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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 13, 2014 13:13:02 GMT -9
This feedback is fantastic! I'd just like to add, for clarity's sake, that there is no intention of squashing the great variety out there. When I suggest that all the sets include a few standard textures, those are meant to be a "bonus" in addition to the special textures designed just for the set. To follow on with what sproutchu said there should be a way of glancing all the sets at once while shopping, but that's easy enough to do.. and even easier to justify with the common thread to bind them. It would also be very easy to put sets together in bundles so that people can buy lots at once. This is a particularly powerful benefit because, as anyone with experience selling on the OBS shops, your products become virtually invisible after the first few days until you manage to get another one up there to remind people you exist. If enough active designer's get involved, they would all certainly get more face time as a result. I think the 3" base has a lot more benefits to it than downsides... It works well; it tiles well; it links well; makes relatively efficient use of the page space and covers the table well. I'd definitely vote for that, bearing in mind that it's easy enough to represent a 2" or 1" wide corridor on those tiles, either with 3d walls, or simply blacking out the unwanted squares for 2d.
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Post by fatdragontom on Feb 13, 2014 13:59:42 GMT -9
My main concern about trying to standardize TLX is that I think WWG has that copyrighted and does not allow for compatible products using their templates. I could of course be wrong. The other "big player" would be FDG's E-Z Lock and I have no idea where Tom stands on others using that standard for their own retail product. I know he is VERY lenient about fan made mods, though. I'd have no problem at all with it as long as it used some type of logo or something that said "E-Z LOCK compatible" on it
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 13, 2014 14:44:37 GMT -9
That's very generous of you Tom... Thanks very much! That's definitely a good candidate for a universal system, though I'm still eager to hear some of the ideas that our other designers have in mind so keep the thoughts coming guys!
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Post by Christopher Roe on Feb 13, 2014 17:37:04 GMT -9
Kidding aside, this is an idea that I've tinkered with over the years. I never followed through with it for real because there were only a handful of players in the market and everybody was designing their stuff for the 800lb gorillas (d20, Star Wars, HeroClix, etc), so you pretty much had to do whatever was acceptable to those players. In that sense, there was already kind of a loose standard, but everyone had their own favorite way of approaching the issue. TerrainLinx/SwiftScenics for WWG, EZ-Lock for FDG, and so forth. I think it'd be cool to have an open standard for scenery and I'd love to see what people could do with it.
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Post by zigmenthotep on Feb 13, 2014 17:54:14 GMT -9
A few more thoughts.
Scale: I really think it's important not to leave out those who work outside a general 1:60 scale. I propose a few scale standards similar to model railroads. Basically 1:60 would be CUTS 1 compatible, 1:120 would be CUTS 2 compatible, etc. This would allow for inclusion of the smaller scales while still making it easily identifiable for the consumer.
Foamcore: Obviously shouldn't be required, but not excluded either. While attempt should be made to have foamcore and non-foamcore products work together, that may not always be possible. Perhaps a modified standard for foamcore identified in the compatibility tag "CUTS 1 foamcore compatible" or some such thing.
E-Z LOCK: I like the idea of having that available, but not required. Like the foamcore, having an additional "E-Z LOCK compatible" tag would be nice.
