Either way, many classes have been updated and improved (and many still need too *ugh*) and what is particularly worth mentioning are the file IO classes which provide a unified way to work with different file formats. Basically the way how files work in hexagonlib is that you can create file objects of any specific file type (like text, binary, image, XML, etc.), give them a path to a physical file and then add them to a loader (BulkLoader, FileLoader, ZipLoader) which then loads the data of the physical files into the file objects.

While you can use the BulkLoader class to load a collection of arbitrary files in one go with all sorts of comfort (priorities, weighted loading, load retries, multi-connections etc.) the newest addition to the library is the ZipLoader class which can be used in AIR development to access a standard zip file using Random Access. What does that mean? It means that you can create a zip file (a very large one if you want), pack all your resource files that can be loaded by your application and then open it with your app and ‘load’ (= extract) files from it without ever needing to load the whole zip file completely into memory. This makes accessing a large zip file very efficient because only the chunk of the requested, zipped file is loaded.

This is especially interesting for us game developers who desire to use large, nicely packed resource files like they are utilized in a similar fashion in most current day commercial games. For a while I was promoting to add such functionality to AIR over at Adobe Labs but that was before I knew that this can actually be done in AIR since 1.0 thanks to the FileStream class and the position property of it (alas, the property is not available in the URLStream class so random access is not possible on web-based Flash). The ZipLoader uses asynchronous loading to open a zip file as well as ‘loading’ files from it because I don’t like the idea of having the application at the mercy of the file system which would be the case with synchronous access (and which is used in way too many examples on the web).

You can download the hexagonlib distribution over at Google Code, which includes the SWCs and documentation and of course the source code is available for access via SVN. I’m updating the library on a irregular basis. There are already some Wiki pages too with code examples showing how to use the BulkLoader and ZipLoader here but I will hopefully get to write some more in-depth tutorials soon.

hexagonlib at Google Code
File API Wiki
Documentaion

I’ve mentioned before that it’s possible to run Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic in DOSBox with Tandy sound enabled but I couldn’t figure out how to get it working. Today I’m back with good news in that I can tell you how to get this fixed so the trillions of SWFM fans out there can enjoy this fantastic game with the excellent Tandy sound!

First you need of course DOSBox (v0.74 as of now), a copy of SWFM (you can find a pre-installed one here), and – the magic fix – my replacement files which you can get here …

Next, in the pre-installed version is a folder named FM, simply copy the files from my zip into that folder, overwriting the old ones (you might want to backup these first, but then, once you go Tandy you never go back! ).

Finally you need to tell DOSBox to use Tandy graphics and sound. I recommend using a frontend like D-Fend to configure those settings (and in all honesty I don’t know how to apply them to DOSBox without the frontend). So in D-Fend edit the profile of SWFM (wich you undoubtedly already created) and under ‘Graphics’ set ‘videocard’ to ‘tandy’ and under ‘Sound’ set ‘Tandy sound’ to ‘On’.

And, voila … you got SWFM with Tandy sound running. Note that any savegame that was saved with the non-Tandy version might get you scrambled graphics so you have to start a new game.

Listen Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic with Tandy sound

Shoot First, a game by Beau Blyth, is a mix of a Roguelike and Run-N-Gun where you explore a randomly generated dungeon while searching for precious items and encountering vile enemy monsters of all kinds. You get thrown into the dungeon at a random entry point from where you have to make your way to the next-lower floor. On the way you find chests that you can shoot open to reveal useful items and occasionally you find companions who join your party or damsels which you have to rescue from captivity. If you escort them safely to the next exit they will thank you with a reward item.

The game isn’t your generic rogue-like, it’s actually very fast-paced. To get forward you have to encounter many monsters and dispatch them or at least evade them but the enemy AI is quite smart. Many monsters will try to flank or evade you and try to shoot you while you’re hiding in a tunnel. That said, Shoot First is not an easy game. The enemies shoot a lot and they shoot well. Many of them are also quite powerful. To counter this, you’re able to shoot into any direction or strafe-shoot into one direction while running. You can also increase in level which will improve your character’s skills. You’re doing so by shooting monsters and collect small, yellow artifacts (gold?) that are revealed after a monster dies. Still the game is rather difficult to beat and to be honest I haven’t made it any further than to the third floor so far.

Automapping

The game’s music consists of a small selection of Impulse Tracker chiptunes which in my opinion aren’t anything to get excited about but they serve the game’s atmosphere well enough.

