- Видео 22
- Просмотров 60 492
Dextrous - the Board Game Design Tool
Австралия
Добавлен 19 мар 2023
This channel is for Dextrous tutorials and tips and tricks for making better board game components.
Dextrous is a board and card game design tool for making components like cards, decks and tokens.
Our mission is to make a game prototyping tool that is fast and flexible, so you can get your game ideas out of your head and onto the table without wasting precious design time.
With Dextrous, you can make your own custom layouts in minutes, and use these to make your own unique deck of cards. Easily export your decks to PDF or online platforms like Tabletop Simulator and start testing out your ideas.
Happy designing!
Dextrous is a board and card game design tool for making components like cards, decks and tokens.
Our mission is to make a game prototyping tool that is fast and flexible, so you can get your game ideas out of your head and onto the table without wasting precious design time.
With Dextrous, you can make your own custom layouts in minutes, and use these to make your own unique deck of cards. Easily export your decks to PDF or online platforms like Tabletop Simulator and start testing out your ideas.
Happy designing!
Dextrous update guide (June 2024)
Hey folks, we've done a big update to Dextrous and I wanted to make sure everyone was across how the new card backs will work.
TLDR; any components that had a unique card back before the update, will now have a COPY of the original card back component set as their dedicated back.
Happy designing!
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Dextrous: www.dextrous.com.au/
Our Discord: discord.gg/FSeSCCk9u2
Dextrous is an online card game design tool for making board game components including cards, boards and tokens. This is a tool made by designers, for designers, with a drag-and-drop editor and a focus on speed and flexibility.
Print your designs to PDF, or quickly export t...
TLDR; any components that had a unique card back before the update, will now have a COPY of the original card back component set as their dedicated back.
Happy designing!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Dextrous: www.dextrous.com.au/
Our Discord: discord.gg/FSeSCCk9u2
Dextrous is an online card game design tool for making board game components including cards, boards and tokens. This is a tool made by designers, for designers, with a drag-and-drop editor and a focus on speed and flexibility.
Print your designs to PDF, or quickly export t...
Просмотров: 1 029
Видео
Adding card backs to your cards in Dextrous
Просмотров 1,1 тыс.3 месяца назад
In this tutorial, I show you how to add card backs to your dextrous components. You have four options for card backs: 1. Shared image - this is a single image that will be on the back of every card in your deck. 2. Unique images - you can choose a unique image for each individual card. 3. Shared layout - this is like shared image, except that you can edit parts of the layout. Think of it like a...
New features for Dextrous! (A quick overview)
Просмотров 7753 месяца назад
This video is an overview of the new features coming in the next big Dextrous update (eta June 28 2024): 1. A nicer UI for the component editor - Component tabs are now on the left, and each component has a dedicated card back behind it - We've moved things around to keep the focus on what's really important - the cards and the table. Now they're way bigger and it's a much nicer experience. 2. ...
Make your own layout in Dextrous for a first prototype card game
Просмотров 9 тыс.8 месяцев назад
In this tutorial, I show you how to make your own card layout for a FIRST prototype. The goal of a first prototype The most important question you need to answer when you have a game idea is: Is the core of my game idea actually fun? To answer that question, you need to get your idea into a playable form as quickly as possible. You need to get it to the table. You don’t need a gigantic prototyp...
Using a Dextrous Layout to prototype quickly
Просмотров 3,3 тыс.8 месяцев назад
In this tutorial, I show you how to prototype a set of cards using a default Dextrous layout. Choose a Dextrous layout, make any adjustments needed, and then use the stock images to prototype a set of cards at speed. Please note the stock images in Dextrous are for personal prototyping use (non-commercial) only. You can upload your own images that you own when you're ready to go commericial. Wh...
Custom Inline Text Styles in Dextrous
Просмотров 1,9 тыс.9 месяцев назад
In this tutorial, I show you how to use your own custom inline text styles. This is super helpful for making changes to particular words or phrases in a zone, and can keep your data sheets (like google sheets) nice and clean and also easily updateable. Chapters: 0:00 Different Color Font 3:37 Colored box 6:00 Set size style (like an icon) 8:30 Default styles you can use Happy designing! Dextrou...
