Useful Resources to Sphaxify

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Post 01 Jan 2014, 00:18

HanFox wrote:
Sillyman34 wrote:
I just want to ask, what is this?
Files that you can use to base other works off of. Which it says right at the top of the OP.

I fear you may be living up to your name on purpose.
Oh no, I was confused whether they were programs used to help with texturing or actual textures used as a base. I've had a look around the forums and seen the youtube videos on how to do it.

Thanks
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Post 11 Jan 2014, 01:42

I added a plank.psd to the OP.

Made it up with shading so basically there's not much to change to achieve a new plank. Just need to tweak the jaggedy bits (as each plank should have a different design there) and change the background colour.
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Post 12 Jan 2014, 10:55

HanFox wrote:
I added a plank.psd to the OP.

Made it up with shading so basically there's not much to change to achieve a new plank. Just need to tweak the jaggedy bits (as each plank should have a different design there) and change the background colour.
Han, I think it would be helpful to the people creating patches if you could add a section for base, but detailed blocks/items, like wood logs, for patches artists to download. I know i had a mod that added wood but had no idea how to do the classic sphax log from scratch.
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Post 12 Jan 2014, 12:00

That would be up to people who actually use PhotoShop.

The only reason I managed to do the planks because it's overly simple, but most of my other textures will not transfer from Fireworks to PhotoShop gracefully and I find PhotoShop a completely non-intuitive, fat land whale.

Ask sparkst3r he has big love for PS. :P
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Post 11 Feb 2014, 17:43

One thing that would especially helpful are more "component" PSD files in the style of the Wood Shadow .png---basically, greyscales of any patterns that are repeated across a lot of different textures. I'm sure at least a few of you have a ton of these sorts of things in some "Misc Parts" folder somewhere! Some specific ones I can think of (though I'm sure there are many more):
  • Shaded pentagon/octagon rings that appear on the Compass, Clock and tons of mod items.
  • Pentagon-shaped ores, with an exterior semi-transparent border that will appropriately shadow the underlying block.
  • The various borders that feature on a wide variety of crafted blocks, e.g. the bolted-metal borders around high-tech machines; the bevelled stone edge that appears on the Sphax logo as well as many stone-type blocks like Hardened Clay; etc.
  • Separated GUI components: The background, the border, the slots, the buttons, the tanks, etc, all in separate files so creating GUIs becomes a simple matter of moving the pieces into position ("... and with that, contributors emerged from the woodwork and every missing GUI was completed overnight!")
  • Liquid containers with associated liquid overlays
I realize that, for many of these, chopping them out of existing textures is not very difficult... but a central repository of these components would ensure uniformity among the textures (rather than everyone's bolted-metal borders looking slightly different because they copied out a slightly different area from their source texture).
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Post 21 Feb 2014, 23:05

Eunomiac wrote:
I've scribbled up this brief tutorial on how to use crumbl3d's Photoshop Resizer Actions, from importing and using them to resize individual files, as well as how to use Photoshop's "Batch" function to resize a whole folder full of images (including subfolders). This should be quite useful for people who want, say, a 64x version of a texture patch that's only been released in 128x.

Feel free to edit it into the original post, or as a readme in the download actions, if you think it's appropriate, and let me know if there's a better/easier way to do what I'm describing:
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Step 1) Import crumbl3d's "Photoshop Resizer Actions" into Photoshop
(Note: These instructions are written using Photoshop CS5. There shouldn't be any major differences between releases, but the odd thing might be in a different place or have a slightly different name if you're using another version of Photoshop.)
  1. Download BigDave's (should be crumbl3d ...) Photoshop Resizer Actions, then unzip the archive into a convenient folder on your computer.
  2. In Photoshop, bring up the Actions palette window with Alt-F9, or by selecting it from the "Windows" drop-down menu.
  3. Click on the button in the very top right corner of the Actions palette window, and select "Load Actions..." from the drop-down menu.
  4. Navigate to wherever you unzipped the Action files to, then select the Action that describes the size change you want (e.g. to convert a 128x pack to a 64x pack---a 50% reduction---you would want the "Resizer 50% & Transparency Fix.atn" file). Click "Load" to import the Action.
You should see a new folder at the bottom of the Action palette window, with the same name as the action file you just imported. This folder contains two versions of the resizing Action. The only difference between them is how they handle semi-transparent pixels (like those that appear around the edges of images when they're resized). One will make these pixels wholly opaque, while the other will make them wholly transparent (by deleting them). You may want to try both, then decide which one looks best in-game.

