Transcripts

1. Basic Considerations of Card Design: - thing is the mountain of games behind me. - This is actually my game collection because it's sort of a rule that if you're a host for - anything giving related that you have to have your entire game collection behind you. - So here it is. - What you see behind me represents a lot of different varieties of games, - from abstracted thematic board games to card game, - and regardless of the form factor of those games, - a lot of them use cards. - I wanted to kind of do an overview of the types of cards that you may find and they want to - design. - The very basic default card you're going to be working with is probably a playing card with - the standard playing card deck. - You're getting a whole set of ranks from 1 to 13 depending on how you count the face cards - . - On top of that, - you're also getting four different suits when you cross reference all that stuff. - That's a lot of data that you can incorporate. - And indeed, - from all that data you do get quite a few games from poker to bridge to or what's important - to note in terms of car design is that it's hard to beat the elegance with which playing - cards incorporate a vast amount of data into a very simple presentation. - Standard playing card is going to be 2.5. - Why by 3.5 tall. - This is what you're gonna be working with for most for most cards by default. - When you're designing cards for any kind of game, - you have to consider the context in which those cards are going appear. - You're gonna have a hand of cards. - You're probably going to play them, - discard them, - put them in front of you. - Probably put them in different locations, - and that will have different effects. - But really, - the cars are the central focus of play. - There are some basic questions you have to ask yourself whenever you're designing a card - for a card game, - even if it's just a prototype. - Are you holding the cards in your hand for an extended period of time? - Do you have to constantly refer to them? - If so, - you should probably set up your car so that most of the information is on one corner or at - most along one edge s so that when you fat the cards, - you can see the important information along the outside. - Outside you have to consider. - Do you want to actually do a double edged card, - for example, - have the same information on one margin, - and along the other I call this ambidextrous layup. - The advantage, - of course, - in terms of utility is that anyone, - regardless of how they've been cards, - will be able to see the important information. - The downside is that it creates a very busy design on, - doesn't need a lot of room down the center column to do much of anything in terms of any - cool art. - If you want cool work that this if you don't, - then I guess it's no big deal. - Other thing to consider is that if the card is set out in front of you in play, - actually put up on the table so that everyone could see it, - that whatever information on here has to be visible to the entire table. - So that also implies that you're gonna have to have icons that are fairly large, - something that's at least a happen age square 24 point size is coming with the smallest. - You want to do anything small that you really risk getting something that's just not - eligible at all from a distance. - Also, - one thing to consider when you're designing the cards is can you rotate them? - If not, - that's another thing to consider. - So you have only one orientation in which you can hold these cards So you're gonna get - people when they grab their cards, - whatever direction to grab them from their going to shuffle the cards or rotate cards in - your hand, - you make sure that they're aligned so they can be read. - You should also consider any kind of visual impairment that your players may have. - This is less than issue in prototypes, - since you can afford to be very spartan and your design once you start getting into cars - that are a little bit more complex like this from Warhammer Game color blindness, - maybe in issues. - So you want to make sure that your art on your iconography is sort of color independent 2. Cards and Context: - before you have your basic playing card that has several different ranks in several - different suits. - There's no other thematic element in this card. - In all, - this card is from a poor. - It's a trading game in which you trade goods of various kinds. - In this case, - this card represents spices, - and you'll know that there's no ranks, - no other information. - This is just one piece of art on one card that represents one spicy. - Another way to use cards is to represent the rules that you will play in a game. - For example, - this is from the resistance, - and this represents one of the good guys, - though she seems a little peeved. - But if you have this card, - that means you're one of the good guys and you have to keep that secret for the whole game - because no one else knows who the good guys are. - Bad guys are some games, - just used cards as pure trivia questions in this case should be a category. - This is from no Mia. - This is a card from guillotine. - This is an interesting case because the cards and guillotine are never held in your hand. - Everyone around the table has to be able to read this card easily, - so that's why you get really the number really big type and really big portrait. - By contrast, - you have collectible card games like Magic. - The gathering. - This is a particular old example of a magic. - The gathering card. - This is a lot of information on usually what you find is that any one is playing. - Magic has memorized their decks so well that they don't even need to be able to really this - information at once and even more complex example. - You have a game like race for the galaxy, - in which you can use cards face up, - face down. - All these cards have different effects based on the time in which they're used. - Eso. - You'll get iconography based on these based on these different phases of play. - In this case, - these two cards are this. - One card would be activated if it's used in one of these two phases, - and you have some information here that goes into more detail about that. - It gets pretty complex on this is a lot of information, - but at same time it's all kept a one edge, - so you could theoretically ban your cards and keep this pretty straight. - These are actually played face up on the table as a sort of map of a city. - That's the important stuff is very, - very clear. - Big numbers, - big suits and anything else like the background art, - all that stuff that actually has some mechanical effect. - But it's so blended into the background, - and it's so rarely addressed that they could afford to keep it right. - Point is, - there are a lot of different types of cards that you can design, - but I'd like to focus on is just the very basics of production what type of card you're - trying to design all these things I'd like to address throughout the course of this course - . - First, - let's start with things that you'll need. 3. Stuff You'll Need: - So here's what you need. - I always have a supply of playing cards on hand. - You can get these super cheap at the dollar store. - Thes packs were about a buck. - Each I wouldn't like about playing card decks is that you get you get quite a few of them. - You get 54 cards plus plus a few others just for branding. - But they all have different backs. - You can get a read back blue back. - If you get different brands, - you'll get different patterns on them, - and you're also going to need a pack of penny sleeves. - Thes are actually just card sleeves, - little plastic sleeves into which you place cards for your games. - Actually, - you're not so much interested in protecting the cards themselves. - What you're actually interested in is having one container to keep a stiff backing for - playing paper. - The way this works out, - you can fit a three by three, - uh, - playing cards, - size cars. - I have a sheet of paper. - We cut you cut out those cards out of the paper, - you slipping inside this many Cillian Ffolliott, - the playing card back, - and you're set with a card prototype. - If you want something a little bit fancier. - I recommend getting actually colored cards leaves. - You would probably use thes if you're designing a card, - a card game that has action cards that are distinct from cards that you acquires a resource - Or, - as points, - for example, - could go with some recent card. - You can just print street of your printer, - then you don't need any any new backs. - I still recommend getting some colored carts leaves, - even if use card stock just cause it will save you a little bit of time for distinguishing - the backs of the cars. - If you have actually have different decks, - the one downside also of cutting out prototypes out of card stock is that once they're - actually cut out there really hard but shuffle. - So let's say you've actually gone ahead and print it out your car, - your cards onto a sheet of paper. - This is an example of one sheet of cards that I've put together for again I'm working on. - There are lines along the edge that note where I'm meant to cut. - There's one over here in the corner of one over here between these two cars. - Remember her putting these two cars over here between these two cards and so on for the - whole sheet, - there are nine cards on the sheet. - How am I gonna cut them out? - You could just use a plane set of scissors, - but that's not very efficient. - Grabbing my candidate cutting board. - It's a basically a plastic mat that I've had for way too many years and is actually - starting to really bo really badly, - so I probably get a new one. - Grab a exactly bleak. - Be very careful with these. - These are very, - very sharp. - You want them to be short because you're probably gonna be coming through multiple sheets - of paper at once. - You want to get a stiff metal ruler straight edge because you'll be cutting along this edge - . - You don't want to get a wooded ruler or pass through because the blade is so sharp it will - gouge along the edge. - Doesn't have to be a ruler. - Just as long as you have a metal straight edge you'll find. - Make sure it is straight. - You could get your own paper cutter. - I like this one because it actually does the job really well. - It's small compact. - It was affordable, - and all it does is just You stick the paper underneath this little swing latch, - you slide across and you're done 4. Cutting Card Prototypes: - Here's an example of how I would cut a set of cards using the straight edge Exacto blade on - cutting map. - Now I've taken several sheets of cards that I designed and bound them together using binder - clips. - I like these just because they keep Asia. - They keep several sheets of paper together all at once, - and it makes cutting out cars a lot more efficient when I can do multiple sheets at once. - The key thing is making sure that all of the cart card sheets are lined up properly. - And when I cut, - I don't go to the edge of the paper. - I keep it right along this die cut here and along over here and make sure that I don't cut - to the end of the paper because again, - I want to find your clips to keep everything together. - When I start, - my cutting also start away from the binder clips s so that I can keep the insides, - uh, - cut and keep the outsides lined up. - Now, - gradually, - Card is gonna pop out of this on. - That's fine, - but it won't lose structural cohesion until the very end. - So this is how it's done. - I'm cutting with shallow cuts. - Coliseum really only cutting through one sheet at a time. - I'm doing so very, - very, - very gradually. - I don't want to cut through all the sheets at once because then I'll just sort of gouge - everything and I'll get really rough edges. - So I just want to do really shallow cuts one at a time. - There you go. - You can see that, - uh, - the paper is not cut to the edge. - It's just a cut inside within these die cuts. - This also makes sure that I don't lose my diet cuts as I start cutting out cards. - As you can see in the center, - I don't have any I cuts at all. - I really wanna make sure that I cut everything in center appropriate. - Well, - I have accidentally cut this little bit, - but no matter. - Uh, - you can see where they were. - It's useful to