Using TTS custom data in Dextrous
Просмотров 71110 месяцев назад
In this tutorial, I show you how to use TTS custom data (snap points) in Dextrous, but you could also use this same technique to grab any kind of data out of a TTS object (like scripting for example). This is a fairly advanced technique, but hopefully it opens up some deeper options for game designers out there. If you want to download VS Code you can get it here: code.visualstudio.com/download...
Exporting to TableTop Simulator from Dextrous
Просмотров 4 тыс.10 месяцев назад
In this tutorial, I show you how to export components (like decks of cards) from Dextrous to TableTop Simulator. This is one huge advantage Dextrous has over other tools and has saved me a ton of time as a designer as I can get a fresh copy of all the different parts of my game in the one go. CHAPTERS 00:00 Export from Dextrous 0:35 Download the TTS json file 0:51 Put json file in TTS Saved Obj...
Managing Multiple Dextrous Components in Google sheets
Просмотров 87810 месяцев назад
In this tutorial, I show you how to one way to manage multiple components from Google sheets with Pivot tables. Use this method if you want to have your cards all in the one Google sheet tab, but then have them be split into different types in Dextrous. Happy designing! Dextrous: www.dextrous.com.au/ Our Discord: discord.gg/FSeSCCk9u2 Dextrous is an online card game design tool for making board...
Using Dextrous with Google Sheets
Просмотров 6 тыс.10 месяцев назад
In this tutorial, I show you how to hook up Google sheets to a Dextrous project. The key thing to remember to sync a Dextrous layout with a Google sheet project is that the zones in your Dextrous layout have to match the column titles in the first row of Google sheets exactly. I also cover handy tips like using markdown in Google sheets and using basic formulas to combine text and styling. CONT...
Making a layout bleed-ready
Просмотров 71411 месяцев назад
In this tutorial, I show you how to adjust a layout and make sure it's optimised for bleed and safe-area. If you haven't watched my Bleed Basics video already, that's probably a good place to start before this tutorial. Here's an outline of the process: 1. Go to the layout editor and turn on bleed preview (3mm) and safe area preview (3mm). Note if you want to export for the Game Crafter try 3.1...
Printing with Launch Tabletop
Просмотров 60011 месяцев назад
In this tutorial, I show you how to export cards for printing with Launch Tabletop (LT). I'm by no means a printing expert, but here's the process I'd use for printing a prototype deck of poker cards: 1. Apply 3mm of bleed to your cards in the dextrous export page. 2. Export your pngs at *exactly* 300dpi 3. Create a new cards component in LT. Choose imperial poker size cards in LT. and choose y...
Printing with Make Playing Cards (MPC)
Просмотров 6 тыс.11 месяцев назад
In this tutorial, I show you how to export cards for printing with Make Playing Cards. I'm by no means a printing expert, but here's the process I'd use for printing a prototype deck of poker cards: 1. Apply 3.175mm of bleed to your cards in the dextrous export page. 2. Export your pngs at 300dpi 3. Choose imperial poker size cards (2.5 x 3.5 inches) in Make Playing Cards. and choose your paper...
Bleed Basics: Setting up your cards with bleed for printing
Просмотров 1,5 тыс.11 месяцев назад
In this tutorial, I go over what bleed and safe areas are for getting your cards printed, and how these settings work in Dextrous. This is super handy for giving yourself some margin for error on your pdfs for home printing, or more importantly, sending pngs of your cards off to printers like Make Playing Cards or Launch Tabletop so they print correctly. Update: If you want to export for the Ga...
Exporting to PDF from Dextrous
Просмотров 1,9 тыс.Год назад
In this quick tutorial, I show you how to export a component from Dextrous (ie a deck of cards) to PDF. There are a couple of settings in Chrome that you need to check are correct the time you export, but after that, it's a super smooth process to getting great quality PDFs of your designs. Happy designing! www.dextrous.com.au/ Dextrous is an online card game design tool for making board game c...