There are some nice ideas that the author brought into this game. For example boss fights! On every floor you will encounter one or more monster bosses. These are not only very powerful but as soon as you approach them the room will close around you and  lock you and the boss (and occasionally other enemies) up, making it impossible to escape from the fight. As if this wasn’t already malevolent enough, additionally the walls will start to move inwards slowly, making them room smaller.

Shoot First isn’t without flaws however. It won’t store your key control settings so you have to define them again every time you start playing a session. There seems to be a problem with the game’s screen resolution because it never fills the screen completely but only occupies a much smaller area centered on the screen. It’s not possible to play in windowed mode and the game switches your screen to a very small resolution so if you had any other windows open on your desktop you will find them in disarray after you return from the game. There’s an online hi-score board into which your score is written – if you managed to get a high-enough score. However it seems some cheaters already occupied the highest positions. Something that is easily done with several cheat tools.

It's getting busy!

The author obviously used Game Maker to create Shoot First and I have no trouble with that as the author did a great job crafting this game. Game Maker is a tool that let’s you easily build simple games by putting together sprites, objects, events etc. but for a game of the complexity of Shoot First you still need a considerable programming knowledge. The question for me is if Flash wouldn’t have been the better solution for such a game and I can answer that question easily with a Yes!
It would be a relatively easy feat to create a game of this sort in Flash – provided you have the coding skills – and even benefit from it as it could have been made a web game and a multi-platform desktop game at the same time via AIR. Alas, with Game Maker it’s Windows only. As a Flash web-based game it would be easier to protect the game from Cheating or Hi-score Hacking (although the same goes for a desktop game made with AIR). It would also benefit from a smoother desktop-integration by scaling up to fullscreen without the need to switch the screen resolution. As a trade-off Flash doesn’t support sound tracker modules (yet) but there is Flod to the rescue which already supports a nice selection of tracker formats.

Still, Shoot First is a nifty and fun little game to which I certainly will return more often.

You can download Shoot First at the game’s official website.

In the last part I’ve introduced the character design template I’m using and mentioned to post a character example next time which I’m doing hereby while introducing you to Eliza Retinienne, a Gessjanian security systems expert from the planet Shielle, a small world bordering on the fringe of the Suulun Sector which in turn stretches over a large area of the southern galaxy.

Eliza is one of the key characters in the game’s story and one of the characters whom the player is supposed to encounter and who eventually joins the player’s party. She is also supposed to receive her own side-quest in which the player can engage to help her out of the threatening situation she is currently in.

Note that this sheet is basically just here to give an example of how the character design template can be used to shape out a character so I suggest not to look too critically into the details. Things can (and will) still change and also the sheet is not filled out completely, for one reason because some details are irrelevant for this character and for another that I haven’t found any other suitable details for her yet. Either way I hope this gives a good example of how to utilize the template!

Full Name	Eliza Cathrine Retinienne
Nickname or short name	Eliza, sometimes called Cathy
Image
Character Type	Co-Protagonist
Gender	Female
Species	Gessjanian
Class	Security Systems Expert
Age	30
Summary	Eliza used to be a forefront engineer who worked for Seciate Armaments on a highly confidential Security Systems project. Later during the project she came to disagreements with Seciate about the target clients for the system she worked on. She left Seciate in a dispute, not accepting the bribe she has been offered to stay quiet. She had enough presence of mind to suspect that she would soon become the subject of an assassination attempt, in order to prevent her knowledge being of use to anyone else. Seciate however underestimated her smartness and she narrowly escaped while killing the assassin (rather unintentionally though). Since then she is on the run from SECIATE.
Biography

(All work done in REAPER. Instruments used: Synth1, V-Station, minimonsta, Nexus, MOTU BPM for drums.)

And back to the game design topic! The part I love most about game design is that you can create worlds full of life, intricacy, intrigue and interesting characters, experimenting with scenarios and situations (that would otherwise probably have negative  repercussions in RL™).

As a programmer you’d ever only write your code and if you are happy with it that’s fine but we one-man-game-developer types are more like Jack of all trades who want to create complete worlds … and stories. And then tell those stories by means of the game. And maybe throw a bit (or a large chunk) of dynamics in there again … as programmers.

One extremely satisfying aspect of game design (for games where narrative is important) is the development of characters that should act throughout the game. Creating characters is just as much fun as the other bases! If you do it right and create deep and sympathetic characters people will love them.

