Be able to use ANY FONT with Alphabet Texture Creator Extended filter

You know, the one stop shop for this is Illustrator. Though for me, saying that's kinda like a bummer in part with the fact we're trying to do this with FilterForge.

See, the one method I can think of is making a look up table of all letters. So as a user you'd make a square table with 5x5 columns each a specific number of pixels high and wide. Fill each one with a letter, and make a group of components which "looks up" each letter. The look up would be handy for this sort of thing but it'll take a bit of skill.

But by doing that you'll only need a single image slot for loading everything in at once instead of 25 separate color slots each needing some kind of tweak. On the user end, the user has to create 25 separate image files in exactly the same way, load each of them up to each separate slot and deal the rest of the filter. See, at that point I'd suggest people to just use the symbol spray tool in Illustrator. Bummer.

Regarding choosing 5 letters at a time, if you get verrryyy cleaver.... you CAANNN have all 26 (or in your case 25) slots choosable via a single slider. hehehe

==== But let's think again ====

The bottom line is this: your filter renders only 5 letters at a time. It doesn't render the whole alphabet. The user doesn't have to create 25 characters saved with transparencies. In reality, the user would only need to load 5 images because of how you created your filter. And remember, I did this before with Gradient Shapes already! The method is no different, just the output appearance.

So what about making 5 bombers for each and every slot? No... that's just gonna make a ridiculously slow filter, probably too slow for any usage. But you can if you want to.

So hear me on this: when you design something like this, you gotta get smart with what you're dealing with. The whole selling point of your alphabet filter was the simple fact that you used ThreeDee's alphabet snippet. It worked because the whole generation of letters were internal, procedural, and the results were easily derived. But by introducing the "third party" aspect, you're basically creating a 5-image bomber with a bunch of parameters and nothing any more special.

Sorry that I could not explain ALL my idea as I had to go before and I could not continue so I had to submit what I had and could not tell HOW the letters could be used with my idea

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Skybase You know, the one stop shop for this is Illustrator. Though for me, saying that's kinda like a bummer in part with the fact we're trying to do this with FilterForge.

Well, really I do not know as i have only used Illustrator just twice in 4 years.

can something like this be done inside illustrator? I mean to have a similar effect than the one made with my filter

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Skybase , at that point I'd suggest people to just use the symbol spray tool in Illustrator. Bummer

.

Well I am very sorry that I did not know that this Illustrator spray tool existed and was available, I only have experience in photoshop

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Skybase So what about making 5 bombers for each and every slot? No... that's just gonna make a ridiculously slow filter, probably too slow for any usage. But you can if you want to.

This is my next step, after making it with one bomber, would try to have all 25 letters at the same time using 5 bombers, so then, this would be a bad idea?

Thanks also for your other part of the post explaining an alternative way to do this, will have to see it and try what you have suggested.

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I still have to convert my filter from.the one it is now to having the 25 color controls instead of the letters fr om ThreeDee

The letters will NOT BE INCLUDED inside the filter, all of them will be external images loaded by the 25 color controls and then choose each letter from each group of 5 and feed it to the already configured bomber of my filter

Although I have not tried it yet with my filter, I have already tried it alone with a simple bomber and 1 color control and it works

HOW TO MAKE THE BOMBER WORK WITH EXTERNAL FONTS

Well I have done this before and tried it in this other thread wh ere is explained with screenshots

You can use PSD Fonts Letters inside your filters NOW ! without FF 4.0

HOW TO CONVERT SYSTEM FONTS ( the ones you can type with the keyboard like for example opentype or TrueType or any other similar) INTO INDIVIDUALLY EXTERNAL IMAGES

Before you can use the font that you want you must first convert each letter to individual image

There are 2 ways,

1 - get the fonts already converted to individual images from the many available websites dedicated to this topic, like ( sorry that in this moment I do not remember any, although I know one that have individual fonts images made with vectors that must be converged first also to PNG with transparent background

2 - make them yourself

MAKE THEM YOURSELF

The way I have done it myself is with photoshop.

1 - Choose the font to convert. There are available MANY sources for fonts, one of the sources is websites with font collections like for example Dafont.com, Myfonts.com or YouWorkForThem.com, in these 3 there are available free fonts and also paid ones, the best one with more free ones is the first, dafont

2 - the font must be installed and available to the software in your computer

3 - make a new document in photoshop with the size that you want to make each individual letter, it is not needed to make it big, maybe 1000 x 1000 is enough. Put transparent background

4 - now put the first letter filling most of the space available and add a new layer

5 - put the second letter in this new layer and make a third layer

6 - and so on until making all the 25 letters in 25 layers

7 - then use any of these available tutorials to export each individual layer to PNG files with transparency

8 - now you are ready to load them into the color controls of the filter

I know that this NOT an easy way to do this and needs time to make it, but is the only way I personally know, if you may know any other simpler and/or easier pelease, would be good to know it. Thanks

THIS FILTER WOULD NOT BE ONLY FOR FONTS

As may have thought this filter could be used also with any other image or photos as it would be the same, and so could be more usefull and not for only artistic typographic textures or collages

HAVE ALL 25 LETTERS INSTEAD OF ONLY 5 letters USING 5 BOMBERS

I will try also to use 5 bombers to have all the 25 letters at the same time, I have not done it before because was not needed, as the result with only 5 letters is already good enough

Maybe this could be a bad idea, as Skybase have suggested that this could be very slow

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Skybase (unfortunately not 26)

Missing one letter or one color control is not a problem considering that you will not be making words with this, so is not important, and is 25 because you only have 5 slots in bomber.

