GIMP Diagram Tutorials: Blueprints

NOTE: This is a guide to drawing blueprint images for presentation purposes, NOT a guide for the new blueprint system implemented in 01.050.

A Tutorial for creating Blueprint-like Diagrams in GIMP, similar to the ones I've used for my recent ship releases. Aimed at beginners but with a little bit of common sense required.

1 - INTRODUCTION

This guide is aimed at teaching you how to construct a Blueprint-style diagram, similar to those I've used on my recent craft. The tutorial uses GIMP, a free alternative to Photoshop and is aimed at beginners. I myself had never used GIMP or any other image software beyond MS Paint until a few days before making this.

To begin we'll need two things (other than space engineers and a ship!)

• GIMP - Available from here[www.gimp.org]
  
• Green Skybox by flup52 - Available from here

Firstly we need a good screenshot of our craft. This is best achieved in two ways. For starters, download the Green Screen Skybox mod by flup52; while this is not mandatory it does save a lot of manual editing (which I had to do on the Avalon before figuring this trick out). Active a Skybox like any other mod from the Settings -> Mods menu on the load screen.

Secondly, it’ll be easier to get a good screenshot if there’s nothing else around, so copy the ship into a blank world. To get turrets lined up and prevent the targeting lasers, turn all the turrets off and restart the world to reset their position.

For a more ‘freeform’ blueprint like my recent ones, just get the ship at a nice angle. If you were attempting to make a more traditional engineering style blueprint you’d probably want to be aligned perfectly with one particular face of the craft. I’m hoping to make one like this soon so you’ll see what I mean!

Remember to disable the crosshair by going to Options -> Game -> Show Crosshair


For this tutorial we will be using the default Blue Ship as an example.

2 - WIREFRAME MODEL

Loading Into GIMP

Next we’re going to load GIMP; don’t worry if you’ve never used it before, I hadn’t either until a couple of weeks ago. While there’s a lot to it, the parts we’re looking for are fairly easy to find and understand.

The two most important things to understand if you are coming directly from MS Paint are the concept of layers and selection. If you don’t find layers intuitive I recommend looking at a tutorial online before proceeding, but in the meantime think of them like pieces of paper stacked on top of each other. At first that means you see the one on top only, but then imagine you can cut holes in the paper or even make it slightly transparent, allowing you to see to the sheets below.

Selection is the one that really complicated it for me; in Paint you only need to select something when you want to move it, resize it and so on. In gimp your selection tool must be used for everything; if you haven’t highlighted an area you can’t even draw in it. The simplest way to handle this most of the time is to use Crtl-A (Select All) to keep everything highlighted. If you find the tool you use isn't working, there's a strong chance it's because of this!

I’m not going to go any further into the basics of using GIMP, there’s hundreds of tutorials out there better than anything I could write and I think most people will manage anyway.

We can start our project simply by right clicking on our image in the operating system and choosing ‘Edit in GIMP’. We can then save a GIMP project in its native xcf format by going to File -> Save.

Our image loaded into GIMP should look something like this…

Edge Detection

Our first job is to highlight the edges of the ship and we can do so by going to the Filters Menu -> Edge Detect -> Edge.



The default setting are actually very close to being spot on, but you can adjust the Amount slider a little – on a smaller ship like this one it doesn’t do much but on something larger like the Avalon it will pick out slightly more or slightly less detail. Just play with it until you’re happy.

Greyscale

Next we’re going to remove all colour from the image, leaving us with a greyscale picture. This will mean we have a scale to work with using pure white as 100% solid and pure black as 100% transparent and everything in between as levels of transparency.

Colours Menu -> Hue-Saturation



Reduce the Saturation to -100. This will leave us with something like this…

Alpha Channel

Now we have our greyscale wireframe, we’re going to set black to be transparent leaving us with just our white wireframe.

Colours Menu -> Colour to Alpha



From the colour bar at the bottom, choose pure black. The HTML notation is 000000 or just set all the HSL/RGB boxes to 0.



That will leave us with the following. Note I have renamed my layer (Right Click -> Edit Layer Attributes) as we will now be making a lot more of them!

3 - BACKGROUND

Basic Background

Next, let’s get our background sorted out. Firstly lets choose the colour we want; for me this is a very dark blue. Use the foreground/background colour selector in the toolbox and find something nice and dark.

Then, open a new layer by right clicking in the layers window and choosing ‘New Layer’. The size should be the same as our image (in my case 1920x1080 but yours may differ depending on what resolution you took the screenshot in). The layer fill refers to what to do with the layer initially; in this case we want it filled with our current foreground colour.



Your new layer will probably be on top of the old one, hiding your wireframe, so use the layer down arrow to move it to the bottom. I’ll show you how to make a 2-tone background later.

Small Grid

Next, lets start making our grid. Once again we’ll create a new layer, this time use the following settings…

Name: Small Grid
Size: Same as Before
Fill Type: Transparency

This will create an entirely transparent layer which you won’t even see at first. Put it below the wireframe but above the background in the layer order.

Filters Menu -> Render -> Pattern -> Grid

For starters, set the width to 1 for nice thin lines (horizontal and vertical). For the spacing, it’s up to you! I used the default 16 for the Avalon and on the Raven made a much larger grid – this means that if you look at the two side by side it will help with a sense of scale. As the blue ship is quite small I’m going to put this up to 40. The offset can remain as it is but if you want to be exact, try a value of half the spacing, in this case 20. For the colour, use pure white (FFFFFF).



Finally, you’ll probably notice the grid is way too bold when you first apply it, so use the transparency slider for the layer to blend it in a bit. The value will vary from image to image but will likely be somewhere around the 30% mark.

