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Converting old fonts. Any requests?


Fidcal

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I have a large collection of old true type fonts going back to Win3 - and many were converted from the Mac even earlier. I'm now working through them looking for suitable fonts. Some have docs, some don't. So, I'm only selecting ones that are 1. suitable for TDM and 2. have a clear doc stating public domain, or do what the hell you like, etc.. Some have 'I'd appreciate a postcard' with an address and the font is dated 1991. Dunno what to do with those. I have scores of fonts but many are modern in style so I'll be happy if I find a dozen suitable for us. There's one with really nice medieval scrollwork caps but unfortunately the lower case letters are caps too. Pity. Anyway its shareware-ish. Anyway I never liked it anyway! :)

 

Anyway, the point is I am dismissing any that don't look suitable but if anyone has any special requests let me know and I'll look out for them.

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It would be nice if some of these could be renamed. For instance, there is one called RSMACHUM.TTF which is RSMacHumaine - a caligraphic style public domain font. For our purposes, rsmachum won't mean much to describe it, caligraphic1 might be better, but I want to keep some reference to the original so if anyone asks I've got the doc here declaring it free to use. Comments?

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My only comment would be "less is more" and "quality, not quantity".

 

I'd rather have 3 good looking fonts, than 20 mediocre ones :)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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I now have 17 fonts converted ready to upload. All had docs stating freeware, or free for personal use, not for commercial use, or whatever.

 

There are more that state they are free but should only be distributed in their zips with the docs. Since we are not distributing the originals but converting them then I leave it to admin to decide if they could be converted or not.

 

I have a ton more that are in their zips without any docs at all!

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In-case the builders decide to make some kinda machine that makes pressed font

 

Printing presses are fairly common. I think Times New Roman is too modern looking, however.

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Yes, I had been looking out for a crude old typeface but no luck so far. There was a stencil type but I rejected it on second consideration.

 

Some of the ones I had sorted out would not convert properly and others on second perusal I decided against. So out of the 17 only 9 remain and 2 are dubious. And this includes medusa which I've re-converted and improved the x-offset. Of the few left I think all but one or two could be used by mappers eventually. How many you'd want in the official resources is another matter. So the left overs could be kept for the future.

 

Ignore the names - just go on the font visually and all the various types of mission where they might be used. I'll continue to look for more though so this is not the end.

 

This is what I've prepared so far...

 

 

fontChildArchitect.jpg

fontGothic_deutsch.jpg

fontGothica2.jpg

fontHeidleberg.jpg

fontLipstick.jpg

fontMacHumaine.jpg

fontMedusa.jpg

fontPlaydough.jpg

fontRapscallionPirate.jpg

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I would vote against medusa and playdough, and gothic deutch doesn't seem good enough to bother with.

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+1: I like Mac Humaine and Rapscallion.

 

Neutral: Lipstick might be OK if authors used it very sparingly and in the right contexts, not sure about that one.

 

-1: Playdough and Child Architect are too modern. Medusa doesn't translate well (it's hard to read and too square). Heidleburg, Gothica2, and Gothic Deutsch don't seem good enough compared to Mac Humaine, which is in a similar style but much better; I'd prefer to encourage people to use the better font rather than giving them half a dozen similar-but-worse alternatives.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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Negative:

 

* Child Architect: too modern

* Playdough: ugh. impossible to handwrite, not easy to print. would remove it.

 

Ok, but problems:

 

* Gothic Deutsch: Has nice letters but the clipping and the "run-together" on small sizes makes it not good for readables. But it would be good for headlines. (Can we have more than one font per readable?)

* Heidelberg: Nice letters, but has kerning/placement issues ("T here" etc)

* Mac Humaine: kerning issues ("f or", "T his")

* medusa: Looks blurry

* Rapscallion: Hm. No obvious problems. But don't like the visual that much.

 

Positive:

 

* Lipstick: VERY good for handwritten notices with chalk (need white color, tho)

* Gothica2: nice font (unless you make UPPERCASE :)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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OK, I'll keep on looking but it's tough. I went through several hundred. Each one quick assessment, check the docs, 90% have copyright restrictions. Narrowed down to 20 odd. Some wouldn't convert. Most have kerning (x offset) problems. So we finish up with possibly two or three.

 

I'm surprised medusa not popular. Did anybody notice that in Thief's Den? I mean when actually playing and you read two messages written in medusa, did anyone at that moment think, this is blurry or kerning is bad or whatever?

 

We haven't got one perfect font yet - and just over 50 weeks to go. We may have to compromise a little.

 

So in particular I'm looking out for...

 

Gothic/Italic/Medieval to see if any better.

Rough old typeset such as used for billboard or old newspaper

Child's scrawl. I do hope we are going to have some children in TDM else it just won't be as rich a world. But if a message from a child is needed, even if no child appears in-game, then there is no substitute.

General handwriting - some rough, some neat.

