Updated Overlays

[yorkshirelandscape]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
The included overlays are rather low-resolution. They're good options, in theory, but look fuzzy in practice.

Describe the solution you'd like
Do you have higher-resolution originals? Could you update them to something like 800x800?

Describe alternatives you've considered
Alternatively, a new set of overlays would work.

Additional context
N/A

[yorkshirelandscape]

I've begun recreating these at a higher resolution myself using MidJourney. They're not quite as uniform, but they're a big improvement nonetheless. If you'd like to integrate them into TokenTool, let me know. I manage the Token Frames Foundry module, which makes your token frames (and others) available to Foundry users via the Tokenizer module. I'll probably drop TokenTool as a source once I've finished my versions unless you choose to integrate mine or update them yourselves.

[Azhrei]

We’d be happy to look at your overlays when your done and consider having them included. When you get to a point where you’re ready to release them, you can post a zip file here. Thank you for your efforts in this regard — everything only gets better when there are volunteers!

[yorkshirelandscape]

Happy to help. They're coming along nicely.

[yorkshirelandscape]

Hi Azhrei. Here's the zip file. Let me know if you'd like me to make any replacements or edits or, if you'd like to make some yourself, I can provide you with the GIMP XCF files. Almost all of the originals are represented. Some are not if I couldn't really make out what the original was going for. Some are rather different from how they started out. There are even a few things I added that sort of kept to the spirit of the originals. Let me know what you think.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5lv5tbz7wfrnbp4/frames.zip?dl=1

[Azhrei]

Thanks; I'll look at these and run them by the team asap. Please keep the Gimp originals as those will be what we will want to add to the official repository.

[Azhrei]

I've looked at them (as has another team member). They appear to be upscaled images, but not new ones. Upscaling isn't going to help much in terms of visuals of properly scaled overlays unless they're really done right. That means removing artifacts of the scaling process, removing stray marks which were enlarged when scaling up, and so on. There is a difference in how some of the rings are colored, but maybe those were in the originals (I haven't looked), such as the bottlecap_red.png having a silver outline while others are colored the same as the bottle cap color.

I'm not a graphics expert by any stretch (!) but the top-center of the chain images show the results of the scaling and they're not pretty. When you said you were recreating them, I had envisioned a new set of overlays without any of the peculiarities of the existing ones. Did you have any plans to rebuild them (from scratch?) to resolve these artifacts?

(There's also the loss of the mask, but I presume you know the final results would need to be PSD or some other format that preserves the layer mask.)

[yorkshirelandscape]

Gosh, I thought I had done a better job than that. I'm sorry you're not too taken with them. They're actually not upscales of the originals, though I'm pleased that they look enough like them to pass for it. They're almost all created with MidJourney, often using the original as an image prompt, but that only gives it a vague understanding of what it should look like. The text prompt provided matters just as much, and then you've still got to keep running it until you find a good one and clean it up and add the transparency. I'm not sure what you mean about the mask. These are all PNGs with transparency, so they should work as overlays. I did actually create all the new runes frames from scratch. The text is a dwarven aphorism in khuzd.

You're right about the border of the red bottlecap not being nicely colored like the others. I'll revisit that one. I can definitely do some smoothing of the edges of the chains. I agree they could be better. Oh and I just noticed those vertical bars on all the gears. Sorry about that.

Anyway, I'll give everything another pass and try to clean up any imperfections I see. I'll provide the XCF files with the next batch. Is there anything that you did like particularly?

[Azhrei]

Gosh, I thought I had done a better job than that. I'm sorry you're not too taken with them.

Sorry if that sounded harsh. I had envisioned some masterpiece of artwork; I wasn't familiar with MidJourney (although I've read up on it now) and I thought it was some paint program or something. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I did like the color selection. I suppose you'll build a mask for things like the bottle caps and chains and then use color fill on them to speed things up? (The masks will be necessary anyway so that TT can properly apply the overlay.) And I definitely appreciate the higher resolution — it'll bring a desire to really zoom in on the tokens to see the detail. :)

I realize it'll take time to clean that stuff up, so don't feel obligated. :) Or just do a few instead of all of them at the beginning...?

[yorkshirelandscape]

We should talk about the technical requirements of the overlays. I've got XCF files for all of these, but the way I imagined you needed them was just as PNGs with transparency. If there's more to it, I'm sure I can make it happen, but I'd need to understand it first.

I did create color fill masks in a single master XCF for the gear, chain, and bottlecap. I probably would have done the smooth ones the same way if I had figured out how at that point. I should be able to get things cleaned up fairly soon. I'll let you know.

[Phergus]

All new overlays for TokenTool should be Photoshop (.psd) files which you can also make with Gimp.

Recommend you look at this guide for making overlays: https://wiki.rptools.info/index.php/Creating_TokenTool_Overlays

It appears that Midjourney is creating these against a solid white background which is why the edges of them are so bad. If you can't tell it to create them with transparent backgrounds perhaps something other than white.

[yorkshirelandscape]

Oh, this is excellent. Thank you Phergus. I'll produce them in this format. And yeah, the edges could be better on some of them. I'm not a graphic artist, either, Frank, so I'm learning as I go along.

[yorkshirelandscape]

Unfortunately, MidJourney doesn't seem to know how to create transparent backgrounds. I believe I had tried that before, but just confirmed it now. The problem I run into with using another color background is that they wind up looking like this.

[Azhrei]

I'm not a graphic artist, either, Frank, so I'm learning as I go along.

Heh-heh, now you know why I was so excited about getting some new ones! There's a real time investment here if you really want good-looking output...

[yorkshirelandscape]

Sorry I've been out of touch for a while. Picking this back up. Hopefully updates soon.