Large Grid

Next, we’re going to repeat the previous steps to make the slightly darker grid lines every 5th box. This layer will be called Big Grid and will go above the Small Grid. Other settings the same.

For the grid itself, the width will be 2 and the spacing will be 5x whatever you used previously, in this case 5x 40 = 200. Offset can remain the same.



What we should then have is every 5th grid line slightly thicker. Once again we’ll reduce the transparency but this time it’ll probably be a bit more solid; just adjust the value. In this instance I used around 42%.

4 - LABELLING

Title

That’s more or less the basics right there! Next it’s just labelling it all up! This is going to come down to personal taste and will also vary on the style you’re aiming for. If you’re doing it more as a technical drawing then straight lines and plain fonts are the way to go. If you’re doing it more like my previous ones as a sketch, then curved lines and hand written fonts are in order.

To start with, use the text tool to make a main label. It will automatically put it on a new layer (make sure the layer is above the grids). In my case, I’ve been using Bradley Hand ITC which comes with windows. For the size, just make it look right and I have it set to bold. Position it wherever you want – the remaining stages really are up to you. The move tool can be used to drag it around (it can be fiddly to get the right piece moving, look for the change in mouse cursor).

Label Lines

For the label lines, make a new layer above the grid called Lines. As before, make sure it’s the same size and set it to transparent. We can then use the Paths Tool to make our lines. This can be a little fiddly to understand so I recommend just playing with it.

To start, use the tool and select two points at the start and end of the line. You can then drag the line to add curvature to it. If you find it become misshapen, you can use the boxes at the end of the yellow lines to adjust the angles. I recommend nice, shallow curves – keep it subtle like a human hand trying to freehand a straight line in one sweeping motion.

For a more engineering diagram feel, keep them straight at 90° angles.



Once you’re happy with the layout, make sure you have white selected as primary, click Stroke to Path and set it to 2px. Once you hit Stroke your new line will be in place. Click any other tool to deselect the current path and finish the process.

Repeat for anything you want to mark (on the same layer).

Text Labels

Finally, the text labels! Firstly create a new layer called Labels… usual size and transparent. Then using the text tool, begin your first label. Again font is personal preference but I’ve been using Mistral (another windows Default). At this stage make sure your text box is a fair bit bigger than the text itself or it can cause problems later when you rotate it.



Once we’ve made our first label, click on the rotate tool and then on the hopefully still selected text. Use the angle slider bar to rotate the text a little. Don’t move it more than a couple of degrees; again it’s just supposed to look slightly hand drawn. There’s no hard and fast rule, just do what looks good.

Once this is complete, move the text into place using the move tool or the circle shown in the middle when rotating.

Finally, make sure the layer it has created is directly above our Labels layer, right click on the layer it has created and ‘Merge Down’, adding it to the labels. You don’t have to do this but it’s going to start getting messy with every label on its own layer!

5 - EXPORTING

Repeat the previous section until all your labels are in place and the drawing will be about finished (or at least the basics!)

You may want to consider adding more stuff: Statistics? Measurements? Company Logo? Signature?

To get it as a usable image, use File -> Export As and set the extension to PNG, JPG or whatever you wish.

Job done!



I will shortly write a few more advanced techniques including the variable colour background I use in my own and hopefully an example of a more engineering drawing style blueprint.

6 - EXAMPLES (AUTHOR)

TVSI:Phoenix Avalon Command Carrier

Freehand Style

TVSI:Phoenix Raven Patrol Boats

Freehand Style

TVSI:Phoenix Raven Patrol Boats

Freehand Style

TVSI:Phoenix IX1-52 Dragonclaw Interceptors

Engineering Style

TVSI:Phoenix Avalon Command Carrier

Merge Style (Incomplete Concept)

7 - EXAMPLES (USER SUBMITTED)

Buzzard Scavenger Vessel

A Freehand-style drawing with a more Engineered feeling to the text
By Krovennan

Revenge Assault Frigate

An original piece with parts of the ship's armour overlayed onto the wireframe
By Brennan




Made a Blueprint and want it featured for others to learn from?
Post a link here or in the forum thread[forums.keenswh.com]

8 - CHANGELOG

15/09/2014: Added Kinabalu Frigate Blueprint. Added blueprints by Krovennan and Brenner.
11/09/2014: Added IX1-52 Dragon Claw Engineering Drawing and Avalon Command Carrier merge drawing.

[HUBERT THE ROCK]

THANK YOU!!

[Old Smuggler]

Green screen
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1502619160

[superv6]

is there a new skybox suitable for use to do this. the green one is just purple now and very blurry. puts a lot of gradient lines through image too

[ChozoSR388]

Thank you for this! I've been using GIMP for about 11 years now, and I didn't even know you could do that with the Edge Detect filter. Truth be told, I never really had many instances where I really messed with it, so that might be the majority reason for my ignorance on the matter.

[Alterae]

This is handy. I'm installing GIMP as I speak, and honestly should've done so earlier, but I never got around to it until now.

[Tristavius]

This was pre DX11 - there are new ones available sinze :)

[Justice]

Still a very useful guide, thanks for writing. Only problem I had was I couldn't get the green screen mods to work on dx11.

[REX647]

This is an amazing way to show blueprint designs! I'm familiar with GIMP, and I might just have to try this---never once did I consider using it for aesthetically-pleasing blueprint designs. Thank you for the guide! (And thank you for being so explanatory---you were definitely not cryptic like some guide authors can be. That often proves frustrating...)

[Tristavius]

Little dated but glad someone's still getting use out of it!

[Atrill]

Thank ypu very much for this guide!!