 

We need to keep in mind two criteria: The core resource at launch - and fonts that real mappers will use in real mappers in the oncoming years. So a child's scrawl might not make it into the core resource but it would be nice to have a substantial collection of less general fonts for future use and let the mappers choose.

 

My own views on the above fonts:

 

Child architect : I'd have no problem if I came across that in a T2 mission.

Gothics : both no use - only included in case someone said 'I can fix that!'

Heidleberg : I like it but shame about the f offset. Maybe I'll try converting again.

Mac Humaine : Ditto - f offset the other way. Maybe I can breed it with Heidleberg

Medusa : fine

Lipstick : fine - also as chalk is a great idea.

Playdough : fine - rare use though so probably not for core resource.

Rapscallion : fine

 

I came across some wonderful fonts in the search but it breaks your heart when you see the copyright restrictions! I have a folder full of ones in zips with NO docs at all. I have others that state 'free for anyone to use so long as you distribute in this zip unaltered'

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I can say I really noticed the poor quality of Medusa in Thief's Den. I remember wondering if it was a core TDM font, and hoping it wasn't.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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OPEN FONT LICENSE - NEED JUDGEMENT

 

I have come across a font being distributed under the Open Font License which is new to me. I tried to attach it as txt or zip but I can't so I paste it in below. Seems to me in essence we can use such fonts if we include a copy of that licence. Is that feasible? Let me know and I'll ignore such fonts...

 

This Font Software is Copyright (c) 2003-2005, SIL International (http://scripts.sil.org/).
All Rights Reserved.

"Gentium" is a Reserved Font Name for this Font Software.
"SIL" is a Reserved Font Name for this Font Software.

This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.0.
No modification of the license is permitted, only verbatim copy is allowed.
This license is copied below, and is also available with a FAQ at:
http://scripts.sil.org/OFL


-----------------------------------------------------------
SIL OPEN FONT LICENSE Version 1.0 - 22 November 2005
-----------------------------------------------------------

PREAMBLE
The goals of the Open Font License (OFL) are to stimulate worldwide
development of cooperative font projects, to support the font creation
efforts of academic and linguistic communities, and to provide an open
framework in which fonts may be shared and improved in partnership with
others.

The OFL allows the licensed fonts to be used, studied, modified and
redistributed freely as long as they are not sold by themselves. The
fonts, including any derivative works, can be bundled, embedded, 
redistributed and sold with any software provided that the font
names of derivative works are changed. The fonts and derivatives,
however, cannot be released under any other type of license.

DEFINITIONS
"Font Software" refers to any and all of the following:
- font files
- data files
- source code
- build scripts
- documentation

"Reserved Font Name" refers to the Font Software name as seen by
users and any other names as specified after the copyright statement.

"Standard Version" refers to the collection of Font Software
components as distributed by the Copyright Holder.

"Modified Version" refers to any derivative font software made by
adding to, deleting, or substituting -- in part or in whole --
any of the components of the Standard Version, by changing formats
or by porting the Font Software to a new environment.

"Author" refers to any designer, engineer, programmer, technical
writer or other person who contributed to the Font Software.

PERMISSION & CONDITIONS
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of the Font Software, to use, study, copy, merge, embed, modify,
redistribute, and sell modified and unmodified copies of the Font
Software, subject to the following conditions:

1) Neither the Font Software nor any of its individual components,
in Standard or Modified Versions, may be sold by itself.

2) Standard or Modified Versions of the Font Software may be bundled,
redistributed and sold with any software, provided that each copy
contains the above copyright notice and this license. These can be
included either as stand-alone text files, human-readable headers or
in the appropriate machine-readable metadata fields within text or
binary files as long as those fields can be easily viewed by the user.

3) No Modified Version of the Font Software may use the Reserved Font
Name(s), in part or in whole, unless explicit written permission is
granted by the Copyright Holder. This restriction applies to all 
references stored in the Font Software, such as the font menu name and
other font description fields, which are used to differentiate the
font from others.

4) The name(s) of the Copyright Holder or the Author(s) of the Font
Software shall not be used to promote, endorse or advertise any
Modified Version, except to acknowledge the contribution(s) of the
Copyright Holder and the Author(s) or with their explicit written
permission.

5) The Font Software, modified or unmodified, in part or in whole,
must be distributed using this license, and may not be distributed
under any other license.

TERMINATION
This license becomes null and void if any of the above conditions are
not met.

DISCLAIMER
THE FONT SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT
OF COPYRIGHT, PATENT, TRADEMARK, OR OTHER RIGHT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
COPYRIGHT HOLDER BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM, OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE FONT SOFTWARE OR FROM
OTHER DEALINGS IN THE FONT SOFTWARE.

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I haven't noticed any glaring problems with existing fonts. (Well, except that the font used in the console is of an inappropriate style, but that's not an in-game font as such so I don't think it matters. The console font is clear and easy to read, and that's all it needs to be.) Any in particular you'd like to point out?

 

@licence: Yeah, that looks like a pretty reasonable licence, I think we can use any fonts which are under that licence. Just chuck the licence text file into the same folder as the font.

