposed to be 4:3, the other way round is 100% possible too. As a general rule, newer OP/EDs tend to be in 16:9 while older ones are in 4:3, but there are always exceptions so you have to look out for it. @_@ When in doubt, ask Chuu grab a screencap and ask a friend [or a fellow fan] to see if the image looks strange. It's really up to your judgment in the end. x_o;
Tips:
-Decknames: We use song names, part of it, or part of song lyrics [in Japanese] for decknames. For OSTs, we use themes from the show or one of the tracknames - eg: a Code Geass OST would probably be named 'Britannia' ["All Hail Britannia"] or 'Rebellion' [the full title of the anime is Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion]. While we don't have a character limit for decknames, no one wants to deal with overly long filenames so stick to around 16~17 characters as your max. Also ensure that the deckname including the stroke doesn't touch the right white border. Always make sure there is at least ONE pixel of space between both ends of the deckname and the white borders.
-This goes without saying, but play around with the saturation and vibrance of your images! Also, Smart Sharpen is your best friend.
-Vary your shots, if there are a lot of closeups, you can replace some of the card images with full-body shots, far shots...that kind of thing.
-Think of it as 'reverse storyboarding' - you already have the animation clip, so all you have to do is to find nice sequences to capture as cards in a deck. Don't just focus on certain parts or certain people; include scenery, movement, different sequences etc.
-If you're not sure if your deck looks okay, make a screenshot of your work in progress and ask for either a fellow deckmaker or a player's suggestions! A little critique goes a long way.
-We're all here to help each other out, so never be afraid to ask for help. :D
And that's all! I hope that was helpful! /o/
A change in template comes with a change in the way things are done for deckmaking, so a new tutorial is necessary! 95% of things are still same old though, so don't worry about having to learn from scratch! You may want to pay extra attention to the way images are pasted in the template. /o/
The templates may look a tad intimidating with all the layers, but we promise that they're very easy to work with. |D However, there are some very important points we would like you to take note of, concerning layer opacity of the coloured border and the layer mask. Everything that you need to know about deckmaking at Credits are hopefully covered here - it's incredibly detailed, mainly for my sake because I'm very forgetful... but I hope it'll be useful to you as well!
Things to note:
-Please include a Notepad file with all the details of the deck! The details include the deckname, which series it is from, which OP/ED it is, who the deckmaker is, and who the donator of the images is. Copy/paste this form into a Notepad file and fill out the details for every deck you complete:
Deckname:
Song Name:
Series:
Sequence: Which OP/ED it is [eg: Opening 2. For variant OPs, Opening 1 Variant 2]
Deckmaker: the name of the deckmaker
Images: the name of the donator - if you gathered the images yourself, list your name here
-You need the Legend font! You can get it here.
-You also need Photoshop. I use CS5 Extended, but as long as you have a recent version, you should have no problems!
-for regular/special cards, the dimensions of each card are 100x75. The mastery banner is 150x75.
-I will be making puzzle decks, but just for your information, for puzzle cards, you need an image that is 400x400. The mastery banner is 150x80.
1.
This is what you get when you first open the PSD. There's a temporary layer with filled color - it's just there so that you can see all the borders but you won't be needing this when the deck is completed and the layers are ready to be merged. So if you like, you can even delete this completely from your template.
2.
There's really no set way to go about doing things - if you want to put in images first, you can! Change border colors, sure!
For now, I've decided to change decknames. Unfortunately, I haven't found an easy way to do this yet, so it's just a lot of careful copy-pasting...
Important Note:
For consistency sake:
-spaces are fine
-!, ? and '-' [dashes] are fine, but no commas or overly fancy symbols like music notes and stars please. ;_; The simpler the better, but since we already have "!" and "-" used in decks, go ahead and use those to keep things consistent.
3.
My habit is to save the PSD after changing the decknames. Be sure to name it the deckname!
4.
Now to input images! You can do this any way you want [watch out for brightness, saturation etc], but to put in the image, just click on the folder you want it to go into and paste it there! Your image should be inside the folder, that way the layer mask will work automatically!
5.
Same goes for Image 02 and so on. Each folder corresponds to the card, so it's easy to figure out. /o/
6.
When shifting around your images, be sure not to leave gaps anywhere in your cards. Look out especially for the coloured border area. For darker-coloured images, the gap will be obvious, but you'll need to be careful with bright images. No gaps, please!!
7.
Yay, no gaps. :D
8.
When you're done, you should have something like this!
Important Note:
-Please have a variety of shots for your card images - many OP/EDs tend to have scenery shots, long shots, action scenes and the likes so be sure to include them instead of focusing solely on the characters. Keep the card images in the order that they appear in the OP/ED clip - for the mastery banner, I personally prefer to use the final scene but you can use any scene as long as it looks good.
-As a guideline, each row of cards in the PSD should not have overly similar images. I already see a few in my above example, so I'll have to go back and fix them!
9.
Purple doesn't really suit Namida no Mukou, so let's pick a better colour!
Important note: As shown above, when you open the PSD, the layer opacity of the relevant layer [inside card border - color] is at 75%. When you want to change the colour, crank the opacity up to 100% first, and then fill all the borders with your colour. To fill the whole color bar layer with a new color, you can just hold Ctrl and click on the layer "icon" (the tiny preview picture) to select the whole layer. Then press Alt+backspace to fill it with your foreground color. When you're done, tweak the layer opacity back down to 75%.
