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Post by tonsha on Jul 16, 2010 1:52:38 GMT -9
Hi Guys I've been evaluating Xara Photo & Graphics Designer 6 at work and have being trying all sorts of different things. I quite like the way these turned out: Using Xara Designer has been a bit of a revelation for me. It's unbelieveably fast and the .xar file format is *tiny*. Only 53KB for a full sheet of ZOA parts!! The really amazing thing is that by using linked colours I can change a whole sheet of minis/parts by a single click. I can go from this: to this: Simply by clicking on the colour editor! I know I'm sounding like a bit of a Xara Groupie now (sorry), but it has been a fun experience trying this new software out. I'm just excited I guess. I normally use Inkscape, and I've had good results with it, but it can get slow when you have lots of vector objects. I've also had the occasional crash which is annoying. I know Jim uses (or used to use) Canvas - and I had bit of a play with that a long time ago. Favoured Inkscape due to it being available on Linux. What about everyone else? What is your favourite Vector application? DaveA
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Post by hackbarth on Jul 19, 2010 17:25:11 GMT -9
Looking good! I'm thinking in easy ways to recolor figures in GIMP also. Good tips there!
For criticism: The heads at 3/4 seems almost comically large. I think they could be reduced a little in the horizontal axis... The hands seems too small too...
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Post by tonsha on Jul 20, 2010 22:20:12 GMT -9
Hackbarth Thanks for the feedback. I agree about the 3/4 heads (and even the full profile heads to be honest )). Same for the hands. I can fix those. As for quick GIMP re-colouring: the best (quickest) method I have found is to have a base image done in greyscale, and then use colour layers on top. If you use Layer Masks you can limit the colour layer to specific regions of the figure. What I have found is that your perceived colour palette becomes much more limited using this method. You have to use bold colour layers and finding subtle variations becomes almost impossible. This is the method I have used for the Goblin & Kobols re-colours anyway. I keep meaning to do a tutorial for this. I'll really have to get around to it... DaveA
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Post by Sirrob01 on Jul 28, 2010 23:59:08 GMT -9
Tonsha any updates on Xara? I have similar problems with Inkscape that you have mentioned. Does it handle texture overlays/cropping to an object? maybe I should just download a trial
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Post by tonsha on Aug 1, 2010 22:44:15 GMT -9
Hi Sirrob01 Sorry about not replying earlier - I've been away for a couple of days. I'm not too sure what you mean by overlays in Inkscape/Xara. Do you mean the 'clip' function and/or Pattern fill? Clip lets you take a bitmap texture and apply it to a vector object. Pattern Fill allows you to turn objects into patterns for filling purposes. Discussed here. If so - yes. Xara does something similar very easily by simply choosing a fill pattern of 'Bitmap' and then setting int to 'Repeating Tile'. You can even change the scale of the pattern and the orientation within the object on the fly. All done in real time. I've not found any facility to make a group of vector objects into a 'pattern' yet, though. Having said that, Xara really does look better and better in my opinion. I need to try all of this out on the Linux version. Its a pity it isn't being developed any more.... I'd give it a go if I were you. You've nothing to lose since the demo is good for 30 days. And it is possible to pick up older versions of the app on ebay quite cheap. In fact you could get an old version of Xtreme 5 and then upgrade to the latest Designer Pro 6 for cheaper than purchasing Designer Pro 6 straight away! (About £100 cheaper in UK pounds!!) DaveA Disclaimer: I promise you that I am NOT a Xara employee....
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Post by tonsha on Sept 6, 2010 21:58:26 GMT -9
An update on the ZOA Sentries: I have now created a sheet of 9 Sentry figures. The breakdown is as follows: 4 Sentries with Carbines 3 Sentries with Rifles 1 Sgt with Hvy Carbine 1 Commander with Pistol PDF files are created - 26 colour schemes. Yes that's right 26 colour schemes. (There's even one for the girls!!) I hope that's enough, but I may have missed a couple. The files are quite reasonably sized - about 380KB - but as you can imagine it will take me time to upload that little lot!! So please be patient - I'll have them available for download as soon as I can. As for my experiment with Xara - I've got to say that I'm really, really impressed with it. I'm going to play with the Linux version next and potentially switch all my graphic designing over to it. DaveA
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Post by slayerdragonwing on Sept 2, 2011 17:59:45 GMT -9
Those other weapons in the set you have there look really cool, like the double rifle and the heavier looking weapon. Are there any plans to release them?
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Post by highlandpiper on Sept 3, 2011 17:48:46 GMT -9
Cool stuff. I do have a few of these! Looking forward to the new set
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Post by highlandpiper on Sept 8, 2011 22:26:42 GMT -9
Any chance for a lined copy or requesting colours? I can't wait to get these and make matching colour schemes with Adams M.A.D.
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Post by tonsha on Sept 19, 2011 9:42:34 GMT -9
OOOPS! I've only just seen these comments - apologies for not responding sooner. I'm sorry to say - as mentioned in the ZOA Sentry download thread - the Xara files are effectively closed to me now. I created them with a demo version of Xara 6 on Windows. The trial period has now expired, I've switched to XaraLX on linux, but this is a linux version of Xara 5, so the Xara 6 files are not recognised. So this means that these files CANNOT be used again. I did have a plan to create more ZOA. But have not yet gotten around to it. I'll have to re-draw everything from scratch in order to do this. The simplest solution would be: 1. Create a greyscale version of the sentry sheet and then do a tutorial on how to customise the colour scheme. 2. Re-draw the weapons in Xara and use these in future troop types. I'll see what I can do in the next week or so. Please be patient. DaveA P.S. I'm going to lock this thread now. Please reply on the ZOA Sentry thread from now on. Thanks very much.
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