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Old 23-11-07, 04:34   #1
GeckoKid
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Default Custom Font Tutorial

http://www.larashome.com/forums/inde...howtopic=25287

Hello, since there's this amazing tool that we can now customise fonts in trle, here's a small tutorial on how to make a custom font set for yourself.

note that this doesn't include how to put it into your fonts.pc or how to align them in leikkuri, as they are included in the readme.

tools you'll need

Photoshop (here I use 7, but it doesn't really matter what you use, unless it's really ancient i suppose; as far as i remember photoshop 4 already has layer masks)
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Old 23-11-07, 04:37   #2
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First step.

Type out all the conceivable text that the original font.pc has (a tip is to export the tga and reference it to the side)

Note how the layers are spread: the top one is just those useless PS buttons, I don't even think you need them actually. The second one are the arrows, and the 3rd one is where you typed all the text in. The order here doesn't matter at all. Also fill the background layer with black.

However do note the text tool box above, I have set the text distance to 100, so that the text won't go too close together, you will see why in a second.



Create a layer just above the background layer, fill it with a random colour that doesn't hurt your eyes, do not choose any colour that exists within your picture tho, and don't use that scary magenta, yet.



Now right click on your text layer, and choose BLENDING OPTIONS.

Go to the stroke section, tick it, and give it a 1 pixel, outside, black stroke to give the text have a nice little outline.

(this is also why i recommend keeping the distance between letters)


(older photoshop versions may have them called differently, you can still do the same job however by ctrl+clicking the text layer and edit->stroke)
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Old 23-11-07, 04:39   #3
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do the same to the other layers if you like. (quick way is to copy the layer effects off the text layer first, then paste it on the ones you want)



Here's the fun part. (read: important and don't mess it up)

Now create a new layer above all layers.

Go to select -> colour range...

And pick the temporary background colour. The fuzziness doesn't really matter at the moment. Just don't make it too big that you select the black or the white of the picture as well. You can choose 0 to skip a step, but it could give you too many black space in the end product.

Anyway click OK when you are done.



now with the colour selected, click on Add Layer Mask.
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Old 23-11-07, 04:42   #4
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automatically the mask is selected instead of the layer itself, rectify it by clicking on the layer thumbnail. (single click it is, some people like my mom are obsessed with double-clicking)


and fill it with that horrifying 255,0,255 pink!

(if you can only pick a grey colour, you didn't select the layer instead of the mask)


getting there now.

your screen should look like this at the moment, however there are still fuzzy pink edges.
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Old 23-11-07, 04:45   #5
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select the mask again by clicking on the mask thumbnail...


go to threshold...

(adobe kinda rearranged the menu every so often in different photoshop versions, mine is 7 here, yours may be put somewhere else, but it's gotta be somewhere)


Adjust that little triangle until you see little thin lines surround the text, or to whatever you feel like.

The point of going through this step is to completely remove any transparent pink pixels. It doesn't matter what number you use here, as long as it's done, it's fine.


now hide the temporary background layer....
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Old 23-11-07, 04:47   #6
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...And you are done!

It's all up and ready to be exported as tga for fontedit to save it as font.pc!

In the case of leikkuri, I just can't imagine how you can work with that magenta for a long time, so just simply hide the magenta layer and show the temporary background layer, and save as a copy of the bmp file. as it's only a reference picture for the exe, you won't get to use it in the end, so it doesn't matter, as long as YOU get to see it properly.


There you go!

(you can have this font as a sovenieer it's a PNG file so there's no visible compression.)




Optionally if you feel very dedicated to your font, I would recommend you to use the pencil tool, use EITHER BLACK OR WHITE, and slowly smooth out the rough edges you may encounter to make it look prettier. (remember you work on the mask, not on the coloured layer itself, and i would only recommend doing it until you are completely happy with it, cos if you decide to change the font you'd have to repeat the whole colour range step again.)

Here i have fixed the Z (please, fill the magenta with some other colours when you do decide to fix it to avoid eye damage)

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Old 23-11-07, 06:06   #7
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This looks very useful! Thanks for posting.
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Old 24-11-07, 11:39   #8
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I cannot make head or tail from it. I'm pretty good with layers and such but text is not my strongest point. I have this font that I want to have. It seems that I have chosen a very difficult one cause it has many curls that bends into the zone of other letters. But that is not my main problem now. I have exactly the same values in the character window but when I type my font into the window I get a lot of space between the lines and I dont know how to get rid of that. Is my font possible at all?

Edit:solved


Last edited by Piega; 25-11-07 at 08:27.
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Old 24-11-07, 11:50   #9
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First, as you say, with all those curly descenders, it's not a suitable font -- you'll get all sorts of problems.

Second, you need to change the leading (that number 30 pt) to something much smaller.
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Old 24-11-07, 12:06   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GeckoKid View Post
Hello, since there's this amazing tool that we can now customise fonts in trle, here's a small tutorial on how to make a custom font set for yourself.
What is the name of the tool (leikkuri?) and where to download it? I just find a load of Finnish pages when searching for this name.
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