Posted June 06, 2011
Given that I have a fair few GOGs and have made ample use of the DVD inlays kindly donated by the community, I thought I'd take it one step further and write a tutorial on how to create a fully fledged presentation box for your GOGs.
For this you need:
Hardware
The printable Amaray inlays provided by the community (available here) – instructions on how to print these out properly are on that page.
Amaray DVD cases. Dirt cheap if you shop around. I've just bought a box of 100 for 10 euros. Of course, you can get better quality ones if you're willing to invest.
A CD/DVD burner with LightScribe capability. If you don't have one, they're not too expensive these days. I bought my BluRay drive with DVD burning capability back when BluRay was new for 130 euros.
Blank LightScribe DVDs. They cost a little more than vanilla blank DVDs, but not absurdly so. In Germany a spindle of 50 LightScribe DVDs is usually a couple of euros more expensive than standard blanks of the same calibre.
Software
Lightscribe Template Labeler – available here
The GIMP – available here
Some kind of autorun menu creation software if you're burning several installers on one disc. I've used Compact Autorunner here because it's simple, free and does the job. There are other autorun creators out there, both free and paid, that obviously vary greatly in quality and functionality.
CD burning software – I've used CDBurnerXP here. Superb for getting the job done.
So, without further ado:
1. Download the game installer from your GOG games shelf, together with all of the extras (manual, soundtrack, etc.)
2. Print out the inlay with the correct dimensions. Place the inlay inside the Amaray box (if you're stuck at this point, there is no hope for you :-p ).
3. Put the installer and extras into a directory on your hard drive and arrange them as you see fit. I personally would unpack all of the ZIP files containing the extras, especially the manual and soundtrack. You don't lose much space by doing so, and it's much nicer. I keep any PDF documents in the root directory, and avatars, soundtracks etc. in appropriately named folders.
4. If you are burning multiple installers to one disc, create your menu using Compact Autorunner. It's not hard to use, so I won't go into detail about it here. The program will generate an executable (blue icon), an INF file with the same name as your project/executable, and an autorun.inf. All of these three files need to be copied to the same directory as your GOG installer. (Note: I would test at this point to make sure that the menu is working. Don't use absolute paths, e.g. D:\setup_panzer_elite.exe, to refer to the installer, as you may find running it on another PC or another DVD drive problematic)
5. If you are not burning multiple games, you will need to create an autorun.inf file in your project directory. Open up Notepad (or your other editor of choice) and enter the following (replacing, of course, nameofinstaller with the filename of your installer:
[autorun]
OPEN=nameofinstaller.exe
ICON=nameofinstaller.exe
The OPEN line just tells Windows to open the installer when you put the disc in (or tell Windows to Autorun the CD/DVD in the case of Vista/7). The ICON line tells Windows to display the nice GOG icon for the disc.
6. Open up CDBurnerXP (or your other burning software of choice) and create a project with the directory structure as is. Remember: your installer and autorun.inf need to be in the root directory of the CD/DVD or it probably won't work. Burn it.
7. Download this GIMP XCF file (Mediafire download here) and open it in GIMP. You'll see the GOG logo, a DVD logo and the name of the game. You can, of course, switch out the DVD logo for a Compact Disc logo if you wish and replace the text game name with a black and white 1-bit dithered image of your game's logo. I would advise against moving the items around too much though. Export the XCF from GIMP as a PNG image.
8. Import your recently-exported PNG image into LightScribe Template Labeler. This isn't a hugely flexible piece of software, but it'll do for our purposes here. If you've kept fairly closely to the original CD label template above, you'll see the GOG logo at the top of the ring and the game name at the bottom. If anything is out of place, shift it in GIMP, re-export it as a PNG and re-import it into Template Labeler.
