I’ve been using celtx for a couple of months now, and I couldn’t be happier with the program. Naturally, I use the comic book scripting utility of celtx, which has a drop-down bar at the top to let you switch between Page, Panel, Caption, Character, Balloon Type, and Balloon blocks in your script. The process is pretty seamless and smooth, and I’ve seen my pre-production times drop significantly. You can click on the screen capture to see a bigger version of an excerpt from a recent Reclaimer script in celtx.

Before celtx, I was writing out my scripts by hand in a Moleskine notebook. I actually type quite a bit faster than I write, though, so that a somewhat more arduous process for my pre-production. I found myself frequently skipping the pre-production entirely and writing the script at the same time I was building the day’s comic—and I think it frequently showed in the quality of my writing. What I really like about using celtx is that 1) it allows me to have my script already in hand when I capture my screenshots so I know just what images I need, and 2) this is probably my favorite aspect, it causes me to look at my script two or three times as I transfer each block of dialogue to the comic itself, thus allowing me to proofcheck and make edits on the fly to improve the quality of the writing further. I also include transcripts with all my comics now, and it’s a simple matter of copy-pasting the script from celtx into the transcript field for each comic (and cleaning it up just a little), thus saving me the time of having to type my hand-written scripts into the field each time.

I’ve become a big fan of celtx over the last couple of months, and I highly recommend it to anyone doing any work with comics, film-making, or other forms of scriptwriting. You can also pay $5 a month for a personal account on the celtx website where you can backup your scripts and share them with others for a more collaborative process. Give celtx a try and see if it doesn’t improve your writing quality and production times.

C’est Moi, Adam Susskind, just stepping up to plate to tell anyone who comes over to this page to a have a look-see that our forums are up and running. Anyone who is looking to get into the business, wants some ideas, or just wants to chat on our off topic forums can now do so with their own personalized forum signature, replete with any 550×100 pixel image of your choice!

Here, you can suggest ideas for comics, ask for help with your own, or even inquire into one of the several secret projects we have going on behind the scenes. (Pointless to ask.)

So what are you waiting for? Go Make an Account with your own personal Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) and Forum Signature, or just post anonymously!

The H3w Forums

-Adam Susskind, Writer and Producer, Chaos Theory

Right, here’s the moment people have been waiting for. Whoever has been waiting for it, I’ll need to tell you that you need to do something while waiting instead of sitting on a chair for months on end for the next thing.

Oh wait, that sounds a lot like myself.

Getting to the point, the title should have clue’d you in. This is the second part to the planning guide written by HolyJunkie the Big Bag of Fail.

PLANNING SOME MORE!

You probably learned in Part 1 that the planning stage should be called ”[Title of Comic] Plotline” (or “HolyJunkie sucks!”, as it gives the same impression.) so you can identify it when you pull it out of a flash drive, hard drive, binder, notebook, or wherever you wrote the plan. Every plan needs a character list, a general synopsis, and generalized details in the individual chapters.

If you do have this, listen read closely, starting now.

What you do now is determine what sets you plan to use for it. That shall be covered in a fully detailed Forge Guide. That would be coing soon, but I doubt it would be written by myself. In fact, you’re probably better off visiting Forgehub for some sort of forging guide; seeing as they’re the experts in that field, and we’re more concentrated on making epic literary win.

Depending on the setting you put up in the generalized synopsis, you’ll have topick your maps. After you pick your maps, forge in the details, or download maps made by fellow Community Comrades… By that, I mean the Bungie Forums. Once you have the maps, THEN you can start planning in the details.

It’s rather simple. Just start off with something that looks a little like this:
—-

PAGE [insert number here]
—-

Once you have that, put up what should happen within that page. I once again use my own DEAD as an example.

When I have a character’s thoughts or some narrative on the screen, I put in a different symbol than actual spoken dialogue. Here’s an example from PAGE 2.
—-

PAGE 2

(Jakob finds the place to be relatively desolate. Is annoyed by the fact that he has the feeling that he’s being watched.)

_… Combined with the dreadful feeling that you’re being watched.

+Hello?

_Always bugs me… Well, might as well try to find some life.