And even villains can be sympathetic. In fact they should be! Who likes an antagonist that is completely unsympathetic? Nobody, right? But why should you even like a villain, after all he’s the guy who needs to be defeated? The answer to this is that the guy who is the villain is so only in the context of our story. Maybe he’s not so bad after all in a different context. Or in short: Antagonists also have a life, feelings … but guess what? Now I totally digress! I actually wanted to show you my new and all fresh character template that I came up with to shape out characters for my game.

[ad#gog_arcanum_box]The template I’m introducing here is based on a template that is used by the two authors of  The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design, a book I’ve recently purchased which I think is just slightly overrated on Amazon but still definitely worth it’s money. The two authors have the character building template fully laid out in their book for the purpose of their example but I’ve made modifications to it so that it suits the holy needs of my RPG design.

This character building template is quite extensive and there might be a few items that you want to throw out for your design or you’d want to add other questions appropriately. Also, as stated in the book by the authors, when designing a new character with this it’s not required to go through this in a linear way. Skip sections and fill them in later … like a puzzle. Likewise it’s not always necessary to fill out all the boxes. Some minor characters don’t need that level of detail.

It’s also worth to note that most of what you fill into this template is for your eyes (or for your teams eyes) only. So write away care-freely!  Only some of this information makes it into the game anyway however the whole additional info helps to give the character the amount of depth that is needed to make him/her an exceptionally outstanding character.

The template consists of several tables with rows of questions on the left column and the answers or details to fill in on the right side (in which for the purpose of explanation I’ve entered a description of the kind of text that goes in).

So without much further ado here’s my character building template used to help creating the story for my totally epic role-playing game (which *cough* should be in the shelves somewhere within the next millennium!). In the next post I will show an example of how the template is used with one of my (player party) co-protagonist characters … hopefully without revealing too much information about the game’s story.

Of course feel free to use it, change it, adapt it or come up with your own template! I’d love to hear about them! And always keep in mind: We’re not digging ditches or performing brain surgery here, we’re making games. Lighten up, for chrissakes. (That was an actual quote from the above mentioned book).

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Appearance Information

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Behavioral Information

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Professional Information

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Location Information

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Background Information

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Story-related Information

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Dialog-related Information

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Additional Information

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Extra Information

I’ve been designing on a rather ambitious Role-Playing game project since a while now (in fact quite a long while but I’m not in hurry to finish it anytime soon) and while I’m in the process of working out the story, technical details like the combat mechanics, skill system etc. and creating interesting characters I still haven’t made a decision on the type of graphical projection for the game so far. I’ve been thinking about five kinds of projection from the most basic one (2D orthographic) up to full dynamic 3D which would be quite an effort. As my development platform of choice happens to be Flash, the resources in terms of 3D are limited.

So with that in mind I thought it would be good opportunity to introduce some of the most-used projections in computer and video role-playing games to get to know them a little better. This is by no means a complete list of all sorts of projection used in games but I believe these the ones most commonly used for role-playing games.

Orthographic Projection (Top-down View)

Orthographic is pretty much a collective term for all projections that lack perspective (i.e. all 3 axes have the same length) but I’d like to use it here to describe the typical top-down view – often called birds-eye view – used in RPGs.

Hard Nova uses a very simple (but nevertheless charming) top-down view for it's interiors.

The top-down view can either be completely flat which is obviously the most easy way to draw graphics or it can give the impression of depth by using an oblique style. Many of the older J-RPGs like Zelda and Final Fantasy are using this method. You see buildings, characters and other objects that point into one direction (usually to the top of the screen) to give the illusion of depth. Often this style is used in a very simple form so that characters are not being able to ‘step behind a wall’, i.e. the collision detection that checks where the characters are allowed to walk adheres directly to the graphic tiles used in the game. Some other games of this style might involve some trickery to offset the line used for collision detection so that characters can walk behind walls and are half-covered by them to add some more dynamic.

Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games is a good example of an oblique top-down view.

The advantages of this projection are clear: it’s the easiest to draw and the easiest to implement. Also the nature of this style makes it easy to use for RPGs that use a character party which needs to be guided around the screen. Selecting party members and using them tactically (positioning, line-of-sight, etc.) is more easily done here.

The disadvantages are that this projection is the most simple looking and most overused one (but then again these are not necessarily disadvantages)  and in particular that this projection type can ruin potential immersive atmosphere, i.e. unless you’re using some sort of Fog-of-War the player can see what lies around the next corner. Even if you don’t draw any opponents until they are in the line-of-sight of the player in my opinion this doesn’t convey the same level of immersion as 3D or Flip3D (see below) projection would.