Where to focus: I think we need to start thinking what kinds of products exist (e.g. tiles, modular walls, modular buildings, complete buildings, miniatures) and what standards need to be defined for what.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 14, 2014 5:02:16 GMT -9
Kidding aside, this is an idea that I've tinkered with over the years. I never followed through with it for real because there were only a handful of players in the market and everybody was designing their stuff for the 800lb gorillas (d20, Star Wars, HeroClix, etc), so you pretty much had to do whatever was acceptable to those players. In that sense, there was already kind of a loose standard, but everyone had their own favorite way of approaching the issue. TerrainLinx/SwiftScenics for WWG, EZ-Lock for FDG, and so forth. I think it'd be cool to have an open standard for scenery and I'd love to see what people could do with it. Welcome aboard Chris! That's an awesome XKCD! I had a long chat with OldSchoolDM last night over Skype. We covered quite a bit of ground but one of the ideas we kept coming back to was the idea that we could establish a standard of "best practices" that would make it very easy for someone to convert a new set into their chosen format. Ie. If I put out a 6x6 tile, it should be easy for someone who's got a bunch of Tom's EZ-Lock Dungeon stuff to make it work with that, and someone else who favours TLX to make it work with that, and so on. If Dave Graffam releases his own 6x6 tile a week later, it would be awesome if that then works with my tile, or EZ-Lock or TLX. What's the real difference between them? Well, the way it's cut out and stuck to the foamcore really... That, and the textures. So, in light of that I've done some thinking about breaking this up into 3 possible sections: Best Practices Guidelines: (28Terrain Guidelines) I'm including only a few points here for now, but I'm sure it will grow as folks give input and thoughts come to me.• Always use True Inches (ie. 25.4mm). This one will hurt me a little, because when I started out with this waaaay back in the day, I made a decision to work with 25mm instead, because it made sense to me at the time (we use metric down here in SA), and I had no idea how much other stuff was out there. • A standard scale of roughly 1:60 should be followed for details on the terrain. 1:60 seems to be a good median fit for most popular 25-32mm minis used in RPGs. We could split the best practices to account for other scales, so there could be a "15Terrain" or a "54Terrain" with a different scale. • The dimensions of ground tiles should be in multiples of 3". • Standard page size of 279 x 210 mm to ensure that it will work well whether the end user prints on US Letter sized paper or A4. A standard open system: (CUTS system) This is an attempt to try and find a strong system that works as well or better than the currently offered systems, without taking away from the trademark systems of established companies. It should follow the best practices guide, so that it is easily convertible to other systems by those who wish to. This would be open for anyone to use.• a standard modular set-up that works well for 2d, 3d and buildings. • standard grid options (no grid, 1 inch, 1.5 inch) • compact storage where possible. • foam-core optional? I personally think foamcore is a good basing material, and makes for really easy linking methods, but if we can make it optional rather than necessary that might be a good selling point. A shared resource repository: (multi-publisher resource library) This would be a private portal where designers can share elements: Very basic versions of their most popular textures etc. This would allow other designers to add those textures as layer options to props, to make them more compatible, and would allow for things like transition tiles to be easily kitbashed. We should set this up on Github or something similar. Is anyone clued up in that aspect that wants to take care of that?.• All resources here would be voluntarily donated by the designers who hold the copyright. • Invitation-Only. The reason for this is to help build confidence among the donors, as they can feel relatively safe in the knowledge that their resources will only be used as they were intended. • Rules apply whenever you use one of these resources, in a similar fashion to the Creative Commons Commercial Attribution License. For example, if you use my wood floor texture, you have to specifically and clearly state that it is the Kev's Lounge Wood Floor Texture, and provide a link (which would be given by me in the download package) somewhere in your PDF. There would also be restrictions for where and how a resource can used, which would be dictated by the donor, so it may it may grant the right to use a texture as an optional layer for the floor sections of a prop but not the right to use it as the primary texture of a whole new set.
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Post by cowboyleland on Feb 14, 2014 5:13:07 GMT -9
I think "CUTS 1," "CUTS 2 FOAMCORE," "CUTS 2," etc. is going to get confusing for the average (and especially the beginner)consumer. You can't be all things to all people. If(guessing for argument's sake)60%-80% of users are using a 25mm-32mm scale then that is the target market. If everything is done at high enough resolution, the other 20-40% of consumers can scale as they print.
BTW, if you read the blurb under a Dave Graffam tile set at RPG now, it looks like he has hit on most of these parameters already, and he mentions foamcore, but as an option.