 

One catch to note: "Modified Version" includes any version of the font created "by changing formats", so the TDM version of such a font would be a "Modified Version". That means that the name of the converted font would have to be changed from the original name. Easy to do, just don't forget. :)

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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Haha! If it had been a core TDM font it would have raised the quality of that resource by about 500% as I don't think anything in there was worth keeping as I recall. I've always took them for placeholders.

 

I agree with Crispy, which exactly do you have a problem with? The current menu font needs a slight adjustment to the 'j' spacing, but they all seem fine to me.

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OK, here are the current TDM fonts. They are probably not as bad as I thought but when I was looking for fonts suitable for a real mission: Thief's Den, not one seemed really ideal for my mission which somewhat coloured my thinking.

 

The first one, AndrewScript is reasonable - possibly for an educated child. Note that the g and y are displaced to the left...

 

font2AndrewScript.jpg

 

Next is carleton. This looks good but is upper case only.

 

font2carleton.jpg

 

Next is felix. This upper case only so limited in use and I see the capital S is faded on one side....

 

font2felix.jpg

 

jd_hand again is simple handwriting. My impression is a child but perhaps this and AndrewScript might be used for an older person. Once again, g and y are displaced...

 

font2jd_hand.jpg

 

Here's nancy. This looks OK to me - maybe too bold for some tastes. I think on looking at this again I might use it in Den.

 

font2nancy.jpg

 

Finally, treasure_map. Again, not bad but the f is badly displaced.

 

font2treasure_map.jpg

 

It is exceedingly difficult to get good fonts without restrictions and difficult to convert them perfectly. I spend an hour or two going through scores and scores, probably in the hundreds, have to examine every one for copyright, then convert and finish up with one or two! But since it is OK to include ones whose only stipulation is that their original doc is included then that should open up crateful of folders for my further exploration! Fortunately I filtered out all the fonts I looked at into folders: NeedToIncludeDocs, Restricted, NoDocs, etc.

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Virtually any font is going to have that j and y problem. As long as they don't overlap anything and it's clear what word they're attached to, I think we'll have to live with it--Treasure Map is the only one that seems really bad in that regard.

 

Nancy is the font I'm using for the menu atm. It has to be that bold to be readable at a reasonable size.

 

 

 

Are you sure that's Carelton, btw? It doesn't look like the Thief Carelton at all. I remember I played around with 'merging' carelton and some bolder texts, and that image made me wonder if I uploaded one and forgot to revert it?

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Mmm... possibly I switched in the wrong one. I'm going to look at some other new ones later so I'll try to remember to check it. If I can get a larger number then just maybe we can get a few that are good enough.

 

I've never noticed anything wrong with the menus so in the real situation these things don't seem so bad as when one is scrutinizing for every flaw. :) And they do look much different at different sizes.

 

[EDIT] Yes, I had the wrong font with Carleton. - Carleton is upper case only but otherwise looks OK. I've uploaded the correct picture but you might have to right click it and reload it to see it.

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I must comment about jd_hand -font. I played with readables, and I noticed that the f-letter is also terribly displaced. In a title written in jd_hand, word "curfew" looked like "curf ew." It looked a bit unacceptable to me. :(

 

Maybe, when selecting fonts, we should look at a sample text with the whole alphabet, so we can easily spot if the font contains badly displaced letters?

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Yeah - good point. I did start that way but somehow tried to get the font showing 'in-context' to better show how it might be in-game. If quick brown fox is used it needs repeating in caps which kind of fills the page and is kind of soul-less. I already have some in teh pipeline without that but will try to... What I might try to do is take some of the demo texts and just change a few words to make sure every character is in there.

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Here's a new batch of fonts. Probably the last from me. It is tedious going through so many just to get so few. Keep in mind in-game fonts don't need to be beautiful or even perfectly legible - they need to represent the text on a real game document, eg, somone's handwriting or a badly printed notice.

 

Chris's Hand seems a good general purpose handwriting font...

 

font3chrishand.jpg

 

This is ellianerelle. Simple handwriting. No obvious errors...

 

font3ellianerelle.jpg

 

 

This is everett. This is not easy to read (like in real life) but it is excellent in my opinion because it genuinely looks like writing to me and I can definitely accept it on an old letter etc.

 

font3everett.jpg

 

Next is Lotharus. More formal upright bad handwriting font...

 

font3lotharus.jpg

 

Old Remington is an early typewriter. Might be of use in a Victorianesque inventor's guild letter or something...

 

font3oldremington.jpg

 

popsies is another general purpose handwriting font...

 

font3popsies.jpg

 

Shopping list is a rough handwriting font...

 

font3shoppinglist.jpg

 

stone font is yer basic serif suitable for some printed books etc...

 

font3stone.jpg

 

Summertime is a neat tight controlled handwritten font from someone with attitude...

 

font3summertime.jpg

 

Tommys is a young child's scrawl with high capitals. Probably not for main resource but some mapper might want it one day for a special case...

 

font3tommys.jpg

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