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Skybase A lookup table would easily solve this issue but I donno if you're capable of that.

Oh! Yes, how could I not have thought about that, yes is true that I would be easy and I could do a look up table, although first I have to know WHAT IS a look up table and HOW to do it in FF

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Skybase huge, unfortunate load of prep work before hand

Well, although it may seem a huge amount of work to prepare the fonts as images, I have seen that it really does not take so much time and work to do it, AND you do not really have to make ALL the 25 letters, you can only do 5 of them and use only these 5 that would take a very few minutes to make.

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Skybase Point 2 above - 5 bombers

First is that the 5 bombers is only a possible idea I suggested and not the main one, and I have put it here to see if it could work and would be good, as the main idea is to keep just one bomber and choose 5 letters from the available 25, as it already is done my filter that works well.

If using 5 bombers (or perhaps 3 instead) the amount of layers would depend much on how much each bomber adds, because if in each one there is only a few amount of letters, and then you mix all of them you will have a toleable and good amount of letters together, so you could use a low density and low repeat values.

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What do you do if the user doesn't fill all 25 slots?

Well, I have already thought about this, because in each slot there will be a switch on/off as it is already available in my filter from the first post, so you could disable all the ones that you do not want to use, and for making it easier, I would make specific presets with the right values for using only 5, 10, 15 or 25 slots and also modify the bombers accordingly.

BUT as said the 5 bombers is only a possible idea, and not the main idea.

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Just don't let yourself be the only audience. If you're going to let others use this filter, be practical about it because I doubt you'll have a majority of users making and manually loading 25 images of even less

Did I say that this was going to be public and be shared and used by others and not just for me?

Well, just joking , if it works right I will let and share it for others to use, but first with only one bomber and then test with 3 or 5.

I agree with you that when making a filter for others you must also think how others will use it and do not think that if I do not mind loading 25 images, others would not mind as me, as this may be wrong.

Again as said, the 25 slots for 25 letters, is a possible idea and not the main one, only possible if it would work

After testing the filter and having made the example above here, I have seen that it needs to make some changes for it to work when preparing the fonts in Photoshop and the above instructions I have already put are not enough, as needs to be modified slightly and add more things

PREPARE YOUR FONTS TO BE USED WITH THIS FILTER

The way I have done it myself is with photoshop, sorry that I do not know any other alternative way with another software, if you know it, feel free to put it here if you want.

I know that maybe after reading the following 10 steps you may think that this NOT an easy way to do this and needs time to make it, and is a hard work, but really although it seems a lot of work, when you start making it, you will see that is not so hard and does not take much time, I have converted 5 fonts in less than 5 minutes.

This is the only way I personally know, if you may know any other simpler, alternative and/or easier please, would be good to know it. Thanks

1 - Choose the font you want to convert. There are available MANY sources for fonts, one of the sources is websites with font collections like for example Dafont.com, Myfonts.com or YouWorkForThem.com (there are lots more websites available), in these 3 there are available free fonts and also paid ones, the best one with more free ones is the first, dafont

2 - the font must be installed and available inside Photoshop

3 - make a new document in photoshop with the size that you want to make each individual letter, it is not needed to make it big, maybe 1000 x 1000 is enough. Put transparent background option in the new image instead of white.

4 - now put the first letter filling most of the space available, for example, for the Embassy font above example, I have used a 360pt font size. Very important is to make it white otherwise it will not work. You do not have to care putting the letter in the letter or not, it only needs to be inside the square, it will be automatically trimed later.

5 - make a new layer and then rasterize the previous text layer below and switch it off so it will let you see your next letter better.

6 - put the second letter in this new created layer, as said, is not important to center it, and do not have to be in the same place as the first one. Now make a third layer and rasterize this second letter

7 - Repeat points 4 to 6 until you have made all the letters you want, and so on until making all the 25 letters in 25 layers that is the maximum possible. The minimum letters needed is only 5, so you do not have to make all the letters if you do not want.

8 - Now make all the layers visible

9 - Go to menu File--> Scripts--> Export Layers to files...and configure it in the samer way as it appears in the screenshot below. When finished click RUN, and then all your font layers will be trimed and saved into the choosen folder

10 - now you are ready to load your newly created PNG fonts into the color controls of the filter

A basic lookup table.

Edit: the lookup table doesn't have to be a square, you could position all the letters in a single line.

Second thing, you can't add your own images to a filter, so the filter library will show only colorful squares (or perhaps nothing) instead of letters. There is a way to include an image inside a filter, but the resolution is too low and this method has a very limited use in any case.

Thanks very much Velho for the basic lookup table example, and how to make it, as I did not know nothing about it.

Will have to test it and see how it works and what I can do with it

Also have some basic question put in the screenshot below, I think I already know the answer, but want to confirm it.

regarding the CSV, I was talking about just importing various pieces of data in general not about fonts.

But if you believe in magic, I'm pretty sure FF will offer you ways of doing something that I can't imagine working.

Thanks Velho, I will test and experiment with your look up table example and see what I can get.

RESULT

The result (from the previous post above here) is beautiful and great as I expected and like it very much and this has just been a simple and fast test, will do more, as surely can be done better, and these beautiful japanese letters deserve more

Here I have done a straight example without rotating them, so it can be seen better the japanese letters used as explained in the post above the examples

Here I have made some examples of texture done with words using this beta filter

Please, see it in this other thread

Great work and beautiful examples, like much the typographic effect and textures, well done