Exporting components to Screentop.gg from Dextrous
Просмотров 1,3 тыс.Год назад
Exporting components to Screentop.gg from Dextrous
Tips and tricks for exporting to Tabletop Simulator from Dextrous
Просмотров 953Год назад
Tips and tricks for exporting to Tabletop Simulator from Dextrous
Adding text, images and in-text icons to cards in Dextrous
Просмотров 5 тыс.Год назад
Adding text, images and in-text icons to cards in Dextrous
How to modify layouts and make ajustments to image zones in Dextrous
Просмотров 2,8 тыс.Год назад
How to modify layouts and make ajustments to image zones in Dextrous
Applying unique styles to some cards in a deck in Dextrous
Просмотров 3,2 тыс.Год назад
Applying unique styles to some cards in a deck in Dextrous
Make a deck in Dextrous using inbuilt layouts
Просмотров 2,9 тыс.Год назад
Make a deck in Dextrous using inbuilt layouts
I hope this continues to get support! I will definitely support it. It's such a great tool.
Thankyou!
I'm going to be real, I have absolutely no idea wtf i'm doing in dextrous
Let us know what you're struggling with and we can help! 😊
Is there a way to control these things (like text color) directly from the .csv? If I update my CSV, adding rows for example, it shifts all my formatting accordingly
i guess for text i can create a text style, but for objects (icons, borders) i'm not sure how to reference an RGB value or the like
Hey there Justin. I'm not entirely sure what you mean here sorry. Your style column should be in your Google sheet of that makes sense? Then when you add rows they'll always be with the same card... Am i understanding you correctly?
@@DextrousGameDesign AHHH, i'm still working of an uploaded CSV. so either i need to migrate to google sheet OR i can add a column with the proper style naming? that would be very handy. Thank you! I guess i assumed the style column only existed in dextrous itself.
Hey I'm trying to nest Text Style inside each other and getting some weird results. For example I want the first sentence of every card to be a bigger font and I want one of those words in that sentence to be Yellow, but it causes the text to separate into 2 columns. Is this something I'm supposed to be able to do?
You should be able to change the container settings of the parent text style here to "inline block" then it should work. Hit me up on the discord if you're having trouble.
Can we play this game that you are editing in this video? Or others that you where editing in other tutorials. They looks so awesome. The have very nice images and card effects. Seems like you and your team have a very great sense of fantasy settings. I love Dextrous
Thanks for the kind words! This one is in development - you can definitely playtest it if you want - hit me up on the discord 😊👍
Thanks for your word selection in the intro, now everyone thinks I'm watching something dirty and I got kicked out of the library 👍
"Quick and dirty" is a common phrase 😅. There's nothing sus about it heheh. Sorry to hear you got kicked out of the library though! That's rough. 😢
Oh no!
When I export to png it looks very blurry… please help 😢
This one should be resolved. It was a temporary glitch.
@@DextrousGameDesign Thanks guys! I’ve actually joined your discord and asked that question as well and you guys have been amazing thank you very much !
Hey, just a general question, but is it possible to have an editable column in Dextrous that, when imported into TTS, acts as the "description" of an object? Something similar to how "Card Nickname" automatically fills in the "Name" part of an object. Thank you!
Yep in the component settings menu you can activate a description column for exactly this
Hey this is sooo cool, I was wandering if someone could help me to do this on Mac
Should work on mac. Join the discord and we can sort you out 😊👍
This is just what I've been searching for. Thanks a lot ✨
You're welcome 😊
My question is about the numbers and colored circles in the top left. How to you get the different colored circles to be in different locations based if the card has that specific color?
Those coloured circles are actually images. So it's just 3 image zones in positions 1, 2, 3, and then I select which image I want to show at each zone on a card by card basis. If that doesn't make sense, watch the first few tutorials then it should make more sense.
@@DextrousGameDesign Oh! They are images! That makes sense. The thanks!
Would this work for doing custom player cards for Zombicide? I've made a LOT of customs for Marvel Zombies and I can't print them the way I want where I am at, so being able to print them through this would be a Godsend for me. I am just worried it wouldn't be accepted because of copyright issues.
I'm not a lawyer and it'd be worth reaching out to Marvel, but afail it's likely ok to just print cards for your personal use. It's usually selling stuff with other's IP that is the big no no.
