Hello. Looking to get started

[PrimeGoat]

Hello,

I'm a new member here.  I have recently discovered this community and would like to get involved.  Based on prior experience in a slightly different field, I know I'll be able to provide high quality covers both digitally and for physical sale, and help others with the creation of high quality work.

I'm interested in knowing what I need to do in order to get started.  Here's a list of what I think I'd need:

• Things to read, things to know, things to learn about this community and the activities involved that I'd need to familiarize myself in.
• Things to download.  For example, Shenske's template(s)?  Where would I get this?
• Sites to bookmark
• People to talk to, to get to know?
• Anything else you can recommend

Thanks in advance!  I am very excited to have found this community.  Aside from loving video games, I also love reproducing graphical prints, and have done this before but in a different capacity.  I will be posting an overview-level guide on how to make top quality covers shortly.  Afterwards, I will work on a more detailed set of instructions, and am hoping other members will contribute to this.  I believe I have some knowledge and skills that can help people out.

[Arseen]

Welcome to the site, nice posts you made.

• Things to read, things to know, things to learn about this community and the activities involved that I'd need to familiarize myself in.

Guides section altough it needs cleaning http://www.thecoverproject.net/forums/index.php?board=11.0
Raws section on the boards http://www.thecoverproject.net/forums/index.php?board=5.0 has some good raws.
The old actual raws area is dead and gone.
I scan using cheap Canon Pixma MP3550 printer/scanner using Canon's own scan software with only descreen option on.
It does decent job.

• Things to download.  For example, Shenske's template(s)?  Where would I get this?

Original "official" templates are in this topic: http://www.thecoverproject.net/forums/index.php?topic=1610.0
Some others have made their own templates that are floating around the boards.

• Sites to bookmark

I don't know, maybe https://www.nintandbox.net/index.php/en/ has some as it has raw material that can be used in a pinch to make quite decent covers.

• People to talk to, to get to know?

Me maybe as I hang around here quite much and answer and help as much as I can.
And of course anyone else who chimes in.

• Anything else you can recommend

Patience as things tend to move slowly, and silver tongue as some people (mostly new comers) get pissy easily espesially if their half assed covers aren't approved immeadly or are guided even so gently how to better them. (I can take it straight so no need to sugar coat the things you say to me).

We aim to help others to help us to better us all on cover making.

So oncew more welcome to the site.

[PrimeGoat]

Thanks for the welcome and for the info, man.  I made my first cover as an experiment, you can check it out here:

http://www.thecoverproject.net/forums/index.php?topic=27409.0

Are you familiar with the business of retro games?  I know that they're selling covers, boxes, etc.  My friend told me about this as he's been paying his rent refurbishing games and selling them.  That's how I ended up finding this site.  For example, he would buy the cartridge, take out the circuit board, clean up the enclosure, put a new label sticker on, package it with a reproduced box + manual, and end up selling it for twice the amount of money he spent to get everything needed.

I'm interested in finding out about what other ways there are to do some business in that regard.  I'm definitely interested in doing what he's doing, along with making top quality boxes, manuals, covers, etc.  Just wondering what else there is to be done that could make some money in this field

[Arseen]

I made my first cover as an experiment, you can check it out here:

http://www.thecoverproject.net/forums/index.php?topic=27409.0

I did see that...
I kinda liked the moire look of the picture of the original (altough would need some TLC) as the un-moired gets easily kinda soft looking as the process removes detail from a image that has not nuch of it in the beginning.
The work you did is right on the edge of great and bad.
Would need to print the decide.
We have this cover for the game: http://www.mediafire.com/download/9l2h0bmhkr9r786/Art_of_Fighting_SNES.jpg where I think the artist got the balance pretty much perfect.

Are you familiar with the business of retro games?  I know that they're selling covers, boxes, etc.  My friend told me about this as he's been paying his rent refurbishing games and selling them.  That's how I ended up finding this site.  For example, he would buy the cartridge, take out the circuit board, clean up the enclosure, put a new label sticker on, package it with a reproduced box + manual, and end up selling it for twice the amount of money he spent to get everything needed.