Isometric Projection (Tiled)

Isometric view and (although not technically isometric) it’s cousins trimetric and dimetric are projections that were (and still are) used in a long list of games, mostly strategy-, management- and of course role-playing games. Highly regarded by many as the finest-ever invented graphics style, isometric projection has the advantage over basic top-down view that is adds more depth and at the same time often more dynamic and clarity to the layout of the play field.

Fallout 2 - one of the better known tile-based isometric RPGs.

I must admit not many RPG titles that are using a tile-based isometric projection are coming to my mind but some good examples from this domain are Fallout 1 & 2 which use trimetric projection (all three angles are different) and the Indie RPG  series Avernum.

Advantages of the tiled isometric projection include the easiness of implementation and a big favor for tactical gameplay. It’s easy to see tactical elements in relation to each other and so it comes to no surprise that many strategy games used this style.

The disadvantage I see with isometric graphics is the same as with top-down view projection, the lack of immersive atmosphere (see above) and that isometric graphics (tiles, sprites) are more difficult to design (but assets rendered with a 3D package can help a lot here).

Isometric Projection (Full Backgrounds)

The big contender among isometric engines that used pre-rendered backgrounds instead of tiled graphics was without a doubt the Infinity Engine and with it such classics like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment.

Baldur's Gate II: Excellent use of pre-rendered backgrounds and light-effects all around!

Instead of using tiles, larger backgrounds were modeled, textured and pre-rendered with a 3D graphics application and then used … well, as sort-of large-scale tiles in the game. This technique allowed for a lot more visual detail and variation. Environments that were difficult to draw with a tile-based approach such as for instance a deep, rocky abyss or other intricate landscape were made possible much easier with fully rendered backgrounds. Also many other items like furniture and interior walls could suddenly have a lot more detail. Another advantage that the Infinity Engine introduced was the use of dynamic lighting and acceleration of visual effects by use of DirectX. Full-screen rain or snowstorm? No problem here!

Collision detection and path-finding was solved by using a special bitmap for every background that defined the walk-able areas using different colors.

The big advantage for this technique is of course the gain in graphical detail and that it eliminates some of the problems of a tile-based engine, namely intricacies when dealing with dynamic lighting, path-finding etc.

The disadvantage here is the extra-work of complexity required to implement such a full background rendering engine, the additional task to design pre-rendered background graphics using  3D modeling and that such an engine requires more system resources than a tile-based engine, RAM and CPU-wise.

Flip3D

Now what in the hell is Flip3D? You might hear this term for the first time ever here but Flip3D is what I like to call (for the lack of a better word) the projection style used by many games from the Golden Age of RPGs era that use pseudo 3D images which are drawn with perspective in mind and if you turn in-game to the left or right the whole view is flipped turned by 90° hence the name, uhh, Flip3D (if you know the technically correct term for this type of graphics display technique I’d like to learn it but until then let’s just call it Flip3D).

Countless RPGs utilized this projection, most notably titles like Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, the Ishar series, the Might and Magic series and – although not really a RPG – one of my all-time favorites, Hired Guns. All these games used pre-rendered graphic parts like floors, walls and ceilings that are composed together on the screen to create a room or corridor or even an outside environment.

Wizardry 7: VGA never looked better (and RPGs never were harder).

The advantage is that these graphic parts could be re-used, making it easier to quickly build whole maps. The disadvantage to this was often that in many of the games the maps looked monotonous. In my opinion Hired Guns nailed this problem quite well which is one of the reasons that made it stand out from the others for me.  The maps looked detailed and very different from level to level, in the background they’ve used a gradient to represent the dawn on the firmament and there was usually a dark backdrop used for a horizon to give the impression of mountains, landscape or buildings in the far distance. It’s exactly these details that are one of the features that filled the game with atmosphere. What could be there in the far distance? The distance that you were never able to reach because it was not a part of the map but, alas, only a backdrop.

The lack of clear detail opens a lot of freedom to the player’s own imagination and this is one of the points why I highly regard some older games that use simplified graphics where modern games with tons of detailed real-time 3D choke the last bit of imagination from the players mind (not that I’m saying that this is necessarily bad but for me it is gaming on a different mental level).

Ahh Hired Guns! Flip3D at it's finest!

And with that we have the main advantage of this projection type … used with well-drawn graphics it can add a nice deal of ‘hidden’ atmosphere to the game because you never really see what lies (or lurks) in the distance.

The main disadvantage of this projection from my point of view is that it’s not much in favor for tactical gameplay as long as you want to involve your party into the action. Games with Flip3D projection are necessarily first-person so you don’t see your own character and your other party members are either behind or sideways of you or standing in front, covering a big part of the view field. Guiding and commanding all your party members can become quite a chore here.

