MTG Salvation

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Quote from Bolas, the Mindsculptor »

@serrot just wanna defend moysturizer abit here. I think what he meant is while the renders are nice when it's blown up, whether it appears as nice in card size is another. I believe official artists and Wizard's editors do that to see if the actually "fits" aesthetically.

I understand the need for those instances where printing (editors/artists) is needed, as the endgame is a printed card. The need to print something out to make sure it works at card sizes is unnecessary here as these are not intended for print. I don't want to promote an environment that lets that kind of talk thrive. I'd rather stop it before it becomes a problem.

Quote from Kentu »

Quote from Bolas, the Mindsculptor »

@kentu, the first ajani in your latest post is your best version IMO. Yup using the walker symbol as the loyalty box itself does wonders.

I feel the same way. The 3rd one is by far the best and most aesthetically pleasing. Just need to find time to hunt down a hi-res symbol and throw it in there.

Agreed. v3 is my favorite so far as well.

Quote from Kentu »

Quote from Kentu »

Thanks for the input. While I agree with you, I feel it's about breaking the standard mold. Doing renders that all for the most part identical to what's already available, I welcome a fresh new look and feel. To that end, that's I I changed and kept some things. To keep a sense of familiarity but rush of something new. Well, those are my thoughts anyway.

What do the rest of you all think? I guess I'll throw a poll here, lol. Share your thoughts and ideas, and have fun with this little poll.

Which do you prefer?

1. All about tradition!! Forget the new stuff!

2. Tradition!?, Bahumbog! Long live the strange and new!!

3. Don't really care... just here for renders.

4. Gimme both ;). I like tradition, but I also like fresh new ideas.

So far only 1 person responded/answered. I know you guys have some kinda of opinion about digital renders, otherwise you wouldn't be here, lol. I think if enough people shared their thoughts and opinions the community might get a better idea of what kind of renders are popular/requested versus those that flop or are 1 hit wonders. Throwing my hat into the ring, I would pick #4 cause I love tradition, but like to experiment as well.

Hmmm guess I forgot to respond to this. In any case, it seems that #4 is the best option thus far. I think that most people will fall in this category as we want the cards to still look like them, even if everything is completely different. It's that familiarity with a new thing that makes change a bit more easy.

Quote from Kentu »

So I tried out your suggestions, I kept the purple, but made it much lighter and softer along with the red and green.... using the mana colors as you mentioned. I integrated the PW symbol into the loyalty box not sure how it works but I think its kinda cool. What are your thoughts?

The colors are better for the loyalty boxes. I figured making the PW symbol larger to accommodate the number would be the best route, but after I posted I realized that idea is probably not a good one. I like what you did adding the symbol to the box. Unfortunately that makes the box too busy and you kinda lose the number a bit. Hmmmm.... just putting the starting loyalty like that just seems like that data could be missed..... I'll have to think on ideas for that. Still, I like it quite a bit.

Quote from Moysturizer »

@kentu, have you tried printing one out? At card size on my monitor, the Loyalty symbol with the graphic in the background is hard to read, as is the text.

Just so you know, these are not meant for printing purposes. Any discussion to the contrary will not be tolerated here.

I want to add my thoughts in here pertaining to petercal's wonderful template. I for one love it (and that wall-o-text that accompanied it). As with any art, things can be done to clean it up a bit. Kentu is definitely on the right track. Though, one issue I have with Kentu's update is that the green, red and purple are rather bold colorings. The colors in those little boxes "tickle" my eyes. Maybe using the same shade of red/green that the mana symbols use would fix that issue. I would love to get the template after your adjustments (or it is "finalized") as it is different and simple. I agree with Bolas in that the loyalty *might* look better swapped with the set symbol. Though, we might need to see it before actually saying it is better. And to continue on with the loyalty box problem... why not make it the PW symbol? I mean, it would fulfill the "keep things the same" while changing it up a bit vibe. It is an easy way to tell that it is a PW, which Bolas had suggested that keeping the symbol would help in. I'm just tossing ideas out there as I find this endeavor rather intriguing. If this can be made into a finalized template we can be proud of (should already be as it is really nice) I might just finally toss my hat into this Render thread and churn some renders out.