It might seem pretty roundabout but there's two reasons for this. First, if you just filled the border with a different colour without adjusting the layer opacity, the colour will actually come out lighter than what you want. A more useful reason is that if we ever need to remake decks [[for example, you made a deck using a clip with credits, and then a few weeks later, you found a creditless one D:]], you'll be able to reuse the original colour you used for the original deck by just increasing the layer opacity to 100%, and then grabbing the colour from the border. Very simple.
tl;dr, to change the color of the borders,
-Increase layer opacity to 100%
-Fill all the colored borders with your desired color - hold Ctrl, click the layer 'icon' to select the whole layer, press Alt+Backspace to fill them with your foreground colour
-Decrease layer opacity back down to 75% [important!]
When you're done, you should have something like this!
10.
Forgot about this step, but using the same colour as your coloured border, fill up the solid-colour dotted line now. The lines are on another layer [inside card border - dark color]. Good thing is these don't need any tweaking, so you can just fill it up with the colour.
11.
You should have something like this! Looking better, yes? :D The colour is up to the deckmaker - if a player donates a deck and requests a specific colour, then we'll use the requested colour for the deck. But if you think the deck will look better with another colour, feel free to use the colour you've chosen instead.
12.
Double click on Stroke to change the stroke around the deckname and numbers! For the colour, use a colour that is deeper than the colour of the border, so that it's easier to read the deckname and numbers. Please don't use stroke colours that are lighter than the border! It makes it harder to read, especially on cards with a lot of white colour.
13.
When you're satisfied with the colour you've picked, just right click on the layer and pick Copy Layer Style.
14.
All the layers with text/numbers have been linked, so just click Select Linked Layers after that.
15.
Paste Layer Style...
16.
And there we go!! /o/
17.
When saving, use "Save for Web & Devices". No need to merge layers!
18.
Ignore the Edit Output Setting thing, but this is what you should have. I've fixed them so that the splices save properly as PNG now!! /o/ I've also edited the settings so that the files will be named without any underscores - let me know if you have problems with the settings.
19.
Save All Splices! Make sure your filename is the deckname.
20.
Once you're done, a folder called "images" will show up on your desktop. In that folder is your card images. Run through your cards to see if there're any errors - decknames being too close or too far from the borders, typos, that sort of thing. There should be no underscore - if there is, you can follow Step 12 in the old tutorial. deckname21 is your filler card, so name it to deckname00. deckname22 is your mastery banner - that should be renamed to decknamemaster. deckname23 is blank, it's an extra splice that Photoshop automatically generates, so just delete that.
21.
Perfectly named cards! :'D
22.
Chuck in the PSD file and the Notepad file for the deck into the folder and rename the folder to the deckname [eg: namidanomukou]. Zip up the folder, name the zip file the deckname again, send it my way and you're done!
The zipfile should open up to the folder.
23.
And in the folder, please have the PSD file and the Notepad file (with all the details, of course) along with the card images. If you don't have the Notepad file, I'll just cry a bit and move on with life. But please include the PSD file!! If you don't, I will cry a lot. ;_;
tl;dr:
-check to make sure your cards are in .png format
-check your cards for errors
-deckname21 should be renamed deckname00
-deckname22 should be renamed decknamemaster
-deckname23 should be deleted
-include the PSD file and the Notepad file with all the deck details in the folder
-rename the folder to the deckname
-Zip up the folder, rename the zipfile to the deckname and upload it
This was something which we realized is necessary. Sometimes, if you download just the OP/ED clips from Youtube or other sites, the OP/ED clips are in the wrong aspect ratio. Always grab caps in the right aspect ratio - otherwise, you're going to end up with cards that look distorted.
As an example, I grabbed a Slam Dunk ED clip off Youtube, and it was in 16:9.
Are basketballs oval?
VLC Player has an option for you to tweak aspect ratio of the video [I'll cover that in a minute] - after adjusting to a ratio of 4:3;
Our basketball is perfectly round now! :D
To adjust the aspect ratio, just head to Video, Aspect Ratio and then choose the right ratio:
My example was in 16:9 when it was supposed to be 4:3, the other way round is 100% possible too. As a general rule, newer OP/EDs tend to be in 16:9 while older ones are in 4:3, but there are always exceptions so you have to look out for it. @_@ When in doubt, ask Chuu grab a screencap and ask a friend [or a fellow fan] to see if the image looks strange. It's really up to your judgment in the end. x_o;
Tips:
-Decknames: We use song names, part of it, or part of song lyrics [in Japanese] for decknames. For OSTs, we use themes from the show or one of the tracknames - eg: a Code Geass OST would probably be named 'Britannia' ["All Hail Britannia"] or 'Rebellion' [the full title of the anime is Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion]. While we don't have a character limit for decknames, no one wants to deal with overly long filenames so stick to around 16~17 characters as your max. Also ensure that the deckname including the stroke doesn't touch the right white border. Always make sure there is at least ONE pixel of space between both ends of the deckname and the white borders.
-This goes without saying, but play around with the saturation and vibrance of your images! Also, Smart Sharpen is your best friend.
-Vary your shots, if there are a lot of closeups, you can replace some of the card images with full-body shots, far shots...that kind of thing.
-Think of it as 'reverse storyboarding' - you already have the animation clip, so all you have to do is to find nice sequences to capture as cards in a deck. Don't just focus on certain parts or certain people; include scenery, movement, different sequences etc.
-If you're not sure if your deck looks okay, make a screenshot of your work in progress and ask for either a fellow deckmaker or a player's suggestions! A little critique goes a long way.
-We're all here to help each other out, so never be afraid to ask for help. :D
And that's all! I hope that was helpful! /o/