how to make a board

[diane]

Yes gimp is available for windows - proving it right here     now i just have to figure it out - but not tonight - whoooaaaaaaaaaaa England  

Sorry - will be dedicated student from here on in    

[Hardy_whv]

I should read the discussion CAREFULLY before asking already answered questions ....      ... just downloading ....

BTW, I found some good tutorials, which may help to get used to Gimp's features: http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/


Hardy      

[burper]

Great Hardy! I think there will be advantages to all using the same software. I'm sure Corel is fine, and I didn't mean to sound like I was bashing it. Let us know when you have it up and running.

And if alef sticks his head in here again....gimp is also available for mac

Tons of tutorials online Hardy. One caution: I have heard gimp 2.x has a significantly different GUI from 1.x. I haven't played with it much yet, so I can't tell how different. When working through any online tut's, just be aware of that.

As a side project, we might consider creating one of our own as we go along, that spans both using gimp and creating a javafibs board. Just a thought.

So back to vector boards. I wonder if Cthulhu could comment on how accurate I was about there being just the one vector board, using the various textures available?

Here is a rough roadmap for this "class":

-materials gathering: gimp and javafibs, plus extra javafibs boards install
-using gimp to generate textures for the vector boards (maybe an online tutorial covering that already?)
-using a template board I have created (creating your own later), experiment with making various changes, i.e. plugging in colors, background images, textures from above, etc...
   - about layers, visibility, active, merging, copying, cut and paste etc...

anyway... let's not go too fast. I'm still hoping others may join us.

[alef]

OK, I'm downloading Gimp too and will have a look. It's a memorable software name, that's for sure...

Recommended first step:
- copy an existing board or use a template
- just change the colours of the pieces: "playerpiece" and "opponentpiece"

[burper]

okay, I'm getting the feeling teh pace is too slow now? Let's get to the next step.

alef, you're idea for "first" step is right in line with what I was originally thinking (didn't i post a rough outline of what we would do?), except that someone brought up the idea of vector boards. So, I'm going to take a little side trip into vector boards and textures first, and then get right into what you suggest, i.e. making simple changes to existing boards.

At this point, everyone should have gimp installed and be able to run it, as well as having JavaFibs2001. I will refer to the directory that JavaFibs2001 is installed in simply as javafibs/ hereafter. Remember, if you don't understand something, ASK!

• Run javafibs (no need to connect to fibs).
• From the "Preferences" menu, select "Board..."
• Check the "Vector" box.

Recall from Cthulhu's post earlier, that a vector board has the ability of being stretched to any size. By comparison, the "image" boards can only be the size they are.

• Click on the "Colours/Textures..." button.
• Take note of the various components of a board you can change: background, checkers, dice etc...
• Go ahead and play around with both colours and textures. Notice the vast array of options Cthulhu has given you here. All in a board that is resizeable. Select either a colour or texture, and then hit the "..." button to choose.

Remind me to check the javafibs page for enhancement requests. It occurs to me an "Apply" button would make sense in these popups, to short-circuit the need to keep working through menus. Maybe a preview too, or something.

Anyway, notice that there are many pre-installed textures to choose from. These are installed in the javafibs/textures directory. Go ahead and take a look there. We can add new textures there, and javafibs will automatically recognize them. I don't know what sorts of problems we can cause by adding new ones in unexpected formats and such, but I have a feeling we're going to find out!

First, let's confirm that a new file is found. copy javfibs/textures/wood_orange.gif to javafibs/textures/wotest.gif. The next time you bring up the texture selction popup, it should appear there. Note the need for descriptive file names.

okay, to the gimp-mobile!!

• Start up gimp.
• Open the new wotest.gif file. If you have trouble getting this far, ASK!
• There are two general ways to do things in GIMP: from the "toolbox", or from the "right-click menu". As a personal perference, I do most stuff from the menu.
• I'll let you play around with gimp to alter the image any way you can. Don't worry about making things ugly, we're going to end up erasing this wotest.gif file and starting over once we've learned a few things anyway.
• Try drawing a short black line using the pencil tool. (ASK!)
• Save the file (ASK if you need to!)
• Try the javafibs prefs again, choosing wotest.gif and see the change!

At this point, if you are not able to add some sort of custom change to a vector board, start asking questions and let's get everyone up to this point. I glossed over stuff in a big way, and know that more detail is needed.

Once we have everyone this far, we can start making specific "good" changes, like altering the color of the wood, or changing the direction of the grain etc... Then we'll create our own brand new texture from scratch. Start thinking up ideas.

PLEASE START ASKING QUESTIONS, and answering them for each other too

[diane]

Anyone getting anywhere with this gimp thing - i imported alefs board to have a play with it  - and all i have successfully done so far is plank over the playing surface  

Cant find out how to do textures, change colours even!!

Can anyone suggest some easy things i could do to get the hang of the controls - so i am not so far behind when burper gets back?

[alef]

Having trouble getting Gimp to run  <_<

Any Mac OS X users who understand X11? I once got gnubg installed, this should be the same sort of thing but having trouble finding instructions.

[SYAWEDIS]

Hey I just noticed this topic is old as heck, but I wanted to share with you what I made in GIMP:



from all these paths :