Oh wait i see, you're wondering if mpc would print the cards - definitely send them an email to double check - they might have a policy against it yep
Sorry I'm on my phone so i assumed you meant just printing at home
hey, i think it must have changed bc when i pasted the json code in, it just went red with a x at the bottom... is the tutorial outdated or am i doing something wrong? edit: it also says "should not have additional property 5"
Hey mate. This usually happens if you're uploading backs for Screentop as well but it's not quite setup right. If you untick 'backs' on the Dex export page when exporting to Screentop page you should be ok. Otherwise if you do want cards with backs you need to make sure you'll need to make sure to upload the back asset (same name as fronts but with the '_back' at the end), for example: component name_back Check out the written tutorial guide here: www.dextrous.com.au/Tutorials/#exporting-to-screentop I have also responded in the Discord, so hit me up there when you're ready etc. :)
good evening, is there a way i can merge two components together. Let's say i have a deck, in a deck building mechanic, an another deck, two different component, can i merge them and shuffle them together?
I actually don't believe you can. It seems to be a Screentop limitation but I have no idea why sorry :(
Thanks man! This is really helpful. Now I need to find how to set up my own Board Art in TTS.
We also have a basic board maker you can export to TTS fyi :)
This program seems absolutely incredible!! I was wondering how it handles low resolution card art? My game uses exclusively pixel art and a 4-color palette, even the text is, with each letter being 4x5 pixels. How easy would it be for me to make sure nothing goes off the pixel grid? It seem that even at low resolutions, borders and shapes in dextrous act like vectors (unless im wrong here)
(total card size is 125x175)
Borders and shapes work like vectors yep, but if you have a strict grid I think you should be fine. Your art should still look pixelly if the pngs are pixelly if that makes sense. Hit us up on the Discord if you have any more specific questions.
sadly the text in the download is wraped and huuuge
I believe this means you're not using Chrome :). Fyi atm we officially support Chrome only although some are having luck in Edge.
YOU! GUYS! ROCK! But wait, we don't have to write and edit code? A missing comma won't send our project to parts unknown? Where's the fun in that? Great tutorial by the way. Very easy to follow.
heheheh
I'm new to this space and recently started designing a card game. Dextrous has been incredibly helpful on my journey so far. Thank you so much for this incredible tool!
Great to hear! :)
Is it possible to use the unique card back layout to make double sided cards that are linked to each other? So that when you update csv data both sides are updated?
Yep of course, just put the csv link in the back component like you do the front
Note you need to choose 'Unique Backs' for this
@@DextrousGameDesign Wonderful! This is so immensely helpful! I was worried I would have to create both sides then manually download and upload for each card back.
When I put my card images onto the card design in MPC, the image looks so blurry when there are no warnings. Are these normal and okay and will the card be printed in the original quality?
Hmm honestly it's impossible for me to tell without looking at the pngs. Do the raw pngs that you uploaded to MPC look blurry? If not I reckon you're fine :)
Also worth noting the pngs dimensions in pixels
@DextrousGameDesign the pictures in my gallery looks high quality, it's only when I put it on the card designs then it looks blury
Love this site for all its worth. Any plans to make Text boxes able to rotate?
Already there :) Layout editor > 'positioning' tab > rotate
how can i put inverse symbols in the layout on dextrous, I'm a newt user :)
You mean upside down or something? Go to the layout editor > positioning tab > transform > flip (or rotate)
Hello and congratulations for this fantastic tool. I have the problem that changing the layout always resets the component values (different values for each card obviously) I would like that when I switch layout the values set with the previous layout remain. it's possible? if yes, how? Thanks in advance!
Hmmm I wonder if what is happening here is your new layout doesn't have exactly the same zone names? If it has the same zone names you should be able to switch layouts like changing clothes on a character and have everything stay the same. If you're still having problems with this, hit us up in the discord and we can help you :)
I spend so much hours on Dextrous, it's so amazing.
Amazing guys, I recently started paying the basic plan and I didn't even need it yet, but I'm very happy to support this project with my grain of salt. Thanks!
Thanks so much for your support! Means a lot!
Hey Dextrous team. I have a feature request (or maybe its already in). Is there some way to invert a text box? Maybe a card would be like a flip card in magic the gathering (Akki Lavarunner). Thanks in advance :D
Yep for sure, just go to the layout editor > positioning tab > transform > flip horizontal
this is exactly what I was looking for, Dextrous is a great tool, but do i have to go pro to edit individual card layouts? i think i missed a step
No you don't have to go pro. If you still need help with this, hit us up in the discord and we can sort you out :)
I don´t know how to make variables with images, can someone explain me?