have binder clips now because the sheets that are underneath have not been - cut all the way to the edge. - Only this top sheet has. - So this is still standing in place like an impressing very, - very firmly with all four fingers on the steel straight edge so that it presses the sheets - together and make sure again that they don't shift. - Well, - a drag. - My bleed across Starting from with the indie margin shallow cuts Here we are. - See that the die cut along the top edge bottom And from your perspective, - it's very, - very narrow. - So it could be very careful about this. - And again, - I'm making sure that the cuts are shallow but also intersect. - The previous cuts I've made that are vertical so that once I'm done making these cuts, - this stack is gonna pop out just as easily as the central wonder you go. - Okay. - Shipping this down just a tad so that I have room for my straight edge working our way - around again. - Now that I am at the far edge here, - I don't need that binder clip anymore because my weight of my fingers is gonna be pressing - down on this sheet of paper. - Who supposed to be careful of when you were using an Exacto blade is when you're inserting - the blade to keep it screwed on tight, - so it doesn't pop out at inopportune moments like this. - You go nice and firm. - Keep your fingers well away from the edge of straight edge as you do this. - That's another reason why you want to do shallow cuts so that in the rush to get a bunch of - sheets cut all at once, - you don't end up just cutting off the tip of your thumb, - which has happened on occasion. - Teoh. - A number of people Now you have all these cards. - It's nicely cut. - Its more re very, - very careful. - You don't wanna have to get your tetanus booster just because you are taking your car - prototype key thing as you're cutting is always, - never, - ever bleed on the cards. - Here we go, - a whole stack of cards. - This is a sign of a very nice cut. - You have the entire outer edge of the sheet of paper pretty much solid, - made cutting these out a lot easier. - You could get your own paper cutter paper cutters coming all sorts of different sizes. - Some are much larger than this. - This is a very compact model, - and I got it for cheap at a scrap store. - Where you can do is use these sliders, - which have tiny little blades that you can barely barely see, - and they slide across this this edge on they dipped down into this crevice so that as - you're cutting your sheets of paper, - the tiny blade will cut through that sheep. - The only downside that you have with a paper cutter like this is that you can't cut as many - sheets as Aziz. - You do with an Exacto blade because your you are not controlling a zoo. - Much of the pressure of the blade going to the sheep. - The plus side is that you get a little bit more accuracy in terms of straight corners. - Eso you can actually, - but up the sheet of paper against one edge of the paper cutter as you cut through. - The thing is not to keep Keep watch up is making sure that your die cuts are in the right - place, - which is a little bit harder to do when you have when you have this bit of a distance - between your fingers and on the exact control of the blades. - So you're just kind of trusting that your die cuts are in the right place, - and as you slide across, - you make a good cut Now again. - Another downside is that you have lost your die cut here and here, - so let's see what we do here. - If you're going to be using a paper cutter like this because you don't have as much control - over where the blade goes in terms of sticking within the margins of die cuts and you have - less control over the alignment of blade and I cut we really want to do is lay out your - card so they actually have a border along every edge, - instead of just these tiny little die cuts that you have in the corners. - Personally, - I think their strengths and weaknesses of both when my thumbs sore and my wrist is shot. - The exact blade does not seem all that appealing, - and I'm willing to sacrifice any accuracy and cuts that I get to the convenience and the - ease with which I can use paper cutter. - But if I'm being particular and being for kind of perfectionist, - I'd rather go with the accuracy and the honestly the efficiency of exactly Blade, - especially since I can cut through many different sheets all at once, - using exactly as I control the pressure, - the way that a lot of paper and what a card stock works, - there is a grain that keeps all the sheets from shifting around too much. - So what you want to do is use your pace leaves with your handy dandy playing card backs. - Grab your project card, - slip it in the penny sleeve, - and now you have a nice firm backing for your prototypes. - What the playing card also does is make sure that you can't see through your prototype - cards. - If that's important, - a lot of times if if your paper is then or if your card stock is, - then you'll be able to see the back in particular. - If you have a high contrast graphic like this, - that's just black and white, - you want to make sure that you can't see through it. - It's useful to have a opaque background like this. - In particular, - it's if it's patterned. - So once you have a whole deck of cards like this, - you can slip in different, - different colored backs If you want to make a different deck or use your your colored - sleeps to make a different day 5. Constants and Variables: - Lastly, - I want to cover two key issues that you're going to encounter a lot. - You're designing a deck of cards and the things that we're gonna be using frequently as we - lay out cards and how to do so in in design. - The key thing you want to identify in any card deck you're looking at is what is consistent - across the entire deck and what is changing across the entire deck. - Constants and variables. - Constants are things that are going to be on every card face, - no matter what they never change. - Those could be things like borders, - icons, - placement of icons, - variables or things you could imagine that will change from card based card face. - So take a standard deck of playing cards. - If you want talk about variables, - you gotta look at what is consistent across the entire deck right now. - If you were just to compare these two cards, - all you would you see, - as far as differences go are that they have different pictures in the center. - They have different ranks that's que in que But otherwise there they have the same suit. - So be diamond. - So you think that that the constant of this deck is that they have. - They all have diamonds. - That is, - until you start getting into some really weird stuff like seven of Hearts. - Well, - now we see that there are some changes here. - Not all cards have pictures in the center. - Not all cards have the same symbol underneath their their rank. - And in fact, - some of those ranks are not even letter. - Some of them are numbers. - Oh, - crap. - What we're gonna do. - You take, - for example, - these six magic cards, - some constants that I see. - There's always a title at this base line across the top of every card. - There's also a categorical name that's in the middle of the card, - about halfway down a little bit over. - There's always space for text that explains the card. - The card effect also a little bit of space for a bit of flavor text, - but it looks like, - uh, - all text in this area is part of one single block that's that's kept together. - They're not separate. - There's always we'll actually know the There is sometimes a space in the lower right hand - corner. - For a for creatures to stats, - there is usually a space for an art credit. - Very, - very tiny space for a coterie disclaimer. - Uh, - and there is always a space for a piece of artwork, - but that artwork obviously can change from card to card. - Another noticeable difference between between these cards. - While every other card here, - along the top in along the side has a consistent frame. - This one has a unique frame and in fact, - has this interesting, - layered effect where the piece of artwork that is in this section actually peeks up over - the frame. - Once we actually take this into design and maybe even to photo shop, - we're going to have to make this artwork a separate layer from the art background, - uh, - and have a layer in between the background and the foreground where we put this custom - frame. - You can set up your cards when we go into in design so that your variable is set right here - and I was going to be there. - The colors and the background will probably be flat tiffs made in Photoshop and saved in a - support holder on those will be variable. - We'll change those out in the background as as needed. - Uh uh. - We're probably going to have six. - Uh, - probably six custom frames, - each one a different color that would correspond to the background. - We're probably going to have a rectangular space for any artwork that we would bring into - in design. - That would go. - That would be nestled right in this little rectangle. - Even a very complex deck of cards starts getting some consistent elements that you can - predict in control. - When do you actually start designing your your carts? - I hope you've enjoyed this lesson so far. - The rest of the Siri's is gonna be a little bit shorter in terms of episode length on, - it's going to be going straight to the computer. - So if you don't have in design yet, - go ahead and get it. - Now get a free trial, - if you can. - I'm using in design CS six. - So that's probably the version that you want to get also. - But I'm sure any of the features that I talk about our basic enough that even earlier - versions are going to be applicable. - So thank you again for watching on. - I hope to see you in the next episode. - Thank you 6. Asset Sources: - So this first lesson we're going to learn how to make resource cards like you might find in - sectors of Bataan For the for this lesson, - we're gonna focus on just three. - Resource is so that we can keep this example very simple. - If you're looking for art to use in your prototypes, - I would highly recommend going to flicker and searching in their creative Commons. - You'll find lots of really big images like this that people have released to a Creative - Commons license for your use in personal projects. - Artwork as long as you have attribution and you can find attribution for most of these - images over here when you click on their their full size pages. - Um, - different licenses. - Very so. - So be careful about whose images used in how you attribute them. - There are other resources available to you to game icons. - That net is a site that has thousands upon thousands of just 1000 images so far that are - very much oriented towards gaming. - So you'll find stuff here on all sorts of subjects. - When it comes to like Hells or are aliens or scifi stuff fantasy stuff, - swords, - you name it. - They're icons here that will suit your needs. - And it's one that's a sight that I use frequently for. - I need a icon on short notice. - If game icons doesn't have it, - then I'll go to the site. - The noun project, - which has all sorts of cool icons including a collection of mustache, - is here, - but they have all sorts of stuff, - and they're much more generalized, - designed for universal, - uh, - iconography for communication. - But you'll still be able to find stuff here that is very useful for gaming, - whether it be, - you know, - maples or food or some kind of resource, - for example. 