A composition toolkit for creating custom Magic: The Gathering cards.
Travis does our CI:
The impetus was issues with the card generator at http://www.mtgcardmaker.com/
After a bit of hashing out a model on a Google Docs Spreadsheet and finding an online print service, we went to see if we could build a) something better, and b) a reasonable workflow for creating custom playable physical cards.
The general workflow is to run the compose command to create SVG documents (one per
card) described in a descriptor file, and then to transcode those SVG documents into
either PNGs (for the web) or PDFs (for printing).
$ java -jar card-creator-all.jar compose \
--descriptor descriptor.md \
--output-dir svgs \
--print
$ java -jar card-creator-all.jar pdf \
--output-dir pdfs \
svgs/*.svg
To build, you'll need Java 8 and Maven 3 available on your system.
$ git clone https://github.com/barneyb/magic-card-creator.git
$ cd magic-card-creator
$ mvn install
You will now have the full toolkit installed, with the executable JAR both
in your local .m2/repository and in the ./cli/target directory.
The toolkit is packaged as an executable JAR file. It is the artifact of the 'cli' module
(if you're building from source), or the release artifact if you're getting binaries. Note
that for standalone execution, you need the one with the -all suffix. Run it for a list
of available commands:
$ java -jar card-creator-all.jar
Usage: CardCreator [options] [command] [command options]
A toolkit for creating custom Magic: The Gathering cards.
Commands:
help display usage information and exit
validate validate a cardset
compose compose cards from a descriptor
stats view stats about a cardset
png transcode composed cards to PNG (via docker)
pdf transcode composed cards to PDF (via docker)
You can get help for a given command by using the help command:
$ java -jar card-creator-all.jar help compose
compose cards from a descriptor
Usage: compose [options]
Options:
--cards
Card names or numbers to process
Default: []
* -d, --descriptor
Cardset descriptor
* -o, --output-dir
The directory to compose into
--print
If true, composed cards will be bled for printing
Default: false
--theme-descriptor
A theme descriptor file, if needed
--theme-key
The key of the theme to use
Default: dynamic
If you've built from source, you can also invoke the toolkit using the maven
exec:java goal in the cli module. The class you want to run is
com.barneyb.magic.creator.cli.CardCreator:
$ cd cli
$ mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass=com.barneyb.magic.creator.cli.CardCreator
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building card-creator-cli 0.6.1-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec-maven-plugin:1.4.0:java (default-cli) @ card-creator-cli ---
Usage: CardCreator [options] [command] [command options]
A toolkit for creating custom Magic: The Gathering cards.
Commands:
help display usage information and exit
validate validate a cardset
compose compose cards from a descriptor
stats view stats about a cardset
png transcode composed cards to PNG (via docker)
pdf transcode composed cards to PDF (via docker)
md2xml convert a Markdown descriptor to an equivalent XML descriptor
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 0.991s
[INFO] Finished at: Tue Jun 16 08:08:36 PDT 2015
[INFO] Final Memory: 15M/300M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Each set of cards is described by a descriptor. Two formats are supported: Markdown and XML. Markdown descriptors are easier to read and write, and more naturally support previewing the cards, but do not have the richness needed to cover all cases. XML descriptors are rather move verbose, but allow for complete description of all card attributes. For example, the Markdown format is not rich enough to describe Planeswalkers or Fused cards.
As an example, the Blitz Hellion (from the Alara block) can be described in Markdown like this:
Blitz Hellion 3RG
-----------------
Creature - Hellion
Trample, haste
At the beginning of the end step, Blitz Hellion's owner shuffles it into his or her library.
*Alarans commemorated its appearances with new holidays bearing names like the Great Cataclysm and the Fall of Ilson Gate.*
7/7
And in XML like this:
<creature title="Blitz Hellion" casting-cost="3RG" subtype="Hellion" rarity="rare">
<artwork>
<src>artwork/hellion.jpg</src>
<artist>Anthony S. Waters</artist>
</artwork>
<rules-text>Trample, haste</rules-text>
<rules-text>At the beginning of the end step, Blitz Hellion's owner shuffles it into his or her library.</rules-text>
<flavor-text>Alarans commemorated its appearances with new holidays bearing names like the Great Cataclysm and the Fall of Ilson Gate.</flavor-text>
<power>7</power>
<toughness>7</toughness>
</creature>
In general, starting with Markdown is probably easier, though if you have a good XML editor, the assistance provided by the XSD may be beneficial. The toolkit provides a tool for automatic conversion from Markdown to XML, so you can switch later if needed/desired. There is not a tool to convert from XML to Markdown, as not ever XML descriptor can be represented as a Markdown descriptor.