I ditched the idea of doing mockups using scripting from Photoshop. The primary reason was that Photoshops scripting capabilities are not great for doing WYSIWYG, i.e. every time a code change is made one has to reopen and reload the script. I had personally hoped for the ability to do F5 refresh of the script without any hassle.

Alas this is not possible. In any case, I actually did manage to produce a Mockup of a Red Alert inspired game using both real-time and turn based mechanics. This mockup was made using Photoshop and conventional tools.

I got heavily inspired by the graphics of the Cmd & Kill game made by renderhjs. Primary inspiration thread can be found at: http://polycount.com/discussion/120427/pixel-art/p10

I got the idea of combining RTS and Turned-based strategy. The concept uses two phases: planning & execution. In the planning phase, one plans troop movements, production etc. In the execution phase, troops move and attack. I made a GIF showcasing the concept.

I haven’t really decided yet if I want to pursue this any further - but I believe it can be made to work. Frozen Synapse uses something similar, although this is on a more tactical level compared to what I was thinking.

In Photoshop CS6+ it is possible to do scripting using JavaScript. Photoshop exposes a DOM, similar to that found on the web, where one can manipulate layers, etc.

Creating a new document is as simple as invoking the following code:

var docRef = app.documents.add(2,4);

Next up, we can add a text layer:

var artLayerRef = docRef.artLayers.add(); artLayerRef.kind = LayerKind.TEXT;

and set the text of the text layer:

var textItemRef = artLayerRef.textItem; textItemRef.contents = “Hello world”;

Simple as that.

I had an idea that I might be able to use Photoshop for some mockup purposes using scripting. Not yet verified though.