7. Setting Up a Spreadsheet: - now to get started. - Uh, - the first thing you need to do is set up a spreadsheet, - and I like to use Google docks for this purpose, - mainly because it loads a little bit faster on a machine than excel on. - If you're anything like me and come from the art world, - spreadsheets are very much a foreign sort of idea. - I've never worked with spreadsheets before. - I started doing card layout, - but now that I have touched them a little bit, - there are a little bit less intimidating eso. - First, - I want to talk you through the very, - very basics of setting up a spreadsheet for for a car design. - First thing I do is, - of course, - name your name your spreadsheet. - In this case, - we're gonna call this resource parts, - and you can have several sheets within the same file on you may start using these if you - have, - for example, - several decks of cards within the same game. - In which case you'd probably just changed the name of this document to the game name and - then have each spreadsheet refer to a different deck of cards. - But for our purposes, - we're just going to call this just sheet one because it's the only sheet that we're going - to have. - Um, - so the key thing to know about spreadsheets and car design is that each row that that - you're going to be editing represents one card. - Well, - every column represents individual variables that are going to be on those cards. - Eso in case, - for example. - Uh, - we're going to call this column Resources? - No. - When you're setting up a spreadsheet for for car design, - the first column is going to be essentially the first row is going to be the name for that - column. - So from now on, - this whole column is going to be referred to as resource is and in designing will recognize - any text numbers anything here as, - uh, - as a variable of the I guess the attributes resource is to make sure that doesn't get mixed - up with anything else. - I always freeze that rose. - So I go to view Frieze Rose and I select Freeze Row One, - and that will, - no matter how how I reorganize this from Zita a. - A dizzy or some other method that will always keep this role at the very, - very top. - And again, - some of this may be basic t some of you. - But for me, - I had to learn spreadsheets from scratch very, - very late in the game. - So forgive me if this sounds very simplistic, - but this kind of from the basics now, - before we get to actually how toe make variable art and a card, - I thought it would be important to show you that essentially, - how spreadsheets translate into variables on a cart. - So under the resource is column. - Let's just type wheat stone, - can she? - So for now, - these are just going to be text variables. - There's no images here. - There's no art. - You have to do a special thing to make images show up. - But first, - I wanted to show you exactly how a spread sheet gets linked into in design on how you can - make it a variable Kardec. - So I'm going to download this. - I'm going to download this as a CSB uh, - any of these other formats are not gonna work for for in design state emerged. - So just click on CSP or to save this. - And when you're saving your files for your project, - whether whether you're saving your spreadsheet or your images, - you want to keep them all in the same folder. - There may be a way to to have a spreadsheet link to a sub folder, - but I've tried a couple different ways, - and it doesn't seem to work for me. - So I like to keep everything in a folder called Support. - That's where I just downloaded up. - Let's go to in design. 8. Linking a Spreadsheet: - we're going to create a new document. - I have a preset here called Card that is 2.5 wide, - 20 inches wide, - 3.5 inches tall, - and I set up a column grid of six columns with 1/4 inch gap in between them. - I really need Teoh actually use entire all six columns individually, - but it's a helpful small number that's big enough that I can. - I can organize stuff and you'll see how, - in a sec I add 1/4 inch. - Merge in around the edge, - and I always make sure to create a bleed of a eight inch. - I mean, - it's 1/4 Instead, - that should be eighth of an inch, - an eighth of an inch bleed, - eighth of an inch margin. - Okay, - got it. - Make sure I don't have facing pages turned on. - Sometimes I will use a primary checks frame, - but it's usually more of a household than need be. - This is only going to be one page because all replacing here are variables, - so let's see how that looks. - Okay, - so we have a very small in design document here. - Let's just drop one text window here. - I'm using my tax tool you can find here making a text window text frame. - I suppose I'm just gonna type something. - Let's just type sheep. - I haven't said any you styles or anything, - but I'm by default. - I've got I've got a fund set up. - Two million pro say I want to make that something a little bit different. - Say, - I want that to be metallic. - So I choose. - I tell it. - Okay. - And you can see um I've got six columns set up. - One here, - one here, - one here, - one here, - one here. - Those are not at all related to the columns in a spreadsheet, - and hopefully that's that's obvious. - But just to be clear, - they have no relation. - All these columns are are just layout guides, - basically. - So I know exactly about halfway. - If I need to make a text Fran, - that's halfway across the card. - Then I can do that here very easily. - But I'm gonna just make this go across the whole card. - I'm going to center that and here's a little trick I like to use whenever I'm creating a - text frame for a card, - especially if it's a title. - Uh, - I'll go to object text frame options. - I'll set the alignment to center and just click on preview so I can see how this looks. - And you'll see that instead of the text being aligned to the top is aligned to the center - so that no matter how wide or how many, - how many words I put into the text frame, - it's always gonna be centered within centered vertically. - Within that text frame, - there are some other things you can do. - You can set this to the bottom and always have text rise from the bottom of the text frame - , - which can be handy if you have Texas the bottom of your card. - But when I'm just going to center this, - Okay, - now here's how did emerge works. - Ah, - if you don't have data, - merge in your panels already. - I always have that emerge set up ride the very top since I use it so often. - But if you don't have it already, - you can find it on your utilities date emerge once again, - that's window utilities did emerge, - and it emerges a funky little tool because it has this tiny, - tiny text that you can barely read. - And it's not exactly intuitive. - Um, - but, - uh, - all you're doing is basically importing, - uh, - in a the spreadsheet like you would an image. - Except, - um The way you do it is by clicking on this context menu here, - the very, - very top on the right. - You select data source and go to your folder that had your spreadsheet. - So resource cards cheat one CSP selecting that and you'll see there is a line item here in - the main in the window now called Resource Is that is called resource is because we've - named that column. - Resource is so I'm going to select this word, - and I'm going to click on Resource is, - you see that the word has been replaced with this tag. - And every time I click on this, - even just once, - just one cursor is gonna automatically select this entire word. - Uh, - this entire place holder and also select resource is in the data merge panel. - Now, - what this represents is the variable resource is that column that we set up in the - spreadsheet and whatever words we put underneath se wheat stone, - sheep, - those air going to appear here instead. - Once we actually start previewing this. - And so I click on preview. - And while up. - We have wheat. - If I, - uh, - click the next page over here, - if you see this little Arab suddenly that were changes to stone next page. - Uh, - that's sheep. - Now you'll note that the page number hasn't actually changed. - We're still on page one. - All we're doing is previewing the variables that that may occur. - If you want to get a sense of what this looks like when it's a little more finished, - I'm clicking on W to hide every everything, - all the guides, - all the bleeds and everything. - So again, - very playing street for this, - just as wheat and each page. - Rather, - each card will have a different title, - so it's very straightforward. - If you actually want to export this into a document that has each card on a separate page, - you would click on this little button on the bottom of the data merge panel That's us. - Create merged document and you get this, - uh, - can't kind of complicated dialogue box. - But when you want to make sure of is that you have selected already all records. - It refers to every, - uh, - row in the spreadsheet as a record, - so you want to record them all or you want to include them all you want? - Teoh, - make all of them go to one page. - Uh, - if you have any text in the A in any cell that will be over set, - that is, - if there's too much text to fit within this text frame. - If you have this selected design will create a text report for you to tell you that there's - been error when when this document exports. - It will also alert you if there's any images missing, - but we don't have any images just yet. - Still, - it's important to have that track, - too. - So I'm gonna click OK, - and I get a report saying that no over set text was generated when emerging the records. - That makes sense because these words are very short in this text. - Window text frame is very big, - so I wouldn't expect to see anything, - and you'll note our original document is still here. - This is a brand new document that has three pages. - Each one is a separate card. - The first cards has read the second cars that stone. - The third card says sheep, - and this is how you would basically export entire deck. - So if you would imagine for example, - say I wanted to make nine cars. - I'm just gonna copy these twice three times. - So now I have nine cards I'm going to download again. - Say that I'm going to save over this old spreadsheet. - Going back to in design. - I'm going to close the the document that I just generated that has all everything broken - out because it's no longer valid. - I want a document that has nine cars, - not just three. - And I go to the links palette on you will see in the links palette that this item has been - modified with the little exclamation point. - So all I do is update link in this little button over here. - Just update that. - And now the CSP has been updated and in design on, - and I can prove this by again previewing page four page five, - page six, - page seven, - Page eight each nine makes sense, - Right? - I would just again create emerged document. - Okay, - No over set text with generated. - Great. - Go back two pages and I see that there are nine individual pages in this document. - Sweet stone sheep. - We stone she wheat stone. - Okay, 9. Variable Images: - basics of making a text based carp. - Now say you actually wanted to include images in this. - Let's go back to the spreadsheet now, - uh, - in designs kind of weird in that if you're going to make a variable, - that is an image on the card. - You have to name the column first, - with and N percent or rather, - an at symbol. - Let's call this image. - And here is where you would put the name of the image. - So for example dot Okay, - not looking at your support folder, - you want to make sure that the names of the images that you're putting into the spreadsheet - matched the names of the files that you actually have available? - This is again your support older. - This is your spreadsheet, - and these are the images that you'll be calling upon to make a variable image. - Now, - in this case I've made, - I have ah made this final name lower case. - So I want to make sure that the spreadsheet is also lower case. - It is, - unfortunately, - case sensitive. - So you got to keep track of this kind of stuff. - So I'm gonna make sure that this is lower case. - Make sure that's lower Keys, - Stone and lower case. - It's gonna bring a copy. - Paste this so it's on every card. - I am going down with this CSP. - Replace the existing CSP that I have there once again in the support folder going back to - in design. - I want to update the link now before we'll see what this looks like. - When I preview it, - you'll know that resource is is on the page, - and it's even noted here. - That's on page one on the right side here, - but Image doesn't have a placeholder. - Doesn't have anything for the image variable to go anywhere for the image variable to go. - So when I click on preview, - nothing is going to appear in this image because there's no place holder for damage. - So first I have to create a, - uh, - a frame for the image. - We're gonna make that a full bleed, - so it's going to extend outside the edge of the card. - And while I have this frame selected, - I'm going to select image and you'll see that the image something pops into frame. - I want to go in when I click on W so I can hide all of the guides and everything so you can - get a better sense of what this card will look like. - So you see out, - we're previewing right now. - Card number nine. - That's page nine going back to page one. - You'll see that we have image of wheat stone, - she wheat stone cheap. 