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Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Feb 14, 2014 5:15:23 GMT -9
How about adding to best practices some cutfile guidelines. That is, define some basic styles for cutfile cut and score lines (common coloring schemes, line style schemes, blade settings etc) along with common layout of the registration marks (size, thickness, position) to work well with branding, direction of feeding the pages, and A4/letter sized paper. Standard layers would be nice, allowing easy support for older and newer registration mark types.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 14, 2014 6:09:21 GMT -9
I think "CUTS 1," "CUTS 2 FOAMCORE," "CUTS 2," etc. is going to get confusing for the average (and especially the beginner)consumer. You can't be all things to all people. If(guessing for argument's sake)60%-80% of users are using a 25mm-32mm scale then that is the target market. If everything is done at high enough resolution, the other 20-40% of consumers can scale as they print. BTW, if you read the blurb under a Dave Graffam tile set at RPG now, it looks like he has hit on most of these parameters already, and he mentions foamcore, but as an option. Just to clarify: The 28Terrain guidelines and the CUTS system would be two separate things: 28Terrain (and its variations) would be a set of guidelines that all designers should aspire to follow in order to make their sets as useful as possible to end users, while the CUTS system would be a method of assembling and using pieces of a set, in the same way that E-Z LOCK and Terrainlinx are methods for doing these things, but it wouldn't be tied to any specific company and would be available for everyone to use. There would be multiple versions of (x)Terrain, to account for the variety of scales currently used, but there would only be one version of CUTS. I think a lot of of people are already pretty much following most of the best practices, since they are based on what people are doing anyway and they're also relatively intuitive... Clearly spelling out some best practices simply helps existing designers to improve their sets going forward and gives new designers some useful advice right from the start!
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 14, 2014 6:16:22 GMT -9
How about adding to best practices some cutfile guidelines. That is, define some basic styles for cutfile cut and score lines (common coloring schemes, line style schemes, blade settings etc) along with common layout of the registration marks (size, thickness, position) to work well with branding, direction of feeding the pages, and A4/letter sized paper. Standard layers would be nice, allowing easy support for older and newer registration mark types. Definitely worth adding these kinds of things in... This kinda stuff is fairly subjective though, so perhaps we should get some feedback from the crowd on what they feel those methods should be.
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Post by cowboyleland on Feb 14, 2014 9:01:41 GMT -9
To be clear(er) I was responding to Zigmenthotep and Bravesirkevin posted while I was writing.
So; as you see it Sir Kev, designers would add two logos to their products eg "15Terrain" and "CUTS"?
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Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Feb 14, 2014 10:19:16 GMT -9
I would personally prefer 300dpi be the standard to be CUTS-compatible, and stick to the 3" standard. I've seen things being scaled down from there quite often, but I don't know that people want 15mm modular buildings, do they? Or do they typically want easy-to-build 15mm permanent boxy builds? It's not an area I have ANY experience in. I'm just nervous about the prospects of having a MATRIX of potential compatibility issues.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 14, 2014 11:03:55 GMT -9
To be clear(er) I was responding to Zigmenthotep and Bravesirkevin posted while I was writing. So; as you see it Sir Kev, designers would add two logos to their products eg "15Terrain" and "CUTS"? As I see it a designer whose set meets the 28Terrain best practices guidelines would get to add the 28Terrain stamp to their marketing materials. A designer who has a set that is specifically built on the CUTS system would get to promote it as such. Most people would do the former, but only a few would also do the latter.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 14, 2014 11:56:52 GMT -9
I would personally prefer 300dpi be the standard to be CUTS-compatible, and stick to the 3" standard. I've seen things being scaled down from there quite often, but I don't know that people want 15mm modular buildings, do they? Or do they typically want easy-to-build 15mm permanent boxy builds? It's not an area I have ANY experience in. I'm just nervous about the prospects of having a MATRIX of potential compatibility issues. CUTS would be specifically for use with 28mm minis, so it would follow the 28Terrain guidelines. 15mm is a wargames standard rather than an RPG/Skirmish one so modularity and building interiors are a lot less important there.
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Post by zigmenthotep on Feb 14, 2014 18:47:47 GMT -9
On the shared resource repository: There should some kind of pre-defined sets of terms available to donors somewhat like what exists for fonts. That way donors could specify license terms for specific topics (use, editing, credit, etc.) without having to write up their own licensing terms, as well as defining aspects like what constitutes a texture's use as a "primary texture." I feel like the more well defined the terms are the more comfortable creators will be in donating and using resources.
