Adventure Mode (PC): Card Art and the "card.preferences" file

[clear valve]

Hello lovely ppl, i started playing forge adventure and loving it so far and i have a question i cant find anywhere answered.

Some Card Art i dont like and instead of manually changing the image files in the "cache/pics/cards" directory is it possible that adventure mode makes use of the "card.preferences" file?

it would be a lot easier and more organized... and maybe i am doing something wrong here?

thanks for the answers and help 🙂

[fading field]

this #1374460505283887247 message might help if you don't want to see unreadable alternative arts

[clear valve]

thanks for the reply,
i tested these options and they work as intendet but for me i like the option to change specific Card Arts not because of readability but for astethics and ease to find them in shops, easy identification etc.

example: i want a specific white mana card art for my deck, now i have to change the image file in the cache directory. the way more easier and more organized way would be to add the card in the "card.preferences" file:

<preferences type="cards">
<card art="SLD|23" name="Plains"/>
</preferences>

and adventure mode uses it after the restart. it would also be very easy to backup instead of enlarging the cache folder where i have to keep the original and the new one and at the moment i have over 40 changed cards and its a bit unintiutiv

[quick hinge]

Some cards, and I assume this is your point, have different language images as they were actually english released cards of different languages… of two things; forge gets images from scryfall and just gets what scryfall publishes, and forge attempts to be faithful to what is actually released in the english set. Where a Japanese card released in English is an English card with Japanese art and text and will come in english packs.
(Most noticeable with WAR and M20 I think.)

[clear valve]

thanks for your reply, but i dont care about the Japanese Cards because i can change the pictures in the cache directory easy.

my point is instead of changing the pictures in the cache directory manually why does the adventure mode not use the "card.preferences" file like classic mode does it. it wouldnt bloat my cache folder further and to change a Card Art would be way more easy this way.

i want to change cards i like to identify easily, like "black vise" as example. i dont like the new art but the old art is what im used to. (both english)
or the other way around i dont like the old art but the new art, no matter the language.

it seems like i have to do it all manually instead of editing only 1 file that is already used for the classic mode this way, and this confuses me.

maybe i try to change the code myself but i hoped i am doing something wrong

[clear valve]

sorry i missed to say that i downloaded a bulk pack of Card Art with over 84000 files.
it works fine but some designs are awful.

so when i see a Card Art that i dont like i go to the folder and rename the file and exchange the original filename with my prefered Art. Its a bit of work but it works fine, i dont even have to restart the game and after some minutes the new Art is updated.

i just wanted to ask if its possible to NOT do it this way and instead use the "card.preferences" file because there i can add the name and the edition with the Art in it i want to see and done. This way i have to do it only once per Card Name and its a bit easier to maintain or edit

[quick hinge]

No worries my misunderstanding. I don’t understand still, but its not what I thought it was.

[small shard]

We used to support this out of the box, but I'm not sure it still works or not. Instead of putting images inside the set folders:
e.g.
Forge\Cache\pics\cards\FIN
You would put them a folder higher
Forge\Cache\pics\cards
And just have one per card name

This does require you NOT to have set folders, since those always took precedence

[clear valve]

thanks for the tip, that would be great and easy to maintain but i tried it and it seems to not work

i copied a "Plains.fullborder.jpg" to the cards folder where all the set directories are and startet Forge Adventure and it still used the "DFT/Plains1.fullborder.jpg"

so i tried to also put a different "Plains1.fullborder.jpg" in the cards folder and restartet the game but it still used the Card Art in the DFT folder

[small shard]

If you have set folders it will definitely use those first. The non-set images are (were? ) a fallback

[clear valve]

hey, so i tried it again:

--- Step1:

The Card i chose for the test: Resplendent Angel (LCI) (Art1)
"cache/pics/cards/LCI/Resplendent Angel1.fullborder.jpg"

My Game uses this Art and Set from the LCI folder "cache/pics/cards/LCI"

--- Step2:

now i use the Card from the folder "cache/pics/cards/M19"
"cache/pics/cards/M19/Resplendent Angel.fullborder.jpg"

and copy it to this folder: "cache/pics/cards"
so i have only 2 images in that folder(the rest are 624 Set folders):

"cache/pics/cards/Resplendent Angel.fullborder.jpg" (Art2)
"cache/pics/cards/Resplendent Angel1.fullborder.jpg" (Art2, just to make sure)

--- Step3:

now i restart the game and see if the Card Art changed.

No it has not, its still the Card Art1 from the LCI folder and not the cards folder

[small shard]

I'll try it tonight. I can't tell if you are meeting the expectations of non-set images the way you are describing it

[quick hinge]

Was the LCI folder empty?

Oh, are you’re saying the alternate art of an LCI card you want overridden by the default card set? that sounds like a unique situation that might not work with the default set…
LCI folder needs the card image not there, and you need auto download turned off.

[clear valve]

i try my best to describe it.

LCI folder is not empty, instead there are 474 Card Images in there.

When i replace the "cache/pics/cards/LCI/Resplendent Angel1.fullborder.jpg" with another Card Art Image it works perfectly.
And this is working for every Card! No Problem here, no questions here.

But

my Question was: If i it's possible to do it with the "preferences/card.preferences" file instead. It would be so much easier to override Card Art i want to see in my Game.

Yes of course i can do it manually but i just wanted to ask if its not implemented or something else because in Classic mode it works.

A few Days ago i found a question on Reddit or Slightly Magic Forum where someone asked the same and the Answer was to Change the preferred Art in Classic Mode and then go back to Adventure mode.
OP mentioned that it does not work, the added preference is in the "card.preferences" file but nothing happened in Andventure Mode.

That was the end of the Post and i thought, ok maybe i can ask on Discord then 🙂

[clear valve]

English is not my native language, maybe thats the problem.

Think about this:

You start a new Adventure journey and u like to add the card "Giver of Runes" to your deck.
But the Card Art is this: https://scryfall.com/card/mb2/147/giver-of-runes

i dont like the Art style and want to change it to this: https://scryfall.com/card/plst/MH1-13/giver-of-runes

To do so i need to replace the Image in MB2 with the image thats existing in MH1.
It works perfectly no Problem.

And now the question:

Instead of doing it the way as described above
can i add an entry to "preferences/card.preferences" like (example):

<preferences type="cards">
<card art="MH1" name="Giver of Runes"/>
</preferences>

to get the same result as the manual file copy described above?

it was a good idea from "friarsol" to just copy the image from MH1 to "cache/pics/cards" folder but it dont work for me.

Either the "card.preferences" or the idea from "friarsol" would help me to make things a bit more maintainable and clearer.

thanks for the help so far guys

[small shard]

Yea so non-set based images still work, the thing that makes it a bit awkward is that with the autodownloader it kinda only works if your images are in place AND you don't have set images in place

This Plains is an Alpha Plains, but the Plains loaded is the one in the top-level directory

(Which happens to come from AFR)

If the LEA Plains was in its folder that would have been used instead, so its important that the underlying image is not found