10. Variable Ranks: - Let's say you wanted to make a card that actually had variable quantities of a resource on - each card. - So, - for example, - you wanted to have three sheep or four wheat or whatnot. - Let's go back this, - Richie. - Let's call this right or number whatever you want for now. - Again, - this is a text variable, - so I'm not gonna put that that at sign there. - That is only if you're making a variable image in the card, - and let's just call this a lot, - these one. - It's called these two. - It's called these three great downloading that CSB going to save over the existing - spreadsheet. - Go back to design. - We're going to update the link. - You'll note that if you're in preview mode when you update the link to the spreadsheet, - that preview mode will be turned off. - So it's preview again and again. - We're not going to see the rank until we actually apply this variable to an actual text - text frame. - Uh, - so, - for example, - let's say we want to make a text frame right here on the corner, - and I like to just tight something in tow, - type a number or type of word beforehand and start adjusting the font size and things - before I started playing a variable to it. - I find it just a little bit easier to deal with. - So I don't have to worry about about both things at once. - Once I'm comfortable with the size of a word or or name or or some kind of stat, - then I'll select it and apply the variable in this case rink. - And there you go. - You'll see that this is now active because you can see the page number on the right and - you'll see that right here. - This is to sheep. - Let's go back to page one. - You'll see that this is one week, - one stone, - one sheep to eat to use down two sheep, - three weeks, - three stone, - three sheep. - Now you don't have to actually put variable in a separate text frame. - For example. - I'm gonna cut this. - I'm just gonna delete that text frame and let's put this whole shebang in one text frame. - I'm pasting. - Let's look at this house Looks outside a preview mode. - Now, - outside of preview mode, - this looks crazy. - It looks like there's thing is gonna be huge is never gonna fit in a text frame. - That's only because this is how in design represents text placeholders when you're doing a - variable. - We've named this variable rank in the India spreadsheet and and we have set up the font - style to that set the fonts to be a certain size, - and because of that, - it's not gonna appear in its actual actual format. - Which is also why I like to do this kind of stuff outside of preview mode at first and then - started playing variables while I'm in pretty mode. - So I'm gonna select all this. - I'm going to align it to the left so that no matter what, - you'll be able to read this from the corner of the card. - If you're finding out the cards, - I'm gonna hit preview. - You can see that is all in one text frame now, - which is nice. - Uh, - say I want I want the name and the numeral, - or rather the rank to be lined up. - I'm gonna center those make the make the text frame just 3 1/3 the width of the card. - And again, - this is why I choose six column layout so that I have these individual dividing lines to - guide me When I'm doing layout, - I'm gonna reduce that little. - That's fine. - Now, - you see that there's some overlap here between the text and the image. - I'm just gonna nudged down this image so that it leads off the bottom. - Now let's go back to page one. - You see you some of the variables that we have here we have one wheat, - one stone, - one sheep and someone 11. Duplicate Variables: - now taking this a step further. - You can have multiple placeholders for the same variable. - So, - for example, - if you were to just copy and paste this entire text frame, - you'll see that over in the gate emerge panel that there are now two placeholders noted for - resources and to placeholders noted for rank, - both of appearing on page one. - If you look at this outside of preview mode and look at the whole text frame now, - you'll see that there are, - in fact, - two jacks frames each of them identical. - Each of them have rank. - Each of them have. - Resource is that's reduced this back down to its original size back to preview. - And this is one way that you can set up a ambidextrous layout. - So say I were to take this text frame and align it to the left and this text frame ally - into the right, - or I got that mixed up. - Well, - actually, - technically, - this is a line to the right, - and this is a line to the left even know this is on the left side. - Right. - Anyway, - um, - so again, - previewing, - uh, - this is when we eat one stone when sheep and someone s So let's that let's say we create - emerge document again. - Keeping all those settings No over set text was generated when emerging records. - One thing to note you may you may notice when you great when you create this merge document - , - it's always gonna add the number one to it. - I'm not sure how I, - uh and I don't know if you you kept creating merge documents, - it would start naming them one in two and three and four. - But what I do if I need to save this document, - I rarely do. - But if I ever do, - I will just name it something like resource cards then renders mainly just to show that - this is not the original source document that has the date emerged a spreadsheet Because as - you'll see here and there on the name and the date average panel, - the spreadsheet is not linked at all. - In fact, - all of the images that we've linked are now linked multiple times across the entire - document. - Whereas when you're looking at the original document over here, - you'll see that only think is actually the spreadsheet. - We only see any other links when we go to preview mode In which case on Lee, - the one image that appears on that preview page will appear in the links palette. - So it's strong. - Previ there go back to our rendered, - uh, - rendered document. - Now, - you can save this as a pdf. - You can save these as flat J pegs and put them into a print and play document if you like. - But this is the very basic use of Get emerge. - And it's something that I do all the time. - And I have a recommend that you familiarize yourself with this. - If you're going to do any kind of, - ah, - large deck layout, - even small decks, - it can make this really handy on and make uh, - creating entire deck of cards a lot more efficient than editing each card individually. - So I hope this was useful. - If you have any questions, - please email me in the next lesson. - We're going to learn a little bit more about how to make a deck of playing cards 12. Organizing Assets: - for the sake of simplicity. - Again, - we're just gonna focus on one suit for now, - and you can extrapolate from there how to create the other four suits. - One thing to know when you're designing a deck of playing cards or anything more complex - like like this, - it's helpful. - Toe. - Just take a look at your assets and see what you have already available. - In this case, - I've got art for the ace of spades. - The Jack, - the King, - the Queen. - I've also got the other four suits. - The artwork here, - you see, - is a tiff. - That's basically another bit map file format that that is basically kind of like a J pick - but can be much higher resolution. - And it's not really meant for the Web. - It's usually done in print. - By contrast, - there's another file format called E. - P s that eyes basically vector CPS files and Vector Vector format files in general can be - resized to any dimension that you like eso. - This can be resized to 10 inches by 10 inches, - and it's never going to lose resolution. - The lines were always going to stay sharp. - The downside of a vector format like UPS is that you usually don't get any files are are - able to make any images of GPS that have a lot of detail. - And if they do have a lot of detail, - the files are usually pretty big and sometimes won't load properly the way that a a plan on - tiff will. - So, - uh, - once again, - if you have images that have a lot of detail, - like photos, - or say something complex like this, - sometimes you'll probably want to go with a tiff or JPEG a Z, - your your asset for anything that's an icon. - You'll probably want to go with something that is the vector E. - P s like this. - So that's enough about assets. - Let's talk about how we actually designed these cards. 13. Setting up a Template: what? You're sending a deck of cards like Like this. Uh, it's kind of complex, and sometimes it can be a little confusing going straight to the spreadsheet. Um, but, uh, so is that I'd like to go to in design. So what I'm doing is going straight to in design on and basically designing one card. I do this sometimes with complex card just so I can get everything in the place that I want it. So I could get a sense of what this card is actually gonna look like. Then I can go to the spreadsheet later on and actually start placing their variables in the spreadsheet. Um, now, let's say let's drag some stuff over here. So all I'm doing is basically just dragging from my find your window over to design. You could go the old fashioned route and go to file and, uh, place, and you will just have to pull in an image from your support holder. But I find this just so much easier in particular. If I if I need to switch out a an icon, for example, I could just drag one file over to the other, and a lot of Matthew replace it kind of redress that. But I find it. I just find it a lot easier and faster to it. This way. So we have these two assets there set right now, the display performance is set at typical. I'd like to set mine it high quality display if the card is very simple, because it's gonna load fast anyway. And I'd like to see how things are actually going to render when they're finally done. Once again, I'm hitting W to remove all the guides so I could get a better sense of what this is going to look like. Ants final form. I am aligning the artwork in the center here. What I'm designing right now is just the ace of spades. Or that I guess pace of clubs Let me grab the space icon. Go. All right. So, uh, I'm just re sizing this icon over to the corner. Now, a standard deck of playing cards will usually just have the icon in the two corners and on the top, left in the top, right, so that you can rotate it in either direction and van it in that one direction. But you could just as easily have. So it's on every corner, which is not a big deal, but it's sometimes nice to have it. I'm going to align. These two got them selected. It's a line to the page one line to selection to make sure that only thes two items that I've got selected are going to be aligned. Line these two up, make sure that these two are lined up. All right, Now we've got a card with suits of, but we also need a place for the rank. So let's make a text one text frame. So I want to make thes ranks very, very big, and I want to center it underneath the suit already. You can see this kind of unusual just cause I've got the rank about the suit and all that, but it's not a big deal. We're just kind winging it a little bit. But a happy little rank over here very about bras of us. Line that up line. These two up there only aligned. So we have a very simple card already set up. We don't have a date emerge set up yet. This is all all these images, all these things are actually on this page. Now you can see in the links palette also that we have spades linked four times. And we have this image linked once. Uh, so with all that in place now, we can actually go to the spreadsheet, get a better sense of what each of these things will look like when she goes on the page and how they'll change eso this. We're gonna call rank this image. We're going to call suit this image. We're going to call, just call it image. 