Also, this hasn't come up yet and I think it should be addressed. What about hex grids?
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Post by dungeonmistress on Feb 14, 2014 19:35:03 GMT -9
OK. So here I am, sticking my nose in once more, but Sir Keven, you did ask for comments from the 'crowd'. Well, I'm a crowd of one! As a consumer, I really appreciate (especially online where you can't touch the product prior to purchase) when a manufacturer makes it clear and easy for me to tell if this set will go with that set. Like with model trains, you have N-gauge, HO-gauge, O- gauge and so on. When you go to a train store, on foot or online, to buy scenery, most will specify which gauge which scenery set will work with. It should be the same for this hobby. Sure it's fun looking at all the goodies you guys come up with, but I want to know that when I buy a kit from designer A and one from designer B and another from designer C, that when I go to build them, they will all work together to create a cohesive scene. I don't want to agonize over my purchase. I want to buy it and be done. For example: I recently got the download for a nice looking monastery, a church and a cemetery (all from different sites). I thought "Cool! these will create a nice looking scene for my next game." But, when I printed them out I discovered their sizes were wildly different and that they would not work together at all without radical changes at the printer. Now, I'm sure this was largely my fault for not looking more closely at the descriptions; though sometimes those descriptions are vague or non-existent. (And truthfully, I'm no good with metrics). But, if a standard existed, and a product were clearly labeled as meeting such standard, and I could tell, at-a-glance, that it was compatible with this other product, I would definitely prefer those products over non-standard products. In other words: I'd rather spend my time building than shopping. Save me time shopping and I'll love you for it! I don't know if my rambling on is helpful at all, but, you did ask for it. BTW - I'll be ready to make some real purchases this coming summer, think you'll be ready for me by then? I tease, of course.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 15, 2014 1:12:06 GMT -9
But, if a standard existed, and a product were clearly labeled as meeting such standard, and I could tell, at-a-glance, that it was compatible with this other product, I would definitely prefer those products over non-standard products. In other words: I'd rather spend my time building than shopping. Save me time shopping and I'll love you for it! This is exactly the reason this came up... We can't realistically make everything uniform, but we can go a long way towards making things compatible and we can definitely group things that work well together and it make clear which group something belongs to, and all of these things will help customers feel more confident when choosing which products to buy.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 15, 2014 1:23:00 GMT -9
On the shared resource repository: There should some kind of pre-defined sets of terms available to donors somewhat like what exists for fonts. That way donors could specify license terms for specific topics (use, editing, credit, etc.) without having to write up their own licensing terms, as well as defining aspects like what constitutes a texture's use as a "primary texture." I feel like the more well defined the terms are the more comfortable creators will be in donating and using resources. Absolutely! This is exactly how I pictured it working... Each download pack would still include a text licence, but that could easily be copy-pasted. I'd also like it to be as easy as possible to donate. Normally, a true hex grid only tiles well on hexagonal or triangular tiles, or on irregularly shaped rectangular ones. People also have a lot of different ideas about what hex-size is good so that gets very tricky to implement in a standard way. That all said, I've developed a hex-grid that works perfectly in a 3" square. It's slightly squished (out of necessity), but it functions as a hex grid would. While I'm quite happy for other people to use the same method, I don't think I'd want to force it on anyone. The standard square-grid is suitable for most purposes and translates well across the board.
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Post by Brave Adventures on Feb 15, 2014 5:13:12 GMT -9
I would definitely endorse an "open-standard" for paper-miniature size and maybe tabs/bases. Perhaps we could make some kind of template pdf that demonstrates standard practices. As it is, I've realized that some of the miniatures that we've released are a little too big, so one of the things on my to-do list is to re-size and re-layout everything so that it is more consistent and compatible with other producers.
