Alphabet ANY Font Texture Creator Basic by SpaceRay

IMPORTANT - Please, do NOT judge the filter fr om the Presets shown because the main use of this filter CAN´T be shown in the presets as it uses EXTERNAL images to work with ANY font

DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING THIS FILTER

You must load the fonts (or shapes, objects or photos) inside the 5 ANY FONTS color controls and ACTIVATE the checkbox.

It does NOT have to be 5 different ones, you can use just only 1 (put all the five with the same one), or 2, or 3 and up to 5, just be careful of filling always all 5 color controls. See next post for hints and tips on this

See below on another post, a graphic description of the settings explaining what each setting does

Please, at the end of this post how the final font of your choice must look like

Here below I have used this Free Embassy font



You can use ANY language fonts, as for example I have used some Japanese fonts as shown here below (more information about this Japanese fonts and the ones I have choosen can be found here)



Will start first with the easier one that is the second one wh ere you do not to prepare it and can be used directly

2 - USE ANY PNG, PSD, or VECTOR FONTS

There are already available thousands of these kind of fonts on internet, many are free and many paid ones, one of the best and excellent and awesome quality paid ones I have seen are the Handmade Fonts

The PNG Font format can be used directly without any previous preparation

The PSD format only needs to be converted to PNG with transparency with the software of your choice

The VECTOR fonts must also be converted to PNG with transparency although is different way than with PSD

One very good and excellent quality Example of paid and commercial vector fonts are these - Vector fonts examples

Will put more possible FREE and legal sources for fonts in another post below

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1 - USE ANY OF THE SYSTEM FONTS WITH THIS FILTER

Here is the instructions to make your images to be used with this 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, please, would be good to know it and you can put it here

HOW TO CONVERT AND PREPARE SYSTEM FONTS ( the ones you can type with the keyboard like for example opentype or TrueType or any other similar) INTO INDIVIDUALLY EXTERNAL IMAGES TO BE USED WITH THIS FILTER[

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

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.

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



If this maybe do not work for you or do not understand it, there are many tutorials showing how to export photoshop layers as files

For example this one Tutorial of exporting photoshop layers to individual PNG files

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

The final font images must look like shown here below that you need to make to be loaded with this filter

I am very sorry EAdams that I have seen that I have uploaded the wrong filter and this one could not show right the transparent background, I have just sent the good and fixed version and also have made a new better instructions page more detailed to avoid any possible problems.

Please, be aware that any loaded Font must be White with transparent background, see an example at the end of the instructions.

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EAdams I wanted to try out this interesting filter

Thanks very much for trying this filter, and I agree that this can be a very interesting and cool filter that is different to others filters as this is based on external fonts, shapes, objects,... etc. that you can load in the 5 color controls and I can´t show this in the presets.

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EAdams I do notice that in your default preset (with no external shape loaded), if I deactivate all the checkboxes "Letter Shape A to E",

What these checkboxes do is actívate the Invert shape option, so all the transparent background is converted to solid color, and the solid color Font to transparent.

I have now modified the text of these settings to Letters Invert so it is more clear

The reason to put this is to have more options and posible weird designs

Let me leave a critique.

Chapter 1: The good stuff

Some positive things! Some nice organization with the controls, lots of them! Way too many. But ok nice job organizing things and writing up documents n stuff.

Chapter 2: The Part Where I Get Critical

By far, this filter has been the weakest of the series. Let me break it down into chunks.

1. You title it "Alphabet ANY Font Texture Creator Basic" which is kinda misleading because "any font" = "any image". You can import symbols, pictures, fonts... yeah anything image based. So this really takes away fr om the whole point of this filter's purpose: to splatter fonts everywhere. Your first version of this actually was the best of all editions. The reason being that it generated fonts internally via ThreeDee's snippet, and it just worked. It was special in that it did that.

Basically, what's the point of your "font" filter after all when you can load anything?

It seems like your filter is lost in its own identity. Mixed up between "can load any image" but the author prefers to use it with fonts.

2. This filter = just a bomber with extra things dangling on it. It's basically a filter loosely tied together by a thin piece of string. ThreeDee's work being fed into the bomber is the only thing that really matters in the entire filter. So what's the filter after all? Just a bomber?

3. At the point you're instructing people how to use the filter, your filter is overly complicated. People expect things to be intuitive, especially programs like FilterForge. That basically sets the tone for the whole thing. Nobody reads instructions. People rather just play with sliders and generate stuff than read a 1000 word introduction to how to use a simple filter.

4. 3 versions later and you're still fixated on the same ideas since several years ago. It seems like the same thing submitted again... and again... and again. This is wh ere I feel like I need to pump some creative spirit in. How about a PAINTERLY version of the filter? Or something that's really "designed" and fashionable rather than just bombing letters out? See, to me, this filter needs to seriously evolve. It needs to become cooler but it just can't because it doesn't know how. You need to seriously challenge yourself and move on beyond doing something simple like this.

Chapter 3: The thing about it all.

It can improve. Every aspect of it can improve.

Remember, push forth, rebuild, and take a good look at what you make. Rebuild again and again and again if you need to. What makes a good filter is a filter that works to our expectations. In this filter, it's seriously obvious where your flaws are so it's your chance to deal with them, face some challenge and give it some time.

[Edit]
Kinda cleaned up the argument. I think the issues have been pretty obvious. I guess what hit me was the fact that it's really just a bomber in the end.... Seems like the filter's documentation is quite a stretch trying to explain it's purpose and otherwise. To be fair, you've been working on this for some time and the pictures do prove that you got a vision, but the filter itself proves too simple as a final piece of work.

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Thanks EAdams and Skybase for your comments and all you have written, I will answer you later in another post as I would love to answer you now, but regetably I do not have enough time to do it now, sorry.

I kinda wish you'd respond by acting upon it. It seems like we exchange words than we actually accomplish something. The only reason why I'm leaving critiques around is because you've been here long. You've asked countless times for advice on using the program, and you've got answers. Just a side note: a lot of the advice you receive are really good pointers about building filters, about standard practice, and also a measure of quality control. I think you've done your part following some of them, but it seems like you either don't recognize the value of it or you forget about them.

Just kinda sad really.

[Edit] Removed some of the other thoughts I had. I think I need to keep the discussion straight forward. I think I'll put some of it on whatever other thing you might write up.

But yeah... I guess I can give a helping hand with something like this. You seem to be pretty much stuck making filters these days.