14. Setting Up a Spreadsheet: - so back to the spreadsheet. - Remember, - If you're going to have a variable image, - you want to put the at sign first, - and then that's called this suit and for the central image, - I'm gonna put that sign image and then for the rank, - we don't need to put an outside because it's not a variable image. - So we'll just put Frank going back to our sport. - Fuller. - Want to make sure I've got the right name for this copying and pasting the final name Spade - . - That GPS pacing it over here. - Great. - Now there are 13 cards in each suit. - Uh, - so I'm just coming pasting this. - So that appears 13 times. - I'm gonna freeze this top row to make sure that it's distinct from the rest of the rose. - Now the artwork in the center of the card is only going to appear on the ace, - the Jack, - the King and the Queen. - So it's first that determined which cards? - Those are so ace than 234 before five, - 678 nine. - Then our Jack, - Queen and King. - We can reduce the width of that column just to make a little bit easier to organize. - So Now we know which card is going to be our ace. - So let's grab the file name for that image spirited hyphen. - A stock tiff Put that here. - No images air going to appear in the center of the card for for two through 10. - So we could just get we can just leave those blank. - It's not gonna hurt anything. - And I grab a spade a spade jack dot tiff Place that here. - Grab spade queen deductive and grab speed Kingdom. - I've got a file download the CSB when you download your CSB. - Remember to keep it in the same folder as your assets that CSB is going to call on when you - did emerge it and in design. - So I'm gonna download this spreadsheet into the same folder as the as the artwork and all - those suits. - Okay? 15. Linking a Spreadsheet: - in fact, - in design. - Now we go back to the date emerge palette, - their right hand corner we still let due to source back to our support folder. - Here's that CSB that we just downloaded and you'll see that we have items in the panel for - suit for image and rank. - And once again you can tell that which variables are text variables in which are variable - and variables. - Because there's a different icon on the art, - uh, - are variable, - and there's a little T and the text variable. - But right now, - another these variables or actually applied anywhere in the in the card. - So first, - let's start with a suit, - so I'm selecting the icon. - I am also going to click on the's suit item in the date emerge panel. - Now it looks like it's just disappeared, - but what it's actually done is replaced the image with a variable For for the suit on, - you can tell that this has happened if you go to view extras and show frame edges, - and there you can see very tiny in the image frame is thieve variable. - That's called suit. - Uh, - I don't usually work with with frame edges turned on just because it was a very messy - interface, - and I find it hard, - Teoh work around it, - so if you need to, - you can turn it on just to see what variables are applied to different image frames. - But for me, - I just turn them off and I just gotta hide for images. - 11 thing that show here I accidentally clicked the image that's inside the image frame, - and unfortunately, - for some reason, - dimmers just doesn't recognize that you have to actually click the frame, - have the frame selected when you click on through the variable. - So now I'm looking again at the frame edges. - We can see that the suit has been placed in each of these four frame edges. - Let's do the rank. - I'm selecting the rank that we just typed in. - I'm going to click on rank in the data merge panel and you'll see that there is a a little - icon here that represents over set text that that is, - there is more text than can fit into this text frame, - Uh, - as we learned in the previous US and that's because the, - uh, - the actual text variable is way, - way longer than than what we would actually type for a rank. - Um, - so you could just ignore that. - Just know that the variables in place that we need to confirm it. - You can also see it in the data merge panel. - I'm gonna go ahead and do this for each other rank. - And lastly, - I'm selecting the central image frame and applying the image variable to that you can see - at the top of this frame eyes, - thievery, - able image. - Now, - looking at this in a, - uh with without any of the variables turned on without preview, - it looks like this card is blank. - But in fact, - it's full of thes image frames and text frames that have different variables applied to - them. - Here's how it would look once we actually preview looks just like how we laid it out, - which is good. - Now let's see what the next page looks like again. - I'm just previewing here. - This is all still a one page document. - As you can see, - the only thing that's changing is that we're previewing each what design calls a record. - This is the two of spades. - Three of spades, - Four of spades, - five of spades, - six, - 78 nine. - Oh, - What's this way hasn't over that text. - The 10 is wider than we anticipated. - So let's increase the with of this text. - Monk. - This is why I go through a entire deck in preview before I start doing emerge Document - dressed in case there's weird stuff like this. - Uh, - in this case, - I'm going to select both East are rather all of these sex frames. - I'm gonna change the point size of the text to be 30 points, - and I'm gonna go back to pay to ah, - card nine. - Just to see how that looks. - I like it. - So I'm gonna move on, - paged him, - then we have the jack, - and you can see that the variable that we've applied to this card is still holding up. - It's calling on the jack artwork that we designated in the spreadsheet, - The Queen and the King. - So all that makes sense, - I hope. - Let's try something a little different in the next step. 16. Dual-Suited Cards: - they could do some weird stuff here. - Now that you've got this basic templates set up, - say, - for example, - you wanted to have a deck of cards that had two suits. - For whatever reason, - I'm not sure exactly what you would do this for, - but it's very simple to do. - All you need to do is go back to the spreadsheet. - Let's name this suit one at a column. - Insert one right, - Let's call the second suit suit too again putting the outside there because this is gonna - be an image that's you, - too. - Grab the file name for your heart icon in a copy and paste that a few times. - Let's say you wanted to make, - um, - the face cards at the top of the at the top of the suit. - Uh, - diamonds. - This could be any icons you want, - obviously, - but let's just go with double suited playing cards for now. - Now, - we don't have a placeholder for this variable, - so we have to go back to our in design document and find a place to put that for. - Now, - let's just assume that it's going to be right next to our primary suit and I'm gonna turn - off preview going to go back to the spreadsheet, - save a CSP, - saving over the old CSP back to in design, - updating the CSP in the links pellet. - And you can see that now, - there are two variables here that were not there before suit. - One suit too. - And unfortunately, - the variables that we've got set up for these icons just just a suit. - So you're gonna have been just run into some problems. - So now that I'm trying to preview it, - I get an error here. - There's a least one day to place older that cannot be found in the data source. - Make sure all the placeholders corresponded fields in the data source. - Basically, - that means that all of these images image frames are calling for suit. - And there was no suit. - Uh, - there's no field named suit in the data merge in the spreadsheet. - So we need toe, - select all these and replace them with suit one. - So you got do it one at a time. - It is kind of a bummer. - No, - we've got all of our variables applied. - Let's see how this looks in preview. - Look at that. - Our king is a diamond. - It's corrected. - Aces. - The ace is a spade and a heart two is spade in the heart three is spade in the heart for a - spate in the heart five is nothing 6789 10 No one boom! - We get some new stuff here we get the diamonds. - So, - uh, - right. - I mean, - this is all pretty simple. - This is how you can start making some of your own icons. - Say, - for example, - if you wanted to make cars that have up to three suits, - you can do that. - Uh, - the trick is in organizing your spreadsheet and just the right way. - When you're designing a card game, - a lot of times you're going to focus on balance, - and you're spending a lot of time looking at your spreadsheet, - making sure that say powers are distributed evenly across the deck or that certain - attributes are distributed, - if not evenly, - then predictably across an entire deck. - So you'll be looking at different ways to divide up Ah, - different items across across an entire deck and you're gonna be reorganizing this list - quite a bit. - But no matter what, - thankfully, - your top row here is frozen, - so it will always be in place and you're never gonna have that broken in the data merge - document. - So I hope that makes sense is just a quick lesson. - We're gonna go next to something a little bit more complex. 17. Starting a Template: - So now we're going to learn how to make a much more complex card than a resource card or a - playing card. - But it's still going to use the very basic principles that we've learned already. - Uh, - in this example, - I'm modeling my my card off of a magic card, - but you can use these techniques for very much anything. - The main thing we're going to learn this time is how to create different different borders - and styles that will be variable while also creating layers so that no matter what, - the artwork will always appear within a frame, - while other elements can up here above it. - Now, - in this case, - I have just grabbed a screenshot of this magic card. - So first off, - I wanted to show you the layers palette, - and you're gonna be using layers pilot quite a bit when you're doing more complex layouts. - Eso I'm just kind of late label this layer background and that that is where I will put my - plain black background. - Now, - if you're familiar with magic, - the expansion cards are usually have a black border. - While the basic cards have a white border. - Azadeh practice. - Been a while since I played magic. - So I'm hoping that still the case that may have just revealed my age, - if that's not the case anymore. - But I'm just gonna call this black or make this black, - I'm going to make a new layer. - I'm gonna call that, - Uh well, - let's call it border so that we don't confuse terms. - So that's the border and pulling this image back again. - And I'm clicking on making sure that the little pen icon is on the border layer before I - dropped us in. - So you'll note that every layer is color coded. - In this case, - background is blue, - so any items that are on the this layer that's a blue layer are going to have a blue - outline around them. - And when you select an item that is on another layer, - that is safe, - for example, - probably quoted, - Red is going to have a red outline around it. 18. Variable Border: first thing I'm gonna do now is make a border and you can tell that this border is really all one piece on this card. So I'm gonna first make this big rectangle, and I'm not gonna fill it yet. I'm just gonna create a very obvious, really garish color. So make that a big magenta, Add that to the Swatch pellet, and I'm not gonna fill it in. I'm just gonna make that a stroke, because what I'm going to do is create a basically a window within this frame again, I'm adding a stroke, so so I can see where that is. Making sure that both of these items are aligned to the page and centered. Got a nice and center. They're great. So, uh, I am going to select both of these. And this may be easier for you to see if if I go ahead and actually make both of these Adams solid. So I'm switching the stroke and the Phil. So now these air, both solid pink, and I'm selecting both of them. We can see the outline for the smaller window here, and in that outline for the larger item in the background, I'm going to Pathfinder and cooking on subtract. And basically what it does is it subtracts the front. Most objects when the most objects. So eso the small window. I made that, uh, that that is in front of the larger item behind it. And you can tell this for sure. If you actually open up the layer sub menu here and the and you click on this little triangle, it's