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Post by mahotsukai on Feb 15, 2014 6:48:25 GMT -9
Did Kaiser Bill lose the Great War because he didn't use a standardised scale for his miniatures?
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Post by cowboyleland on Feb 15, 2014 10:15:01 GMT -9
Sure makes deciding on standard depth of a trench an imperial pain in the butt!
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Post by mesper on Feb 15, 2014 10:41:15 GMT -9
Sure makes deciding on standard depth of a trench an imperial pain in the butt! Well then some non-imperial perhaps?
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Post by dungeonmistress on Feb 15, 2014 10:49:34 GMT -9
ROTFL! Great observation, Mahosukai!
Brave Sir Kevin, it is true, mini's are a particular pain. You can get mini's that measure anywhere from 4" tall to under an inch, with very little to let you know what scale you are getting. (Again, not good with metrics)
In my game, I use a fairly average (I think) grid - 1" = 5'. So, a human wizard, for instance should measure around 1 3/4" tall, holding his staff high. Is this what would be considered 28mm, or thereabouts?
Put a "CUTS Compatible" label on a set of mini's and I'll know, without the metric headache, that I can safely buy these mini's and get something I can use.
I don't know what all is involved in the licenses and such, but I feel that once you have the details ironed out, you will find that your efforts here were well worth the results in product recognition, customer confidence and loyalty, and the resulting increase in sales. And personally, I love to see companies cooperating to benefit the public, ie: a bundle that includes say, walls, buildings, furniture and mini's of different brands, all labeled "CUTS Compatible", at a special bundle price would be very attractive.
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Post by mesper on Feb 15, 2014 11:15:51 GMT -9
...I use a fairly average (I think) grid - 1" = 5'. So, a human wizard, for instance should measure around 1 3/4" tall, holding his staff high. Is this what would be considered 28mm, or thereabouts? Put a "CUTS Compatible" label on a set of mini's and I'll know, without the metric headache, that I can safely buy these mini's and get something I can use. Keywords: thereabouts / scale / metric headacheWe have 15mm scale, 60mm scale - so why 28mm and not 30mm? Can you really tell the difference between 28mm and 30mm or even 32mm on a tabletop distance? (then 28mm is understood as from foot to eye-line, so some "grounded" figurines, or these in more dynamic poses just must be taller - in some cases up to 35mm figurine's real height) EDIT: This is very interesting and valuable thread - I'm really excited to see where this leads! (and it was not my intention to "hijack" it with figurines scaling issue!)
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 15, 2014 11:18:28 GMT -9
How about:
Best Practices Guidelines for Terrain: (28Terrain Guidelines) I'm including only a few points here for now, but I'm sure it will grow as folks give input and thoughts come to me. • Always use True Inches (ie. 25.4mm). This one will hurt me a little, because when I started out with this waaaay back in the day, I made a decision to work with 25mm instead, because it made sense to me at the time (we use metric down here in SA), and I had no idea how much other stuff was out there. • A standard scale of roughly 1:60 should be followed for details on the terrain. 1:60 seems to be a good median fit for most popular 25-32mm minis used in RPGs. We could split the best practices to account for other scales, so there could be a "15Terrain" or a "54Terrain" with a different scale. • The dimensions of ground tiles should be in multiples of 3". • Standard page size of 279 x 210 mm to ensure that it will work well whether the end user prints on US Letter sized paper or A4.
Best Practices Guidelines for Miniatures: (28Mini Guidelines) Number indicates the scale of the figure (ie. 28Mini represents a figure about 28mm or roughly the same scale as a reaper or GW mini) • Always double sided, with distinct matching front and back art. • Has base tab to make it compatible with all common basing solutions.
A standard open system: (CUTS system) This is an attempt to try and find a strong system that works as well or better than the currently offered systems, without taking away from the trademark systems of established companies. It should follow the best practices guide, so that it is easily convertible to other systems by those who wish to. This would be open for anyone to use.
• a standard modular set-up that works well for 2d, 3d and buildings. • standard grid options (no grid, 1 inch, 1.5 inch) • compact storage where possible. • foam-core optional? I personally think foamcore is a good basing material, and makes for really easy linking methods, but if we can make it optional rather than necessary that might be a good selling point.
