Drawing advanced shortcuts (Turorial Updated!)

[LuneFox]

I bring my apologies for not-so-good English in advance.

Recently I've been asked to explain how to draw beautiful shortcuts for PSZ. It was quite difficult to give a short intelligible answer, so I decided to make a detailed guide on how to make this kind of stuff. Maybe it's not the best way to do it, but that's exactly how I make my own pictures. Hoping it will help you.

You will need:
1) A Nintendo DS with installed Phantasy Star Zero (we just can't exclude this! =D)
2) A sharp wooden toothpick.
3) Adobe Photoshop
4) Alot of time, patience and not shivering hands.

http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/rika.gif
MAIN TUTORIAL

STEP 1. Touch screen preparation
Remove all cards from your DS and turn it on. Go to settings for screen calibration. Take a sharp toothpick (don't use a stylus!) and calibrate the screen as accurate as you can. Make sure that your DS is calibrated perfectly with a toothpick, then reboot the console and load PSZ.

Don't say goodbye to your toothpick, because you'll have to use it instead of the stylus unless you want to shout "FUUUUU-" every 2 seconds of drawing.

STEP 2. Image conversion
Once in the game, open your shortcut editor and google for image you want to make a shorcut of. As example, let's take Nei's portrait from Phantasy Star II.

Save your image for "Web & Devices"
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/1.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Set the number of colors to 2, choose black and white as your two colors, select a dithering method that looks good with your image (usually "No Dither" looks the best, but not for all image types). When using dithering, don't set it above 50%. If your image looks bad, try playing with additional options. Try changing brightness, contrast and sharpness of your image before saving it for Web & Devices. Luckily, Nei's portrait looks good without any magic.
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/2.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Create a new file with 112 x 48 pixels size (actual shortcut resolution).
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/3.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Paste, move and correct your black & white image as you would like it to appear in the game.
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/4.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Make another tiny 10x10 sized file and color it like this (I call it a "guide cross"). It will help us orient better while drawing. Of course, you can use your own colors ^_^ I like red and dark red.
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/5.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Place it on your picture with 30% opacity.
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/5a.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Good. Next, create two guidelines from this menu (one vertical and one horizontal).
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/6.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Place them around the Guide Cross like this.
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/7.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Okay! We're ready to start drawing! Equip your Wooden Toothpick in your right or left hand (whichever has more accuracy) and prepare to show your skill and patience! ^_^

STEP 3. Drawing
Draw a 10x10 black box in the corner that represents the current position of the Guide Cross.
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/8.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

See what pixels are actually white on your picture and wipe them one by one by touching them with the eraser tool (don't drag it too fast or it'll draw fat lines!). Guide Cross will help you with locating and counting white pixels.
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/9.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Move your Guide Cross to the other side of the horizontal guide line.
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/10.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Repeat the same thing as before.
[SPOILER-BOX]
Drawing next 10x10 black box.
http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/11.png
Wiping.
http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/12.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Very good. Now move the guideline first and only then move the Guide Cross.

[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/13.png

http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/14.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Complete the column and move to the next one by moving along your vertical guideline! It's not that hard to devote a separate explanation image to it, I think. Your work should look like this now.
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/15.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

Continue doing this routine work to the end, and you'll get a pretty image in your shortcuts!
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/16.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

You may add some text with borders (for beautiful fonts type something in photoshop and don't use anti-aliasing (makes fonts pixelated), then draw them the same way).

STEP 4. Finishing your work
Don't forget to save your shortcut and immediately save your game (just imagine if your DS suddenly freezes after all this work!). Unequip Wooden Toothpick ^_^

Well, that's it ^^


MORE USEFUL HINTS

1. In addition to the Guide Cross, you can turn 1 pixel grid that will help you count pixels.
[SPOILER-BOX]http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/17.png[/SPOILER-BOX]
2. You can rule the drawing screen in advance to prevent drawing a black square each time you move a Guide Cross. It can save you some time.
[SPOILER-BOX]
Prepare this grid for your furute drawings. Copy and paste it to every empty slot in your shortcuts, so you won't have to make it ever again ^^
http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/18.png

Just fill next square with black color before erasing extra pixels. Simple as that!
http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/19.png[/SPOILER-BOX]


If you manage to convert some images into beautiful shortcuts, share them here and I'll add them to this library:


SHORTCUT LIBRARY
Feel free to browse and draw!
[SPOILER-BOX]
http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/psz.gif http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/nei.gif http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/pszhunew.gif http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/ethan.gif http://nostale.ucoz.ru/Images/PSZShortCutGuide/sorry.gif[/SPOILER-BOX]

[DoctorShanks]

Can I give you hugs?

[Darkus]

This. guide. is. awesome. goodjob.jpg

[Chaos Rappy]

My better idea that only cost me about $150 and allowed for better playing of this game as well as well as increased battery life: getting a DSiXL. Big screen allows for little room for error, except in very minor cases, which is what allowed me to do some of my less complicated works here, though I rarely made my own stuff except for random smilies, but I will take pride in my balrog ones, however. They were fun to make. :P

(In case it wasn't obvious, I'm joking about it being a better idea... ;P)

[The_Pup]

For people who don't want to throw money at Adobe or wish for a semi-alternate method:

Step 1) Read tutorial.
Step 2.1) Replace Photoshop with [free/open source image editor here] for conversion to black-white or
Step 2.2) Get a decent pixel art program or
Step 2.3) Get both.
Step 3) Replace sections of tutorial as needed.

Pixel art and image editor lists:
http://hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/Graphics_Utilities.html
http://love2d.org/wiki/Category:Software

========

I'd like to point to using pixel tools to make this job easier since they usually have a grid option somewhere in the program.

A good one is IDraw3 ( http://rpgcrisis.net/forums/files/file/34-idraw/), it's old but still good. For the "Guide Cross" section in IDraw3 do the following (note, I use the same version of an earlier version but it is the same):

1) [Setting->Settings] *click* You will be shown some grid settings.
2) Set "Primary Grid Color" to your preference (it draws a grid for individual pixels). Grey is best for B/W images.
3) Set "Guide Grid" to whatever resolution you want (10x10 as per the tutorial). Make sure "Show" is checked. Click OK.
4) [Zoom->8] *click* You will see the pixel and guide grids. Begin drawing out sections on your DS.

Optional:
5) [Settings->Set Block Interval...] *click*
6) Set the width and height with what you used in step 3 (10x10 in tutorial). Click OK.
7) [Settings->Use Block Interval] *click* Make sure it's checked. It will make selections based on the grid.
8 ) [View->Show Tools] *click*
9) Click the "Select Rectangle" tool (the upper left box, hover mouse to get a name for the tool) and click the section you are working on to mark as the grid you are working on.

[LuneFox]

don't want to throw money at Adobe
Heh, I feel sad for countries where FBI pursues you for cracked software ^^
Well, my main idea is to draw by 10x10 blocks for better orientation. Any program with similar functions will fit ^^ Photoshop is just an example (I got used to it).

BTW, I just added some additional hints that can help you draw.