Tabletop Simulator

Tabletop Simulator

299 ratings
Making Card Games
By QQuixotic
Trying to make a card game? Trying to import a deck? Figure out the specifics here!
   
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Basics
Making a deck of cards is simple. It consists of three main elements: The back of the card, the faces of the cards, and what is shown if the card is in a users hand face up (so you know if a players is viewing their cards without knowing what the card is). Each deck can consist of up to 69 unique cards. To play a game that requires more than 69 cards, you may spawn in multiple decks, which can then stack like a normal deck and function as a single deck.

The back of the card should be it's own .jpg image, containing only the image for the back of the card, while the 'faces' of the card, as well as the card that appears on it's own sheet, should appear in a single image, sequentially, in 7 rows of 10 columns each. Because you will have the chance to specify how many cards each 'sheet' contains, a deck containing less than 70 cards should include blank areas for the rest of the cards. The final space from this template will specify the card that will be shown if another player has the card in his hand.
Cards should follow roughly this template:
Note: Cards do not need to follow these dimension rules! See Dimensions below for specifics on getting the perfect fitting card!
Usage
To load a custom deck, simply click Spawn Objects, then Cards, then Custom Deck. A display will come up asking you to enter in the URL for the back of the card, the sheet containing the various card fronts, and how many cards the card sheet contains.
If your card sheets or card backs are not hosted online, instead of a URL you may also use "file:///C:/PATHNAME/image.jpg". For example, if I wanted to access "Ticket_To_Ride_Back.jpg" for my image back, I could enter the following in the 'back' space: file:///C:/Users/QQuixotic/Downloads/Tabletop/Ticket_To_Ride_Back.jpg
For obvious reasons, using locally hosted (file:///...) card paths is useless online, as other players will likely not have the same image at the same location on their machine.
Uploading
Images can be uploaded to any source that can be publicly accessed. Dropbox, Photobucket, and Imgur are popular choices. Simply visit the site, make an account (if required), and begin your free uploads. Don't forget to post your images here on the content creation forum for all to enjoy, though!
Dimensions
A single 'card sheet' doesn't have to have any specific dimensions to work. The sheet will automatically be sliced into 70 spaces like in the 7x10 grid shown above.
To have optimal, uniformly fitted cards, all cards (including ones on the sheet and the back) should have a 5x7.2 ratio. For games without precise artwork, minor stretching from having different dimensions will likely go unnoticed.
Quick Reference
*Card sheets can be on any dimension, it will divide 7x10 to the best of it's ability
*Card ratios are 5x7.2. Usually not worth worrying over this, though.
*Local files may be used instead of URL's by using file:///C:/PATH/name.jpg for Windows machines. Please comment on how to do this for non-Windows machines!
97 Comments
LemoCoffee 26 Jun, 2024 @ 12:17pm 
If you have all of the images and need to merge them into one, I found this tool helps SO much, pasting everything but the https because iirc steam removes links
{LINK REMOVED}
Sirz Benjie 18 Sep, 2023 @ 7:52am 
Card ratios are 5x7.2. Usually not worth worrying over this, though

This is incorrect. Card ratios are exactly 7:10
The per-card width:height needs to be 7:10 in order to match the exact card size in tabletop simulator.
For example, a card with 540 x 800 will match the exact size of the poker cards in tabletop simulator.

Ignore all mentions of powers of 2 on the tabletop simulator website. They are bogus and mean nothing for how assets are loaded in.

As for uploading, steam cloud is much preferred.
DevilandtheBeast 25 Aug, 2023 @ 3:26pm 
why have this 5* ???
安妮邦尼 18 Dec, 2021 @ 12:07am 
lol :cozybethesda:
Azathoth 17 Jul, 2021 @ 1:29pm 
Never have I seen a guide with so much useless information. How this ended up in the official modding section of the game folders is bewildering - let alone ZERO information anywhere on if you want to add cards to a preexisting mod for personal use. Unreal.
apeiron 1 Mar, 2021 @ 8:51am 
Hey folks! How do I make TTS give each player their own deck? For instance, when we say the game is for X players, each player starts the game with a deck in front of them.
Mauricio'sBot 16 Feb, 2021 @ 8:36am 
OK, I was confused, so here is what I did:
1. create the art in the proper card ration (I used poker sized cards at 600dpi)
2. create an individual file for each card.
3. open the program included in TTS (google it)
4. define the rows and columns by the number of cards you want (ignore the template)
5. create deck- the program automatically creates the file in the correct template format.
6. upload to TTS
The confusion was with the template, YOU don't create the template, the software TTS Deck Editor spits out the template. You just create individual files, couldn't be more simple than that.
Rosenbann 2 Nov, 2020 @ 6:52am 
Not a single guide explains the weird template format and its offset. How large is a card of the basic template? Why has each side a different offset? Why does it make no sense if you add a custom grid (10:7)?
The4gotNdeath 17 Aug, 2020 @ 7:02pm 
Question: how can I get the image of a card back of a card i already have to new cards I wanna make?
The4gotNdeath 16 Aug, 2020 @ 9:14pm 
can someone just point me to a youtube tutorial?