#Import image to fontforge software

This will open the trace bitmap settings. Open Inkscape, drag the PNG into the new document, then right click the PNG and hit 'Trace Bitmap.' Step 3: VectorizationThis step is the simplest step, and I recommend doing it in Inkscape even if you have Illustrator. Once this is done, save the png again and close the image editor. Make sure you zoom out every now and again to see how it looks small. Things like that go a long way to making a clean kill icon, especially as these will only be as small as the text in game. Notice how I removed the holes in the gun's front, and made the ironsights chunkier.

5: Before and after of the Harkonnen SMG PNGs. Small detail will disappear or distort the vector version of the art, so making sure the art is chunky is key.Īs an example, here is the Harkonnen SMG before and after cleanup.įig. This stage is more subjective, but essentially, you need to remove, or make more chunky, any small detail in the weapon's silhouette. The first thing you want to do is invert the image, making the white silhouette black. Open up the silhouette you just created in the art package of choice. Once this step is done, you can close 3DS Max at this point, as you are finished with that application. 4: Settings for saving the weapon render. Save it as a 24 bit PNG, and make sure the alpha channel box is ticked.įig. Save that render to a folder with other renders for the killfont. A window with the side on silhouette should have been rendered.

Once that window has opened, change the Output Size to 512 pixels wide and 512 pixels high. This can be accessed via the Rendering menu, or by pressing F10, or by pressing the Render Setup button on the Max Toolbar ( ). Once both of these have been done, go to the Render Setup window. 2: Gun model positioned correctly in an orthographic viewport. Make sure the gun fits in the width of the viewport.įig. Position the gun in the middle of an orthographic view, side on. If the weapon is already rigged for W3D, hide any bones that may get in the way of the render, such as Muzzle bones or eject bones. 1: Material settings for a silhouette material.Īpply this material to the meshes of the gun.

This will allow me to create a good, clean sillhouette.įig. What is required for this stage is a silhouette that is recognizable as the object in question, and for firearms, that view is best gotten from a side view.įor my method in 3DS Max, I first create a Standard material, I set the diffuse and ambient colours to pure white, and I set the self-illumination to 100. The angle of the image can vary, it can be a side view, it can be a forward view, or even a top view. The first step in this method requires you to render a silhouette of the object in question. Step 1: Render a silhouette of the object I will use the Harkonnen SMG from Battle for Dune as an example for the method I use for this. This has a number of steps, and can be done many different ways. Prepare the art for the iconThe first thing you will need to do is create the vector art for the icon. In this tutorial, I will use Inkscape.įontForge (this application creates the font) This can be Illustrator, Inkscape, or any other vector art program, as long as it can save SVG format files. I will use Photoshop, but the techniques are the same, and do not rely on anything in Photoshop. This can be Photoshop,, GIMP or any other program of this sort. (Can be optional, depending on how you want to create the art for the kill icons).

This tutorial will not go into setting up the kill messages, as tutorials already exist for this.ģDS Max.

#Import image to fontforge software

There are a number of steps, and it will require a bit of art skill, as well as some specialised software for this task. IntroductionThis guide covers the steps that are required to create a killfont for W3D Engine games.