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Topic: Black and white silhouette pieces (Read 7384 times) |
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Tachyon
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Arimaa player #3433
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Re: Black and white silhouette pieces
« Reply #30 on: Dec 11th, 2008, 5:36am » |
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I have also incorporated all the changes into the Arimaa font and created a PDF document using it. This way you can download and print the document and see what the print version looks like.
Here is the link.
http://www.2shared.com/file/4436444/42f5d5ef/Arimaa_Font.html
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Fritzlein
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Re: Black and white silhouette pieces
« Reply #31 on: Dec 11th, 2008, 5:33pm » |
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on Dec 11th, 2008, 3:59am, clauchau wrote:We may also try designing simple heads similar to Adobe Chess figures below :
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Ah, thanks for that chess example, clauchau. The hatching for the dark squares relieves some of my concerns about printing for my book. The stripes would be printable even at low resolution. I was worried that the shading would run into the pieces themselves and give them indistinct edges, but I see that is solved by giving each piece image a white halo, which doesn't show on the white squares, but keeps the shading at bay on the dark squares. So even if the printing process can't give us a nice gray, we have a solution for the trap squares.
If my book has to use hatching instead of having a decent grey, then I will probably lean against having the non-trap squares shaded at all. The non-trap squares would probably have to be white, which makes it extra important for the white pieces to look good against a white background.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Black and white silhouette pieces
« Reply #32 on: Dec 11th, 2008, 5:41pm » |
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on Dec 11th, 2008, 4:37am, Tachyon wrote:| I have also re-scaled the size of the cat slightly to bring it more in line. |
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I like the smaller cat; it's not nearly as scary somehow. 
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99of9
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Re: Black and white silhouette pieces
« Reply #33 on: Dec 11th, 2008, 6:50pm » |
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on Dec 11th, 2008, 5:33pm, Fritzlein wrote:| If my book has to use hatching instead of having a decent grey, then I will probably lean against having the non-trap squares shaded at all. The non-trap squares would probably have to be white, which makes it extra important for the white pieces to look good against a white background. |
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I agree with that. In fact I dislike the hatching so much that I suggest not even using it on the trap squares. If you are unable to get grey, then perhaps a thicker border around the trap would suffice.
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99of9
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Re: Black and white silhouette pieces
« Reply #34 on: Dec 11th, 2008, 6:55pm » |
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Nice work Tachyon. My main remaining complaint is that the camel and horse are still way smaller than the cat (and dog). Any chance of making them use more of the square? Ideally I'd like to see the area of each piece increase monotonically with the piece value (but I don't mind if they're all similar size).
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| « Last Edit: Dec 11th, 2008, 6:56pm by 99of9 » |
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aaaa
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Re: Black and white silhouette pieces
« Reply #35 on: Dec 11th, 2008, 7:00pm » |
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on Dec 11th, 2008, 6:50pm, 99of9 wrote:
I agree with that. In fact I dislike the hatching so much that I suggest not even using it on the trap squares. If you are unable to get grey, then perhaps a thicker border around the trap would suffice. |
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How about instead denoting a trap square with a cross inside of it?
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99of9
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Re: Black and white silhouette pieces
« Reply #36 on: Dec 11th, 2008, 10:46pm » |
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Yes, that's possible too... the cross would have to extend across (almost) the whole diagonal to make sure it was visible from underneath a piece.
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Tachyon
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Arimaa player #3433
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Re: Black and white silhouette pieces
« Reply #37 on: Dec 12th, 2008, 8:58am » |
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Did anyone have a chance to print and view the pdf document with the arimaa font ?
Would like to hear some comments on the printed version ...
Here is the link again ...
http://www.2shared.com/file/4436444/42f5d5ef/Arimaa_Font.html
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| « Last Edit: Dec 12th, 2008, 8:59am by Tachyon » |
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IdahoEv
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Re: Black and white silhouette pieces
« Reply #38 on: Dec 12th, 2008, 2:50pm » |
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on Dec 12th, 2008, 8:58am, Tachyon wrote:Did anyone have a chance to print and view the pdf document with the arimaa font ?
