H3SW: General Graphics discussion

Propositions about backgrounds.

I'd suppose use H1 graveyard ("cursed lands" in your post) as underground picture. We have a tunnel on it, really!

Are we really need to use strange H3 concept of holy land? We broke the eternal rest of the dead with all of this battle disorder, and this action somehow raises morale of these gooders? Really, really strange.
Also, H3 background at least look nice and peaceful, but H2 one doesn't look so.

And maybe, we should use H1 forest ("?magic plains?") as neutral overlay (H3 "clover fields") or even good one, and make magic plains from unused H1 purple background (if possible)

Absolutely agree with feanor.

In addition:
Lucid pools are... expected to be blue, not green and "swampy". Maybe a simple recolour would help here.

Don't like H1 lava since I have seen it first time in (maybe) 1996. Reason is so obvious that one guy even write the same on VK: background looks solid, like a kind of ruby. Resembles Escaton's crystal also.

What if just try to convert H3 elemental lands to H2 palette? I know it seems mad, but I currently have no other idea of suitable battlefield images for elemental lands.

I generally agree. We don't have to bring up all classic H3 fields (although this would affect our H3 map conversions...), having only some of them. Or, we could use some placeholders.

It is true that the battlefield headlining picture from H1 Graveyard really suits our concept of the Underground. The main background for this type of battlefield, however, must be designed on the basis of Sand terrain, since we have it as a basic underground texture too.

I support feanor on the concept of cloverfields too.

No idea yet about the Magic Plains since we only have the mysterious purple headliner from H1, but don't have the main background, nor we have time to design it for v0.8.

@Feanor You've got right, I didn't noticed that H1 Cursed Ground shows tunnel and stalagmites After changing ground it should look perfect, I will try to make something new instead of original sand. H2 cemetary will be cursed then  Replacing Clovers is also a good idea, since we don't really have an overlay for Magic Plains.

@Orzie This purple landscape appears when you loose a battle in H1. There's a little problem with it, because after deleting duplicated elements it will fill only a half of H3 battlefield.

@BoseDrache I've never understood a concept of Lucid Pools Is it just a swamp or some kind of magical water, which can hold a hero and his army? It was always a secret to me. Our team prepared this instead:



Straight conversion of H3 to H2 palette in most cases is simply ugly. However, playing with Magic Clouds gave me an Evil Fog

Actually you don't have to replace the original Sand. We just need a new variation of it to use underground It shouldn't differ too much from the classic beach variation, but must fit more to the H1 Graveyard headliner. Probably, making its gamma a little more brown-ish can help.

Maybe treasury

The right one can even go for a Death Knight dwelling.

Uh, I better just to draw something more worthy knight...

Sure, why not. Currently its dwelling on the townscreen is in the former Captain's Quarters of the Necromancer town, so I guess it can be taken as a reference. Something like a small castle-looking structure with possible skulls in the architecture cuts it.

scholar)

What about blue instead of purple? We need to place it on the adventure map to check how it looks.

I'm having a little rest from science now, found time to make a little adjustments



And on a map:

Looks good guys. It is defiantly better than the stone figure we used until now

Agar wrote:

Maybe treasury

You are absolutely insane, they are both amazing! Thank you so much for your help, I admire your efforts so much as does everyone else

Btw, do you use Photoshop to create these? If so do you use any tricks/techniques for pixel art?

I remember what I found the most annoying and time consuming was selecting the colours and their shades from the palette, (I'd often forget which shade of the current colour I used) I was hoping there is a way to swiftly switch from darker to lighters shades with a button rather than selecting it with a mouse, but didn't find anything. I belive one programme I used had this feature but didn't have those of Photoshop.

I am so happy to see you returning Kivo. We missed you, but we didn't waste the time while you where gone as you hopefully can see

Honestly, I do not think my approach is purely pixel art. I use photoshop and graphics tablet. I draw the outlines, I paint over them. There is a good function in fototoshop (as in most other editors) -the dependence of the transparency of color, which you draw, on the strength of pressing the  stylus on the tablet. Thus, for example, you can take a darker color than that which was originally is painted and draw on it a shadow (or heterogeneity of the surface). Obtained smooth color transitions. Of course, this approach appears shades that are not in the palette. You have to switch to indexed color mode. The colors of the pixels become as or in a given palette or grayscale. If I understand correctly how the indexed color work) Well, in any case, needs a little rework by more pixel art method. Although I have all the colors faded fairly obtained. Though, probably, I'm worthless artist. In any case, everything can be corrected. Or someone else will correct with fresh eyes)

Don't try to talk bad about your skills dude, you are still one of the most valuable member of the community hehe

P.S. still waiting for the Cossacks writing the letter to Sultan mockup, my exams end soon so we could discuss its possible implementation as a fantastic, magnificent loading screen.

Uhm wrote:

I'm having a little rest from science now, found time to make a little adjustments  



And on a map:

Hmm, probably I was not right about adding blue here. But I still need to put some additional color transitions there, to ensure the style is closer to the game.
Nice job gentlemen.

An attempt to create a forge.

I absolutely love it. We will only need to add some noize there (to the roof especially) to make the building looking closer to the Armory (Swordsman dwelling).

The chimney looks a bit blurry, but I hope it's easily fixable.

P.S. Love the roof texture, I love it even more than classic H2 townscreen style

I generally find it good looking, but it has a bit of warcraft 2 look for me. Might be because of the blurry furnace. I suppose this will act as the blacksmith building, right?

Is it possible to make the town screen longer? so you can fit more into it? Or is the aspect ratio set in stone ?

As for the building itself, I like it. It captures the feel of the original buildings. I do agree though, the collors are a little off but not by much.

Anyway, you are a wizard Agar! It's a good day when I come here and I see you posted something! It's always sooo good!

The town screen is actually much bigger than the H2 format which is 640 pixels wide and about 260 pixels high. The H3 format (which we must keep because of the higher resolution in H3) is 800 pixels wide and about 374 pixels high. Our biggest problem was actually the opposite of what you say - we had a hard time filling the area without the town looking empty and backgrounds stretched out. That is why it is such an enormous work that was been done in this field.

hmm, I see. Heroes towns in general always had a packed look, like things where busy. I can see you aim for that.

An unrelated note though,will the new buildings be represented on the map screen? Of course, I am talking about later versions...this is but a minor detail.

I was thinking of something, curious what you guys think. Could you make Castles ( on the map) reflect the buildings you have? Obviously not all of them show, but some of them do.

I realize you would need a lot of copies(of each combination) and I don't know if it could work technically, but this could be something really cool. I am looking at the knight castle right now and you can see a lot of building there...

Even if you have 0 buildings, you castle still looks completed.

Thoughts on this ? is it a good idea?

Its a pretty big change. Its not only a graphical change, it will change the gameplay as well. Because of the fact that you can see whats already built in a castle without having to control it

That probably won't happen both because we already have a lot of town sprites since we will have dynamic terrain for all towns that means all town will have a sprite with each terrain type, so that is already a lot of work, but just as important is it for the game play which buffkaz mentions (it would also require more programming work in which area we have a lot to do).