I can explain any step in better detail later if necessary.
Step 1: find a graphics program
I use GIMP. Its fun, pretty easy, and its Freeware.
http://www.gimp.org/ I love the thing
Step 2: resize your photos to whatever resolution you'll want
Pretty self-explanatory
Step3: create a basic "unit card"
I did this by doing the following: I created a new "layer" (so that I'm working
with a new movable piece within the picture) and selected an area of 60x60
pixels. GIMP allow you to round your selection areas, so I did this to give the
card more of a friedlier more professional feel to it. I then used the fill
tool to paint the entire area with a single colour. Be sure to name these
layers something easily selfexplanatory, so that you can quickly find them
later.
Step 4: making unit-specific cards
I then searched the web for suitable pics to use as unit cards. Aside from the
corona effect on the stealthsuits, all of the pictures on the unit cards here
were found on the web. To make things easier on yourself, you'll generally want
to look for images with white backgrounds. "Why," you ask? Because we need to
extract the image next. Take the image you took from the web (we're working in
a different file than the batrep for now), you'll want to erase all the white.
GIMP makes this easy by having a script called "Color to Alpha" (Your Alpha
Chanel is your transparancies). Choose white, and it will do the majority of
your work for you. You may need to take the eraser to clean up a little bit (or
use it a lot if this method doesn't work), but that is the fastest way if you
have the right image. Once that is done, you'll want to resize this picture so
that it will fit on your unit card. I'll use one of two things, sometimes in
combination. For ... say ... the hammerhead shark that I used for my railguns,
all I did was resize the image so that it was a little smaller than 60px in both
directions. Poof, done
On the other hand, the crisis suits required me to
select an area (of equal height and width), remove (via the "crop" function) the
rest of the image, then resize and round the corners (using the good old GIMP
"round corners" script. Did I mention that I like this program?). Either way,
once I've created my appropriately sized image, I personally also colourized the
image (there are a number of ways to do this. experiment
) so that the cards
would draw a little less focus. Once you have the appropriate image at the
appropriate size, its a matter of going to your batrep picture, making a copy of
the generic unit card, pasting in the new image, and merging the two layers.
Name the layer appropriately.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Step 5: Creating the batrep picture.
So you should now have a background of your photo, with a whole mess of little
unit cards scattered about. The first thing we want to do is save this entire
monstrocity as a copy somewhere where it won't be touched (use the "save as
copy"). This is so we can always return at least to this point if you mess up.
In fact, saving often is good. Use the typical "Save early, save often,
distribute widely" theorum here. Save your progress in stages, just in case you
don't like what you've done on the last few steps. Save as a file that can hold
layers (GIMP uses .xcf by default, but .psds are good too).
Okay, now to actually making the batrep picture. Again, you've a background
photo, and a whole mess of little cards. First, we want to hide any cards we
aren't using in the final picture (i.e. the "generic" unit cards). You can do
this by going to your layer dock and clicking on the little eye beside those
layers. Easily done. Next, we want to move all the unit card to the positions
that you want them to be in the batrep pic. If you want to make stacks of cards
you may have to change the order of your layers in the stack so that the
uppermost cards are also higher in the layer dock. Next we want to merge all
the unit cards, but not the background. Do this by hiding the background (using
the same process that you used to hide the generic cards), and then using the
"merge all visible layers" function, expanding as necessary. This will make one giant
layer with all the unit cards. Next I personally dropped the opacity of this
layer to about 50-60% (using the slider bar up at the top of the layer list),
again to draw the focus a little away from the unit cards and make it possible
to see what is behind the cards. Finally I flattened the image (by making the
background visible again and then using the "flatten image" function) so that we
have only one layer. Save as a .jpg (best combination of quality and size), and
you're done!
To make the next pic, just undo the last few steps until you have all the
individual unit cards again, move the cards of the units that moved in the last
turn, paste in a new background (and move it down the layer list so that it is
behind all the unit cards), and repeat all the steps again
Phew! I hope this is coherent enough. Let me know if you've any questions.