_Schizophrenia or not, I won’t lose to damned illusions.
—-

I usually use Underscores ( _ ) to signify narrative or character’s thoughts while I use the addition symbol (or plus sign) ( + ) for actually spoken dialogue.

... It works because it’s not punctuation you usually use in ordinary written stuff. Much like you will almost never use the “Z” key unless you’re an internet meatbag who says “plzzzz” a lot, or you’re Mildred Z. Maxwell. To get the joke in that, read the play “Done To Death” by Fred Carmichael.

Also, in the frame, I give the general idea of what happens in that certain page before going into details. Here’s the full thing:
—-

PAGE 2

Jakob looks at where Usne was just a second ago, sees nothing. Mutters stuff about his annoyance of being watched, along with his mental condition before walking towards the tree shown in PAGE 3.

_… Combined with the dreadful feeling that you’re being watched.

+Hello?

_Always bugs me… Well, might as well try to find some life.

_Schizophrenia or not, I won’t lose to damned illusions.
—-

That’s pretty simple. I’m not sure if there will be a part 3. Leave comments asking about stuff I might have missed. If you do, there will no-doubt be a part 3 for you guys to read and say “Hey! HolyJunkie sucks more than ever!”

-HolyJunkie.

Then when I was almost done the strangely long guide (almost 700 words, which is surprising, considering the fact that the subject is…)

Okay, I’m done with backstory now. The point is: I erased the work I did to replace with an even better idea: Making a plan for your comic’s story. It’s actually pretty easy. Here’s the first step:

Open up some text-writing application, like Microsoft Word, or Notepad, or something like that. If you lack any of that (... how is that possible?) then don’t fret. Just grab a pencil and paper. If you lack the applications, or pencils and paper, or ANY writing skill, I suggest going to school before attempting something like this.

Anyway, start off with the thing that will allow you to identify it easily: The Title. Also be sure to save it as what you wrote in the title.

Example: if I’m writing the Drawl Origins plotline, I call it “Drawl Origins Plotline”. If you have more stories, repeat step. If you have too many, just put it all into one document and call it “SUPER-AWESOME COMIC PLOTLINES” or something along those lines… Or you can call it “HolyJunkie sucks”, because you can. In fact, I’ll probably give no dollars to whoever actually calls their “general plotline list” as “HolyJunkie sucks”, takes a screenshot of it, and then shows it on the forum.

Of course, it won’t achieve anything, but it’ll be fun… Okay, back off the irrelevance wagon.

Anyway, after the title, put in a Character list: Example:

DEAD:

• Jakob Meredith


• Usne Racot


• Colonel Harrison


• Frank


• Lars


• Jon


• Helen


• Rled Kajalee


• Philip Mason


• James Kordak


• Nurse


• Sate


• Advent


• Yoral


• Assorted survivors

The planet DEAD is based in is a pretty resource-rich planet. If the effort is put up, a single entity can survive on the planet. It’s not majorly covered in ocean, giving more land for sentient creatures to cultivate. All in all, a resource-rich planet that has yet to be discovered by either the Humans or Covenant. (This is a nutshell, by the way)

After that, you type out a list of the Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, all the way to “Final Chapter” or “Epilogue”. Once you do that, you start writing out a general chapter synopsis for each chapter.

Once you have the general idea, you can work on the details. In my case, I can’t really work on the details unless I actually get the characters on Halo 3 and position them. It’s then that I start getting the real details, mainly because I have the visual.

Again: Example via DEAD.

Prologue: N/A

Chapter 1: Jakob awakens after crash-landing from Anthroforge. Begins land-based exploration of new planet. Ambushed by Usne, saved by Frank and Lars. After a bout of schizophrenia, Jakob splits from the two and attempts to take on Usne. Due to underestimation, Jakob is downed easily. Usne was about to finish off Jakob when Colonel Harrison saves Jakob with a flamethrower. Harrison leads Jakob to Survivor Base Crete

Chapter 2: They arrive at Survivor Base Crete, a Forerunner facility that has been proven to be Usne-proof.  Whether it’s the fact that it’s high on a cliff and an island that I doubt anything, let alone Usne, would be able to reach, or some other happenstance, I actually don’t care that much. It just works, lol. Anyway, Harrison and Frank discuss Jon and Helen’s find. Harrison then takes Jakob to Nurse. Jakob and Nurse exchange background stories (takes a while). Harrison and Jakob then join Lars to fly to Helen and Jon’s position.

