ridiculously large cover scans etc

[Laserschwert]

Your posters of MI1 and MI2 look really great. 4724 x 6301 pixels - wow!

I wonder if the MI2 poster is going to be rather dark when actually printed as a poster.

Do you plan to have those images printed soon? What service are you going to use?

 

Yeah, I guess they are both a little dark (my TFT fools me regularly)... increasing the gamma just a bit (which might require increasing the saturation as well, since it goes down when brightening the image) should do the trick. Since you're from Cologne as well: I'm printing at PosterXXL.de ... I have used them before, and the quality is really good. Although my maximum size has been 30x45cm for now... but the MI-posters are going to be 60x80cm... I'm sure they'll look stunning (of course it would be best to have some piratey carved wooden frame for it, just like Purcell did it with his original, but I guess the regular IKEA-frame will have to do ).

[plamdi]

Yeah, here... (but really you could have just used it off my cover at http://plamdi.com/wotc/tales.htm) and hey look at this cool SWF dial-a-pirate I found: http://www.djgallagher.com/games/pc/monkeyisland1/dial_a_pirate.php

 

 

Also, I've been creating a hybrid front from my source material, it looks like this:

 

 

And is almost ready...

[plamdi]

Alright, I'm done. Saved at 85 JPEG quality I got 3.06M (not half bad for an 84.6M BMP). Is suitible for poster printing. It has not been downsampled and I used a combination of filters (including median ). Enjoy.

 

[Alien426]

Thanks for the great stuff you guys have made.

[plamdi]

Bonus scan, Part-2:

 

 

Also, to Laserschwert, I've noticed your recoluration changed too much blue (I fixed this when I did my cover). Look at the buttons on Lechuck's shirt, Leckuck's right hand, look at the blue hue on Guybrush's shirt - and on the guybrush-doll pants. I also agree with ssdsa that you've made your image a little too dark.

[Laserschwert]

Bonus scan, Part-2:

 

 

Also, to Laserschwert, I've noticed your recoluration changed too much blue (I fixed this when I did my cover). Look at the buttons on Lechuck's shirt, Leckuck's right hand, look at the blue hue on Guybrush's shirt - and on the guybrush-doll pants. I also agree with ssdsa that you've made your image a little too dark.

 

Thanks for the scans... although I've found the paper-banner-ends on MojoArt... and somehow I didn't want to bother matching them, so I dropped the idea of adding them.

 

As for color correction, yeah, I've noticed that my TFT showed the images brighter than they appear when printed, so setting the gamma to 1.3 helped it (and no saturation boost needed, or it would be too saturated). By the way, I like the way the blue-shift works on the other elements, since in most cases - like the buttons or the pants - it's not the color of the object, but a reflection or ambient light of the surroundings (which are darker blue now, and although a darker reflection/ambient lighting should be less saturated or show more of the objects own color, I'll leave them as they are).

[Scummbuddy]

I actually like the longer paper curls on the ends of the LeChuck's Revenge... any chance of getting those added back on for a second printing?

[Laserschwert]

Maybe some other time.

[plamdi]

I've also completely forgotten to mention about the "D" in ISLAND on the MI2 Kixx box (ie, there's too much yellow under the monkey's tail!) Not that it's seemed to matter. I was actually really pleased with my "White Label" cover because it was so quick and simple, but a great cover! If I had it to do over I'd be tempted to replace the screenshots on the back with the CD-version (or maybe just the big one), and the same goes for the Monkey1 cover.

 

I've put a whole bunch of stuff up at http://plamdi.deviantart.com/ now (mainly my SW-covers source stuff). Enjoy!

[plamdi]

I've just put up the full resolution of the Monkey 1 clean-cover I did. To reiterate:

 

At 5197 x 6583 here is the M1 box:

 

 

And, at 4867 x 6976 here is the hybrid MI2 box:

 

 

I'm just uploading my old "copy-protection generators"... they only work with Internet Explorer, but I'll see if I can convert them to he cross-browser compatible (I'm very good with Javascript!) Anyhow, enjoy them as they are:

 

Monkey Island 1 Copy Protection Generator

Monkey Island 2 Copy Protection Generator

 

I remember how people complained about them on the old mojo forum years ago - and I was like "what, it's not like you can specifically choose what combination comes up!" ... they also complained about my "cracks" on http://monkeyisland.fanspace.com/files.htm, and I was like "what, it's LEC's original stuff - I just made it so people could choose to change their version". And they threatened to complain to Fanspace and LEC (and probably did) and blah blah blah, lol. I don't see any other pages on the internet documenting these technical differences, they should be thankful I researched the information and everything! Also, this is the only page I know of that still has FOMI and all of Matt Shaw’s games (that LEC put a stop to) available for download. I never took down the files, and I know Matt says on ShawArts that "There are no copies online any longer" – but the truth is they’re all on my original website, they have been since the 12th of December 2000, I've never taken them down – and I'll just re-upload the entire page elsewhere should that old page someday disappear!

[plamdi]

Okay, here's a request (sent to me in a PM) codewheel scans (they've not been down-sampled - I've marked the centre of each with a black cross should anyone actually want to print these):

 

 

If anyone has the codewheels for SWOTL or for The Rocketeer I'd be very interested in the scans.

 

As an extra little scan, here are the codes for Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (never played it myself, but when I briefly owned it I scanned the code tables). It originally used a red reader to read the codes - this would have guarded against photocopying, but not digital scanning! I converted it all to greyscale (and the full version is print quality). I do not have the original colour scan.