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Quote from Phoenixius »

Hello,
I use acrylic paint for my alters.
Unfortunately, I feel that my colors always have a hazy appearance, impossible to reproduce the brilliant appearance of the cards.
Any suggestions?

Could be the types of paints you are using. I'm not too good a painter, but better artist than I have stated that the quality of paint will have a large impact on the final product. Cheaper paints don't have the pigment loads that good paints do, which could be why the final product is hazy. Also, if you are using water or some other medium to thin your paints, that too could have an effect of your final product.

Quote from NoeLZZ »

Hi, i want to black out my delver proxies so only the delver is left. Whats the best way to do this? I'd prefer a pen.

Thanks in advance guys

By proxies I can only assume you mean the DFC Checklist Cards. In any case, you could use some black acrylic paint. Put a couple of thin layers down and you should get the coverage you want. Sealing it will also go a long way to making sure the paint doesn't chip off, but shouldn't be necessary.

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@petercal,

Here is a render that I did using the basis of your idea. In keeping with Minimalist ideas... I ditched the loyalty and card type symbols in favor of simple color coding. Minimalist is about having pzazz, while keeping to a simple basic look. I chose purple for loyalty since like you said its from the heart, green for positive #'s, and red for negative #'s. I opted for a single textbox with lighter shading but opaque enough to not steal too much from the art, using only tiny spacers to separate text. I shift the mana cost a little higher since there's no symbol, which leaves room for long titled cards. Anywho.... just figured I throw something out there.

Thank you all for your insightful input. Though this text may run a bit long, I think consolidating individual replies can take advantage of a new render I put together to explain my design decisions.

Here's Wizard's new Ajani in its original standard frame (image upsized to match the size of my renders; so it may be a bit fuzzy):


Here's my interpretation using the "minimalist" frame:


Note that the variable width of the loyalty ability text boxes reveals the lower portions of Ajani's image. Such extreme clarity isn't possible with the traditional frame. The traditional frame tries to compensate through somewhat-translucent text boxes and image cutout overlaps (e.g., limited parts of head, limbs, weapons, etc. stick out on top of the frame).

Also note that the height of these loyalty ability text boxes are constant. This is important for keeping balance on the lower half of the right edge. This is an aesthetic feature I value more than constant width of the loyalty ability text boxes. More about this later below.

Quote from willows »

I think that's a wonderfully practical solution. It's very well in keeping with the spirit of your template. The only thing I'd suggest trying (and it might not work) is tinting the text boxes to match the frame colors.

The primary reason I chose flat grey for the text boxes is to create separation between the text boxes layer and all the stuff below (art, frame texture & color piping). Traditional frame uses things like bevels to create the illusion of elevation and some separation. I prefer not to use such technique in line with minimalism. Instead, I believe color contrast coupled with translucency can create the illusion of separation.

To illustrate this, I re-rendered the Ajani, Valiant Protector v1 from above to tint the loyalty ability text boxes. In this case, I tinted them light gold to match the frame and show some translucency:


I believe that compared to the grey box in v1, this the gold box in v2 doesn't contrast as well where the box crosses the art frame (where the loyalty ability text area is visually separated from the loyalty cost number area). Also, the gold v2 text box seem to blend into the art more so compared to the grey v1 setup. In other word, the gold v2 box doesn't stand out as much as the grey v1 box and thus there is less separation created with tinting to match the frame.

It is possible that the visible degree of separation all depends on the art (it does dominate the card). Still, I think a neutral color like grey is best across the variety of possible configuration since it is, well, neutral.

Nonetheless, I like to see if anyone can tinker with it to make it better. I have the frame file for download at the bottom of the message.

Quote from Xenocyde3000 »

I have a minor nitpick with the heart icon on Petercal's PW template. It usually stands for health or toughness so I suggest using something else to emphasize that it actually represents default loyalty. Maybe use a stylized shield-like thingie from the original cards?

In keeping with the minimalist theme, I'm reducing certain ornamentation where possible. One such thing is bevels, which is a key part of Wizard's styled shield icons.