Chapter 3: They arrive at the “abandoned Covenant Arctic Base”. The only place that hasn’t been searched is an underground Forerunner facility below the base. The Crete Survivors don’t yet know about the Forerunners, considering they’re been out of the war for over six years. One year before the discovery of Halo (in the Haloverse.) Usne arrives, and wounds Harrison before retreating again. Jakob, unsure of how to get Harrison out of there on his own, is helped by the only survivor of the Arctic Base, who hid in the Forerunner Facility to avoid Usne. Said Elite is Rled.

I won’t get into any more details and stuff, but that’s the actual chapter synopsis I wrote for DEAD. I would show all of the others I have, but I don’t think I want to. Nyah nyah, lol.

Being able to write is a must. If you need help writing, just randomly type stuff… preferrably in a language people can understand. If you just randomly bash your hands on the keyboard, you’re not learning anything. You get actual technique if you do it right. That’s something Kung fu taught me.

Anyway, HJ signing off with his ever-so useless reports of How-to guides.
-HolyJunkie.

Adam Susskind here announcing a great little site that can be a big resource.

A lot of the time, finding a good font exactly the way you want it can be impossible. But thanks to the creators at Yourfonts.com, you can virtually create any font you can imagine. Yourfonts.com offers a grid of about 40 characters that, in each space, you must copy in your own handwriting. That said, if your handwriting does not suit your comic, you may mimic any style of font you wish on the grid. Not only will all these fonts be available in any program you use, but it will work on both PC and Mac alike.

And the best news is that it is free to create as many fonts as you wish. So go ahead and check it out: http://www.yourfonts.com/

Adam Susskind

But then there are some effects that you are probably unable to achieve due to the fact that you are not a master of Photoshop or GIMP. Lets face it, nobody is. I don’t even think any of the developers of either know the full potential of those applications. That’s how complex they are, and that’s the beauty of them.

My point is this: you’re probably going to run into a situation in your story where you just can’t conjour up filters to add the effect you want, or you just want to use the filters you can place in Halo 3… which is limited to Ghost Town, Avalanche, Black Out, and Cold Storage (there’s the Mythic Map Pack as well, but that’s irrelevant.)

What is the Mythic Map Pack irrelevant to? The subject that brought you to this guide addition in the first place: Halo 3 Filters.

For any tips on how to manage filters to make some really cool effect for a wicked niiiiice screenshot, all I really have for you is “experiment experiment experiment!” There are some out there who realise that there are many filters you can add, and don’t have any visual on how the filters would affect a shot.

For those doing that, I recommend re-creating the scene with the characters, and then add the filters. Wait five seconds every time you put on one, and once you’re done, check the film via Theatre Mode.

For those too lazy to do THAT, this is a guide definitely for you. It (hopefully) will give you a visual on how filters would make characters and environment look.

Now you see these next few screenshots and you’ll think “Oh great, HolyJunkie’s back to his dimwitted failures again,” and those who are more observant will think “Hey, this is HolyJunkie (the fool) standing on a watchtower in Ghost Town! Who suddenly changes his armor color from white to red!”

Yes, this is Ghost Town, which I find has the most diversity in terms of lighting for filters. It’s got bright areas and dark areas in the same place, so that allows me to see the full spectrum whenever I place a filter orb in the map. That area I based this guide in particular was the most diverse, I found.

Anyway, for those requiring a general visual on how filters will look, check this out. It may not work in other maps or in other areas you plan to put filters up, but it will no-doubt inspire you to try out some more.
—- SINGULAR

Pen & Ink (This filter always reminds me of the cover design of the first Silent Hill.)

Old Timey

Nova

Colorblind

Gloomy

Juicy

—- COMBINATIONS

Old Timey + Juicy

Old Timey + Colorblind (Note the greater presence of gray)

Nova + Pen & Ink (... Yes, that actually is the same subject as the other pictures. I found that it looks cool.)