A shared resource repository: (multi-publisher resource library) This would be a private portal where designers can share elements: Very basic versions of their most popular textures etc. This would allow other designers to add those textures as layer options to props, to make them more compatible, and would allow for things like transition tiles to be easily kitbashed. We should set this up on Github or something similar. Is anyone clued up in that aspect that wants to take care of that? • All resources here would be voluntarily donated by the designers who hold the copyright. • Invitation-Only. The reason for this is to help build confidence among the donors, as they can feel relatively safe in the knowledge that their resources will only be used as they were intended. • Rules apply whenever you use one of these resources, in a similar fashion to the Creative Commons Commercial Attribution License. For example, if you use my wood floor texture, you have to specifically and clearly state that it is the Kev's Lounge Wood Floor Texture, and provide a link (which would be given by me in the download package) somewhere in your PDF. There would also be restrictions for where and how a resource can used, which would be dictated by the donor, so it may it may grant the right to use a texture as an optional layer for the floor sections of a prop but not the right to use it as the primary texture of a whole new set.
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Post by aaron on Feb 16, 2014 11:49:37 GMT -9
hey sorry I'm late to the party! I didn't jump in on this one right away because I don't consider myself a designer (yet), but I'm working in that direction though, I still have a lot to learn. For me I think the key is size templates for photoshop. Honestly I don't have any way of knowing what size something is and if there is a feature in Photoshop I'll be dammed if I know where it is! If there was a universal template that I could refer my stuff to that would make it compatible with everyone elses stuff I'm completely down with that. I live by the philosophy that nobody is as smart as everybody ! I Have no problem sharing my settings and what little custom textures that I have ( i'm still pretty new to all this ) but it's that newness that makes me so flexible I don't have to go back and re-do a lot of stuff. Also if there is anything I can do to help just tell me and I'm on it!
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 16, 2014 18:32:35 GMT -9
Honestly I don't have any way of knowing what size something is and if there is a feature in Photoshop I'll be dammed if I know where it is! In photoshop, if you hold down the eyedropper tool icon in the menu, it will bring up a sub menu and under there you'll find the Ruler tool. You can use that to measure the length between two points and the angle of the ruler. It's only accurate if the resolution's set correctly so be sure to check that out first.
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Post by aaron on Feb 16, 2014 18:44:14 GMT -9
That's Completely AWESOME!! i'm totally going to figure this out!
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Post by bravesirkevin on Feb 17, 2014 4:09:23 GMT -9
Been thinking about a stamp, sort of like this for the [x]Terrain idea. This would be a sort of visual shorthand for customers that any and all designers can add to their marketing materials to say that their set conforms to the best practices guidelines for a given scale and also shows which common features the set contains As explained in the above image, the icons represent certain features. • Base 3 means that the dimensions of the tiles are in multiples of 3 (ie. 3x3, 6x6, etc). • Painted Style means that the set is textured with colourful detail and shading (eg. World Works Games, Kev's Lounge, Dave Graffam, Fat Dragon). • Hand-Drawn Style means that the set is based on linework, with flat basic colours if it has colour at all (eg. Inked Adventures). • Cutfile Compatible means that the pages of the set include registration marks for automatic cutters. This is just a first draft of course, and it will almost certainly change as we consider what needs to be incorporated into the best practices guidelines, and which bits of information need to be made clear upfront. There will be a similar stamp for the minis as well. What do you guys think?
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Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Feb 17, 2014 7:18:08 GMT -9
I like the concept, but I'm not feeling the clutter. This looks like it might be good to squeeze into a banner on every page, but I think having a larger graphic that's more akin to how video games show compatibility, or how the USDA makes nutrition labels (http://www.onlinelabels.com/label-generator-tools/Nutrition-label-generator.aspx) would make it easier to express what is in the package. That way, this could be featured as an image on the product page, and/or it could be a part of the PDF cover image.
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