9. Flip your CD/DVD and start printing your label.
Of course, you can go one step further and have your PDF manual printed out professionally on glossy paper as an A6 booklet, but this may be a step too far for some :)
This is not an extensive tutorial and it is by no means the “only” way to do this, but I hope it gives people a few pointers on how to make their Good Old Games something to put on their shelves and be proud of. You can certainly tweak your presentation pack (for example by putting a link to the PDF in the Autorun menu or putting a picture in the Autorun menu)
For this you need:
Hardware
The printable Amaray inlays provided by the community (available here) – instructions on how to print these out properly are on that page.
Amaray DVD cases. Dirt cheap if you shop around. I've just bought a box of 100 for 10 euros. Of course, you can get better quality ones if you're willing to invest.
A CD/DVD burner with LightScribe capability. If you don't have one, they're not too expensive these days. I bought my BluRay drive with DVD burning capability back when BluRay was new for 130 euros.
Blank LightScribe DVDs. They cost a little more than vanilla blank DVDs, but not absurdly so. In Germany a spindle of 50 LightScribe DVDs is usually a couple of euros more expensive than standard blanks of the same calibre.
Software
Lightscribe Template Labeler – available here
The GIMP – available here
Some kind of autorun menu creation software if you're burning several installers on one disc. I've used Compact Autorunner here because it's simple, free and does the job. There are other autorun creators out there, both free and paid, that obviously vary greatly in quality and functionality.
CD burning software – I've used CDBurnerXP here. Superb for getting the job done.
So, without further ado:
1. Download the game installer from your GOG games shelf, together with all of the extras (manual, soundtrack, etc.)
2. Print out the inlay with the correct dimensions. Place the inlay inside the Amaray box (if you're stuck at this point, there is no hope for you :-p ).
3. Put the installer and extras into a directory on your hard drive and arrange them as you see fit. I personally would unpack all of the ZIP files containing the extras, especially the manual and soundtrack. You don't lose much space by doing so, and it's much nicer. I keep any PDF documents in the root directory, and avatars, soundtracks etc. in appropriately named folders.
4. If you are burning multiple installers to one disc, create your menu using Compact Autorunner. It's not hard to use, so I won't go into detail about it here. The program will generate an executable (blue icon), an INF file with the same name as your project/executable, and an autorun.inf. All of these three files need to be copied to the same directory as your GOG installer. (Note: I would test at this point to make sure that the menu is working. Don't use absolute paths, e.g. D:\setup_panzer_elite.exe, to refer to the installer, as you may find running it on another PC or another DVD drive problematic)
5. If you are not burning multiple games, you will need to create an autorun.inf file in your project directory. Open up Notepad (or your other editor of choice) and enter the following (replacing, of course, nameofinstaller with the filename of your installer:
[autorun]
OPEN=nameofinstaller.exe
ICON=nameofinstaller.exe
6. Open up CDBurnerXP (or your other burning software of choice) and create a project with the directory structure as is. Remember: your installer and autorun.inf need to be in the root directory of the CD/DVD or it probably won't work. Burn it.
7. Download this GIMP XCF file (Mediafire download here) and open it in GIMP. You'll see the GOG logo, a DVD logo and the name of the game. You can, of course, switch out the DVD logo for a Compact Disc logo if you wish and replace the text game name with a black and white 1-bit dithered image of your game's logo. I would advise against moving the items around too much though. Export the XCF from GIMP as a PNG image.
8. Import your recently-exported PNG image into LightScribe Template Labeler. This isn't a hugely flexible piece of software, but it'll do for our purposes here. If you've kept fairly closely to the original CD label template above, you'll see the GOG logo at the top of the ring and the game name at the bottom. If anything is out of place, shift it in GIMP, re-export it as a PNG and re-import it into Template Labeler.
9. Flip your CD/DVD and start printing your label.
Of course, you can go one step further and have your PDF manual printed out professionally on glossy paper as an A6 booklet, but this may be a step too far for some :)
This is not an extensive tutorial and it is by no means the “only” way to do this, but I hope it gives people a few pointers on how to make their Good Old Games something to put on their shelves and be proud of. You can certainly tweak your presentation pack (for example by putting a link to the PDF in the Autorun menu or putting a picture in the Autorun menu)
Post edited June 06, 2011 by jamyskis