Duke's scans

[Chris Goodwin]

My vote is, pass them along to Jason as you scan them.  Archival quality can wait.

[Vulchon]

Avidly waiting for anything, I appreciate your time and trouble in doing this my thanks

[Joe Walsh]

On 11/25/2018 at 4:02 PM, Duke Bushido said:

Actually, Joe--

 

it had the _biggest_ 4e editing error ever:

 

It had four pages printed completely out of order.  Not reverse order or anything with logical progression, but just pulled out and shuffled.  

 

 

It also has one of my favorite editing errors of all time, a couple of pages after those transposed pages:

 

Quote

While on the trail, the PCs stumble across a camp centered around a small covered wagon. As the PCs approach, an extremely large German Shepherd jumps out of the back of the wagon, barking and growling, yet holding his ground. After half a minute or so of this, a voice comes from inside of the PCs, "Adam!"

 

?

 

And then on the very next page, it has a paragraph talking about The Reverend's sidekick, Sampson. It says Sampson is loyal to The Reverend, but goes on to say, "At the first sign of trouble, though, it's every man for himself. The Reverend's not paying him to take bullets."

 

And then at the end of the same section, we're told that both are armed and that neither will abandon the other. ?

 

Seems like the editor may have been tuckered out by the end of the book or something.

 

[Duke Bushido]

 

You know, as many times as I've used that book over the years (only genre book I bought on release day), I have _never_ noticed that. 

 

Thanks! 

[Duke Bushido]

Okay, folks:

 

I totally missed my self-imposed deadline.  Further, I'm only about halfway done: life happens in a big ugly way, etc--

 

you don't want to hear excuses; I understand that.  Suffice it to say that I don't have much "hobby time" or "me time" or whatever the current trendy phrase is for "time I'm not obligated to use for more pressing matters in the real world." 

 

I have made a bit of headway scanning some Adventurer's Club books-- well, one and a piece, anyway.  

 

I know: Horror HERO should be next, so let me explain:

 

1) Horror HERO is glue-bound, and it takes a really large block of time to go _anywhere_ on such a project, as to get the results I want, each page must be very carefully separated one-at-a-time from the binding.  I haven't had a block of time like that since Thanksgiving.

 

2) Adventurer's Club is staple-bound, meaning it's really nothing to take apart, and I can scan two or three pages in the small blocks of time I've managed to steal.

 

3) Yes; I have been doing this instead of finishing up Western HERO, simply because that, too, takes large chunks of time to accomplish small bites.  See that note about time since Thanksgiving to understand why I have made appallingly little forward progress on this project.

 

4) I figure _any_ work I can get done toward any part of this project is a good thing.

 

 

 

On that note, having finished the primary scans on AC 15, I am currently doing AC 12, and it is danged annoying.  The book I have-- while in absolute _pristine_ condition otherwise-- was cut funny.

 

That is, soft-cover books-- even the staple-bound ones-- go through a trimming process right after they are bound.  This is to give the finished work a nice, even, crisp look by forcibly causing all the pages to be "aligned" perfectly with each other.  However, the one I have was trimmed crooked.  The measurements are all correct, but the book is _visibly_ out of square.  As it is one of the early small-format books, I have been trying to save some time by scanning it "full page;" that is to say, two pages at a time.  By laying the entire leaf into scanner (because with the small format books, they fit! ) I can scan say page 2 and page 71 simultaneously.  It's easier to duplicate the file and crop off the unwanted page than it is to scan each page separately.

 

Or at least, it _would_ be, if they weren't all shaped like chevrons.  Ideally, I'd get a square image by hand-laying the piece.  This isn't possible in this case, so the best I can do is square the text.  But then I have to re-build the missing parts of the pages and crop off the "peak" excess of the chevron-- all of which can only be attained by determining the margins and then measuring from the text.  It doesn't _sound_ like much, but it's rather maddening, as the page-rebuilding process ends up of-kiltering the text _and_ deleting the staple holes, which are quite helpful in determining the gutters when it comes time to cut the image into two pages.

 

Yeah---  no one wants to hear it, and everyone expected to have something in their browser by now, but honestly, it takes time I don't have a lot of right now.