I would consider using a flat shield for starting loyalty, except that is already used for the power/toughness part of the creature frame:


So I chose the simple heart icon to identify with loyalty, since loyalty is suppose to come from the heart.

However, this is just a personal preference. Icons can be readily changed if you play with the frame file at the end of the message.

Quote from pabi »

Regarding new template - I really love the new approach, that textboxes are aligned to the right and that each ability has nicely looking separate textbox

Problem is that I'm really irritating UX researcher, who loves order and symmetry above all So just let me write down my doubts (personal opinions of course, just for your information):
* I love the fact that you don't have to look around the card for important information, but I have a feeling that now we have too many things packed on the right side of the card, resulting in name being squeezed between the cost and ability values. It looks ok for Daretti, but Ob barely made it. I just wonder how will it look like for a planeswalker with longer name or more complex cost.
* While I completely understand the approach to manageable text-area size (sometimes the original cards look really bad in terms of text-to-textbox size ratio), I don't like the fact that all textboxed have different size on each of those planeswalkers (yeah, call me psycho :P). That leads to different visual feelings when looking at those cards, as well as it forces you to change the size of the font (like in Ob's first ablility). Would it be bad to extend those textboxes to the full width of the card and only manage their height to remove unnecessary free space? This way you'd have the same approach for each card, as well you would still be able to nicely position the text without the need of decreasing the font size.

I came up with my frame by rethinking the basic assumption of text boxes. The standard and most proxy frames assume that the loyalty ability rules text boxes are constant width. Inside a constant height area (hardwired by the planeswalker frame border & different only between 3 and 4 ability planeswalker frames), individual loyalty abilities can have variable height. You see what happens when these assumptions are flipped.

I can understand how people may prefer the more familiar constant width setup. So I re-rendered Ajani to illustrate the consequences:



These renders look much more like the traditional planeswalker frame. However, there are a few things that bug me.

First, I am bothered by the uneven height of the loyalty abiity cost boxes, on the lower half of the right edge. My thinking is, the unevenness introduces chaos on the right edge that otherwise is strictly ordered (sidenote: chaos here is defined as a shape visually introducing info that doesn't correlate with what the shape represents; in other words, if the height of the box correlates with the magnitude of the loyalty cost, it would have been ok; otherwise, just keep the box constant to avoid adding more chaos). I rather have the chaos (variable width text) on top of the art since the art is already a "chaos" area.

Second, constant width text consumes A LOT of art real estate. Eyeballng it, I say the variable width text box uses only 70% of the space consumed by the constant text box. Also, variable width text box enables one to be creative in stacking the rules to shape around key aspects of the art. In this case, the variable width text box v1 reveals Ajani's full stature and shiny weapon unobstructed. Depending on the art, the variable width text boxes can be manipulated to better showoff/highlight the art.

Lastly, the constant width text introduces variability in the right edge card name centering. Compared to card name center point in the variable width v1, the card name center point in constant width v3 has drifted downward. This may not seem problematic until you have a bunch of the cards using this "minimalist" frame in your hands. Now you have cards with card names that don't line up by any consistent (consistent from one named card to another differently named card) fixed center points.

Variable width v1 doesn't have this problem since the right edge elements are fixed in their center points. While different cards may have different card name length, their center points are the same within same card types. Also, it should be noted that the v1 card name text length is about the same as that available on a traditional planeswalker frame (imagine rotating the example card name 90 degres and sliding it into the top of the card). Whatever planeswalker card name Wizards can squeeze (Wizards does manipulate the font & spacing, but it isn't so readily apparent given the spacious box reserved for the card name) into its traditional planeswalker frame, I can do so as well with the same manipulation.

All that said, I'm still of the opinion that my current configuration can be improved. I also believe multiple eyes increases the possibility that something better can come about. Thus, I'm releasing what I have done on the frame so far so people may play with it. Perhaps some may build something to their liking.


NOTE: This PSD file is converted from the Pixelmator software I used on the Mac. I haven't tested it to see how accurate it reproduces the render on Photoshop since I don't have that software. You may need to make adjustments to fix some things. Also, I haven't cleaned it up like the templates on Kentu's repository. However, it should be relatively simple to understand since my rendering abilities are rather rudimentary.

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