Omnimaga

Calculator Community => Discontinued => Major Community Projects => Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth => Topic started by: Zera on May 08, 2010, 10:13:40 pm

Title: Designing a PDF game manual (resolved)
Post by: Zera on May 08, 2010, 10:13:40 pm
I've gone over several attempts to create a manual for the game using rich text-editors, but I can't do anything right. When I want to insert an image, the text formatting gets screwed-up, I can't resize or align the image the way I want, or there's some other issue I can't resolve. Inserting tables is even more tedious - it's all jumbled or misaligned. I also hate how the formatting seems to reset between every word, or how using multiple formatting settings between sentences and paragraphs just causes everything in the document to bug-out. Suffice it to say, I neither have the patience nor ability to produce this. :P

That's where you come in. I need a volunteer (with experience creating eBooks, or other documents with rich formatting and images) to help produce a game manual. I will supply all the details and images for you to use. It would be a matter of you inserting it into the document and arranging everything to look neat and presentable; then outputting a PDF file that we can distribute with the game. I can't offer you any real compensation for your time and effort, since the project is entirely a community effort anyway; you will, however, be credited in the game's own ending sequence.

Any takers?
Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: Geekboy1011 on May 08, 2010, 10:27:09 pm
if i wasnt so busy with school atm i would be willing to take a try at it
 if the info is all set already i could try to get a rtf of it idk how to make pdf though ive always had good luck with msword so
Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: Hot_Dog on May 08, 2010, 10:37:19 pm
I can't do any typing or designing information.  However, if all the text and images are supplied, I will gladly create the pdf.
Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: Zera on May 08, 2010, 10:40:02 pm
I can't do any typing or designing information.  However, if all the text and images are supplied, I will gladly create the pdf.

Do you have experience with this kind of design? Any samples or works you can post here?
Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: Hot_Dog on May 08, 2010, 10:54:13 pm
I can't do any typing or designing information.  However, if all the text and images are supplied, I will gladly create the pdf.

Do you have experience with this kind of design? Any samples or works you can post here?

I left my sample back at my college computer, so I can have it for you tomorrow
Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: meishe91 on May 08, 2010, 10:56:43 pm
I could probably do it. No guarantees but I'd like to at least give it a try if you would like me to :)
Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on May 08, 2010, 11:21:49 pm
I hear you, I spent like 20 hours on ROL3 readme cuz of the same reasons. 3 years later I discovered it only opened right in Word 2000 x.x

Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: Geekboy1011 on May 09, 2010, 12:43:45 am
wow bit ironic is that i still use word 2000
>.>
<.<

and gluck with this ^)^
Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: Hot_Dog on May 09, 2010, 01:09:08 am
Incidentally, I'll still be ready with a sample for you tomorrow, but if it is enough to show you what I'm capable of doing, here's a link to a manual that I didn't do, but what I'm capable of doing given the resources:

http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.2104
Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: Zera on May 09, 2010, 01:06:17 pm
I don't need anything as robust as the SC manual - just some images and tables inserted neatly into the document.

It's going to be fairly short, but I want to outline a few example screens of things like status effects and elemental property, have small pictures of character portraits in the character bio section, and a full-page view of the Escheron overworld.

I need to go ahead and start working on all the text / descriptions. Is this something we could discuss over e-mail?
Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: Hot_Dog on May 09, 2010, 01:14:48 pm
Here's the sample with picture/table alignment. 

Yes, email will be great.  If you have another method such as IM, that will work too. Otherwise I'll send my email to you via private message.
Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on May 09, 2010, 02:44:28 pm
(I like this design btw)
Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: Zera on May 09, 2010, 03:22:54 pm
That looks perfect. :)

Let me go ahead and get these descriptions down, and I'll PM you later asking for your e-mail.
Title: Re: Help Wanted: Designing a PDF game manual
Post by: Zera on May 31, 2010, 03:21:27 pm
Special thanks to Hot Dog for providing a game manual. I did a bit of final editing on it, myself. (mostly just grammar I had overlooked, and spacing)

Let me know what you guys think.
Title: Re: Designing a PDF game manual (resolved)
Post by: ztrumpet on May 31, 2010, 06:09:04 pm
Wow, that's really nice!  I really like how some of the effects (like Monk's Blood) develop over time.  I can't wait to see what you do next. :D
Title: Re: Designing a PDF game manual (resolved)
Post by: TIfanx1999 on May 31, 2010, 06:44:00 pm
Looks nice. Good job with the manual guys! ^^
Title: Re: Designing a PDF game manual (resolved)
Post by: Hot_Dog on May 31, 2010, 06:52:41 pm
How were you able to make those changes, by the way?
Title: Re: Designing a PDF game manual (resolved)
Post by: Zera on May 31, 2010, 07:05:31 pm
How were you able to make those changes, by the way?

I used a PDF-editor. It handles the document like a rich-text editor, basically.
Title: Re: Designing a PDF game manual (resolved)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on May 31, 2010, 11:30:44 pm
Wow great job so far! Glad to see progress on this :)