Graphics expert anyone?

[ChrisF]

I'm after a couple of really simple bits of graphic design for an online game I'm designing. I've tried in Windows Paint and a couple of others but failed. Although the designs are simple they need to be accuarately drawn so that tiles showing the graphics match up neatly when placed next to each other. Also, ideally the background should be transparent, not white. I'm hoping that for an experienced designer with the right software it's a matter of minutes!

will be rotated to give 4 directions

topright-small.jpg (5.68 KiB) Viewed 716 times

will be rotated to give 2 directions

across-small.jpg (4.96 KiB) Viewed 716 times

Can anyone help please? Thanks!

[simonineaston]

I'm hoping that for an experienced designer with the right software it's a matter of minutes!

I can relate to that! We launched a new service a couple of years ago and I tried to create some graphics using the open source app gimp, which has a lot in common with Photoshop ect ect.. However I got nowhere, I mean nowhere, whereas the team manager's daughter created a whole suite of resources in a few hours.

[[XAP]Bob]

Should be relatively easy in any actual image editor...

Googling "railway game tiles" gives a few results, it might be possible to use those as placeholders?

[bren73]

Would these do?

Curve Train Tiles.png (4.61 KiB) Viewed 581 times

Curve Train Tiles.png (4.61 KiB) Viewed 581 times

[bren73]

I've no idea why it posted one of them twice, there should be only one of each.

[ChrisF]

Should be relatively easy in any actual image editor...

Googling "railway game tiles" gives a few results, it might be possible to use those as placeholders?

Good suggestion, thanks, lots of images out there - but none that I can find that allow lining-up of adjacent tracks! Positioning the lines & curves relative to each other is critical and needs accuracy

[ChrisF]

Would these do?

Perfect, many thanks. And I just learnt that a .PNG can have a transparent background but a .JPG cannot.
In return, if you ever get stuck with a bit of javascript, maybe I can help? (although StackOverflow will probably be a better bet )
Cheers
Chris

[Manc33]

I just learnt that a .PNG can have a transparent background but a .JPG cannot.

Or GIF can

Try asking Chat GPT these things but... it's hit and miss. I've had it answering a ton of stuff recently though, stuff I'd be waiting days for the answer to on Stack Overflow / Superuser. Chat GPT, I'd take with a pinch of salt, maybe it's me not explaining what I want well enough, but as you get more answers from it, the more mistakes it makes. I've had some complicated Excel formulas out of it though, stuff I'd never be able to do on my own in a million years.

[6.5_lives_left]

PNG, GIF and JPEG are bitmap image formats.

I am not sure what you are trying to do but you might want to draw the image using a vector format. One of these is Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG).

There is a free program (zero cost, free as in freedom) called Inkscape that can be used to prepare SVG images. There are other programs too but Inkscape is the one I am familiar with. One is called Krita (again free). There is also a commercial program called Adobe Illustrator. (I haven't used these last two).

If you look on wikipedia, quite often you will see graphs and illustrations that have been prepared as SVG images. One of the features is that if you resize them, they continue to look sharp rather become pixelated at high magnification. If they contain small text, when you zoom in you can read the text.

Inkscape is quite a 'big' application. There is a learning curve to get to know how to use it. Very useful once you have learned it though.

Edit: Once the SVG is drawn, if you need a bitmap image format, you can export as a bitmap image.

[ChrisF]

Try asking Chat GPT these things but... it's hit and miss. I've had it answering a ton of stuff recently though, stuff I'd be waiting days for the answer to on Stack Overflow / Superuser. Chat GPT, I'd take with a pinch of salt, maybe it's me not explaining what I want well enough, but as you get more answers from it, the more mistakes it makes. I've had some complicated Excel formulas out of it though, stuff I'd never be able to do on my own in a million years.

Ys, I tried ChatGPT to ask it to find a bug in a simple bit of javascript. It didn't find the bug, but did introduce new ones. As you say, the more I told it, the more mistakes it made. No doubt it will improve with time but it's not there yet for this type of thing. StackOverflow have banned it.

[snip]
There is a free program (zero cost, free as in freedom) called Inkscape that can be used to prepare SVG images. Inkscape is quite a 'big' application. There is a learning curve to get to know how to use it. Very useful once you have learned it though.
[snip]

Great, thank you. Just installed InkScape and it appears to do what I need: most importantly it has rulers / guides to position things accurately. I'll use it for my next images.