3D Projection

3D projection is the current state-of-the-art in computer game graphics and will probably not be replaced so soon (until somebody invents some sort of 4D virtual reality device). This projection allows the highest degree of freedom meaning that any object can be viewed from any angle, at any distance and with arbitrary FOV.

SWKotoR 2: Can we haz it in Flash please?

There is virtually no quality loss when zooming in and you can re-use 3D objects for all kinds of displays, for example you could have your once-designed character 3D objects walk around in the game world and at the same time use them on a special inventory window where you drag and drop equipment onto the same used 3D object of their bodies. This allows for ‘create-once, use everywhere’ unlike with 2D assets where you often have to create variations of the same object for use in different views.

You could also use 3D with a fixed camera to simulate a certain type of 2D view and the advantage of 3D objects would still be obvious.

The disadvantage of choosing this projection is that the creation of assets, i.e. 3D models of characters, items and environments is a lot more involved as with 2D graphics. Unless you are some sort of super-developer-designer-machine with 300 years of time up your sleeve you probably need a small team of professional 3D designers who can do this work for you. Ok, I’d say nobody died of trying but recent 3D game graphics have become so professional that it’s not an easy feat to try catching up with it. And who wants to design a game with 3D graphics that look like anno 1996? I’d probably be better off with nice-looking 2D graphics instead!

Then, as you want to create a large world for a RPG you’d have to design many interior/exterior maps that are used for the game world. If you use 3D I doubt you want to design this all manually. What you need is a map editor to create the environments more comfortably and re-use assets quickly etc. Writing such a map editor is already a whole job unto itself and takes a lot of time.

Wizardry 8: Simple 3D graphics & first-person view

Another complication with 3D graphics is the platform used for the game. I use Flash (or AIR) with use of ActionScript. While I’m convinced that ActionScript can handle all the other projection types, with 3D we’re hitting the limits very quickly. PaperVision 3D, Away3D and the Alternativa Platform all have been used sucessfully for game development already but I have yet to see a good example of an extensive RPG made with one of these and the fact that a few thousand triangles bring the framerate to a screeching halt doesn’t help the case.

Still, any of these 3D engines could be utilized in Flash for a simpler form of 3D graphics style, for example the use of mainly simple primitives with a good job in texture detail work and a combination of 2D sprites. I’m definitely looking further into this possibility.

Conclusion

I’m still in the dark about which projection style I’ll eventually use. I might be creating a first prototype with a very simple and flat top-down view (a la Ultima) to test other components of the game and then later change to something  more advanced.

Any of the introduced techniques have their charming sides, for example (as you might have had no troubles noticing) I’m very fond of Hired Guns and it’s dark and futuristic pseudo 3D view. Then again an isometric view could be more suitable for tactical gameplay (which, as I’m planing the game should have quite a few of).

Realtime 3D would be the ultimate thing but I dislike the idea of creating super-simplified 3D objects and Flash currently lacks the rendering power to use higher-end 3D graphics. I might as well be watching if the Flash platform improves in this area and then see what can be done in terms of 3D later.

Was it that? I’m sure I forgot a ton of facts and details here but I would be very interested in what others have to say about this topic or what view styles you’re about to use and why etc.

Further Reading: Significant Bits – A layman’s guide to projection in videogames

In this tutorial I will explain how to create a relatively realistic looking galaxy with Photoshop. I was searching the web up- and downwards to find any tutorials that could tell me how to get a similar fantastic result. There are like 100.000 planet tutorials out there and the few tutorials which were about creating a galaxy where either very basic or the result looked like everything but a realistic galaxy. The galaxy I wanted should have looked massive and intricate … just like the real ones but with a slightly more artistic touch. I’ve needed a galaxy that I could use as a star map for a space-themed roleplaying game design and the image you see above is a part of the result. Let’s go try to do such one …

There’s a lot to do to create such a Behemoth so let’s get started! I’ve used Photoshop CS3 for this but it should be possible to create this with CS2 and CS1 as well since none of the really new Photoshop features are required. If I do use any of the newer features then there is a way to get the same result in an earlier version, just not with the comfort the latest version offers.

Preparations

1. Create a new image in Photoshop. The size is up to you but the larger the better, I’ve used a fairly large size of 2800 x 2800 pixels. If you use a smaller resolution be sure to adapt the values I’m using to your image size. Make sure that Color Mode is RGB and the Background Contents is set to transparent. Name the empty layer “background” and fill it with black.