 

I just haven't updated in a while and I wanted to take a minute to say that this project has _not_ been abandoned.  I _am_ working on it.   It's just going a lot slower than any of us really wanted it to, and I am -- sincerely, I am, because I, too, would value having it available by now, if only as a carrot before me to reach my next goal-- very sorry about the time this is taking.

 

 

Duke

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

On December 9, 2018 at 1:02 PM, Chris Goodwin said:

My vote is, pass them along to Jason as you scan them.  Archival quality can wait.

 

 

I very much appreciate the enthusiasm, Chris, 

 

but the fact is I'm 58 with a bad heart and blood pressure that even on meds is well-above stroke level.  I can't shake the feeling I don't have forever to make this the way I want it to be.

 

[Brian Stanfield]

Hey, Duke, take your time. Nobody will be disappointed with anything you put out. On your own schedule. Besides, how often do you get to use the word “chevron”? The more time you take, the more you can use your thesaurus!

[Duke Bushido]

Okay, AC 12 has completed the initial scanning.

 

This sample was _not_ selected at random, I'm afraid, but it's still honest, because it was also _not_ selected on the basis of quality.  It was selected on the basis of nostalgia: the adds brought back memories.   The chevron effect is lessened as you approach the center of the book (as if the pages slide while being cropped by a dull blade), but it's still obvious.  Note what happens to the margins as you move down the pages, complete with the intrusion onto the DC Heroes add.  (If I can find a Mayfair Games logo like that, of reasonable resolution, to use as a guide, I will attempt to repair that add while repairing margins).

 

I present to you:

 

The centerfold from AC 12, 1988.

 

Enjoy.

 

 

[Brian Stanfield]

You know, you’re probably right about the pages getting trimmed crooked. I worked in a print shop once, and if we tried to cut too many pages they’d twist toward the bottom of the stack. The same thing happens in the clothing industry: ever notice how you’ll buy two pair of pants, same size, from the same company, from the same pile, and they’ll fit totally differently? It depends where in the pile the fabric was cut, the farther down the pile, the less true the size. So given that printed hobby magazines were done on the cheap back then, I’m almost positive they were trying to trim too many magazines at once on the cheap. 

 

If if I were you, I’d call it good. It’s more important to preserve the ideas within the books you’re working on than to make them print-quality books for the print shop. Besides, I like the charm of the crooked books. It lets you know that real people were actually involved in the process way back when. 

[Brian Stanfield]

On 12/9/2018 at 12:02 PM, Chris Goodwin said:

My vote is, pass them along to Jason as you scan them.  Archival quality can wait.

 

‘I hate to say it, but I don’t think Jason will do anything to improve or change the quality of scans. I love they guy, and he’s carrying a gargantuan burden, but the quality of releases lately, both old and new .PDFs, is not “archival” at all. But, having said that, I agree that all this hard work Duke is doing deserves to be recognized and distributed through HERO Games. 

[Duke Bushido]

Thank you, Brian.

 

That's very kind of you.

 

I think, as I have a bit of time off tomorrow during which the wife _should_ be sleeping (she works tonight), I will have time to begin slicing up Horror HERO.  After finishing that, I'm up in the air about resuming Star HERO (which I had already begun to slice at the outset of this project, as it was equally important to me as was Western HERO), or moving on to Cyber HERO.  I can't really decide (though I'm a good bit away from having to), particularly since the quality of the current Star HERO PDF is passable, but still--

 

If I had the resources, of course, I'd do everything out there.

 

 

On a related note-- everything out there-- 

 

I would really like to ask the entire community to keep their eyes peeled for Adventurer's Club #1: this thing seems to be _impossible_ to find at _any_ price.  If anyone finds one for sale-- and damage can be digitally repaired, so long as it's legible enough to make out the words, etc-- I would be most grateful.  Still slowly gathering AC magazines for when it's truly their turn, but between cost and availability, that project may never get done.

 

Although I do have some ...  well, it's just news, I guess; some good to it and some bad to it:

 

Evidently there are a very few "bootleg" scans of some of the ACs out there.  Two players have brought me copies of what they could find (I think there were four?  Five?).  I don't have any software at the moment that can pull apart a PDF or even edit a PDF, so they may get turned over the Jason as-is, if I can't find actual originals to scan from.  I'm not happy about handing them in as-is (they are crooked, cropped poorly, and in a much lower resolution, but they are extremely readable), but the upshot is if I can't find those particular issues, well at least I have a back-up plan there.