At this point, you're ready to use these actions to resize individual files: Simply open the file you want to resize, select the Action from the Action palette window (either the opaque or transparent version), and hit the "Play selection" (triangle) button at the bottom of the window.

However, if you want to apply this action to a large group of files (i.e. every file in a texture pack), keep reading:

Step 2) Resize an Entire Folder of Images
Important: This process will resize every image file in the folder you select, including images in subfolders (it simply opens each image one-by-one and applies the Action to it, before moving on to the next). So check each folder and temporarily relocate any images that shouldn't be resized (for example, any "placeholder" textures that are simply copies of the standard 16x textures should be pulled out, or they'll be shrunk down as well).
  1. Make sure the images you want to resize are unzipped and in a convenient folder on your computer. Note that the instructions below will resize these files, so if you want to retain copies of the originals, back them up in a separate location.
  2. In Photoshop, click "File" --> "Automate" --> "Batch...". A "Batch" window will pop up.
  3. Configure the "Batch" window that pops up as follows:
    • Set: Select the name of the Action you imported (e.g. "Resizer 50% & Transparency Fix")
    • Play: Select the version of the Action you want to apply (i.e. either "Making pixels opaque" or "Making pixels transparent")
    • Source: Set to "Folder", then click the "Choose" button and navigate to the folder containing the (unzipped) image files you want to resize.
      • Ensure the "Override Action 'Open' Commands" box is NOT checked.
      • Ensure the "Include All Subfolders", "Suppress File Open..." and "Suppress Color Profile..." boxes ARE checked.
    • Destination: Set to "Save and Close".
      • Ensure the "Override Action 'Save As' Commands" box IS checked.
  4. Click "OK", and watch as Photoshop systematically opens every image file in that folder, applies the resize action to it, then saves and closes the file before moving onto the next. Since many texture pack patches contain thousands of image files, this can take a while. (But it's better than doing it manually!)
  5. When it's finished (finally!), simply zip up those newly-sized image into a standard texture pack .zip archive.Congratulations, you've just resized a whole texture pack!
Nice tutorial, I was lazy and didn't write it, but basically that's what I was doing when I was making my Tekkit patch ... Also crumbl3d not BigDave in step 1.
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Post 21 Feb 2014, 23:52

Eunomiac wrote:
One thing that would especially helpful are more "component" PSD files in the style of the Wood Shadow .png).


I've got a forked Github repo with a ton of layered PSDs in it. I took a break from it due to work but I'm back to working on another round of additions to it over the next couple of weeks.

https://github.com/ChadAlanJackson/Sphaxified

There are also a bunch of other resources and even tools in there as well.
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Post 25 Mar 2014, 19:54

Why are they all in psd format? :-x Why can't you use a common format like png, pdn or svg? I'm gonna have to get gimp now (and learn how to use it) because paint.net cant open them and I'm not paying for photoshop (or learning how to use it). And yes, paint.net is the only program that can open .pdn but more people have paint.net than people who have photoshop or gimp.
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Post 25 Mar 2014, 20:04

If anyone would like to take over any of my threads please contact me. I will continue to host what I have done but expect no further updates.
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Post 25 Mar 2014, 20:39

Benfll wrote:
Why are they all in psd format? :-x Why can't you use a common format like png, pdn or svg?
PSD is pretty darn common, it is pretty much all the pros ever use. Much of the rest of the repository is Photoshop specific as well. Most everyone else on the forum seems to be using Photoshop or GIMP.
Benfll wrote:
because paint.net cant open them and I'm not paying for photoshop (or learning how to use it). And yes, paint.net is the only program that can open .pdn but more people have paint.net than people who have photoshop or gimp.
If you want .PDN, Paint.NET can import and edit PSD files with the addition of this plugin: [link]https://psdplugin.codeplex.com/[/link]. You can even save it back out to PSD. I've not used it in a while, so it may be that it has some problems.
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