2008 Upper Deck

[fhomess]

I've done base cards and All-Star cards at this point. I have some graphics of a few other inserts that may eventually get made into award winners and/or HOF cards. We'll see.




(these were fun!)

You can find the download link, and a few more samples, here: 2008 Upper Deck

EDIT: Now with awards and HOF cards.

[TribeFanInNC]

Nicely done Frank. I was just sorting through some of my baseball card collection this week and thinking we could stand to fill in some of the holes. Been a while since I worked on any though.

[Orator]

Those are well done! Great work!

[Déjà Bru]

This is going to seem extremely ungrateful, which is very far from the truth, but I am compelled to ask the question. Maybe it's something that I am missing or should know how to do, but here it is:

If modders (like you, fhomess) take the time to make these excellent baseball cards, why don't they go ahead and make the full set?

So many of the collections listed on StatsLab are incomplete (some because they are getting old, I believe). The complete set are the following .xml files: all star, default, defense award, hitter award, hof, manager award, pitcher award, rookie award.

So, and again don't take this the wrong way, what is the utility of making a baseball card set such as this one with only the default and all star templates? Because, what will happen is, the game will revert back to the previous mod or default templates for all the other baseball cards generated at that time.

As it is, looking at that StatsLab list, there is an unfortunate chronological gap of complete-template baseball cards between 1914 Cracker Jack and 1940 Play Ball. So for example, if I were to use your 1934 Goudey set, I would see your baseball cards for default, all star, and hall of fame whereas Cracker Jack would prevail for defense, hitter, pitcher, and rookie awards. Does not seem optimal to me.

Am I indeed missing something?

[TribeFanInNC]

Well, some of the answer is that all of those alternates you mention were not options in earlier versions of OOTP. People probably didn't go back and add in the award cards, for example, to existing templates. Some of these cards date back to like OOTP 11.

Of course, some of the answer is that it takes longer to put together these other template. It's basically like doing 3-5 baseball cards to put together a whole set.

I know where you are coming from though. It breaks the fourth wall, so to speak, to have haphazard different designs.

[fhomess]

Bru, for me the short answer is that it's a lot of work to make templates and that I don't personally care if I have all the different versions because I care mostly just about the base cards. That said, I probably use the feature a lot less than some despite creating and supporting mods for it.

The long answer is...

There are a number of different reasons for each of us, so I can only reply for myself.

Personally, I make the cards because I enjoy the creative process or recreating the designs within the confines of OOTP's model. To me, its a bit like a puzzle to be solved. I have been a baseball card fan for a very long time, so I enjoy the feature. As such, there is quite a lot of work that goes into each card I create. A relatively simple looking design typically has 20 different layers of artwork in a single image. Anything with shading and transparency requires a fair amount of trial and error to get to a point I'm happy with, since OOTP's graphic engine isn't particularly robust in this are. Beyond the artwork, the text content on the cards takes a lot of iterations to line things up acceptably, too. It's not a complicated process, but it's time consuming. You'll notice that the base cards and the Star Attractions, while from the same set, don't have any graphic elements in common. This results in essentially doing to two different card templates for a single set.

Beyond the time it takes to do them, I generally stick with what was actually made of a particular card set. If there's nothing that inspires me to make an alternate version for one of the OOTP categories, then often I don't. I do like to work of scans of real cards when I can, and quality ones are not always easy to find, either.

As TribeFan said, one of the things to remember is that for a long time we didn't have all these different categories of cards generated by the game. The fact that they're there now adds a lot of work. It's also worth noting that OOTP doesn't support baseball card modders very well. For example, as far as I know, OOTP doesn't provide a token to access the league specific name of end of season awards. Another example is the fact that OOTP doesn't permit custom fonts and got rid of the only cursive font we had. Cards like 1952 Topps and 1993 Upper Deck have cursive fonts as a key component and are now broken in the current version (it's been at least 4 versions now).

Now, whether or not this breaks the utility of making these templates available in the first place is really in the perspective of whoever is using them. Not everyone who uses the cards bothers to look at all of the different variants. I don't even generate cards that much because I mostly play online leagues. To be fair, it's only in OOTP 17 that you can even see a player's cards all together on the same screen for the first time. So maybe it's never been all that noticeable until now. This is actually the first time I've heard anyone voice this concern in this way. It's far more common to hear people ask for cards that haven't been made than to hear them ask for a set to be completed. Again, I think that may be due to the lack of visibility in the past. No one has ever asked me for an All-Star card or award winner card for 1955 Topps. I have seen countless requests for a 2008 set.

So I hope this response helps people to understand, at the least, where I come from on the topic. It likely sounds more defensive than intended in the same way that your question probably sounds more ungrateful than intended (I do take you at your word on that aspect).

As a final word, I suggest that anyone who is disappointed that certain things are not available is more than welcome to fill in the gaps, as Rgarz did for 1968 Topps recently. In lieu of that... if there are specific sets that need fleshing out that you would like to see completed, a thread indicating the gaps you would most like to see filled might encourage modders like myself to address that need.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by fhomess

The long answer is...

. . . well-spoken and well-taken. Much work goes into these designs and there is something to be said for communal effort to "spread the burden" around, such as is manifested here. Had I seen that resource first, I would not have posted my inquiry above. Regardless, you have contributed mightily to that project and I thank you personally for having benefited from your efforts and those of other generous members of this community.

[Habsfan18]

Awesome work, fhomess!

[ThatSeventiesGuy]

With mine, I was using GIMP, and there's only so much you can do with GIMP. Plus, I only use the base cards anyway, and made most of the sets I made to fill in gaps. They were made for me, I just shared 'em with you guys!

[BigRed75]

I think that's the thing. Most of the people who use baseball cards, just use the base cards. Maybe the All-Star cards, too.

[fhomess]

Originally Posted by ThatSeventiesGuy

With mine, I was using GIMP, and there's only so much you can do with GIMP.

FWIW, I use GIMP, too.

[ThatSeventiesGuy]

Originally Posted by fhomess

FWIW, I use GIMP, too.

Yes, but you're a card template making god, whereas I suck.

[Rickster62792]

Originally Posted by ThatSeventiesGuy

Yes, but you're a card template making god, whereas I suck.

Agreed

[rjl518]

Originally Posted by Rickster62792

Agreed

are you agreeing with Fhomess that he is a template making God?
or are you agreeing with ThatSeventiesGuy that he sucks?

[fhomess]

Here's what's coming... these are NOT yet in the released file as they've been quite complex to create.

Awards:
(Based on Rookie Debut)






Gold Gloves:
(Based on Infield Power)

[fhomess]

Getting closer...

[fhomess]

Ok, released! See the first post for link.

[illeracula]

Originally Posted by fhomess

Ok, released! See the first post for link.

fhomess, thanks for your work on all these baseball cards, these are awesome downloading now.

[Rickster62792]

What next set you gonna be doing