nanDECK and rapid custom figure card creation

[mcmeeple]

I have mentioned nanDECK a few times, so I figured I would do a quick write up on it.

With the influx of Heroclix TMNT figures I have purchased a rather huge mess of guys. I can't help but take a stab at designing customs for these. Not so worried about the main turtles, but I have a LOT of supporting characters that really need some love. And my son and I are eager to play them!

So my goal is to rapidly produce playable cards that are easily adjusted and corrected as needed.

I think this approach could also work well for the photoshop/gimp challenged.

There are three main components:
1) the Google Sheet contains all of the data. You can specify which card template to use, the image to use for the figure art and enter all the stats, text and so on. One can update it all they want and simply regenerate the cards!



2) These are the card templates I made for TMNT. One could (and I likely will set this up soon) add in templates for all the normal stuff like the main HS generals, Marvel etc. I plan for this library to grow in time as it makes it absurdly easy to make cards.

The main key to these is that they have a transparent section where the figure artwork shows through. This allows me to just place a rectangular image behind it and it gets clipped out into the funky shape. This radically reduces the pain for fast cards imho.

I should note that the card templates are based on some super high res (600dpi) vector photoshop version someone made. I have NO idea where I downloaded it from or I would cite the source.



3) The nanDECK script. This pulls in the Google Sheet and generates the cards based on the script. The script was a pain to write due to all the coordinates for the fields...but once setup it works like a champ! nanDECK will output individual images or a PDF of all the cards.

The script supports alternate fields and symbols for super strength and flying.



Once I get a bit further along I would like to provide all these resources. A google sheet you can copy, a download of the card templates and copy of the nanDECK script.

Honestly the hardest part is getting artwork for each figure.

Here is a sample of a card produced with this tool:


Note that I have dots showing up in the hit zone area to represent how many figures the card gets. For my purposes I don't need official hit zones. At my house on customs we just know that you have to hit the PERSON, not their weapons or extra clothing like a cloak. And for the sake of rapidly making cards this makes it more approachable.

Again, the setup work was substantial (a few hours), but in theory anyone could replicate this in a few minutes if I provide the tools. And now, I can happily crank out the 2 dozen or so customs I need without having to hit Photoshop. In the long run this makes it fast and fun to create all the customs I want.

[TREX]

The card looks great man. Very cool how you made a scripted card maker. I use photoshop myself.

[mcmeeple]

Just to clarify. Once it is all setup you just write out the details of your card in the Google Sheet, open up nanDECK and hit "Build Deck" and it spits out the images for every card. So if you change a card, add a new one etc, it just churns them out. This is wonderful for playtesting or just rapidly making cards that are pretty darn good.

[mcmeeple]

Originally Posted by TREX

The card looks great man. Very cool how you made a scripted card maker. I use photoshop myself.

I use photoshop as well, I just really really like building the characters in a spread sheet. Right now I am making a big set of TMNT characters and it is nice to be able to skip between them quickly. It just makes for an easy work flow!