 

Seriously, though:

 

Anyone who finds an AC #1 for sale, give me a shout, please!

 

Thanks.

 

 

Duke

 

 

[dmjalund]

it seems appropo that the thing you are slicing up while your wife sleeps would be Horror Hero

 

[Brian Stanfield]

On 12/30/2018 at 5:45 PM, Duke Bushido said:

I think, as I have a bit of time off tomorrow during which the wife _should_ be sleeping (she works tonight), I will have time to begin slicing up Horror HERO.  After finishing that, I'm up in the air about resuming Star HERO (which I had already begun to slice at the outset of this project, as it was equally important to me as was Western HERO), or moving on to Cyber HERO.  I can't really decide (though I'm a good bit away from having to), particularly since the quality of the current Star HERO PDF is passable, but still--

You know, it occurred to me the other day, perhaps you could use a jointer to take the glued edge off of the books, and just enough of the page to get them separated (depending on the binding method). I don't know if you have access, but set at a sufficiently shallow cuts, it would make quick and clean work of the book, especially if it is pressed between 1x10 boards.

 

This is the stuff I ponder as I brush my teeth in the morning . . .

[Duke Bushido]

The only thing I ponder while brushing them is "am I going to forget to take them with me again?" 

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

Okay, folks,

 

thank you for your patience.  It _looks_ like I will be done with Western HERO technically late next weekend.  Forgive me, but when I started this, I hadn't given any thought to holidays and festivities, etc-- and it was right at the beginning of the holiday-est part of the year.  With all of that behind us now, the big limiting factors are a 12-hour a day job and kids getting old enough to develop extra-curricular activities, a wife that works nights and likes to nap in such places as make hearing the computer totally unacceptable, and of course my own gaming schedule.  Some of that will dry up shortly, as my monthly should conclude by mid-summer.  Whatever the players decide to do: new campaign, new arc for the current campaign, or new game entirely, they will have to do without me.  That's 30 or so hours a month (drive time, play time, drive back) that I just can't give if I want to get this project moving.  However, the Youth Group I picked up a few months ago shows no signs of petering out, and we've even added a new player.  Still, that's a play time of roughly three, sometimes four, hours.  However, it _is_ every Sunday, which means my weekends are roughly one day long until these kids lose interest.  I honestly don't want them to, but man would it help me out right now.

 

At any rate, I say I will "technically" be done late next weekend.  I still want to take a week or so to go through the final PDF as best I can looking for things that bug me: remember, I'm shooting for archival quality.  Remember, though: if you want to actually print your legally-entitled "back-up copy," you will need for either you or your print shop of choice to set your bleed levels.  I am sorry, but in all the years i've spent goofing around with scanners and photoshop-type stuff, none of it was deeply involved (it was almost exclusively, in one way or another, for gaming, save the time I printed up some seriously sweet wedding invitations and birthday party invitations back when my kids were still young enough to "share" a party).  At any rate, I've never developed the knack for setting bleed levels and just knowing that they're perfect.  Sure, these will print beautifully, but you're going to use a _lot_ more ink than you need to, and of course, too much ink means seeing it from both sides of the page.  It's okay, though: if you don't know how to set bleeds, Kinko's (I have learned) usually does.

 

When the PDF is review ready, I'd like to have a couple of people willing to help me go through it looking for problems.  As Brian, in addition to following this thread from the beginning, more or less (whether he knows it or not) inspired me to get off my butt and finally follow this dream, I'm offering him first refusal.  That leaves the need for one more volunteer; two if Brian declines.

 

If, through some astounding miracle, we end up with more than two volunteers, I'll roll some dice to see where it goes.  Here's the thing:   

 

I know I've said it before, but I feel it bears repeating, if only because I know it's gets said falsely far more often than it does with integrity:

 

I don't pirate.  I don't want pirates involved.  If you already know about yourself that you cannot delete this after giving it an honest check for imaging problems, don't volunteer.  I don't mean that to be snide, insulting, haughty, or derisive.  I have worked very hard on this project, and have legally purchased (You know: like with actually money I pulled from my budget) these originals solely to be shredded into source material.  The upshot of that is that in order to do this with honesty and integrity, I have literally been throwing away money: buy a book; wreck that book) to make sure that this all above-board.  Further, I have done it for all of us: all the fans today, and those who may come in the future.  I am _not_ asking for any sort of recompense for my expenses or my efforts, nor have any been offered.  I will offer these works, as they are completed, to the current copyright holder (Jason) to be distributed as he sees fit.

