zompist bboard

Hi! I'm new here and I want to ask something: Zomp, how did you do the Verdurian etc. fonts?

Ancenande wrote:Hi! I'm new here and I want to ask something: Zomp, how did you do the Verdurian etc. fonts?

They're were made with a program called Fontographer. It was so buggy (and expensive) that I can't really recommend it.

Use Font Creator Program. It's really good.

Or MetaFont, if you're a programmer-type and feeling especially ambitious.

So... Where can I get Font Creator?

you want it thru legal means or illegal? If you choose legal, have fun paying for it whereas if you download it "illegally" say on emule or limewire or such, then you wont need to pay for it, however theres a catch to that too, as in... you'd need to have winrar to unzip the .rar files to load *hides* i've said too much the governments probably on my ass now...

Hah, thanks But... in Poland there are problems with p2p, it is strictly illegal. So, everyone is using it

Seiphel wrote:Hah, thanks But... in Poland there are problems with p2p, it is strictly illegal. So, everyone is using it

It was legal in sweden until recently, but that hasn't stop us hehe

Sheesh, I think I'm the only person under the age of twenty five left in the world whose first instinct when he wants a piece of software is to save up and actually pay for it.

You're not.

Of course, my second instinct is always to remember that I can't afford extravangances like software, so I may as well forget about it and hope to be able to buy a copy in about five years' time.

Delthayre wrote:Sheesh, I think I'm the only person under the age of twenty five left in the world whose first instinct when he wants a piece of software is to save up and actually pay for it.

I agree with Nuntar: You aren't the only one. I'm glad when I can get burned a piece of really fucking expensive software like Photoshop -- which I've not just to have it, but I actually use it and also for more elaborate tasks than just converting file formats or rotating pictures. OK, this does not excuse me from the fact that I stole a copy of Photoshop, though. If I had the money, I'd buy it. But since I haven't got the money, I can't. Other than that, I still first think of buying music and also software. Downloading such stuff is insane anyway if you've only got 64k. When I'll have moved to Braunschweig later this year for beginning my apprenticeship, I'll maybe even only have a 56k modem.

The conditions when I would 'borrow' something (from a friend or p2p or whatever):
1) If it's too expensive for me to ever think about buying. Eg, I am NOT going to pay hundreds of pounds (or even tens of pounds) for software that I think I might happen to use at some point. Eg, I've got a copy of AutoCAD from a friend - it's a good programme that someday might be useful, but there's no way in hell i'm paying that much for it.

2) If I'm going to buy it anyway. Eg, I downloaded and read the second book of Martin's ASOIAF while I was waiting to buy it.

3) If it's not worth enough to me to ever buy. Eg, I've downloaded samples of modern music from the net to listen to, but I'ld never go out and buy their CD, especially as I wouldn't know yet whether I liked them. If anything, borrowing the music first increases the chance of my giving them money in the future. Similarly, I downloaded and (skim-)read Crossroads of Twilight, because I'm never giving that hack another penny but I would like to know how the story ends.

Salmoneus wrote:2) If I'm going to buy it anyway. Eg, I downloaded and read the second book of Martin's ASOIAF while I was waiting to buy it.

Good book. I'm on that one now -- about halfway through it.

I thought this is a thread about making Verdurian fonts, but now it is about legal/illegal software, p2p and all that stuff

You could use Fontforge, which is free software. Probably not quite as simple to install on Windows, though. It's quite a capable program, though not, I think, quite up to the standard of the really expensive professional tools.

my pov concerning cracked software: I will never buy any of those expensive pieces of crap. Except for Photoshop, maybe. So what harm's being done? I will not buy it, and if they don't let me use it, I'll use the free option. So, actually, I'm doing them a favor, using their file types and programming languages, helping them create a new bullshit standard in the industry.

So pay me.

About music: I buy what I like. actually, the music on my pc is almost the same as the music on my shelves.

