Acquire button images

[blackshadowshade]

We need images for all the buttons, so that we can display them in the game.

[blackshadowshade]

http://cheapass.com/node/39 has many of the pictures

[ManvilleFog]

I think I have them on a backup disk from one of my old PCs. I'll look for them and get them to you.

[cgolubi1]

Oops, the comment i made on #427 really belongs here: can the images be 150x150 instead of 100x100? There's no rush --- i can easily scale up the existing ones for demo purposes.

[ManvilleFog]

I'll have them for you by the end of the day today. I'll try your trick of using a second working directory to keep my changes isolated. I'll create a separate folder for 150x150 images - maybe this is something that should be a user preference? Or would you rather I overwrite the images that are there?

[cgolubi1]

I found a tiny number of images at the wayback machine, but they are 150x150, so might as well use 'em. 3 down, ...several to go:

• https://web.archive.org/web/20070225162909/http://www.buttonmen.dhs.org/gfx/BM/Pikathulhu.jpg
• https://web.archive.org/web/20070225084857/http://www.buttonmen.dhs.org/gfx/BM/Cheese_Weasel.jpg
• https://web.archive.org/web/20070404090209/http://www.buttonmen.dhs.org/~bm/gfx/BM/Cthulhu.jpg

[cgolubi1]

Also, randomdice's roster (http://www.randomdice.com/games/buttonmen/roster.asp) has a number of images, if you click the "Pictures" radio button you can see them. What's there are all 150x150

[AdmiralJota]

And they do have consistently non-transparent backgrounds, which could make the notion of using color-coded backgrounds in the UI tricky, unless someone here is particularly good at editing backgrounds out of images.

[yawetag]

It would probably be easier to copy/paste the non-background part of the image to a new, transparent background. I don't know, though - I have little knowledge in graphic design.

[jl8e]

Either way ought to be fairly easy, really. (Not that I know how to do it, but it’s the sort of operation that’s pretty basic.)

[irilyth]

I am way not an image processing expert, but if no one else is either, I can certainly do simple stuff like draw a circle around part of an image, copy it to a new transparent background, and save the file. :^)

[AdmiralJota]

I was under the impression that there would be tricky bits involving anti-aliasing and shadows, but if someone can make them look good without worrying too much about those things, I will certainly not argue with results.

[cgolubi1]

Hmm, so, over on ticket #520, i found an imagemagick command to make round images. I just used it to give Jota some images he could use for his demo, but is there any reason that same command wouldn't work to transform all the images?

[irilyth]

No clue; if that works, that's great. :^)

[AdmiralJota]

I think we ought to pick a few decent-looking 150px images (like http://www.randomdice.com/games/buttonmen/bmimages/hale.jpg or http://www.randomdice.com/games/buttonmen/bmimages/bunnies.jpg or http://www.randomdice.com/games/buttonmen/bmimages/patience.jpg) and compare the before and after versions to see how they turn out.

[cgolubi1]

Okay, so i downloaded hale, cropped the image to make a 130px-130px "hale_cropped.png", containing only the actual button (sigh, there goes my unscaled 150x150 idea again, since those button images aren't actually 150x150), and ran:

convert hale_cropped.png \( +clone -threshold -1 -negate -fill white -draw "circle 65,65 65,0" \) -alpha off -compose copy_opacity -composite hale_circ.png

[ManvilleFog]

I posted on Origins asking for art assets, and started a buttonmen online group on facebook to get some help. I got a quick response and now have images for the Bar Mitzvah set, plus some more background on it. Yay! With luck I'll have Geekz assets, and maybe a Geekz 2 set, soon.

Anyhow, this is what I'm still missing:

button	set
Abe Caine	2003 Rare-Promos
Amara Wintersword	2004 Origins
Beatnik Turtle	2004 Origins
Captain Bingo	2004 Origins
Oni	2004 Origins
Spite	2004 Origins
Super Germ	2004 Origins
Delt	2004 Origins
Reggie	2004 Origins
Rold	2004 Origins
Kitty Cat Seven	2005 Rare Promo
Sylvia Branham	2005 Rare Promo
Kolat	Everything to Gain
Ninja	Everything to Gain
Tenchi	Tenchi Muyo!
Kagato	Tenchi Muyo!
Ayeka	Tenchi Muyo!
Ryoko	Tenchi Muyo!
Mihoshi	Tenchi Muyo!
Soja's Guardians	Tenchi Muyo!
Kiyone	Tenchi Muyo!
Ryo-Ohki	Tenchi Muyo!
Washu	Tenchi Muyo!
Dr. Clay	Tenchi Muyo!
Sasami	Tenchi Muyo!
Zero	Tenchi Muyo!
Frankie	Las Vegas
Lola	Las Vegas
Sly	Las Vegas
WildCard	Las Vegas
Black Jack	Las Vegas
Craps	Las Vegas
Shamrock	Las Vegas
PaiGow	Las Vegas
Magician	Las Vegas
Unicorn	Legend of the Five Rings
Alice	Wonderland
Mad Hatter	Wonderland
Queen Of Hearts	Wonderland
The Jabberwock	Wonderland
Tweedledum+dee	Wonderland
White Rabbit	Wonderland
Caine	Geekz
Cammy Neko	Geekz
Sailor Man	Geekz
Xylene	Geekz
Chairman Kaga	Iron Chef
Iron Chef Chinese	Iron Chef
Iron Chef French	Iron Chef
Iron Chef Italian	Iron Chef
Iron Chef Japanese	Iron Chef
Anger	7 deadly sins
Envy	7 deadly sins
Gluttony	7 deadly sins
Greed	7 deadly sins
Lust	7 deadly sins
Pride	7 deadly sins
Sloth	7 deadly sins
Audrey	Chicago Crew
Cheathem	Chicago Crew
Flint	Chicago Crew
Lizzie	Chicago Crew
Monty Brown	Chicago Crew
Octavia	Chicago Crew
Spooky	Chicago Crew
Death	Four Horsemen
Famine	Four Horsemen
Pestilence	Four Horsemen
War	Four Horsemen
CynCyn	Free Radicals
Loren	Free Radicals
Lorrie	Free Radicals
Maskin	Free Radicals
Randy	Free Radicals
Tony	Free Radicals
BabyBM	Hodge Podge
Bull	Hodge Podge
Butthead	Hodge Podge
Button of Loathing	Hodge Podge
Craptacualr	Hodge Podge
Crosswords	Hodge Podge
Da Pimp	Hodge Podge
Darth Maul	Hodge Podge
Eeyore	Hodge Podge
Evil Robot Luke	Hodge Podge
Ferretboy	Hodge Podge
Holiday	Hodge Podge
Horde O Ninjas	Hodge Podge
Jose	Hodge Podge
Loki	Hodge Podge
Marilyn Monroe	Hodge Podge
Miser	Hodge Podge
Qui-Gon Jinn	Hodge Podge
Skomp	Hodge Podge
The Tick	Hodge Podge
Thor	Hodge Podge
Tilili	Hodge Podge
Trogdor	Hodge Podge
Tyler Durden	Hodge Podge

[ManvilleFog]

FYI, the facebook group is https://www.facebook.com/groups/buttonmenonline

[jl8e]

I have a lot of the Origins buttons as actual buttons.

IIRC, the Tenchi set were never actually released due to licensing.

Most of the missing sets were customs for the old site, so you’ll probably need to get them from Skeeve or Peace.

[Caligari]

I've got the Unicorn button and could photograph it, if that would help? I don't seem to have the others, which is a shame!

[ManvilleFog]

Thank you, Julian and Caligari.
. . . BTW, one of my personal brain care specialists is named Caligari. She's a clinician, not a doctor, but I suppose it's possible she keeps a somnambulist in a cabinet. ;o)

I expect a scan of Unicorn within a day, but it doesn't hurt to have more than one image source. You can send me a photo so I have more than one source to choose from, or wait to see if I can use the scan before you get out your camera. Either way, thanks.

---

Is anyone in contact with Skeeve or Peace? Every set on the list below Iron Chef contains "made for this site" die types, so they're the ones that we'll most likely only get from someone with access to the old site files. I think Iron Chef was made for the site, also, but I'm not sure if it had images or flavor text.

If anyone talks to Skeeve or Peace, please ask if they have the fanatics files, too. That would rock!

I've been focusing on button images, but we should probably get flavor text as well.

[jl8e]

It’ll be a little while before I have access to a scanner, and I don’t have any great cameras. (iphone 4 and an older standalone) I’ll also have to find my buttons.

Iron Chef was made for the site, and there was art and flavor text.

[jl8e]

OK; I found my secret stash of Button Men.

Of the Origins buttons, I have all of them but Amara Wintersword, Oni and Captain Bingo. (I also have the Killer Christmas Tree, which my memory says was also part of the Origins promos that year, and the Cheese Weasel, which I assume you have.)

If we want an original file for Beatnik Turtle, we might want to try reaching Famous.

I might be able to get an original for Spite — I’ll probably run into the Smirk and Dagger Games guy at Dreamation next week.

[ManvilleFog]

I have the Tenchi Muyo! set. Even thought they weren't released Kuni has set history from the designers including button mock-ups! He also sent me Las Vegas (it turns out Magician is also known as Crypto, so that needs to change to match Showgirl vs. Lola) (and I think I'm going to redo the art anyway because they are just blank circles with dice and special rules text), Alice in Wonderland (which I'll also probably rework into color from the b/w scans), plus Nodwick photos that are most likely better than the ones I took. He also sent me Order of the Dolls and Blademasters (just the 1st of 3 Blademaster sets) which are on my list of unofficial sets to add to the database! They're fuzzy scans, but I have my friend, G, touching up the Metamorpher scans fan me - I'll see if he can do these as well.