I'm interested in finding out about what other ways there are to do some business in that regard.  I'm definitely interested in doing what he's doing, along with making top quality boxes, manuals, covers, etc.  Just wondering what else there is to be done that could make some money in this field

I don't know that much about business (except that people like to download covers of our and sell them as their own...).
But I do like well crafted replicas as long as they are sold as replicas and not as originals.
I have plenty of reproduction games.
And I have some great quality (If I may say so) scans of manuals: http://www.mediafire.com/folder/fxle20na9u98i/RAWS (including NES PAL Stadium Events) that need just bit of cleaning.
I do have many other SNES manuals I can scan.

One of our members started producing his own plastic cases for carts that are superior to Universal Game Cases...

[PrimeGoat]

My descreening process doesn't remove detail.  If anything, it retains pretty much all of the detail that exists in the image.  It starts with a fourier transform algorithm, which preserves as much detail as possible.
The second pass, a carefully-tweaked surface blur, smooths out the gradients while leaving the important details unchanged.  This is capable of losing detail, but I tweak the settings carefully to target only the smooth gradients.
The third pass is a manual run with the blur tool done by hand.  I completely avoid the detailed areas in the third pass.

Getting the gradients as smooth and soft as possible is important because any moire that's left over for the printer's raster image processor to process results in a dithered mess.  Putting scanned halftones into a RIP that does its own halftones always results in a mess.  This isn't ideal unless the desired texture calls for such an effect.

The print came out very nice, considering the printer is a low-end Brother MFC-J805DW.  It would look a lot better on a high-end photo printer.  Here's a 1200ppi scan of the print, with select portions showing the unedited original for comparison:



Full-size here: https://i.postimg.cc/KGD24r7V/snes-aof-1200out.png?dl=1

I'm going to print it on high quality settings now to see if there's a noticeable difference.

[Arseen]

Yeah on closer look it was good, adding bit of brightness restored the "missing" detail and made the black shirt guy look bit less like plastic.

Good work.

[PrimeGoat]

Thanks.  The colors in the image you posted are MUCH better.  I'm stuck with the colors of the scan that I worked with.  However, I'm gonna see if I can use the image you showed to remap the colors in my scan

Also, a really cool filter in Photoshop is called Curves.  You sample the part of the image that's supposed to be white, and the one that's supposed to be black.  And it redoes the entire image, giving it crisp blacks and bright whites.  You can see the effect in my work.

[Arseen]

I use Paint.net, but it might have similar function.

[rockabilly1983]

Welcome to The Cover Project, PrimeGoat!

I have been helping this site since 2013. It's so nice to see another contributor. Want to make some NES, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo 64 covers for Shadowfox's Custom Game Cases? I have a template for that. The template has Moviefan2k4's full size dimensions. I have other templates too. I also have 200+ covers. Follow the link to my Box account and download anything you'd like. This site is all about sharing, after all.

My Covers: https://app.box.com/s/hote51vbfehfqo0yu5j0

[PrimeGoat]

Thanks, rockabilly.  What exactly is Shadowfox?  I keep seeing it, but I don't know what it is.  At first I thought it was a game, but I'm beginning to realize that it's not a game, but rather something else.  Care to explain?

Let me know if there's any specific cover you'd like me to do.  Also, please explain the difference between templates and scans.  I'm guessing the template is a perfect photoshopped replica of the generic portions of a scan?  Ie. the content that I see in these templates, it's common across multiple games.

I have noticed that someone else's template that I looked at has some issues with their barcode.  First of all, it has anti-aliasing, so the barcode isn't crisp.  Second, the barcode is for a specific game.  In the spirit of making authentic repros, wouldn't it be a good idea to have the correct barcode too?  What are your thoughts on this?  Is this a common thing to do?  If not, I can change that.  I've done some automated barcode generation in the past when I did Fake IDs.  I could probably code something that would look up the UPC of a specific game and then generate the image and place it into the template in Photoshop.  What do you think?  Good idea?

