Making Complex 2D HUD graphics

[Baker]

What software is good at making things like the HUD elements above.

Anti-aliased shapes, lines, etc?

(Please don't say AutoCAD)

[metlslime]

photoshop

[Error]

paint shop pro if you hate photoshop like me...

[gnounc]

Paint shop pro was my intro to image editing... it will always have a special place for me. That said, photoshop all the way.
Until gimp gets a few more things straightened out anyways.
I love the gimp but it just...it just makes me weep sometimes.

[Baker]

I guess it's photoshop then.

Let's see ...

$599 off Adobe web site.
$89 if I am a student.

Or $0.99 on E-Bay.

(Gimp doesn't seem well suited to the task; Paintshop Pro kinda is and kinda isn't.... )

I've done some cursory looking around for open source alternatives for this kind of task. The selection is rather sparse and seemingly unmature.

[Baker]

I really would prefer to use something open source ...

Giving Inkscape a shot ... we'll see how it turns out.

http://www.inkscape.org/

Three reasons to support Open Source in situations like these:

1. Bloatware. Applications that entirely too massive for what they do. Like say 2 GB or 567 MB for something that should only be 10-50 MB.

2. DRM. Make the application inefficient and inconvenient and hard to install or move to stop pirates at the expense of the legitimate user.

3. Or in this case ... we all know Photoshop gets pirated a lot. Photoshop really should be $59, instead it is $699 (companies that don't care how they spend $$$) or reasonably priced for students ($89).

You know there is some sort of market failure when the student version costs 12% of the retail price.

Buying applications like that is support their future. Some scurvy dogs would argue that pirating that kind of software is the way to go ... and putting the obvious moral grounds aside that is STILL supporting their future because it is not supporting a better future.

[Downsider]

I use Paint.NET because it works fine for me and I'm more into pixel art than anything, so even paint would do.

[r00k]

The artwork itself is trivial, the coding and aligning everything properly is the actual work.

[leileilol]

Source uses .ttfs for hud glyphs, which is the most retarded idea ever

[Downsider]

Source uses .ttfs for hud glyphs, which is the most retarded idea ever

Isn't that so they can scale at different resolutions like vector graphics?

[Baker]

Update: Inkscape is very good

Snap to grip, ability to create nodes within shapes.

[Spirit]

Yes, something like that is easy in Inkscape. For the blur just clone everything and set blur to 3 or something like that.

[Baker]

Yeah, I'm liking Inkscape ... I'm gonna start a thread with some shots.

[Sajt]

I have to defend Paint Shop Pro here. I use PSP7. Starting with version 8 it became a bad Photoshop clone. (Floating toolbars? 10 minutes to load the program?) It is useful for 99% of what you could possibly want to do in a bitmap editor. That is, simple tasks. I don't know what the confusing Photoshop can do that warrants its huge pricetag, but I'm not missing it. (Although in older times I wished PSP could easily do the "offset" thing which made seamless-texture cleanup easier.)