2. Create a new layer and also fill it with black, press ‘D’ to reset the foreground and background color to black and white. Choose Filter/Render/Fibers with a Variance of 20 and a Strength of 4. Then press Ctrl+T to activate the Transform Tool and in the tool’s parameter panel press the Chain symbol to link the width and height values that you now set to 200%. Then enter a rotation value of 45° and commit the transformation. The result can be seen here …

3. Duplicate the fibers layer and transform the new layer again, this time you only need to change the rotation value to 90° and leave the size values like they are. Commit and after that change the new layer’s blend mode to Soft Light.

4. Select the two fiber layers and merge them with Ctrl+E, then go to Image/Adjustments/Levels (or just press Ctrl+L) and enter a value of 70 in the first box, leave the others at 1.00 and 255. Also make sure that Channel is set to RGB. Press Ok. With this we thinned out the white fibers slightly.

5. Currently the image is larger than what we see because we scaled the fiber layer up earlier so let’s get rid of the stuff outside the image area … press Ctrl+A to select all on the fibers layer and cut-paste it back which creates a new layer. After that delete the old fibers layer and rename the new one to “base”.

6. Here comes our secret weapon … go to Filters/Brush Strokes/Spatter and enter a Radius of 25 and a Smoothness of 15. This filter is mostly responsible for the nice wiggly look of the spiral arms later. Now choose Filters/Distort/Twirl with an angle between 500 and 800. This parameter determines how twisted your galaxy will be. I want something with a lot of ‘tracks’ between the spiral arms so I choose 800.

7. The result gives us a whirl with nicely diverse dark and bright lines. Now create a circular selection around it. While dragging hold the Alt key and Shift key to expand the selection around it’s center and keep the aspect ratio. You can also hold then Space key to drag the selection around while doing this. When you got that press Shift+Ctrl+I to invert the selection and then hit Delete to remove the areas around the whirl.

8. With the selection still active choose Select/Modify/Expand with a value of 100 and after that Select/Modify/Feather with a value of 40 pixels. Press Delete two times to smooth out the border of our whirl and then press Ctrl+D to deselect all. Here’s the result. It still looks like everything but a galaxy, don’t worry, we will get to it …

Creating the Structure

9. Let’s start shaping our galaxy out of this what looks like a messed up vinyl record. This part is where it’s getting interesting. First duplicate the “base” layer, name the new layer “outer galaxy” and hide the original layer, we keep it to create more diverse layers later. Use Filter/Brush Strokes/Spatter with the same values like before, Spray Radius 25 and Smoothness 15 and after that give the layer a Gaussian Blur with a Radius of 1 to smooth out the noise that Spatter generated. Then apply Filter/Sharpen/Sharpen to regain some sharpness.

10. Now we are going to remove the black areas from this layer and also thin out the structure slightly … Choose Select/Color Range and pick the black color from the outer area of the image, then crank the fuzziness fully up to 200. Click Ok and then press Alt+Ctrl+D and set Feather to 2 pixel. Again hit Ok and press Delete 4 or 5 times to thin out the black areas between the spiral arms. It can be helpful here to hide the selection edges (View/Show/Selection Edges). Don’t forget to press Ctrl+D to clear the selection after that. Here’s how it looks so far …

11. Next let’s create some glow. Duplicate the “outer galaxy″ layer, rename the duplicate to “glow” and move it under the original layer. Use Gaussian Blur with a Radius of 50 and set the opacity to 60%. Also now set the opacity of the “outer galaxy″ layer to 50%.

12. If you check out some astronomical photos of galaxies you’ll notice that they get more dense toward their center so let’s do that too! Duplicate the “base” layer, rename it to “inner galaxy 1”, move it up to the top and press Ctrl+T and transform-scale this layer down to 70%. You can enter the values in the tool’s parameter palette and the resized layer content will stay centered perfectly. After that use the Spatter Filter again like you did before on the “outer galaxy” layer. Use Gaussian Blur with 1 pixel radius, then sharpen once and then again thin out the black areas like you did before in step 10 with the Color Range selection tool, just this time only press Delete two or three times. Set the layer’s blend mode to Screen and the opacity to around 55%.

13. We need to fatten up our galaxy a little more. Let’s create three more layers as in step 12, always take the “base” layer as the source and every time scale them down a tad more and increase their opacity. I’ve used scale 50% and opacity 80% on the next layer named “inner galaxy 2″, then scale 38% and opacity 90% on “inner galaxy 3″ and scale 32% and opacity 95% on “inner galaxy 4″.

