H3SW General Discussion

I recommend to wait until the next version. It's not too much to wait.

To install the next version of the mod, you will need clean Heroes Complete from GoG.com.

Do you remember all those fancy HoMM2 fonts? As the other graphic elements of that game, they certainly added a lot to the comfortable fairy-tale atmosphere. H3SW Team was successful in implementing the fonts to HoMM3, creating the new font format. Now we can not only reproduce the original HoMM2 letters, but also design our own new elements to enrich the game's graphics. The prototype of such font can be seen on the first picture in the map name!

For those who does underestimate the importance of the presented update, we should clarify: the native HoMM3 fonts are monotonous and don't support half-transparent shadows and soft color transitions. Considering this aspect, they give in to HoMM2 fonts which look good even on beige backgrounds.

It all looks very gorgeous! One thing though; the gold font which spells "Surf and Turf" seems a bit blurry to me. The other fonts stand out clear and sharp, but this one is a bit less clear for me. Maybe it should be sharpened a bit?

Sir Albe wrote:

It all looks very gorgeous! One thing though; the gold font which spells "Surf and Turf" seems a bit blurry to me. The other fonts stand out clear and sharp, but this one is a bit less clear for me. Maybe it should be sharpened a bit?

It is only a minimum of two shades of yellow.

Orzie wrote:

I recommend to wait until the next version. It's not too much to wait.

To install the next version of the mod, you will need clean Heroes Complete from GoG.com.

What abous ms-dos ?

About what?

There is no "ms dos" for Heroes 3, Roarkes.

I just read the plan for our coming releases on HC and I must say you got it all very well organised. The content of each versions seemed to be realistic regarding our work progress, so I hope the best. I am currently continuing the work on the resizing of the barbarian portraits and they will be finish quite soon.

Yes, the fonts look fantastic! And even though I didn't realize why until now, the default H3 fonts were a big part of what made H3 look drab compared to H2. The colour scheme too, but you can't underestimate the big difference great fonts make compared to poor fonts!

Sir Albe wrote:

I just read the plan for our coming releases on HC and I must say you got it all very well organised. The content of each versions seemed to be realistic regarding our work progress, so I hope the best. I am currently continuing the work on the resizing of the barbarian portraits and they will be finish quiet soon.

Yeah. I planned to send it to the team members via PM, but I didn't have time. Sorry for that.
We can discuss the plans here - perhaps someone has better suggestions for what to have in our next releases.

The approximate plans for milestone releases can be currently presented as following.

v0.8 beta: First stable release. Redesigned artifact system. Completely redesigned faction hero roster. Redesigned hero system. Completely remade Knight and Dervish townscreens. Completely re-packed map objects and terrains. New Witch castle opera soundtrack. Completely redesigned game menus and interfaces. 10+ our new creatures (in static form) to replace the placeholders of old versions. Severely revised (if not re-done from scratch) game script file. New mod installation system. Blocked WoG options. Dozens of other new features.
Coming Nov/Dec 2015.

v0.9 beta: Further polishment. Redesigned magic system. Further graphic updates and enrichment of the map list. Final versions of castle lineups, new creature animation. Balance improvements. New Dervish castle opera soundtrack.
Chances to be released: very good.

v1.0: First official complete release. 95% of game graphics presented in final or pre-final development stages. Roland and Archibald's campaigns put for the first campaign section. Final graphic improvements, several new graphic assets, final conversions of Heroes 3 objects. Complete H1-H2-H3 map list + (probably) several new ones with the maximum object diversity. (probably) the ERA minimod concept to replace WoG options completely.
Chances to be released: good.

v2.0. Second official complete release. New objects (Castle-styled Garrisons, Walls, etc., etc.). The Heretic faction. The second campaign section "The Mandate of Heaven" containing new campaigns covering the further storyline of Enroth and featuring the Witch, the Dervish and the Heretic castles. New maps featuring the maximum object diversity. Heretic castle opera soundtrack. (probably) Further development of the ERA minimod concept for gameplay customization options. Further balance improvements.
Chances to be released: medium.

v3.0. Third and final official complete release. New objects. The 10th faction. The third campaign section featuring new campaigns which are to cover the newest history of Enroth. The glorious end.
Chances to be released: unknown.

Steven Aus wrote:

Yes, the fonts look fantastic!  And even though I didn't realize why until now, the default H3 fonts were a big part of what made H3 look drab compared to H2.  The colour scheme too, but you can't underestimate the big difference great fonts make compared to poor fonts!

Oh yeah. I can't imagine what would happen to Mister Kalu's development without these fonts. I recall him trying to place it as a whole picture, but that is really a mess. The project needed a professional programmer, and fortunately, feanor is.