like a folder. You can see rectangle rectangle and then pasted graphic. The first rectangle here is is on top of the list. That means it's further up front. That is the small, small item that I have got stuck and you can see it's highlighted here when I click on the larger rectangle, the then that is highlighted when I click on the pace of graphic and that is highlighted. So I'm selecting both rectangles, going back to Pathfinder and subtract and boom, we have this handy, dandy little window. Now I am going to make several different borders. I'm gonna open up a new car, a new ah document pasting this here. This document is the exact same size as my standard card. And, uh, I'm going to increase the size of it just a bit so that it fits within my, uh, exactly within my eighth inch margin. So this color is what I'm going with right now. I want to add some new colors, so I'm going to make a new page. I'm just going to I'm holding right now. Uh, the option key while I click on this and drag and drag it and that will duplicate the page . But also just right click and duplicate spread. And that will make you make a copy of that page is Well, some clicking on page two. I'm gonna make a new swatch. Let's say this is gonna be really garish green And that say that in this I'm gonna And this is this is me just making a new page again, and I'm gonna make a new color. So you call us much? It's called that, uh, yellow. Okay, so this again, this is not our data merge Document. This is just a separate document that I have set up so that I can make these items. So I've got a pink porter, a green border and a yellow border, and this is really ugly. But I'm just using this as a really, really obvious example. And also so it's clear that I'm not trying to counterfeit magic arts. So I am, uh, now going to save this so telling this border and I'm going to file export. And again, I'm still in the support folder on I'm going to click on E. P. S because I like UPS files. They're they're nice and sharp. They say they keep their resolution regardless of what size they are and just click on GPS . And what this will do is make every page and individual GPS file. There's some settings here that you can mess with. I kind of leave things all on their own. Except that the color, uh, I don't want to switch it to any other format. I'm just gonna leave it unchanged just to make sure that it is exactly how I've set it up. Sometimes you'll have color profile issues if you change things from seeing like a RGB or vice versa. So I'm just gonna leave things unchanged. I've got all pages selected and all the pages all pages as arranged and then pages as my export thing. If you have a have facing pages you could export both facing pages as spreads. But not gonna do that. And just to be on the safe side, I'm also going to add a bleed that ihsaa eighth of an inch exporting that. And what you see here are three e. P. S is that are numbered one through three. So now that those air set up, I can go back to the original file that I was creating. And I can delete this object because now I have a proper border file that I could bring into this layer. You can see that this is actually the utter edge of this GPS goes an eighth of an inch beyond the outer border of the card. That's because I set an eighth of an inch bleed. 19. Variable Icons: - I'm gonna make a new layer now, - and I'm going to call that I can't. - I'm gonna turn off the border layer now so I can make sure I see everything I need to see. - So icons, - typically in a CCG, - You're gonna get icons somewhere. - Let's say you wanted icons on the top right here. - Say, - for example, - you wanted a heart on the corner. - You just bring in the CPS and again make sure you have the right layer selected in this - case. - I'm selecting the layer icon. - I'm gonna drop this here. - And if this icon would be variable than than, - uh, - I would just make sure that I have all the variable icon set up on Let's view this and high - quality mode so that you can see exactly how it would appear. - All right. - Now, - uh, - that icons a little hard to read. - So let's say I were to put a white circle behind it there. - Now that icon can be variable. - And it could be it could be any of these items that I've got set up already. - Be diamond. - It could be spayed club and ah, - when it's variable, - those images, - any images you bring into the image frame are going to resize to fit that frame 20. Variable Text: - making your layer here, - that is text. - I'm going to make the text. - We know white so that you can read the text and I'm going to object text frame options, - and I'm going to center this vertically. - I'm also going to align the texts of the center so that all the Texas appearing here. - So that's a very simple text under you and you are. - You have already learned how to do this. - There's a number of different things that you can do for for different corners and stuff in - a design. - If you want to get something a little bit interesting, - I try to avoid this kind of stuff that's a little bit too obvious just because any other - car designer that is gonna be looking at your stuff, - um, - is going to know how you did that. - And one thing you kind of want do is do something a little bit different, - something that's unexpected, - that something so simple as just choosing a corner option and calling that done. - Now say this card in game gives you one heart. - So, - for example, - this card is you one part. - Now it's just Azizi to say that it gives you one heart. - But what's common in Euro games and more modern games is actually use icons when whenever - you can, - eso that there is consistent element across across the entire car across the entire game, - sometimes kind of in play. - Switching between verbal cues and visual cues can sometimes be a little bit confusing in - particular, - if you don't exactly. - If you're icons are unusual. - Hearts are pretty simple toe translate heart to heart. - But if you have something unusual that's thematic in your game, - that that is less common than you probably want to use as many icons as you can as - consistently as you can. - Eso In this case, - instead of saying hurt, - I would grab this icon and I would either do something like this and say, - Plus hurt. - I addressed this textile a little bit so that it's bigger. - So now this card now have two ways to view this. - That this card gives you one heart, - and this is plus. - And the nice thing is that if you bring an image like this into into a text line, - this image can still be variable. - Even if you've give you at spaces here or moving around this one image frame is still going - to be a variable. - If you do it that way, - that's that's the simplest way to do it. - If you want to get a little bit fancier, - this is a little bit more difficult, - but I'll show you how to do it. - Um, - say, - for example, - you want to say this card gives you one heart, - but you also have this piece of text here that this period Onley the text that is before - the icon will be a variable and Onley the text that will be after the icon will be a - variable, - and the icon itself will be a variable of its own. - Unfortunately, - you can't embedded variable within a variable in a spreadsheet released. - I haven't figured out how to yet. - I've tried a couple of methods, - but none of them seem to be consistent as what I'm about to show you. - Unfortunately, - this means is that you got to make this one variable so you would make a column that says, - for example, - affect one and in in design. - It would look something like this Effect one, - and even this period would just be called effects, - too, - and the reason I would I would make that a variable instead of just dropping a period in - the hard copy of this text is because if I wanted to add any a text that comes after the - icon not just a period, - but say, - for example, - if the if the if the text said something like, - If you have one heart, - then you gain one. - And again I'm good. - Drop this here. - Nudged this down a little bit. - I'm just selecting the actual image frame and nothing it down a little bit. - So these could be, - uh these could be separate variables in the spreadsheet. - Or that could be the same variable so that they're there. - They're always consistent. - If you have any cards in your deck that have text without any icons in them, - I would recommend actually copying this text frame and pasting in place so that you have - basically the same text, - the same size text frame in the exact same space. - But this text frame, - the only variable here, - uh, - well, - will be plain text. - It won't have any icons in it, - and you won't have any icon placeholders there. - Unfortunately, - this means that you won't need to worry about awkward spacing if you have. - If you have text it up and there's room for icon placeholder that actually hasn't text - around it. - Um, - unfortunately, - what this also means is that you have you have to deal with that many more variable. - So in this case, - uh, - this is a variable. - This is another variable. - This icon is a variable. - This text is a variable. - This icon is variable. - And this this Texas variable too. - So that means each one of those would have to be their own column in the spreadsheet. - Things could get pretty complicated here. - And I'll show you how to set up your spreadsheets in case you need to do something like - that. - Now, - your cards in the title, - of course. - So, - uh, - this is a title. - I've styled this with a white outline stroke just so you can see the text normally would - not lay out a card this ugly. - But I just want to show you, - by way of example, - how that how that might work 21. Variable Art: - Now you also have some art that you probably want to put into the middle here. - So I'm gonna set up a new layer that's called Art, - and I'm setting it up so that art layer is behind the border, - but above the background. - What that means is that when I bring in some artwork like this sheep resize that you can - see that the any layers that are above the art layer are going to appear in front of the - art. - So that means I can have a little more freedom to extend the art beyond the edge of the - border, - just to make sure that there's no weird white gaps or anything between the two objects. - Again, - if you turn off the border layer, - you can see how far the art extends. - So lining this up. - Okay, - so now we have a very simple card format already ready for us. - Let's see how this might work in the spreadsheet 22. Setting up a Spreadsheet: - So again, - we have a number of different variables here. - Looking at the card. - We have the border. - So let's start there. - It's called this at border. - I'm gonna call this for this variable border one or two. - Border three. - I'm gonna make seen nine cards, - three cards of each. - Um, - uh, - I'm going to freeze the top row again to make sure that it doesn't get messed up. - When I reorganized this. - So have reorganised. - We're gonna reorganize this alphabetically. - So border one are the first to encourage border to are the 1st 2nd 3 cards and in border - three are the 3rd 3 cards. - I'm gonna go ahead and tell these because we do have a variable title right here. - So let's call this title. - There's no need for an at symbol because this is just text. - Let's call this, - uh, - rid sheep green feet yellow. - And I got stone here as well. - So let's call this, - uh, - red stone Green Stone. - No. - Now, - if you want to get really complicated here, - you could make each of these words a separate variable. - So you could say even that this is just color. - And this is, - uh, - resource and so this would just be sheep. - And this is just the red, - for example. - So, - uh, - this and this together are going to be thedc all of the card over here. - The next variable of that I have is this icon, - and I'm gonna go ahead and call this like, - top icon. - Or you could even just call it or you could call it cost. - It doesn't It doesn't really matter what you call it. - What really matters is what you placed there. - Eso, - uh, - say I call this cost because, - say, - for example, - say it would cost a heart to play this card, - for example. - All I would do is has cost the speed or this costs diamond. - Now say, - for example, - you wanted some cars that just didn't