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Mod Release The loading screen tips

The tips concerning cannons and culverines could be changed to mention cannons and carronades with their roles reversed.

How long have I been playing with these tips? Two weeks? I have seen most of them but many I have not seen before. I have also learned things from them.
 
I tried to create that shadow effect but it didn't work, even with the extra layers. Apparently I did something wrong. :facepalm
 
Do we need the shadows? If you redo all the tips anyway, you can come up with a new format that matches properly and easier to create. Right?
 
Baste said:
I tried to create that shadow effect but it didn't work, even with the extra layers. Apparently I did something wrong. :facepalm
Click to expand...
Which part(s) went wrong, do you think? I might be able to give some general pointers, but of course I don't know how some things would work in Photoshop.

Maybe you could give GIMP 2.8 a try? At least it's free and I could give you more specific guidance.

Pieter: some form of shadow is needed to make sure the text is legible no matter which loading screen it is displayed over.
It probably would be better for future reference to use a new standardised system to produce the shadow effects, so that future tips will fit right in with existing ones.
That would be worth doing on all the tips that need to be reworded, for sure.
 
I can create the alpha channel, I can get the text into the alpha channel, but no matter what I do, I can't get the shadow into the alpha channel. I think I found Photoshop's equivalent to the gradient blend effect you used, but it won't do anything unless there's something in the selection, so I add black, but I don't get the result you got.

If I can't get it to work eventually, I guess I'll try GIMP, but there's got to be a way to do it in Photoshop as well.
 
The shadow needs to be white. On an alpha map, black becomes transparent and white becomes solid. Does that help anything?
 
Baste said:
I can create the alpha channel, I can get the text into the alpha channel, but no matter what I do, I can't get the shadow into the alpha channel. I think I found Photoshop's equivalent to the gradient blend effect you used, but it won't do anything unless there's something in the selection, so I add black, but I don't get the result you got.
Click to expand...
Hmm. I wonder if you could get it to work this way:
1. Create a layer with an alpha channel, and add the text to that layer.
2. Create another layer below the first one, without an alpha channel at first.
3. Add the shadow effects using a black-to-white gradient (assuming the background colour is white).
4. On the same layer, exchange white for alpha (in GIMP you'd use "Colour to alpha"; I'd assume there's a similar function in PS).

In theory, that would leave you with the shadow fading from black to alpha, as it should be.

Pieter Boelen said:
The shadow needs to be white. On an alpha map, black becomes transparent and white becomes solid.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. In the example I gave, I set white as the transparent colour, but that was just to remove the default white background and introduce an alpha channel.
From there, I could add the shadow with a black-to-transparent gradient. What I suggested above does the same thing in a different order.
 
I have been busy with other things so I haven't been able to post here.

Progress! I have managed to create a shadow effect and get everything into the alpha channel. The result looks similar to the original.

The solution was to use the "Drop Shadow" blend effect. It didn't work when I first tried it, but after changing some settings it worked.

The font I found to be most like the original is Arial Narrow, but I couldn't get the color and size to match exactly.

This is how the result looks. I'm not sure about the shadow, if it should be darker or lighter. Here are three examples with the "Spread" setting at 15%, 20%, and 25% respectively. You can compare them to the original on the previous page.
 

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Unanimous so far, 15 for me too.
 
25! :razz

I'm kidding, 15 looks best to me. Nice job with the text and shadows!
 
15 it is. :) I was leaning towards that.

Now, which tips do you think should be adjusted or removed, and what do you think should be added? You can see them all on the previous page. Please write what you want the adjusted or new tips to say. Based on Hylie's suggestion, I'm changing these:

Cannons tend to have a shorter range than culverines, but they deal more damage.

When fighting a fort, you might want to install cannons on your ship rather than culverines, since the fort will outrange you with heavy artillery.

Into this:

Carronades tend to have a shorter range than cannons, but they deal more damage.

When fighting a fort, you might want to install carronades on your ship rather than cannons, since the fort will outrange you with heavy artillery.

These might need changes as well:

If you happen to get caught in a storm, always try to sail either downwind or upwind. Your ship will suffer less damage that way. The less damage you take, the higher your experience bonus will be.

When caught in a storm lower your sails to reduce damage to them.
 
Those storm ones are still true, though of course the Capsize mod has been added on top of that.

Unfortunately I don't have the time to go through the tips in detail.

Do you think you could have at least slightly updated files before the end of the weekend? That's pretty much the deadline for Build 14 Beta 2.3.
 
I was thinking that the Capsize mod might have changed that so that you now HAVE to sail against the wind, and that sails shouldn't be taken down completely.

I think I should be able to. Hopefully it won't take too long.
 
Baste said:
When caught in a storm lower your sails to reduce damage to them.
Click to expand...
Just a note on this one: it would probably be better to write this as "furl your sails" or something to that effect, as "lowering" has me thinking of setting the sails, even though it's intended to mean the opposite.
 
The capsize mod wasn't rewritten. It doesn't care whether you make speed or not. Furling sails in a headwind should be good.
 
Baste, do you have any updated files that can be included in the next update? I'm really going to have to compile it pretty much now.
 
I have been unusually busy with several things these past weeks, but I have worked on the tips whenever I could. Unfortunately, I'm still not completely finished with them, so if it really can't be delayed for another day or two, the tips will have to be included in the next update instead. :(

It's probably best to leave them out of this update, in case I don't manage to finish them this week.
 
A day or two? I'm afraid not. I'll be on the plane by then. Or almost, anyway.

So... do we include it with the original files? Or do we leave it out for now?
 
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