Utility: Background Theme Maker for FG (All Rulesets)

[Wintermute]

Did you ever want to replace the background image in Fantasy Grounds? The Background Theme Maker allows you to create a background theme with only a few mouse-clicks. Simple and quick to use. No XML editing or coding. Run the program, select your background image, answer a few simple questions, and the Background Theme Maker will create a .EXT file for your theme.

Your background theme is compatible with all rulesets. When using your created theme with other themes, only the background image will be replaced, no other theme changes are done.

Screenshot: 26206

Here's the instructions

Step 1: Select the background image you wish to use (recommended size is 1920x1080, images are not resized )
Step 2: Select the location and enter the filename of your extension. ie: MyBackground.ext
Step 3: Enter the name of your background theme that will be displayed when loading extensions. ie: My Dragon Theme
Step 4: Enter the theme authors name
Step 5: Enter a brief description of your theme
Step 6. Click Generate Background Theme

Install your .ext file into your Fantasy Grounds extension folder and your background theme is ready to use.

This is a Windows application and I have only tested it on Windows 10.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaTMvGZkhOo

Release Notes
v1.0.0.15 Bugfix for Fantasy Grounds Unity and added automatic updates
v1.0.0.12 Initial Release

Download

Click here to download. (https://www.gmwcampaigntoolkit.com/background-theme-maker-for-fantasy-grounds)

[Dragonan]

Very nice little program you have made :) and thanks for the tutorial :)

[Zacchaeus]

Jolly good show.

[ddavison]

Nicely done. I saw this on YouTube and shared it out to our social media team recently.

[Wintermute]

Thanks, glad you liked it. As my players will attest, I really like swapping out background images. I was using a linux script that I wrote to make theme creation easier, but it still required some effort. The next logical step was converting that script to a windows app and sharing it with the community. Hope everyone gets some use out of it.

[Oberoten]

Thanks, glad you liked it. As my players will attest, I really like swapping out background images. I was using a linux script that I wrote to make theme creation easier, but it still required some effort. The next logical step was converting that script to a windows app and sharing it with the community. Hope everyone gets some use out of it.

This is a good addition for anyone who likes to tinker about with moods. :) Thank you Wintermute. ( I have been hand-writing extensions for backgrounds and icons for our campaigns, this takes one step out of it at the least).
-Obe

[ajhaindia]

Thanks for sharing this information guide/

[Johnny Opie]

Nice. A quick change of moods. Thanks.

[seycyrus]

@Wintermute Thank you for this extension! I'll be putting it to use this weekend.

Onequestion about step #1 however. Is the recommended size based on an assumed monitor resolution? If so, would it be better for me to match my image resolution to my monitor resolution?

[damned]

@Wintermute Thank you for this extension! I'll be putting it to use this weekend.

Onequestion about step #1 however. Is the recommended size based on an assumed monitor resolution? If so, would it be better for me to match my image resolution to my monitor resolution?

Its going to create a desktop image with a single slice - that being the size of the image.
if your screen is smaller than the image it will show as much of the image as it can from the top left hand corner.
It is limited to a maximum of 2048x2048px
If your screen is bigger than the image used the image will tile - not stretch - it will tile.

Additionally this will apply equally to your players.
So what works perfectly for you may look good/ok/terrible for your players.

[seycyrus]

@Damned

Thanks for the response. Am I right in thinking that a "safe" image would be one with a picture that is centered surrounded by a scheme that will blend with itself?

[damned]

Thats certainly a good idea.
On a large screen the image will tile.
So the right edge must match the left edge and the bottom edge must match the top edge for a clean look.
On a very large screen it may still not be awesome looking but it will still be better than one that only works on a specific screen size.

You can get an idea how it will look on other screen sizes by using:

/scaleui 125
/scaleui 75
/scaleui 60
/scaleui 50

As the OP suggests 1920x1080 is a good baseline size.
Its good for two main reasons.

Its probably the most common screen size.
Its as close as you can get (in common sizes) to the maximum image width.

[Wintermute]

Damned is always in the know. lol. I based the 1920x1080 recommendation on my own experience. I try to select backgrounds that will still look good at different screen sizes while being covered with the chat box. Lots of trial, error, and flipping the images.

Having a safe zone and then feathering out to a solid color is a good idea. I create so many backgrounds for my campaigns that I don't spend a whole lot of time photoshopping them. For my two adventure paths, I've created 40-50 backgrounds over 18 months. Most of my backgrounds are good enough instead of being perfect. :)

[paladinpariah]

I have tried several times to do this myself and have failed due to serious lack of coding skills. Thank you for this... the wait was worth it.

[grimm182]

Agreed this is great, now if only skinning the whole ruleset was this easy!!

[pablomaz]

This is Sweet! I think I'll be using this on my Curse of Strahd campaign, changing the background image depending on the location...

[Torment]

You are really GREAT!! Thank you!

[Ellspeth]

This is amazing I have wanted to learn to do themes forever ( I had figured out decals) and I learned this in five minutes, I need to play with image sizing a bit, it took my graphic, cut one end and pasted it to the other side, kind of like a wrap around? Other than that it was perfect, all ready shared out over at Savage Mojo Discord.