cost anything in the spreadsheet, - you would leave that cell empty. - Say, - for example, - also, - you had a car that may have to costs are rather it costs to resource is s o again. - A couple ways to do this, - you could set set up a very fancy custom made font that would have dingbats or symbols that - you could make a text frame out of, - and all I would do is just replace Ah, - normal letter with a symbol believe magic. - The gathering does this because they have so many icons that have to be placed in line with - text so often. - But for your purposes and for the resource is that you probably have available. - This is gonna be the easier way to do it. - So I've set up a white circle here that is not a variable. - It's just going to always be there. - So no matter what, - if there's a card with a single cost, - this is gonna be empty. - But if there's a card to costs than both icons will be there. - So say, - for example, - the yellow sheep cost heart and ah, - diamond. - Now I have to make sure that I have named this column. - So I'm gonna call this cost one, - and I'm gonna call this cost too Trump consistent with capitalization, - because they this cost a spade and this cost a heart. - And let's say this costs a love and this cost three spade. - So when I bring this into the card is going to replace one of these icons depending on the - variable that I got set up the next variable I have is this art, - which I'm just going to call appropriate hurt. - And that is where I will call in some of the artwork that I've got set up already. - Uh, - nice thing I can do here. - It's just honestly, - just take thes names and drop them in. - And had Jay picked all of them. - So that's the art variable set up the next variable I have. - This is the complicated one have to text frames. - One of them is for any text that has no icons in line with the text. - The other is a text frame that has that houses any text that has icons two icons. - Even so, - it's always if you have blank, - then you can you gain blank and then followed by a period or perhaps some other text. - S O. - This is the plain one. - So let's start. - Start with basics there. - Let's call this one on. - One thing to note. - Here I am removing the background color for this text frame, - so when you're actually laying this out, - it's gonna look really weird as you start having overlapping text here. - But because only one text frame at a time is ever going to have Texan it depending on the - variable, - it won't have any overlapping text like that. - But it's it's useful just so you can see everything that's going on. - And also because any attributes that you apply to the text frame, - like like a white background, - are going to be there regardless of what the actual text variable is. - So if I were to have set this up and I would have made the text frame and opaque white even - if I had a text going on in this frame, - you wouldn't be able to see it because I've got this other frame in front of it. - That is a pig. - Quite so. - I'm gonna turn off that background to be quick. - Let's just say, - uh and gain us and gain do that again for these free ones. - Now, - these are these cars were special. - They have to costs. - I'm gonna add a little bit of a special effect to them. - Ah, - Now again, - uh, - the special. - The special fact that I'm talking about is that there is an if then statement with with two - icons, - actually, - in between them, - eso say I'm gonna call this frame, - uh, - effect to I'm gonna call that a line of text affect one. - I should say sorry. - And that's just always going to say you have one. - And I'm adding a space to that variable, - so I don't have to put that put that space in the actual text frame. - And this is where the first icon is going to be. - So I'm gonna call that I call him one, - and let's say so in this s o. - Looking through this, - uh, - again, - the yellow sheep costs a heart and a diamond has a piece of sheep art in there. - It hasn't has the variable. - If you have one followed by an icon, - then I'm going to put the 2nd 2nd effect, - which is this line of text, - including the comma and any spaces. - Then you gain space again. - And this is the second icon, - something called Icon, - too. - And then s O that this is like onto making a separate variable. - And now, - lastly is this little period, - which I am going to for now. - Just make that a period in the spreadsheet. - But you can replace that period with some other text, - like if you had any other conditional elements or some further text that you want to put in - . - That's where you do it. - So effect three. - And that's just going to be period now. - That pretty much covers everything, - I think. - So. - Let's go ahead and save this spreadsheet. - Remember, - you always save your spreadsheet in the support folder, - along with all the other assets that the spreadsheet are going to be calling on when you - date emerge this so saving. 23. Linking a Spreadsheet: - going back to the design document. - I'm going, - Teoh, - go to date, - emerge and select data source. - I'm selecting the spreadsheet that we just exported. - Now you have all these variables listed here. - When I noticed that one of these is called Effect 21. - I'm gonna look into that. - Where did that sneak in? - Uh, - so I named two columns effect to eso in design has interpreted that TB affect to and in - effect to one. - So I'm gonna make sure that this is legal effect three, - I should say. - And this should be affect for no. - My mistake. - Let's go ahead and export that again. - You went into the some of these issues. - Ah, - lot on Whenever you're making it a steer spreadsheet eso I've updated the link to the - spreadsheet here, - and the date emerge panel has updated accordingly. - So now there's affect 123 and four. - So you'll notice also that they're listed in the order that they appear in the spreadsheet - . - So border color resource cost the one caused to our border color resource cost one cost to - our and someone. - It's just following whatever you tell it to. - So starting off, - I'm making sure that I've got just to keep things straight. - I'm gonna lock all the other layers except the board earlier, - which made sure I had selected I do this just to keep things straight. - And so I don't accidentally credit variable where I don't intend to keep it s so I'm gonna - call this. - I've got the border, - uh, - placeholder selected. - I'm gonna select the border element in the data, - merge mental, - and again, - it looks like it disappeared. - But in fact, - all of sun has replaced it with a variable is just not in preview mode, - So you can't see it next up. - We've got the title, - which again is going to be broken up into two words. - Say, - for example, - or a sheep going to call. - I'm going to select this word and add the color variable. - It's like in this world and adding the resource variable and you again see that in design - replaces replaces your word with this special tag that that it uses to recognize that this - is a placeholder for that text. - Variable. - Now we have cost one and cost too. - So I'm gonna select one, - and so cost one will usually be their cost to is optional. - So I'm gonna go ahead and select this to be cost one so that it's always something on the - far right and then cost to is optional something I'm gonna select cost to here and while - selecting this icon placeholder image frame thing. - And again, - it looks like those icons disappeared. - But also, - this is just simply be replaced with the variables. - And again, - if you need to see this just to be absolutely sure, - you can go to extras and then show frame edges and you'll see the names of the variables - that I've been applied so far on the image frames. - So and this I've got a border variable. - I've got cost two and cost one Here, - Let let's go to the art next, - some unlocking the art layer. - When selecting this our image frame, - I'm selecting the art variable in date emerge, - I get it. - Looks like it disappeared, - but you can see that, - uh, - the arch tag has been applied to this image frame, - and it appears that I have accidentally made these text frames in the wrong layer. - Eso I am copying and pasting them and dropping them into the appropriate layer. - These were all set up in the border later, - Unfortunately. - So there first text frame that we've got is the one that has just one one line of text with - no icons in it. - So I'm selecting that entire line of text and replacing it with effect one Cool on moving - this up a little bit so I can see what I'm doing now, - in this, - uh, - this other text frame, - I've got a more complicated set of variables. - This line, - including the space I'm going to call effect, - too. - And selecting the date emerge this icon, - I'm flying Icon one. - And as a matter of fact, - I noticed these icons are a little bit big. - So before I do that, - I'm gonna reduce these in size just a tad. - Okay? - Those are nice and small. - Uh, - so once more, - I'm calling this icon one. - This line of text, - including the common, - including the space I'm going to call effect too. - This I'm going to call icon too. - This I'm going to call effect four. - And I'm gonna remember to move that first text frame back down to its proper place. - So let's see how all this works. - This is the moment of truth. - When you click on preview and see if everything you've done is actually correct, - you could see how some variables are are changing. - If there's nothing in the cell on the spreadsheet, - then it's just blank. - You could see the some elements are always going to be there because they're not variable. - So in this case, - though, - these white circles are always going to be there and let's export. - This has its own document, - and now you can see that there's nine pages here, - each one with its own car, - and you could export this as a PdF export this as flattened J pigs if you want to make a - printing plate file, - so that's basically how you make a a CCG or deck building card. 24. Variable Text Front and Back [Trivia Cards]: - Hello. - Uh uh. - This is Daniel. - Again. - I got some requests to, - uh, - have a tutorial about how to make variable cards with variable backs and fronts on the same - card on. - I thought a good example of that might be trivia cards, - since they usually have a question and a serious of possible answers on one side. - And then the final answer on the back S O. - I thought I would just do a quick example of that. - So first off on the spreadsheet, - I'm just typing question as the variable name before I get too far in and I'm gonna freeze - that road. - Don't say, - uh, - answer A is the first option, - and serve B is the second option in Answer. - C is the third option. - And then this is the This is the final answer that's going in the back. - I am going to say, - uh, - cancer now because these roll text based variables I'm not going to put the at the at sign - in front of any of these names because they're all just texted. - I don't need to bring in any images, - and I thought this would be a very simple way to do this So say, - for example, - uh, - who is the captain of the enter rise D And you could say work you could say are good. - Say Cisco. - But the final answer is the card. - Or you could say, - But is the best through And you could say out pull or banana or, - uh, - guava, - and you would be right to say guava. - It was intended. - It isn't there, - right? - Thinking like Polyjuice, - um, - and say, - uh what, - dude? - Hard her drink. - You could say synth whole. - Or you could say Jews I could smell right Or you could say tea Earl Grey not. - And of course, - T would be correct. - So you've got this final spreadsheet and you're gonna save it and download as and see it's - b saving that into a, - uh, - just a loose support holder. - So for as they got there, - it's good in design. - I've got my templates set up again. - I've got, - uh, - 2.5 by 3.5 card size. - This is a little big for most tribute cars, - but I wanted to keep things pretty pretty consistent for the previous lessons. - All the margins and bleeding to the same. - Technically, - this would have any bleeds This it wouldn't need. - Please. - I should say, - since there's no graphics going going to the other side. - But one thing I'm gonna change is gonna make this landscape. - Since