Not entirely sure what you mean but you can check out the explanation on variables here: www.dextrous.com.au/Tutorials/#using-variables Alternatively hit us up in the discord and we can help you out :)
Cropping margins does not work for me with the new update or am I missing something? I know it’s pretty impossible for anyone to know but it was working for me before.
This is fixed now. Thanks for reporting!
@@DextrousGameDesign nice! You guys are great, thanks.
Hi, I chose Tarot Card size for all my layouts for more space for artwork, but have realised that tarot size is a logistical nightmare for printing. Is there any way to change the layout size, or will I have to start over?
Hey yep you can just change the layout size. Click the base zone (card_background) and go to the positioning tab and you'll be able to change the size. You'll have to drag zones into the correct position but it's pretty easy.
I don't know how the heck I found this video but god damn it thank you so much. This toolchain works so well I was digital protyping with 100+ cards in under 24 hours, making essentially live updates to the cards in tabletop sim. Granted I was up most of those 24 hours :) but this is legit info people.
Great to hear! Keep up the good work and get that game pumpin :D
Now I'm inspired to create a card game with double-sided cards!
Huzzah!
Tremendo, qué bueno. Thats great. Nice upgrade Are you somawhat in charge of this web? Is awrsome. Congrats. Great videos.
Yeah me and a mate are working on it yep :)
@@DextrousGameDesign Congrats. I am very entusiastic about this program. Its great. I am planing to use it fully
My favorite game making website so far! Im getting so much work done!!!! Thank you
Great to hear!
Fantastic work!
Thanks a lot!
Awesome improvements! Thank you for this awesome resource!
Glad it was helpful!
Multi-tab editing! Yay!
Woohoo!!
Please let me select layers in layout editor and copy them to another template in the same position, i hate using the zone clipboard option, i cant even copy few layers as one zone to clipboard. Every time i need to copy every single layer to clipboard and paste them to existing layer. I cant delete every clipboard because bin icon not working, i can only delete few of them. It can be rlly good system to creating games, not only for prototypes. I pay designer sub, but without that options i cant continue to create my game. Im using more than 30 layouts and editing them is soo painful right now. I cant change one grouped layers and copy them to another layout. "Szabrownick" user here
Wow! That's very handy! Thanks 👍
No problem 👍
Nice! Dextrous is the best thing. I love it. 🎉
Thanks for your encouraging words! :D
Great work, can't wait!
Same ha. It's been our biggest update by far.
Very exciting! When's it being released?
Friday at the latest. Tomorrow at the earliest :P
Awesome!!!
The only thing i dont understand is the red dotted line part, does outside of the red dotted line means it wont be printed or is it just the line part that dont get printed and it prints outside and inside the line
The red line is where the card will be cut - hence you need to set the card up with bleed before exporting to png. Watch my bleed videos for more details on this.
Great application. Any plans to make some Board Maker Tutorials in the future. I could use a bit of help with this. I am trying to create more complex boards and I am hoping there is a way to do this in the board maker itself. Currently I am printing the boards and then pasting text printed with a label printer separately on to the board tiles afterwards.
Yeah definitely. Might also be worth jumping on the discord and telling me what kind of complex boards you're hoping to make tbh.
Would it be possible to do a video on add card backs when exporting from Dextrous
Can do!
@@DextrousGameDesign I’d really appreciate it I love the program
After uploading my individual cards, how do i make a complete deck?
Hey mate, you might have to unpack this a bit more for me sorry. Not entirely sure what you mean.
Thank so much for this tutorial!
Glad it was helpful!
This would have been very helpful a few weeks ago, didn't realise you had a video on this. Figured it out myself by just fiddling and asking chatgpt for help. I actually manually copied out all the data into individual tabs of the sheet. Also thought at one stage that I needed to have separate workbooks for different components, thankfully through trial and error realised what you were showcasing above. Very impressed with Dextrous though, what a fantastic job you did enabling these types of features and compatabilities.
Glad you found it useful! There are quite a few tutorials, but yeah if you have more questions hit us up in the discord as people are very friendly and eager to help you succeed!