[ManvilleFog]

Question: on button images that just have the image and no recipe, should I add the recipe or leave as-is? This includes the two Space Girlz buttons and metamorphers, and maybe more.

Also, my source image for Changeling (soldiers rare) is low-res (it's the one from the randomdice site). If anyone has the a better source, or the button please send me an image.

Last note: so far I've been sizing the images to match size and placement of the nice looking 150x150 images I found, including the size of the drop-shadow. The size of the actual button in these is only 138x138, leaving a lot of blank space around the sides of the image. I changed my script so the button on drop shadow make use of the full 150x150 image size.

@AdmiralJota if it's ok I'll send you some of the larger images for you to code some mock-ups using them. For the smaller images you can grab them from my repo, or from the default image thread. I want to make sure the transparencies and drop-shadows work against the different colored backgrounds, as well as have a comparison of the two image sizes.

For now I'll make new images using the larger size, and redo the already completed images last. (larger size is referring to the button - they're all 150x150 images)

[AdmiralJota]

Sure, I can stick them in to my mockups.

[jl8e]

Scans of the ones I listed above, plus Unicorn are at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g064on3q24d8mtr/02KIQjB-Cu They’re saved as PDF, since the only other option was jpeg when scanning straight to a memory card (which was convenient). If better formats are needed, it shouldn’t be a problem.

[ManvilleFog]

Thanks. Update to missing button image sources: I now have all Las Vegas, Tenchi Muyo!, 2005 Rares, and all of 2004 Origins except for Captain Bingo and Oni. I also have the Alice, the Hatter, the Queen & the Rabbit from Wonderland (and I'm not concerned about getting the rest - I think the source images are public domain so I can recreate them). Unicorn and Abe Cain are also acquired. Thanks go to Jl8e, ElihuRoot, and Kuni.

ignoring the made for the old site buttons for now, this is what I still need:

button	set
Captain Bingo	2004 Origins
Oni	2004 Origins
Kolat	Everything to Gain
Ninja	Everything to Gain
The Jabberwock	Wonderland
Tweedledum+dee	Wonderland
Caine	Geekz
Cammy Neko	Geekz
Sailor Man	Geekz
Xylene	Geekz

. . . and mostly just the 4 at the top of the list. Bryce from 4th Blade said he'll dig up the Geekz images when he gets a chance.

[jl8e]

The Wonderland source images were the Tenniel illustrations, so definitely public domain.

Is it worth asking the Smirk and Dagger guy if he has a digital image for the Spite button, or is the scan sufficient?

[ManvilleFog]

The scans are good, thanks. : D

[ManvilleFog]

Woot! Turns out I have Ninja and Kulat - they're just not labeled on the buttons.

[ManvilleFog]

These are the metamorphers. Can someone please verify that these are Daisy, JingJing, Mau, Spencer, and Talus in that order? Also, should I add their names and recipes to the button images?

Thanks. : D

[Ahdiomer]

If I read it correctly in Rhea Shelley's Button Men: The Book, the order should be Daisy, Mau, Talus, Jingjing, Spencer. Names would be fine, but I'm not so sur about the formular as they would probably cover too much of Jingjing's, Spencer's and Talus' faces.

[ManvilleFog]

Thanks.
I can mirror the image to provide space for the recipes. That doesn't mean I should. I guess I'll try it and see how it looks.

[blackshadowshade]

So, I've managed to start up some player-driven button image acquisition and processing, and I'm optimistic that this might actually bring us loads of images.

I've also asked alwayslurking whether he's willing to write a short wiki for us to say how he processes the scanned images within Gimp.

[Hurtay]

I've met (via chat) a player with quite a few physical buttons he'll scan for me. Sadly none of them is a button we haven't got the image of yet. So I'll try to improve the images we've got already. If anyone somehow finds new images I now can get them into the right format with lightreflex/shadow etc.

[blackshadowshade]

@Hurtay pointed me to some interesting button art online at BoardGameGeek:

• EuroGames set (using Soldiers recipes): https://boardgamegeek.com/image/337399/button-men
• Ameritrash set (using Soldiers recipes): https://boardgamegeek.com/image/337400/button-men
• BoardGameGeek button: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/1411068/button-men

The buttons themselves don't bring any interesting gameplay, in my opinion, but the art might be interesting for some of you.

[blackshadowshade]

I'm going to close this, since I think we've pretty much got all the images that we're going to get. Any further images can be added as we find them.