Orzie wrote:

Yeah. I planned to send it to the team members via PM, but I didn't have time. Sorry for that.
We can discuss the plans here - perhaps someone has better suggestions for what to have in our next releases.

It is me who spoiled your intention of sending it to us via PM, so it is me who is sorry
I don't think a change of plans is need, expect if we can't complete all the goals for the v0.8 beta.

Introducing the first promo screenshot of the upcoming v0.8 beta.

Is there any multiplayer support for this mod? I know you are using some ERA plugins, so I was wondering. Anyway, looking forward to playing the new version when it is released.

Multiplayer shouldn't be a problem, but we have never checked. I guess we will know it from the testing reports.

Orzie wrote:

Introducing the first promo screenshot of the upcoming v0.8 beta.

Looks fine so far...  ...except...  

The shadows don't have all the same angle (look at the Peasants near the tree).
The shadows trees seems correct (compared to Heroes 2), but not the shadows for the heroes and creatures.

Perhaps add black areas around the heroes small portraits buttons and the buttons, just like the castles buttons; and make the Nimbus portrait a tad smaller, and with a border.

No shadow for the monsters in the info area (Nimbus army) bottom right of the screen?

Yup, little monsters won't be revised for v0.8, but I didn't forget about them :pirat: . Heroes are completely different story; their bitmaps are facing right, with a shadow on the left side. When they're looking to the left, the game is using their mirror image, so their shadows are falling to the right of them. It's barely visible with short shadow, but long shadows look bad Monster's shadows in infobox are interesting, I will check if it is possible to implement them tomorrow

Edit: Unfortunately adding shadows to the infobox is impossible now; maybe Feanor will be able to do something more.

Uhm wrote:

Edit: Unfortunately adding shadows to the infobox is impossible now; maybe Feanor will be able to do something more.

In original game, there is a little shadow yes, but almost not noticeable. hahaha

Quote :

The shadows trees seems correct (compared to Heroes 2)

Heroes 2 have a large problem with map object perspective, shadows and lighting. I wouldn't be so sticking to vanilla graphics.

Quote :

and make the Nimbus portrait a tad smaller, and with a border.

I don't think decreasing already decreased portraits is necessary, let it be 58x64 like in Heroes 3. Nimbus needs some treatment of another kind.

Unknown_Hero wrote:

Perhaps add black areas around the heroes small portraits buttons and the buttons, just like the castles buttons; and make the Nimbus portrait a tad smaller, and with a border.

No shadow for the monsters in the info area (Nimbus army) bottom right of the screen?

I won't do any of that to be honest. I you look closer you can see that we actually have a black outline for the small hero portraits and that we have a darker brown outline for the big portrait = no border is needed. Also tell me why we should have shadows for the creatures in the hero's army. HoMM II didn't even have it

Orzie wrote:

To install the next version of the mod, you will need clean Heroes Complete from GoG.com.

It has to be that version, I mean, I've got "Heroes Complete" but Codegame's: https://www.game.es/heroes-of-might-magic-colecci%C3%B3n-codegame-pc-047244

I really don't care if I need to buy the GOG version, it's just to be sure in order to avoid bugs and such. Otherwise, I wanna know if there's an actual difference between mine and theirs.

Thanks!

Maybe it's just me, but not sure about if Heroes 2 actually has shadows for the armies on the hero info screen, or it was just reflection glitch.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OGAu_DeKckI/hqdefault.jpg

You could check it in google, man.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=homm2

The creatures in fact have some half-transparent shadows, but there aren't any in Heroes 3. It doesn't support them.
Also, not a matter of v0.8 anyway.

Hey, it was just some suggestions...   ...the expression of a feeling just looking at the screen...  

Yes, Heroes 2 has shadows for creatures on the info screens.  

You can also work around the technical limitation by including the creature's shadow directly in the sprite... :joker: ...but, it's just a suggestion....

It's always in the sprite, there is no other option.

And no, that wouldn't help. We will need soft shadows for objects and creatures implemented from scratch, like we have with the fonts.

Orzie wrote:

It's always in the sprite, there is no other option.

...by using a directly visible color (for the creatures on the info screen, not the ones on the adventure map), not a specific game color dedicated to make a shadow (ex: purple color in Heroes 2)...
...so, using a darker color than the one of the background where the monsters are displayed (darker brown color to represent the shade)...

Orzie wrote:

And no, that wouldn't help. We will need soft shadows for objects and creatures implemented from scratch, like we have with the fonts.

So, all is well then.