About films: $10 to see a movie just once is theft.

About books: see about music above.

EDIT: by the way, I am a programmer that gets paid for his work, just for the record

krinnen wrote:About films: $10 to see a movie just once is theft.

Yes, so the correct response is not to go see movies at all, which is what I do.

My solution is to rent, which is cheaper, less onerous, and only lacks the big-screen experience, which is itself usually negated by the truly awful audiences that swarm into modern the?ters. Sometimes small theaters (like the 19th Street The?ter back home) are exceptions on both price and noxiousness of the audience, but I don't go to them as often as I might like.

My general sense is that there's no worth is whinging about the costs of luxuries. If bread was $10 a slice, then there'd be grounds for both complaints and theft, but I wll neither condone nor accept crimes of convenience.

Butsuri wrote:You could use Fontforge, which is free software. Probably not quite as simple to install on Windows, though. It's quite a capable program, though not, I think, quite up to the standard of the really expensive professional tools.

How do you make that infernal thing work on Windows? That's something I hate about a lot of third party programs. They demand a mess of baffling technical knowledge or understanding that I generally have no use for, leaving me persistently either frustrated, confused, or worried that even if I make it work, I'll cause something to go wrong while carrying out a process I don't understand.

Delthayre wrote:but I wll neither condone nor accept crimes of convenience.

Don't worry, nobody's asking you to. (and crime sounds so negative... let's say illegal actions instead... when i read crime of convinience i imagine you shooting the awful crowd at the theater )


About the fonts, I'm still looking for a decent program that can handle OpenType (to do ligatures and intelligent scripts, a la arabic or verdurian)

Delthayre wrote:How do you make that infernal thing work on Windows? That's something I hate about a lot of third party programs. They demand a mess of baffling technical knowledge or understanding that I generally have no use for, leaving me persistently either frustrated, confused, or worried that even if I make it work, I'll cause something to go wrong while carrying out a process I don't understand.

Download Cygwin. Install it. The installation wizard will ask you which packages to download from the web. Download all packages necessary to run an X Server. It's ~60M or so, so be warned (took me 4 hrs or so with 64k at least). Then download Fontforge for Cygwin and install it as described. You should also install PoTrace and/or Autotrace, of course in the Cygwin edition. I use Autotrace IIRC, which may well be a bit difficult to find for Cygwin. As for tracing letters it does a good job, though, not as Potrace which for some reason reads pixel graphics pixel by pixel into FF. I'd also suggest you to download Inkscape or Sodipodi or to get some other decent vector graphics program.

Del, how the HELL can you put a diaresis into 'theatre'? It's a diphthong! the point of the diaresis is to show vowels that AREN'T diphthongs. But that IS a diphthong. Some dialects, it's just a long vowel! I mean, goo god. It's like saying "E?r" for 'ear'!!! Your spelling makes it look like /T@.{t@/ or something!!!

Chefasco!

Or, since we?re talking about diereses, ch?f?sc?!

Salmoneus wrote:Del, how the HELL can you put a diaresis into 'theatre'? It's a diphthong! the point of the diaresis is to show vowels that AREN'T diphthongs. But that IS a diphthong. Some dialects, it's just a long vowel! I mean, goo god. It's like saying "E?r" for 'ear'!!! Your spelling makes it look like /T@.{t@/ or something!!!

I often hear "theater" with the diphthong split.

Anyway, if you have the money (or want to pirate it), I use and recommend FontLab. Then again, even the free Fontforge has some nice features that FontLab lacks.

Salmoneus wrote:Del, how the HELL can you put a diaresis into 'theatre'?

Some people pronounce it /"Ti:.@.t@`/ or /Ti:"eI.t@`/

I like to scan in calligraphic drawings of the characters, trace them using Illustrator, and then simply copy the figures into Font Creator program as glyphs. FCP then figures out how to turn them into glyphs and it works real well, all you have to do is make sure the bounding lines are set up correctly.