 

If he sees fit to not distribute them-- which I very much doubt--- I reckon I'll have to back up and punt.

 

 

At any rate, that's the "news you can use:" the end of the first book is in sight.  

 

In other news, I have paused slicing Horror HERO (which turned back up yet again) so that I might put a priority on Adventurer's Club 01.  I have to put a priority on this, as I never could find one for sale, but one of our own has very graciously loaned me his own copy (which obviously, I will not destroy!) for this project.  To honor his contribution, I would like to go ahead and make that A-1 priority.    I'm sure there aren't a lot of folks following along, but if you are, _please_ take just a moment to follow the link to the most recent post by rravenwood and hand him a trophy of thanks!  Seriously: let's see if we can get him a record score for "won the day," because clearly, no one who didn't already own that book would be able to see the Awesome Exoskeleton Man without him.

 

Thanks, rravenwood!

 

Now then, here is the link to his most recent post:

 

 

 

As it's pretty late on this coast, I'm going to wait until Monday to hit him with a thank-you trophy; I suggest  of you night owls to do the same, just so we can get him a solid run at a record-setting "won the day."

 

Yeah; it's a little weak, but it's really the most solid thing I could think of to thank him.

 

 

Thanks to all who pitch in on this!

 

 

 

[rravenwood]

Aw, shucks.  't weren't nuthin'...

[Brian Stanfield]

21 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

As Brian, in addition to following this thread from the beginning, more or less (whether he knows it or not) inspired me to get off my butt and finally follow this dream, I'm offering him first refusal.  That leaves the need for one more volunteer; two if Brian declines.

 

I wasn’t expecting this. Sure, I’d love to help!

[Duke Bushido]

Thank you, Sir.

 

I need one more volunteer, if no one minds.

 

 

[Amorkca]

Can you define what sorta problems you are looking for a volunteer to help you find?

 

I would be interested in helping you out with your project.

[Duke Bushido]

Sure.  Essentially, anything that pulls your attention out of the book.  Bits of noise on the page I may have missed, blurred or missing bits from letters, that random black blob in between two lines of print....

 

Crooked pages or images that are still crooked in relation to the text, lines that wobble (particularly framing around charts, art:

 

You know: the sort of thing that makes you think "I wish this guy had scanned this better." 

 

As noted, I'm looking for something worthy of being a "master copy," from which as-perfect-as-possible books can be printed. 

 

Oh: and noticeable pixelation.  I scan in stupid-high rez to attempt to eliminate that, but sometimes when you PDF the finished work, it creeps in there.  No one wants to print a pixelated anything.

 

If you're still interested, then thank you.  I will get the drafts to you and Brian once I've got them put together. 

 

 

Duke

[Amorkca]

I'm game.

 

Just don't shoot me...

[Duke Bushido]

GAH!

 

it's done.

 

Well, it's done, but it's not done.  If I may:

 

While cutting file size in preparation for making the proofing copy PDFs, I kept finding "this one thing" or "that other thing," etc, etc.

 

Technically it's done, but having found these minor bits to tweak, it just made sense to tweak them before sending them out.  Kept me up all last night, and I've been at it more than I should have been today.

 

Bear with me folks; you'll have it shortly.

 

 

 

 

 

Duke

 

[Scott Ruggels]

Huzzah!

[Toxxus]

The Google has lead me to the old Adventurer's Club article I was after.

 

It is in the ancient tome known as Adventurer's Club #3 - Champions Plus: Character Rating System.

 

Duke, is this one of the one's you've been able to scan?

[Duke Bushido]

That is one that our stalwart supporter Ravenwood has provided for this project. 

 

Tell you what:  when I finish Western and AC 1, I will try to tend to AC3 before doing the rest of what Ravenwood has provided ( 1-8, if I recall correctly) 

 

 

 

Duke