14. Not bad but it looks kind of dull right now so let’s add some contrasting highlights! Duplicate the “outer galaxy” layer and rename the new one to “highlights”, then set it’s blend mode to Screen and it’s opacity to 100%. Press Ctrl+L and enter 160 in the left box. Press Ok and our highlights are finished. Here’s a preview of the current stage and the existing layers …

My God, it’s full of stars!

15. Let’s add a bunch of stars next! Creating diverse and realistic looking star fields is a whole topic unto itself so I’m not going into detail here how to create one. I recommend checking out this tutorial by Greg Martin to create some really fantastic star fields. For the sake of brevity I’ve prepared a star field template which you can download here.
Create a new layer named “stars”, copy the star field image into it and set the blend mode of this layer to Screen. Then Ctrl-Click on the “outer galaxy” layer to create a selection of it. Switch to Quick Mask Mode and draw with a black soft brush in the areas of the image where you want to have stars left. Leave Quick Mask Mode again, press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection and then – with the “stars” layer still selected – hit Delete to remove all stars that are not within the selection. Increase the Brightness of the stars by 50 with Image/Adjustments/Brightness-Contrast. Finally let’s remove most of the black area that is still on the stars layer. Choose Select/Color Range, pick up the black color from the outer areas and decrease Fuzziness to something around 70, click OK and hit Delete twice and clear the selection. The following image shows the selection in Quick Mask Mode and the result of this stage …

16. We still have a strange looking hole in the centre where galaxies normally have an immense cluster of gas and stars so we are going to create the galactic core now … Create a new layer, name it “core” and grab the Brush Tool with a large, soft brush and a white color. A 600 pixel brush works well for this image size. Click seven to eight times in the middle of the galaxy then increase the size of the brush to 900 and click four more times. Finished is our core!

Coloring

17. So far our galaxy is only black and white and we could have went from the beginning with colors but to make things easier I went without colors so far. Now there are many ways to go about coloring the image. For example we could grab a stylus and graphics tablet and hand-draw colors into the galaxy by using a brush with various blend modes or we could color layer by layer. That’s what I’m going to do now.
Select any of the galaxy layers and press Ctrl+B to bring up the Balance palette and change the colors to your liking. You might want to go for the shadows and leave the highlight untouched to get a better look. You could also duplicate layers, blur them slighly and color these instead or in addition to their original layer. Or you could merge several of the galaxy layers together and color them at once which can look quite good.

Changing Perspective

18. Currently we are looking top-down onto the galaxy but what if we want to look at it like seen from a window of a spaceship that approaches the galaxy (remember the last scene from Empire Strikes Back?!)? We will change the perspective of the image. The Distort tool under Edit/Transform is what we want for this! Try to distort the image like on the following screenshot. You only actually need to move around the upper and lower left corners. You can flatten your image for this or put all the layers into a layer folder and use the Distort tool on that folder which works as well.

19. This looks a lot better but something seems not right. The whole thing looks more like a flat disc than a voluminous star cluster so we are going to bulge out the core of the galaxy to make it look more realistic. Photoshop’s Liquify tool is actually perfect for this. Time to flatten your layers together now (except the background), then enter Liquify over the Filter menu, select the Forward Warp Tool and a relatively large brush (350) and off you go. Start bulging out the core towards the top-left like in the following image and after that you might want to choose a smaller brush size and reconstruct the area above the upper edge of the core with the Reconstruct Tool.

That’s basically it! Of course these steps are not set in stone. You could experiment with different values or use the Liquify tool early on the base layer to add slight irregularities etc. Your imagination is the limit! Here’s the resulting image and the other galaxy from that you already saw a piece earlier …

Kore 2 from Native Instruments is probably every sound organizer’s wet dream with sugar on top. Not only  can it control a multitude of Softsynths but it’s database makes it easy to organize sounds and find them quickly when needed. I’ve purchased this nice tool last December and what’s better than telling a few details on how I put it’s features to good use?!

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User Tags in Kore

Kore’s database browser already has quite a bunch of factory tags under that Kore sounds can be categorized like Type, Mode, Timbre etc. Most of them are useful, some of them are less interesting for me. For example I almost never use the Genre tags, but maybe that’s just me. However I’ve added a few other user tags to categorize sounds even better.

To add user tags to the database select any sound in the Kore browser, press the Edit button and on the left side is a tag named ‘User’. Selecting this tag reveals a (Create new…) entry with that a new Tag Category can be added. After adding a new Tag Category, it can be filled with user-defined tags in the same manner.

