ReasonTalk.com

Hey everyone!

It's all our favorite day – new version day!!

I made a few custom Combinator skins for the video I produced about Reason 12 that came out today on the Reason Studios Youtube channel and while I was doing it I had this idea that I'd like to make a graphics toolkit for you guys to help you make your own Combinator backdrops.

My thinking is that there's probably a lot more of you out there who have basic layering skills in a graphics program (Photoshop or similar) but you might not have the graphic design experience to make your own 3D looking device assets like screws, panels, etc. So I'd like to build a collection of transparent PNG images that you could use as building blocks in a visual program to layer them up and create your own backdrops from the ingredients—sorta like backdrop LEGO™.

So I thought I'd do a test of that idea to see if you guys find it useful and what you might create using the individual parts I created for the backdrops I used in the video. So I went through my images today and pulled apart the separate pieces into panel elements, screws, bolts, rack-mount holes, wood, fader mounting plates, etc. It's a pretty random collection of stuff because it's just the stuff I made for my video but there's a lot of elements in here you could have fun with. There's also a few full backdrops that you could drop into Reason and add knobs and controls if you don't have the layering ability but still want to play around with custom Combinators. Those file names start with "FULL" in the folder I'll link below.
I'm looking forward to see if you guys have fun with this – and if you do want more of this kinda stuff, let me know what type of visual elements would be cool to have if I made another bigger and better Combinator LEGO set.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/t9uxk2pk7re0 ... rbyBa?dl=0

EDIT:

Someone on YouTube asked for a way to "dabble" in using these graphics without Photoshop and so I made a quickie answer for him about how to do it on a mac using the built in Preview app. Anyone else lacking a photo editor but owning a mac can follow this tutorial.

Thank you Ryan, much, much appreciated. Being able to mess up in Photoshop without having to guess sizes, alphas, etc. it's a fantasting starting point. Can't wait to start creating (and sharing) my own combis!

This sort of asset pack is very appreciated since my graphic design skills are extremely limited
Thanks Ryan!

Awesome thanks Ryan. This was one thing I’d hoped was a part of building devices inside the new combinator, but in hindsight that’s probably a big ask.

This is great! THANKS! And yes, more please!

Thanks so much, Ryan!

Excellent! Thanks!

Ryan...we love you! This is awesome

Excellent. Cheers, Ryan The more resources the merrier.

Exciting times seeing what people will create and how Combinator 2 evolves

Thank you this is awesome!

this is nice thanks

Sweet! Thanks Ryan You're a star

This is so great - thank you for making this!!! And yes, please continue to make more like this!

Good stuff, thanks Ryan!

ryanharlin wrote: ↑

01 Sep 2021

Hey everyone!...

Hi Ryan. Thanks for the design assets.

Will Combinator 2 eventually host some of these assets? I'm not really good at graphic design, but it would be cool if Combi 2 eventually had a few selectable elements like rack screws, bevels and lines. That's one of the things I missed about the original Combinator was that I could select light or dark lines and shadows.

This is really cool - we could really do with some pixel-accurate images of the header and controls so we can onion skin them into our art packages and lay everything out exactly as it will be in the program. I tried doing a screenshot of a Combi at 200 and 240% but they weren’t 3077 wide. Not sure why that is.

chimp_spanner wrote: ↑

02 Sep 2021

This is really cool - we could really do with some pixel-accurate images of the header and controls so we can onion skin them into our art packages and lay everything out exactly as it will be in the program. I tried doing a screenshot of a Combi at 200 and 240% but they weren’t 3077 wide. Not sure why that is.

Yeah 3770 is actually 250%. I'm not sure why the app scales to the numbers it does but I'm sure there's a great technical reason.

The magic number you need to know, though, is 4.1667%. If you take a screenshot at 240% in the app and scale it by that much (104.1667% in Photoshop) you'll get a 250% size for laying out in 3770 images.

EsotericSound wrote: ↑

02 Sep 2021

Will Combinator 2 eventually host some of these assets?

I'm personally not sure of what's on their plan but I know they have a backlog of cool ideas for the Combinator.

ryanharlin wrote: ↑

02 Sep 2021

chimp_spanner wrote: ↑

02 Sep 2021

This is really cool - we could really do with some pixel-accurate images of the header and controls so we can onion skin them into our art packages and lay everything out exactly as it will be in the program. I tried doing a screenshot of a Combi at 200 and 240% but they weren’t 3077 wide. Not sure why that is.

Yeah 3770 is actually 250%. I'm not sure why the app scales to the numbers it does but I'm sure there's a great technical reason.

The magic number you need to know, though, is 4.1667%. If you take a screenshot at 240% in the app and scale it by that much (104.1667% in Photoshop) you'll get a 250% size for laying out in 3770 images.

Fantastic! Thanks so much - I would not have guessed that haha.

Just for anyone that's already downloaded this folder, I've added additional files that include Template guide layers to show you where the Reason patch browser, tape, and bypass area appear in the backdrop. As well as an additional screw type called Screws_tiny-torx.png which I used in my fader mounting plate and is a very tiny style of panel screw.

For what its worth, I might consider this folder to be a living document that I add stuff to if it comes up as something people want/need. I think I'm going to post a video on Youtube and Instagram about these resources too, so hopefully we'll see some people posting what they're making using these as their building blocks.

ryanharlin wrote: ↑

02 Sep 2021

For what its worth, I might consider this folder to be a living document that I add stuff to if it comes up as something people want/need

Yeah, that's a good idea. And you should continue sharing insights or little tips you come along. I'm a digital artist myself (image manipulation, digital painting, etc) yet I didn't know the scale value you mentioned before. So even for those who have experience creating combinator patches, sharing assets is just as important to us as well (saves us a lot of time).

So keep it up. Hopefully you're able to contribute on company time. If your boss asks "Is this something you should be focusing your worktime on Mr. Harlin? Is this something that works towards bringing in continued revenue? " I'll go on the record as saying yes, this makes us more willing to recommend Reason to new users.

Thank you, Ryan!

Ryan just out here casually doing the Lord's work Thanks for getting that header in there. Way cleaner/more accurate than what I made last night. I definitely think having PNGs of all the different types of knob/fader would be great too so you can see how it'll look before you export but this is still a huge help.

ryanharlin wrote: ↑

02 Sep 2021

Just for anyone that's already downloaded this folder, I've added additional files that include Template guide layers to show you where the Reason patch browser, tape, and bypass area appear in the backdrop. As well as an additional screw type called Screws_tiny-torx.png which I used in my fader mounting plate and is a very tiny style of panel screw.

For what its worth, I might consider this folder to be a living document that I add stuff to if it comes up as something people want/need. I think I'm going to post a video on Youtube and Instagram about these resources too, so hopefully we'll see some people posting what they're making using these as their building blocks.

new-stuff-01.jpg

Thanks Ryan! That would be great! Any live stream planned?