Nova + Old-Timey

Nova + Gloomy… or was it Colorblind? I can’t really determine. It all sort of looks the same.

Gloomy + Juicy

Colorblind + Gloomy (I call it “DEAD”, fir inside joke reasons)

Colorblind + Juicy

Pen & Ink + Juicy (I call it “Dreamstate”)

Gloomy + Colorblind + Juicy (I call this “Realism” or “the cooler Gears of War” filter.)

—-

You may notice that this isn’t every possible combination there is out there. That’s because almost any combination including Nova or Pen & Ink will usually result in very blurry, hardly depict-able stuff. Either that, or they look like forced blam! quality pictures. In Cold Storage, the combination of all filters except Nova and Pen & Ink tends to give you a dark, abandoned Area 51-like effect. I based an infection variant I made off of those filters, actually.

You may also notice that I seem to be writing very trivial guides. My response is that “You never know when someone actually needs this sort of knowledge for making Halo 3 Webcomics.”

Anyway, the real purpose of this guide is to inspire you future comic artists to try out the filters built into Halo 3. It would also work for Machinima artists, except the Old Timey filter has a flickering effect, which I couldn’t capture into a single screenshot. Go out there and experiment!

HJ’s signing off… again… rofl and stuff.

-HolyJunkie.

Without further ado, the moment most likely everyone will be waiting for: SET DESIGN! Halo 3 comes with the coolest feature they could ever put in a game since Theatre Mode… Oh wait. Anyway, said coolest feature is FORGE MODE.

Forge allows you to make your own custom variants of maps Bungie made for Halo 3. It’s like you’re hammering on something nice and hot on an anvil, hence the name forge. (Don’t think on that) The default maps count up to nine maps altogether. Add the Heroic Map Pack, Legendary Map Pack, Cold Storage, and the upcoming Mythic Map Pack, you’ll get about 22 maps to choose from. In fact, I already have plans for a number of the maps in the Mythic Pack for my own comics!

That’s not quite as high as the number of maps out for Halo 2, but Bungie has confirmed that they’ll end up making more maps in Halo 3 than there are in Halo 2. One can only hope they remake some other awesome Halo CE maps. I’m not talking Blood Gulch though. They already said multiple times that they’re not planning on a remake. Point is: we can expect more maps in the making than just Mythic.

Lets see… five paragraphs in, and I’ve yet to talk about set design. Apologies, Reclaimers. The quality of set design really depends on your tastes. If you don’t want to make any sets, that’s fine. If you want to use custom-made maps that were made by dudes and dudettes from Forgehub, that’s also fine. I make my own sets for comics, and I find that it tends to work best that way. I also enjoy making cool stuff in Forge. You may not feel the same, but who can blame you?

Just be sure to thank whoever made the custom map you’re using as a set. Or as Adam from Chaos Theory said, “Thank the general community because it’s rather difficult to determine who the true creator of maps are when people tend to try to rip it off.” Actually, he doesn’t say that word-for-word, but he does thank the general community and whoever made the maps “knows whom they are.”

Okay, here’s an example. Pretty pictures for the feeble mind to ogle at and comic artist-to-be’s to study and think “Hey, this HolyJunkie guy is a nitwit!”

You’ll notice that the character design there cannot be bad, and cannot be good either. You really can’t say anything about the character unless you know who and what it is.

You’ll also notice that the set there is completely empty.

Now check this screenshot

You’ll most likely enjoy looking at this one some more. If not, then you’re a minimalist… Not like there’s anything wrong with being one. I personally don’t see anything wrong.

But to those who aren’t, you’ll figure that “The more blam! I put in, the cooler a screenshot is going to be! TIME TO SPAM CRATES!!ONEELEVEN”

That doesn’t work that way. It’s not about wasting Forge-Bucks, and it’s not about filling an entire place with -blam!… Unless the scene you’re making is in a warehouse. In which I’d recommend using Foundry, the garage in High Ground, The Pit, or other maps I may have forgotten about.

But here’s the question you’ll probably be asking: How do I make cool stuff without blowin’ all the dough? The people ask, and HolyJunkie (the ignoramus) will answer!