Some user-defined categories in the Kore browser.

I’ve added three new categories to my database: PlugIn, Preset Tags and Synthesis Type. The first and third are pretty much self-explanatory, the second, ‘Preset Tags’, however contains a bunch of collective tags for that it wouldn’t be necessary to open up an extra-category. Here’s a rundown of the ‘Preset Tags’ and what they are used for …

Preset Tags

The 'Preset Tags'.

Device Preset – tags all Kore Sounds that are a ‘Default Device’. Now what is a Default Device? I give this tag to Kore Sounds that contain a Synth or Effect in it’s factory state but (optimally) with Kore Hardware controllers assigned to it. You could also call these simply templates because that’s what they ultimately are. When I need a new fresh Synth to work with I select this tag and all the Synths (and Effects) to that I have assigned controllers earlier are listed.

Sound Preset – basically the opposite of Device Preset tag. All true ‘Sound Presets’ get this tag but Kore Sounds that have the Device Preset tag should not have this tag! So when I dig through the database on search for a good sound I highlight this tag so that no Device Presets are listed. This of course means that you shouldn’t highlight both these tags at the same time because then you get none.

Effect Preset – the same as Sound Preset but for effects.

Single Sound – Kore Sounds that only contain one instrument or effect are tagged with this.

Multi Sound – the exact opposite of Single Sound! Only lists Kore Sounds that have more than one instrument and/or effect in it’s channel hirachy.

Kore Device – Only the internal Kore Sounds are tagged with this. I.e. the Kore factory sounds and official Kore Sound packs from NI.

NI Device – Only instruments and effects from Native Instruments are tagged with this. What it’s good for? Well for example there might be times where you want to guarantee 100% compability between Kore and the used instruments. And the NI synths are certainly the most compatible with Kore.

Thirdparty Device – Likewise the tag that only non-NI devices are tagged with.

Tool Preset – Now what is a Tool Preset tag? Well it tags tool presets! Ok ok let me explain! I tag stuff under this like the Kore 2 Reaktor Toolpack. These are not sounds or effects but some sort of tools that for example can be used to control stubborn VSTi’s or even Reason (with some obstacles) with the hardware controller.

Stable – I’m not sure if I will keep this in but for now I use it to tag stable instruments with it. Yes Kore is quite nice but I experienced some Plugins running unstable in Kore. Only Plugins that run absolutely stable receive this tag.

PlugIn Category

Why add an extra category for PlugIns?? Kore already provides one, automatically generated from the installed PlugIns! … I agree but the auto-generated PlugIn category isn’t very efficient because many thirdparty manufacturers name their Plugins like whatever they want or the default Plugin names aren’t very descriptive. In that case you could add your own custom PlugIn category. The fastest way to do this is to edit the User Tags file (see below).

Synthesis Type tags.

Synthesis Type

This category can be useful if you are looking for a sound specific to it’s generation source. I’ve added all the synthesis types found on KVR plus a couple more that were missing (like Vector or PCM. Now don’t get me into a discussion whether PCM is the same as Sample Based or not!). And you are right, not all of these are really ‘synthesis’. Drum Sampler or Rompler obviously aren’t. Also to my knowledge there is no Graintable synth existing to this date except for Reason’s Malstrom (I’d be happy though if you prove me wrong). But these tags give a good conclusion about what kind of sound we are dealing with. You could for example tag a Spectrasonics Atmosphere sound with ‘Rompler’ and ‘Analogue/Subtractive’ if you know what the Rompler sound originally came from. The image on the left shows all of these tags. Sometimes you know right from the start if a set of sounds that are being imported into Kore are of a certain synthesis type. In that case you can tag them all right ahead with the correct attribute.

Editing the user tags file manually

Sometimes you want to change tags that you’ve defined before but doing this in Kore would probably mean that you have to delete the tag or remove other tags that were added after the desired tag, e.g if you want to sort your tags alphabetically.

In such a situation it’s often easier to edit the tag file directly, and yes there is such a file. On Windows Vista you will find this file under the path C:/Users/username/AppData/Local/Native Instruments/Kore 2/User.kad. On Windows XP the path is very similar and for Mac users maybe somebody can help me out with that? Either way the file is a simple XML file that can be opened and edited with a text editor.

For people who don’t want to add all these tags manually, you can download my User Tags file right here. From there on it’s easy to just copy over either only the synthesis types or whatever part you want in your user file.