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Mostly looks great - good work.
Error:
- The black elephant shows up on the screen for me, but does not print. (OS X 10.5.5 w/ HP inkjet. Tried both Adobe Reader 8 and Preview.app). All other characters fine.
Comments:
- I'd like to see the horse and camel a bit bigger, cat and dog a bit smaller. Dog is currently the biggest / blackest piece other than the phant.
- I think the outline on the white-outlined ones is a bit too thin; at print sizes it makes the lines look a tiny bit patchy in places.
- It would be great to have a second version of the font where both sides are solid (not outline), but face opposite directions. This would allow the examples on the second page to look a bit better.
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| « Last Edit: Dec 12th, 2008, 2:51pm by IdahoEv » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Black and white silhouette pieces
« Reply #39 on: Dec 15th, 2008, 5:12pm » |
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on Dec 12th, 2008, 8:58am, Tachyon wrote:Did anyone have a chance to print and view the pdf document with the arimaa font ?
Would like to hear some comments on the printed version ... |
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Thanks for making a pdf, Tachyon, since I wasn't able to get the fonts working in MS Word 2003.
I agree with IdahoEv: for the white pieces on white backgrounds the bold outlines look better. Significantly better in my opinion. The only drawback of the bold pieces is that the already-somewhat-large cat eyes get even larger. But the thin outlines on the non-bold pieces are just too faint to make the pieces stand out.
On my laser printer the best-looking white pieces are the photo-negative of the black pieces set against a gray background. However, I don't believe that format will still look good in a printed book where no decent gray is available. Someday I'll get in touch with a print expert and clarify what sort of gray is available for black-and-white printing from plates.
Thanks again, Tachyon, for all your work on black-and-white piece images.
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clauchau
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Re: Black and white silhouette pieces
« Reply #40 on: Dec 17th, 2008, 3:51am » |
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on Dec 10th, 2008, 8:20am, omar wrote:| Claude, what program did you use to get SVG output. |
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I first scanned the real picture as a pdf file (tiff file was possible too). Then, I imported the picture with Inkscape - Janzert is right - added a layer above it and sketched the outline and main lines with Bezier curves with as few dots as possible.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Black and white silhouette pieces
« Reply #41 on: Dec 19th, 2008, 11:29am » |
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I did a tiny bit of research poking around on the Web, and learned a couple of useful things about printing books.
First, for print runs of under 500 books, the overhead costs of offset printing are large enough that even professional printers will use a high-quality photocopier rather than plates. If I am not mistaken, this means a good gray will be available, which makes it a real option to have white pieces with no outlines, i.e. just with the gray of the background square providing a border.
On the other hand, for print runs of over 1000 books, offset printing is cheaper, and the economies of scale can hardly be ignored. For a large enough run, a paperback book my size (~200 pages of 8" x 5.5") could retail for $9.99. Because I'm not in this to make a lot of money, I will gladly take any opportunity to drive down the price in whatever way possible, to increase sales and thereby further awareness of Arimaa. If this includes white piece images that need a thick outline to show up well on a white background, so be it.
Thus the important question is the size of the print run. I certainly hope Z-Man intends to print more than a thousand. If he isn't going to use his gaming contacts and distribution muscle to get the book out there, then there's not a lot of advantage to printing through him rather than self-publishing. But maybe he will see it differently, and not want to take a risk on a large run. Or maybe he will be so busy (as he has been the last couple of months) that I will get tired of waiting and eventually self-publish anyway.
If I self-publish, I will use a print-on-demand service and distribute through Amazon.com, so that I don't have to worry about inventory or shipping. That probably drives up the cost of my paperback to $15, because I will be trying to recoup up-front costs with a small volume, but at least the book will be out there. Also that will give me editorial control over everything. (And my up-front costs will include a small gratuity to the piece designer. )
I'll update further as I learn more.
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| « Last Edit: Dec 19th, 2008, 11:31am by Fritzlein » |
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