most tribute cards are held sideways. - Aside from that, - it's all pretty much the same. - So I'm going, - okay. - And it's gonna open up a new thing. - So the trick with two sided variable cards is that you're in fact having two pages. - Eso I'm gonna insert one page. - Uh, - you saw that? - That was in the top, - right? - Menu over here and the pages palette. - And you could just insert pages there. - So you have one page here when paige here. - I'm not saying this is the This is the side that has, - uh, - excuse me. - This side has the initial question and the three options, - so I'm making a text window here. - It's just one big text window. - As a matter of fact, - yeah. - Excuse me. - One big text window and I'm setting the text frame options to center. - And whenever I have something like text based like this, - I just go ahead and copy this whole deal and bring it back into design. - is type of the whole thing. - Or rather, - instead of having about the whole thing, - I'll just copy paste a typical, - uh, - example of a they insert. - Like if I need to bring in images or if I need to bring in text on and the text can be long - , - I'll go to the spreadsheet and pick that the longest question. - So, - for example, - this is the longest question here. - I'll use that as the placeholder on then for this. - Now, - this is the longest possible answer. - So I'm gonna go to the other side of this card, - make a new text window once again, - type that answer in. - I'm gonna addressed the text frame options so that it is centered. - And the reason I I do this using the longest possible option that would be in the Aubenas - Tex window is mainly so that I can, - uh, - really make sure that I'm not gonna get over set text errors. - There are some tricks that you can do Teoh reduce or increase the size of a certain amount - of text. - If it is justified on, - I'll show you that just really quick here. - So say, - for example, - you want to set this up to be justified. - You can you have a little a lot of justification options. - You could make it justified, - left justified center just the right to the right. - Or you could force testify, - which means that all lines would be justified and dress if I just to be clear means that it - would take up the full width of text window say, - for example, - you were too. - Make this really big. - The doctor is a big be honest and you were toe. - Justify that. - You'll notice that the turning that that that is the space between letters is getting - tighter here. - The space between words is variable Here, - it kind of is much wider in the first line and much smaller in the second line. - You can control these options by going to the paragraph pellet and then going to - justification. - You're gonna just the minimum size of the letters and any justify piece of text, - or even set the maximum size as well. - So in this case, - for example, - the current settings by default are that the word spacing at minimum can be 80% of normal, - and the maximum could be 100 33% of normal. - You could see these two extremes in this in this question. - In the second line, - the minimum is easily within the 80% on the top line. - It's easy when 33%. - Now this is kind of a coward. - Read ugly. - I don't usually justify text that is this short, - But for the sake of example, - let's assume that this whole thing is four. - Stressed If I okay on, - go back to the justification window and you could set up something like this where the - minimum size of the of the cliff that is the letters are 50% of maximum sizes 160% and you - can see in the preview gradually that that the size of letters increases you can produce - the minimum or increase the minimum minimum eso at minimum, - the 100% word space is 100% on this line maximum. - You could even lower that actually make it smaller. - So the only the only thing that's changing here is that the size of letters is changing the - words spacing is not changing on, - and, - you know, - that's just how you do that. - Did you, - um, - let's go back here dipped into taking money. - All this alright. - So back to basics. - So you have a question. - You have three options and you have the answer on the other side. - So, - uh, - just gonna date emerge, - You select your data source, - and that would be the Let's find it. - Tribute cards support such in that spreadsheet. - Okay, - select your question on, - then. - Select question in the data Merge pellet and you're something replaced with the text. - Variable answer A is that answer? - Be an answer C and then replace the financer with All right, - eso uh, - that's basically what you do. - And then if you click on preview, - you can see that preview is is actually two pages. - But on this, - this is where the key difference between what data merge calls a record and what what you - would call a page is quite different. - Because in a spreadsheet, - every line every row is a record. - And where you placed these individual variables doesn't even matter like this in design - doesn't care where whether this variable is on the is on one page by page one or on page - seven, - that can change her. - Really, - Whatever you want. - Eso that could do some interesting things for, - like, - safe booklets, - mailers, - things like that. - If you want toe play someone's first name throughout a brochure, - for example, - you could do interesting things like that and swap things out. - But for our purposes, - really, - all we're doing is making a two page in design document that represented one car to the - front and back of the card. - And so this is the front. - Page two is the back page One is the front which do is the back. - And so say you were to export Uh uh, - multiple records. - Okay, - now it's exporting. - And here's what happens when you go to page one of this exported document. - And I can extend this out so you could see it a little bit. - Page Woman is the front of card one page two is the back of card one. - Page three is the front of cartu. - Page four is the back of card to page five is the back of is the front of carp. - Three patients. - Six is the back of car three. - So you can see because your original document had two pages. - When you export out all this, - it exports the entire deck what with alternating front and backs for each card. - And so I want to show you really quick, - another example of this using actual images and also sort of a case study of how I set up - cards and koi pond. 25. Variable Art Front and Back and Prepping for DriveThruCards Print [Koi Pond]: - Lou again. - So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about variable card backs and fronts. - On in particular, - I want to show you an example of a more finished game. - I know that some of the cars that have shown you, - actually most of the cards have shown you in a spot of this class have been really - unfinished and have ugly looking. - So I want to show you something a little bit more polished. - So this is a game that May designed cards for actually designed the game, - too. - But more importantly, - the cards uh, - this is for a game called Koi Pond, - and I want to show you just as a finished version variables that I introduced here. - So on this page, - you can see the cart fronts on, - and you can see some of the variables already when you switch between just 22 cards. - Eso The main difference is that you see are around here that's suitable very between four - different colors, - actually. - So red, - yellow, - red, - blue and white. - Uh, - the ranks over here will vary from 1 to 3 s 01 and two and C three up. - So trust me it goes from 1 to 3 and that's independent of the suit eso these air to gonna - be to separate graphics, - the suit and the rank. - Also, - the background art will vary eso if there is, - it's a white one. - Then there is one particular piece of art that I will use their if it is a blue to. - I'll use this. - This piece of art there it's a red one will use this piece of art there. - So I've got ah, - whole bunch of case or context sensitive art that I've already made been set up in my - support folder that I'm gonna draw in with the spreadsheet. - In addition, - there are these ribbons that will be tucked in under the suit icon if the I am. - If the animal is is not official, - it's rather a crane. - A turtle. - This is a cat, - uh, - or turtle. - So crane cat and turtle on. - Then on top of all that, - there are these hybrid fish that are always just one, - but they carry two suits eso for so it's all had to figure out how to actually make make - this variable suit work. - If it's just splitting half without necessarily making a whole set of new icons for each - possible combination of those four suits, - the way had to do with art. - Actually, - I couldn't figure out a way to make make the art itself variable like the actual drawings. - So I did have to make a special cases where that but a spy was, - the suit goes, - I think this was probably easier to do, - and on top of that, - for anyone who is visually impaired. - I've also added a border around any hybrid suits just to make it absolutely clear that this - is a special kind of fish on. - But I don't have any other, - uh, - the other markings around the suits in any of the other cards, - so I thought it would be pretty clear that this indicates it's a hybrid. - So with all that said, - let's take a look at our support folder. - You can see there's a whole bunch of stuff you're actually, - but we have the card back as a Photoshopped file. - That is something I'm going to save. - As a r. - I have saved as a flat tiff here. - I'd like to import flat tips whenever I don't have any transparency, - ease in a card because they just load faster in design. - It's and they usually produce fewer errors. - If I actually, - if I actually go to print. - So but if I need some kind of transparency, - you're gonna think that I will go with GPS or or a layer PST that has a transparent - background or a flattened tip that has saved transparency's. - But I'll talk about that another lesson so you can see all of the art that I've got set up - here. - I've got Blue three and go read one of God's white one got a white three. - You see all the art that I've had to put together just for this and mixed amidst all this. - You also have six possible hybrids that I've made. - So I have all that art set up beforehand. - Um and, - uh, - you can see you can see another. - If you look my YouTube channel, - you can see how I put together some of this art, - but that's kind of outside the scope of this class. - But if you're working on a card game, - chances are you're going to have an artist that will provide you with you don't have to do - it all yourself linkage, - schlub like me. - So this is all the art and assets that I have going beyond that. - I've got a bunch of icons here, - so I've got three the E. - P. - S files for the suits. - These were gonna like us. - Like I said about GPS is these air vector and they're going to stay sharp regardless of the - size, - which is about them. - And on top of that, - I've got a hybrid border, - which is really just a solid white circle with a black outline around it. - You can see that better in this preview on, - um, - in the finder window, - since you can actually show the transparency, - is there all I'm going to do? - There is Make that make that the border around, - uh, - on the suit and just that's just gonna be another variable element. - Um, - the, - uh the ribbons that I've made are here the ranks that have made our here after this other - stuff. - I ended up making that that I never ended up using because it was just too complicated on - the page, - but and it's keeping some of this stuff just in case I ever need Teoh. - Refer back to it and you see a bunch of spreadsheets that I've put together. - Each of these was made for a different generation of the of the game. - It's a matter of fact this is thes or some old designs that made way back in the day. - But you see how how also the the design has has changed over time. - A little bit. - It's much more clean now. - Kind of the plain white. - No bleed off the edges, - on the front and on the back Eyes pretty is pretty standard. - So, - uh, - right, - let's go to the spreadsheet. - Um, - each one of these rose again is one card icon. - One is, - Let's see, - one is the yellow suit. - So there's gonna be a y