Crucifix

Hi all, new member here.

Was an avid gamer years ago, started on basic D&D, moved on to advanced and second edition. Did Traveller and COC and a bit of Aliens.

As an oldie I've decided to jump back in again and bought this program. Loving at the mo and I think my first campaign will be COC 'the haunting'.

I want to use CC3+ to generate or re generate the maps for The Haunting. To that end I need some crucifix symbols, I've tried using the symbol manager but when I import a PNG and try to use it the symbol has a big white border around it and I can't figure out how to isolate just the symbol itself. Can anyone help in how to do this (I'm using Paint) or point me towards some symbols I can use?

Comments

  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
    Ideally, you should make the area outside the symbol transparent in your image editor. Unfortunately, as far as I know, Paint is not capable of doing this, so it is not really a good program to make symbols in.

    The other option is to tell CC3+ to make a certain color transparent when importing. If you click the Bitmap options button when you are in the import png's dialog, you can control transparency. If you set it to use the upper left corner, that means that all pixels with that color will be transparent. This will probably work fine for something drawn in paint, but be aware that it will only do that EXACT color, which is a big problem if your image has been antialiased, since that usually means colors are blended around the border of the actual symbol, usually resulting in a light or dark halo, because the pixels are a slightly different color.
  • JMunsonIIJMunsonII Traveler
    Gimp is a free image editor that has a tremendous amount of power. It does have a bit of a learning curve, but lots of resources exist to step you through things. Give it a shot!
  • @Tonnichiwa,


    Yep, that did it, brill thanks.

    I tried Gimp but it's fiendish difficult!
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer
    LOL! I know what you mean about GIMP, but its really great at making things like symbols once you get the hang of it ;)
  • taustinoctaustinoc Surveyor
    To have a transparent background, you need the image to be a PNG. JPEG doesn't support transparent colors.

    If you want an easier to use program to do simple stuff, take a look at Photoshop Elements (not the full Photoshop, which is $700+, IIRC). It has some very smart tools to select various pieces of the image to delete, then save as a PNG. There's still a bit of a learning curve, but it's much shallower than GIMP.

    (And if you do digital photography, it's the way to go unless you want to spend a lot more money.)
  • I'm glad it helped Delbert.

    So I've got a question for those of you using Gimp. Do you need a plug in to change the background of a piece of art into a transparent background when you are using Gimp or is there something built into the program to do so? I haven't been able to find anything in the program that works for that so any help is very appreciated.
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
    That's doable in base gimp. Do you have the tome, there is a tutorial on doing just that in the symbols chapter (in the part about finding symbols on the net)
  • Oh ok, cool! I haven't read the symbols section in the new tome yet. I've been concentrating on Cities and Perspectives.

    Thank you Monsen!
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer
    edited May 2017
    If you don't have the Tome, or you learn easier by watching someone else do it, this video is probably one of the clearer ones to show you how to make the background transparent in GIMP

    This is a link to a video on YouTube

    It does go rattling on a bit towards the end about stuff that isn't really all that relevant to CC3 symbol making, but it covers the main methods you can use without getting too technical about the whole thing with masks and what have you.
  • Thank you Sue, this is very helpful :)
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