 

[HenryJonesJr.]

Anyone care to scan the Book of Patterns from LOOM?

[elTee]

I would do that but all my LucasArts stuff is a long way away. And I forgot to bring the SEGA Monkey Island back! Damn, just realised.

 

Anyway I'm not so sure about uploading scans of these copy-protection devices. I mean for all intents and purposes, yes, it's easy for someone to download a torrent of Monkey Island and then stick it into ScummVM and never have to worry about copy-protection, but I still don't think LucasArts would appreciate us doing this. I'll leave them up for now because, well, this is not a really big deal (it's not like we're posting Vista activation codes on 'MicroForums') but perhaps you could obscure the actual dates on the codewheels or something?

 

Just a thought, we don't want to incur the wrath of the powers-that-be from the Star Wars side of the forums.

[plamdi]

I think if someone went to all the trouble of making their own code-wheel to play a pirated game then they probably deserve to play it (this swf one is far more practical). And I suppose if your code wheel looks like my old one:

 

 

Then you may well want to make a new one! And yes, I do have a spotless one, but I have no SWOTL or Rocketeer codewheels (should that mean I can't play those games, even though I technically own two legal copies of each?) I've never actually played SWOTL (I've probably launched the game though), but I did manage to crack my way around the rocketeer.

 

I think their usefulness date has long-since past.

[Laserschwert]

Is that BLOOD????

[HenryJonesJr.]

I legally own a copy of Monkey Island on 3.5 disks, i lost the code wheel a long time ago, and i don't think its fair that i just cant obtain a copy. Same thing happened with Loom, only god knows where the original Book of Patterns is.

[plamdi]

Is that BLOOD????

Can you tell I got a lot of use out of it? ;-)

Book of Patterns

I seem to have found it: http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.625

 

And jsut because I can, I converted the original purple dial-a-pirate into a gray one because I think it makes it look better. You be the judge:

 

[HenryJonesJr.]

Wow thanks

[plamdi]

Introducing every fan's wet-dream - 12CM CODEWHEELS!!!!

 

 

• FULLY FUNCTIONAL - JUST LIKE THE ORIGINAL!
  
• THE SAME SIZE AS A CD - THINK OF THE CONVINENCE!
  
• FITS INSIDE A REGULAR CD CASE ALONG WITH YOUR DISC - NOW YOU CAN TAKE THE GAME TO YOUR FRIEND'S!
  
• FULL, GLORIOUS COLOUR - DAZZLE YOUR MATES!!

 

• THINK OF THE RESPECT YOU'LL EARN WHEN YOU ARE THE BRAND NEW OWNER OF ONE OF THESE FINE PRODUCTS!

 

 

ORDER YOURS TODAY FOR 3 LOW PAYMENTS OF ONLY $29.95!

 

 

 

 

Yep, they're real, all this talk about the codewheels got me excited! To reproduce results print previously supplied JPEGS at 512DPI.

[elTee]

Haha, I love it. It serves no practical purpose of course, but very nice job!

 

I'm going to have to get on with some LucasCovers work this weekend. Keep it up!

[plamdi]

I'm going to complete something I was going to do a long time ago now - make printable versions of the manuals. I've done the first thing - converting the codes to a traditional instruction manual key:

 

(original is 400DPI)

 

(original is 300DPI)

 

They're in that shape to fit in a CD-case... hehehehe. I've printed them out, and they are readable. These would be on the back-cover of a CD-manual (or the back of a DVD-insert-manual) for convenience. Yes I know it's useless - but so is making the manual, I'm just making it "complete".

[HenryJonesJr.]

plamdi.com, whats a good paper to print those scans you provided? what kind did you use for those disc sized ones?

[plamdi]

This is what I used: http://www.jpldisplays.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=322 but if I didn't have it lying around I would have bought thicker matt photo paper (it's still adequate, though).

 

I have a question for everyone, considering that I plan on doing manuals - are there any really high-quality free professional fonts I can use; otherwise I'll continue to use News Gothic - the only draw-back being that to avoid any legal problems I can't embed the font into PDF, I have to use images (which will still print fine, but it's less work and better overall to use plain text)? This is what News Gothic looks like, it's a common commercial font and I really like it (below is the standard and condensed versions - I can also use light and bold):

 

 

http://foxtel.com.au/ for isntance uses News Gothic for all their printed material.

[plamdi]

Here's an interesting anomaly, this is the original VGA reference card (as taken from pages 38 and 39 in my classic tales instruction book), it's an exact copy of the stand-alone reference card (except for the page numbers):

 

 

Notice anything missing? The complete version should read:

 

Use the ENTER or 5 keys to select objects on the screen for use in the sentence line, as well as to select a lone of dialogue in conversation. Press the TAB key to use a highlighted verb with the object the cursor is pointing to. You can use a mouse for cursor control if you have installed a compatible mouse driver. The left mouse button corresponds to the ENTER key on your keyboard. The right mouse button corresponds to the TAB key on your keyboard. If you have both a mouse and a joystick installed, you may select one as your controller by holding down the CTRL key and pressing m for mouse or j for joystick. You may also re-calibrate your joystick if the cursor is drifting across the screen by centring the joystick and pressing CTRL j

[Scummbuddy]

plamdi, you're worried about copywright infinging with fonts, but here you are giving away codes to play games?

 

Just kinda silly to me, I guess.