LotR-TCG Card Generator using nanDECK

[Cw0rk]

That's strange...

[Cw0rk]

Hi again. I think that I have managed to target where the issue might come from. When I generate site cards using "original" size, the problem happens. When I use "double" size, it does not. I am not sure how to fix it though.

[TelTura]

Aha, well that narrows it down.  Turns out the FOTR block symbol is mis-named in the Original-sized template folder (and so nanDECK doesn't find it and it turns up missing).  I'll get a release out that fixes this shortly.

[Cw0rk]

Aha, well that narrows it down.  Turns out the FOTR block symbol is mis-named in the Original-sized template folder (and so nanDECK doesn't find it and it turns up missing).  I'll get a release out that fixes this shortly.

In the meanwhile, as a quick fix, can you please let me know how I should rename that symbol? Thank you!

[TelTura]

By "shortly" I meant right then, but then I fell asleep, lol.  Here is the release, two versions back to back which includes this fix.  See the OP for links.

If you have any questions or problems, please let me know here and I will address them as soon as I see them.


Card Generator v1.4.0 Update

See links in the OP.

This release includes various fixes as submitted on GitHub.

If you have a previous version installed then close nanDECK, make sure to back up your card_portraits and card_output folders and cards.csv, then copy-paste the contents of the zip into your existing installation folder.

Change Log:

• Added customizable setting key for non-breaking space.
• Added oversampling by default to the original size templates.
• Added support for custom site 'cultures' instead of using the hard-coded template name 'site'.

Card Generator v1.4.1 Update

See links in the OP.

This release includes a fix for the site icon issue above.

If you have 1.4.0 installed, you only need to replace the templates folder for this bugfix.

Change Log:

• Fixed an issue where the Original-sized templates had an incorrectly named FOTR block icon, meaning that sites did not display the icon when exported at that size.

[TelTura]

Card Generator v1.5.0 Update

Biggest changes today are the inclusion of support for Promo text and Helper text, both demonstrated helpfully by Aragorn, Swift Hunter (0P125):

original (scan):



generated:



As you can see, the promo text is not a perfect fit, but that's because each promo was lovingly crafted by hand, and so there is no one-size-fits-all solution.  This font included is "close enough" in both size and shape.



See download links in the OP.

Documentation in a PDF with the release, or here on Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cNroWUOQIsaYW1oCn4Mb5EtAfMQXgrekxR5INhLkkYc/edit?usp=sharing

If you have a previous version installed then close nanDECK, make sure to back up your cards.csv and card_portraits / card_output folders, then copy-paste the contents of the zip into your existing installation folder. Make sure that includes the nanDECK folder, as there is a new font.

Change Log:

• Added support for overriding the text color of the type bar or the title/subtitle separately from the rest of the game text.  To do this, include the "title_color_override" or "type_color_override" columns and provide a standard hex color.  These values will default to what is already normally provided in game_text_color, but can be further overridden here if needed.
• Added promo text support.  You can now include a "promo_text" column to place bold text at the bottom of the card, similar to the dAgent and other promo cards.
• Added helper text support.  Game text with the <helper></helper> tags around it will be rendered in slightly smaller italic text matching the helper text used in the originals.
• Included new font which approximates the original promo text (but which is not really all that close). 
• Sites which have a pre-rotated image can now use the "no_rotate" tag to prevent the generator from rotating the portrait.
• Rarities of O will now be replaced with the ring icon
• fixed onering templates erroring out if they also had the full_art tag
• fixed onering templates not supporting full_portrait mode
• adjusted collector's info positioning
• temporarily removed some of the smart quote parsing pending a fix from the nanDECK dev
• added autobolding for the Ring-bearer keyword
• added promo font setting
• Fixed some issues with inconsistent and unnecessary spacing between game text sections
• Decreased the size of game text symbols to eliminate extra line spacing occurring because of them
• Updated the documentation

[TelTura]

Card Generator v1.6.0 Update

This release addresses a number of small spacing and culture icon bugs, which hopefully should now all be squashed forever, but we'll see.

In addition, there are two new features.  First, a new game_text_scale column has been introduced, which scales everything in the game text area, which includes normal game text, helper text, lore, promo text, and culture icons:



The left has a game_text_scale of 0.5, and the right has a value of 1.5.  Use this to scale all text to fit as needed, tho hopefully this is used with caution and restraint and not to create cards man was not meant to own.

I'm watching you.

The second major feature is the ability to add custom decorative icons to the card, such as the Weta and king countdown icons on the two Bombadillos below:



These image icons are now included, and custom one may be provided.  See the documentation for the new custom_icon column for details on how to do that.

For reference, here are the original icons:









See download links in the OP.

Documentation in a PDF with the release, or here on Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cNroWUOQIsaYW1oCn4Mb5EtAfMQXgrekxR5INhLkkYc/edit?usp=sharing

If you have a previous version installed then close nanDECK, make sure to back up your cards.csv and card_portraits / card_output folders, then copy-paste the contents of the zip into your existing installation folder. Make sure that includes the templates folder, as there are some new icons.