Update: I read some tips here, went back and changed my UI first to 100% then 90% (I normally have 80%) and it scaled correctly at 90%. VERY cool.

[JBagky]

I have toyed with these things to varying degrees of success. Thanks for the tool!

[Giddoen]

Very nice sir! I am use 5ed D&D to Run Esper Genesis and this just makes it so much better!

[istark]

Thank you for this!

[Mortar]

Nice tool. Not sure if you have tried it in FGU yet, but the extension will throw an error:


[11/4/2019 12:53:06 PM] [NOTICE] Launcher scene starting.
[11/4/2019 12:53:07 PM] [<color="red">ERROR</color>] Extension Info Load (Wiseguys): 'encoding' is an unexpected token. The expected token is '?>'. Line 1, position 20.


This the XML output:


<?xml version='1.0'encoding='ISO-8859-1'?>


FGC will accept that, but FGU is looking for:


<?xml version='1.0' encoding='ISO-8859-1'?>

[Wintermute]

Thanks for letting me know. I haven't had the opportunity to test them with unity yet. I'll fix and push an update.

[Wintermute]

Version 1.0.0.15 released with bugfix for Fantasy Grounds Unity and added automatic update ability.

Click here to download (https://www.gmwcampaigntoolkit.com/background-theme-maker-for-fantasy-grounds/)

[pdzoch]

Did an update happen to disrupt this functionality? A background theme I made using this just suddenly stopped working?

[Wintermute]

Are there any errors in the console log?

[pdzoch]

Two warnings were posted in the console log: Could not find icon (fgthememaker); and Could not find icon (gmwintermute). But they appear to still be in the extension files. Then a Frames tabs contains out-of-range values in BottomLeft.

I tried re-running the thememaker program, but it kept crashing. I went to the latest version download to download and re-install, but the page does not open for me anymore.

[Wintermute]

can you email me your extension to [email protected] or PM me with it on discord @Wintermute#3538.

Classic or Unity

[pdzoch]

Will Do. Thanks.

[tcrossbar]

An update broke a bunch of extensions, including this one, recently. Here's a thread that talks a little bit about it:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?57877-Zipping-your-Extensions&p=536630#post536630

I managed to get the extension working for myself by unzipping it and then using winzip to re-zip it up, but it still doesn't work for any of my players. This is all on FGU. It's seriously disappointing because this is the only extension I even use and they broke it somehow. =(

[Mysteria_Sdrassa]

I'm getting the same error... cannot locate extension.... this is so disapointing
next time i load Unity, i'll try and remember to grab screenshots

[Mysteria_Sdrassa]

3914039141
the 2 images from loading.. the first right near the start of loading showing the ERROR message and the second from once Unity is loaded showing the cannot find Warning messages... i hope this helps

[j0lt]

Thank you so much for this! It worked great!

[martel]

Hey,

i cant download your tool. i have try with chrome, microsoft edge, but nothing. your site is white.

[Jip]

Hey,

i cant download your tool. i have try with chrome, microsoft edge, but nothing. your site is white.

Same here.

[Wintermute]

Thanks for letting me know. We have had a couple php issues doing a server update. It should be resolved now, if not let me know and I'll make arrangements to send you the application.

Thanks again

[Laerithryn]

I run a desktop resolution of 2560 x 1440 and every time I try to match to a down loaded image I want to use the Theme-Maker tiles it instead. Is there a way to fix this?

[Rzach]

Site link goes to a white page with no links to the program.

[greybeardgunner70]

I am using Psicodelix' Ruleset Wizard to create my own Harnmaster ruleset. It uses CoreRPG as the foundation, but of course, is identified as "Harnmaster3.5" in the Rulesets folder. How do I get your app to recognize my custom ruleset? Will it simply work because CoreRPG is the foundation?

[damned]

Make the theme as CoreRPG and then crack it open and copy out what you need.

[Markjan]

Site link goes to a white page with no links to the program.
+1 ;)

[damned]

https://www.gmwcampaigntoolkit.com/download/

[Jarec]

Still just a white page when you go to download

[peterb]

You need to, at least temporary, allow the site to run some scripts.

[Mortificateur]

Anybody can help with the download? I don't know what to do.

[Mortificateur]

Finally it worked for some reason. All I did was to remove the ''/'' at the end of https://www.gmwcampaigntoolkit.com/download/

Like this https://www.gmwcampaigntoolkit.com/download

[Jarec]

That works, thanks

[Feroand]

Thanks for making this tool.
Unfortunately, all of those link -including the ones without a slash (/) at the end- goes to a blank-white page. Are there any working solutions?

[Wintermute]

Looks like I missed quite a few notifications. Issue has been resolved, and all links should function as normal.

If you have any more issues, feel free to discord me Wintermute#3538

[Magnimost]

Looks like I missed quite a few notifications. Issue has been resolved, and all links should function as normal.

If you have any more issues, feel free to discord me Wintermute#3538

None of the links work, blank page. I tried looking for you on Discord, such user doesn't exist.

[Wintermute]

Thanks for letting me know, the site is back up and running. I had a plugin that went out of date and the website is overdue for an overhaul. :)

Don't know why you couldn't find me on discord, the id is Wintermute#3538 If you are still having trouble, here's a link to the discord https://discord.gg/uySCPXs and it's also in my signature.