First off, you need to know what the set is actually representing. If you’re making a comic that’s based in Halo 3 Multiplayer… well, that just signifies that you’re too lazy to make maps, as the only sets you will have to use will be the default maps.

If you’re making a comic based in some alternate dimension where everyone is addicted to cheese and there’s an evil corporation attempting to buy out the Cheddar factory, to build Cheddar ICBMs armed with the power to melt every piece of cheese on the planet, thus causing a mass flood of cheese that will either burn, suffocate, feed, or drown billions, and it’s up to the Main Character the only one who doesn’t like cheddar- to stop the evil corporation… well, you’ll need a lot of image editing skill and cheese.

But anyway, whatever setting you’re making the set resemble really depends on what you had in mind. Here’s an actually good example:

If you want to build a human supply cache and outpost in a Forerunner-origin base, then here’s what I did for my set in Epitaph, which I used as an earlier example.

In order to make the outpost look temporary, start off by placing pallets where appropriate: corners and right against the walls. Then put the biggest stuff in said outpost on top of the pallets. Crates, large barrels, large drums work nicely.<

(Also noticed that I only have one pallet there, but it works) Add some smaller props with the grouping and then put some in areas off the pallets, but still fitting.

You should also add some weapons and equipment. You wouldn’t expect a supply cache like this one to be without any means for humans to defend it at a moment’s notice. (I didn’t put any weapons in this one, but if you look closely, you’ll see a tripmine. In a different cache not shown here, I put a Battle Rifle and grenades. Always add grenades, because everybody loves grenades, and you never know when you suddenly need explosions.)

Lastly, add a Mongoose (Or Warthog, if possible) just for the sake of having a vehicle there for scouting around. SUPPLY CACHES IN-A-BOX! Comes with a free Mongoose! (Sorry, a joke.)

But yeah, that’s the general idea for human outposts in a Forerunner-based place. You can do the same thing with Covenant equipment, but all you really have are Covvie crates and weapon holders. For Fore… Let me try again: For Forerunner bases in a… Forerunner base… Ehm… Just make it seem like the Forerunner-based objects blend perfectly with the map itself.

But if you’re like every other original person and their dog, you’ll most likely make a story that stars at least humanity. Therefore, the Human Outpost idea is the big cheese you’ll probably need.

If you’re planning to do some sort of chase scene, use a map that allows vehicles of the sort. Set an area that you wouldn’t put vehicles in that also allows you to get the vehicles out. Example: In High Ground, I placed vehicles inside the base itself, and positioned them to allow them to be driven out of the base easily. Either that or I hide them on the shore, where a chase scene will almost never end up (Because lets face it: unless the vehicles used also serve as boats, there’s no way a character would drive to a dead-end).

Just make the place look… natural. Like something that would be set up if you, a person with a mind, would have an entire twenty-four hours to do nothing but set things up in a way that you find works. I, for one, didn’t take twenty-four hours to build a single set- but I was a monitor, so that’s how I can make stuff so fast.

Also, when making comics, be sure to get at least one screenshot of your totally awesome set to establish the fact that it’s there. Otherwise, it’ll be like you built that amazing pile of awesome just to realize that no one even gets to see it because you messed up in screenshot-gathering.

Also, another thing: If you want to make a cool A.I. thing using powerups, it’s actually pretty easy.<

Step 1: Place a weapon holder where you want the AI to float at.
Step 2: Spawn a powerup and place it on the weapon holder.

Holy blam! That’s so difficult!

The colors you have with the three available powerups are red, blue, and yellow. Any artist who’s ever tried painting will know that those are the three primary colors in painting. In designing with lights, the color spectrum is a little different. That’s irrelevant though. If you place two powerups in the same position, they combine and make an altogether different color.

Overshield: Red
Active Camouflage: Blue
Custom Powerup: Yellow

Red + Blue = Purple
Red + Yellow = Orange
Blue + Yellow = Green

Red + Blue + Yellow = Something very, very bright- like white, except not quite white.

You start off with four of each powerup, which is enough to make one of every single color. Awesome, eh?