Change Log:

• Fixed culture icons using the wrong font size, which lead to cards having extra space between lines
• Altered block symbol detection to permit a different sizing between the type bar ("Home 3T") and game text
• Added new column "display_type", which overrides the name displayed for the card type.  This permits alternate languages or template-compatible variants to use existing layouts.
• Added new ally_home_label setting which controls how the "Home X" label is displayed for Allies.  This is mostly intended to be used for alternate languages.
• Added new column "game_text_scale" which is a multiplier for the game text, helper text, lore, and promo text areas.
• Updated example files to reflect recent column changes

[TelTura]

Card Generator v1.7.0 Update

What a productive weekend.

Most of the changes in this release are bug fixes, but there is one major change that I would advise you pay attention to, and that's the change to a couple of tags.

The full_art and full_portrait tags are unfortunately named, and this came to a head this weekend while debugging.  I have added new aliases for these tags, and would advise that you alter any of your spreadsheets to use these new names:

full_art -> no_template
full_portrait -> portrait_backdrop

To further help explain what's what, I've added an extensive section to the documentation named No Template vs Portrait Backdrop, which I would advise reading if you're looking to make Full Art cards in the future. 

For now the old tags can still be used, but some time in the future I may end up removing the old ones, as they just aren't very good at explaining what's going on.



See download links in the OP.

Documentation in a PDF with the release, or here on Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cNroWUOQIsaYW1oCn4Mb5EtAfMQXgrekxR5INhLkkYc/edit?usp=sharing

If you have a previous version installed then close nanDECK, make sure to back up your cards.csv and card_portraits / card_output folders, then copy-paste the contents of the zip into your existing installation folder. Make sure that includes the nanDECK folder, as it has been updated.

Change Log:

• Updated the included nanDECK version to 1.25.3_b16
• Due to the updated nanDECK, fixed a long-standing bug relating to single smart quotes getting interpreted backwards.
• Altered the disclaimer to use the positioned sprite version and not the standalone
• Fixed Ally card type line rendering as blank when exporting cards via batch
• Added aliases for full_art (no_template) and full_portrait (portrait_backdrop).  These should be considered the canonical tags moving forward.
• Added new [rotate_site_templates] setting, which tells the generator whether or not to rotate the site templates.  Defaults to true (since the included templates are in landscape), but can be set to False if you provide your own portrait-aligned sites.
• Updated documentation, particularly with a large section detailing the difference between no_template and portrait_backdrop.

[JamesCB]

A ran the batch and then built the deck, but the game text lines end a third of the way across the card (if that makes sense). I took a screenshot, but its too big to upload.

[TelTura]

D'oh, I know what happened. The stupid spreadsheet program got in the way again trying to be all smart about formatting.

Open cards.csv and go to the game_text_width column. Instead of 0.6 and 0.7, those values are supposed to be "60%" and "70%". You may have to force the cell formatting to "number/percentage" to get it to stop trying to be helpful.

Which is to say, these values are supposed to be telling the program "override the game text width to be 60% (or 70%) of the card width", but because there's not one spreadsheet program on the planet that can leave well enough alone, the script thinks we mean 0.6 or 0.7 of an inch instead.

I'll update the example csv after work.

(oh, and for uploading screenshots or output, go make an account at imgur.com and upload it there/link it here.)

[TelTura]

I have updated the download zip with the corrected CSV/ODS files.

Since it's such a small change, I have also attached them to this post, James.  Just place them in the same folder and overwrite the two that are already there (assuming you haven't already made additions to them).

[JamesCB]

That fixed the game text wrapping, but (so sorry for the inconvenience) there are a couple of other problems (which might all be my fault, I don't know.)

https://imgur.com/a/K5taz7M

On Steel is Steel, the game text is too big, Event • Maneuver is a little off, and apparently the Moria symbol is... a sun?
Aragorn is better, just a little too big game text, and the strength, vitality, and twilight numbers are off.

I apologize again for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Edit: I realized that Aragorn's game text doesn't have too big of a font size, it's just too long (I think)

[TelTura]

Wow, all sorts of things have gone wrong there, lol. All of that appears to be due to the custom fonts not getting used, tho the icon text being black is odd and concerning.

First, double-check that inside the nanDECK/1.25.3 folder there is a fonts folder with eight fonts. If not, copy them from the zip or from the source: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PJYPWQ4WkN8S-YGWnIUCi7IxTM-z_-Kw

If they *are* there, then we can try installing the fonts themselves (usually nanDECK picks em up no problem. Just double click each one one at a time and click the "install" button at the top, then restart nanDECK.

Try that and we'll go from there.

[JamesCB]

The fonts were there, just not installed. I installed them all and now it looks great! Thank you for all your help!

[JamesCB]

Does anyone know of a program that lets you edit CSV's, but doesn't convert them to xlsx's? Every time I open the cards.csv, it converts it an xlsx, so after I edit it I have to convert it back...