Welcome to The Cover Project, PrimeGoat!

I have been helping this site since 2013. It's so nice to see another contributor. Want to make some NES, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo 64 covers for Shadowfox's Custom Game Cases? I have a template for that. The template has Moviefan2k4's full size dimensions. I have other templates too. I also have 200+ covers. Follow the link to my Box account and download anything you'd like. This site is all about sharing, after all.

My Covers: https://app.box.com/s/hote51vbfehfqo0yu5j0

[marioxb]

Thanks, rockabilly.  What exactly is Shadowfox?  I keep seeing it, but I don't know what it is.  At first I thought it was a game, but I'm beginning to realize that it's not a game, but rather something else.  Care to explain?

Haha, Shadowfox is a guy, a member here. He makes the best darn cases you ever did see. Haha. From replicas of DS and Genesis cases to custom cases for just about everything under the sun. (I don't actually have any, just going by reputation). He runs https://www.customgamecases.com/

Let me know if there's any specific cover you'd like me to do.  Also, please explain the difference between templates and scans.  I'm guessing the template is a perfect photoshopped replica of the generic portions of a scan?  Ie. the content that I see in these templates, it's common across multiple games.

Yes that is exactly what a template is. Mainly the top/ side banners, company logos, ratings and editable text for common areas of covers. Useful for higher quality retail covers, as well as custom covers.

Look here:

http://www.thecoverproject.net/forums/index.php?topic=1610.0

[rockabilly1983]

Thanks, rockabilly.  What exactly is Shadowfox?  I keep seeing it, but I don't know what it is.  At first I thought it was a game, but I'm beginning to realize that it's not a game, but rather something else.  Care to explain?

Let me know if there's any specific cover you'd like me to do.  Also, please explain the difference between templates and scans.  I'm guessing the template is a perfect photoshopped replica of the generic portions of a scan?  Ie. the content that I see in these templates, it's common across multiple games.

I have noticed that someone else's template that I looked at has some issues with their barcode.  First of all, it has anti-aliasing, so the barcode isn't crisp.  Second, the barcode is for a specific game.  In the spirit of making authentic repros, wouldn't it be a good idea to have the correct barcode too?  What are your thoughts on this?  Is this a common thing to do?  If not, I can change that.  I've done some automated barcode generation in the past when I did Fake IDs.  I could probably code something that would look up the UPC of a specific game and then generate the image and place it into the template in Photoshop.  What do you think?  Good idea?

Welcome to The Cover Project, PrimeGoat!

I have been helping this site since 2013. It's so nice to see another contributor. Want to make some NES, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo 64 covers for Shadowfox's Custom Game Cases? I have a template for that. The template has Moviefan2k4's full size dimensions. I have other templates too. I also have 200+ covers. Follow the link to my Box account and download anything you'd like. This site is all about sharing, after all.

My Covers: https://app.box.com/s/hote51vbfehfqo0yu5j0

Marioxb beat me to it. I will give an answer anyway. Shadowfox is one of so many members here. He makes the best game cases. You can buy them from his website customgamecases.com. I highly recommend them. A template is usually a Photoshop document that is sized for a particular case. A scan is an image of something that was scanned with a scanner.

Regarding your question on barcodes, I'm not sure how to answer some of it. Yes, it's a very good idea to have the correct barcode too. I use https://barcode.tec-it.com to create a barcode. Video game covers use the UPC-A barcode. After I download the barcode, I resize the image of the barcode, and then I copy and paste it into my Photoshop document as a layer. The font I use for the barcode numbers is OCR-B 10 BT Regular. Some barcodes use a different font. If you need help identifying a font, a good website for that is MyFonts.com. Use the subsection WhatTheFont for identifying fonts.