Well, H.J. signing off. By the time I make a tutorial thing for this awesome site again, I’ll hopefully have something more useful to talk about. Peace!

-HolyJunkie.

Nearly everywhere else people always inform you of the rule of three. This is the basic rule of screenshots, and photography in general. Divide the picture into three sections and there should be something along the lines or at an intersection.

Above you can see how this works. Get a basic idea of where to position your shots for a good one.

Another thing to do is to get onto the same level as your subject. Don’t be looking all up and down, it skews it a bit too much. Of course if you need a birds eye view then that is where this doesn’t really matter as you don’t notice.

Now compare the next two images…

The first has a lot of dead space. No matter what may be going on in the background it’s essentially dead. The second shows it off differently; in facing into the shot people follow the eye line of subjects and scan across the image.

Now tips for comics.

Here is a comparison of the size of two pictures of mine.

I crop my pictures to be 340×317 pixels. This allows a nice gap of 5 from the side edges and the top, and a gap of 10 from any other picture. I do change it for longer shots by combining and whatnot but that’s beside the point. The problem with doing this is that if you fill the original shot with your subjects, you invariably cut off some of them. Unless however you want to fully resize the image but you end up with them all squashed up. What I tend to do is leave dead space to one side, or centralise as much as possible.

That’s all for now folks. Use those basics as a platform to jump off and develop your own styles. Remember to also leave room for speech otherwise it ends up cramped.

Next time I’ll give up a chunk about effects in game. Enjoy and have fun snapping.

The place to start is by downloading the latest version of the WordPress blogging platform. Follow the directions provided on the site to get WordPress set up on your webhost. It’s extremely fast and easy to install, though the post-install configuration process takes a few moments longer, since you’ll want to customize the default settings to your liking. Of particular importance, make sure to rename your Uncategorized category to Comic (and make sure to change the category slug to ‘comic’, as well) and add a new category called News. Also, you’ll want to create three new directories in your WordPress root directory (the same one that contains your wp-admin, wp-content, and wp-includes directories). Call these directories archive, comics, and rss, respectively, and set the permissions for these directories to 777. It will be important to have this ready later.

Once that’s done, head over to the official ComicPress site and download the latest version (2.5 at the time of this writing) of the ComicPress theme for WordPress. Unzip the archive file to your computer. Inside you’ll find five ComicPress layouts. Upload all five to your wp-content/themes/ directory on your server and decide which layout works best with your comic. The base ComicPress theme is pretty bland, so it’s a good idea to modify the style.css file for that layout to suit your tastes.

Finally, I highly recommend grabbing the ComicPress Manager plugin. This is a very useful utility that makes publishing comics with ComicPress extremely easy. Unzip the plugin archive and upload the ComicPress Manager directory to your wp-content/plugins directory on your server. Go to your plugins page in your WordPress dashboard and activate the plugin. Once you do, you’ll see a new ‘tab’ in your Dashboard navigation menu called ‘ComicPress.’ You’ll use this tab to upload all your comics files and create the posts for each one.

If you hover over the ComicPress ‘tab’, you’ll see an assortment of sub-menus. Navigate to the ComicPress Config menu and make sure all your settings are correct. The ComicPress Details panel should show that Comics folder is ‘comics’, Archives folder is ‘archive (generating)’, and RSS folder is ‘rss (generating)’. If it doesn’t, check your directory names and permissions to make sure everything is configured properly for ComicPress Manager’s auto-detection script.

From here, it’s just a matter of going to the Uploads sub-menu of the ComicPress ‘tab’ every time you want to publish a new comic. Take note that your comic files need to follow the YYYY-MM-DD-post-name.jpg (or .gif or .png) naming convention in order for ComicPress to work. Select your comic file to upload, manually set the post title if so desired, enter any tags you want for that comic, and use the post body template field to enter any text you want to publish with the comic. Click ‘Upload image and zip files’ when you’re ready to publish and you’re off to the races!

I’ve been using ComicPress to publish Reclaimer for quite a while now, and all the comics on Halo 3 Webcomics use it, as well. I’ve found it to be exceptionally easy and fun to use, and it makes publishing comics a lot of fun. Hopefully you will, too.