Ragoon's Graphics For HoMM3SW

Sir Albe wrote:

the feet seem a bit far from each other

Will fix it when it'll get confirmed as animate-able :v

Sir Albe wrote:

and the other eye of the creature can be seen which is never the case with H2 creatures static sprites.

See paladin. Also, head is sideways and body is at an angle, while there the body IS his head. Will check it same as above, when animating but I'm not sure yet. 1 Pixel fix though.

Technically the Paladin has no eyes , but I follow your point about the head on body, since the body of H2 creatures typically is turned a bit towards the viewer

Very good improvement of the Treant right there! I think that this concept is very viable and only needs some color fixes to be ready for animation.

Ragoon, you've got my comments in the Facebook dialog. I also post the example gif here. Didn't change the shape (although it can be done) as well as didn't make any radical changes.

These sprites are really something, great work. Just out of curiosity, what sort of tools do you all use to make these sprites? I suspect Spriter or something similar is at play, but what about the actual drawing? By hand? With a tablet? Is Photoshop utilized?

I might record drawing or animating on another work, would have to just set up my software :p

So about my work:
I use GIMP, which is very simillar to photoshop, so it has large amount of posibilities.
When I have a sketch (or work by someone else that can be used as a base) I then first fix the pose, like cutting out arms and moving them etc, then colors and other things. I use mainly pencil (brush with hard, pixel edges like in paint) and draw with diferent shades with a normal mouse and use layers so it is easier to compare, fix and work with. I could use a tablet but it is no use in pixel art when there shouldn't be unnesesary pixels. So I place them myself with care. Often it is like "I will try that to see how it looks" and then undoing it back when I didn't like it & repeat till it is awesome xd

I also use couple of other diferent tools like selecting and moving, changing colors and contrast, some filters (sharpen for ex).

As for animating, since gimp supports viewing and editing animations I just separate diferent body parts, put them in layer folder (so they can be turned off all at once) and then just duplicate entire folder, moving parts like legs, arms, weapons to the pose from imagination, fix missing pixels etc, then duplicate edited one, move it again and then I get set of folders (about 8-10 folders per animation, 6-8 layers each)  then I create image from every one, and play them in order, see what is wrong and then fix for the next hour or two to get desired look (which is like going back, changing positions of body parts so the animatin is smooth etc). Attack down and up for example is one of the hardest (next to death), because there this trick rarely work because of changed perspective, so you often have to draw it from scratch (or do a heavy edit) and make sure it is as close to the original as possible. Keeping 3D model in mind is useful.

I sometimes use diferent techniques, depends what is faster or better and since I work with gimp for about 9 years I know it well (still learning new tools though)



You can also see the development of the leaves and how the program looks like there:

It's very interesting! WOuld love to see you stream something like this. basically from 0 to completed even if it would take more than one video...and telling us what goes trough your head. How do you make an outline, what idea do you have and so on.

As for an unrelated question. Curious what you think of the commander units ( or what they ar called...I forget) in H2 ? They are mostly static but I still think they look good.

Not for 0.8 or even 0.9, but maybe some day they will have a place in the game...What do you think?

https://www.spriters-resource.com/resources/sheets/27/29407.png

No plans for the Commanders as yet.

Started animating wyvern, feel free to give me tips and comments

The neck should move, or maybe be flat... I think. Actually it seems that this wyvern should go to hospital to get some operations!!

Good work. About the neck and the attached head - I don't think it must be necessarily straight, but it could at least move front and back (be more dynamic) during the flight.

Very good. You did the wings very well and they even move quite like the one of the dragons, so good job. I have the same comment as Orzie and I also still think the head looks a bit misplaced on the neck, but that is a more general comment

Also, as said by DrSlash, the amplitude of the loose tail can be also increased.

UPD. feanor also adds that a specific texture could be used for the wings, but that's up to you - I doubt anyone will look at the wings specifically. Adding a little more contrast (deeper shades on the supposed finger positions on each wing) could already help.


In general, I like very much the Start Moving and End Moving animations. The Wyvern is a little clumsy, but that's part of the H2 charm applied to many vanilla creatures.

For the love of everything that's holy, please change the eyes!

I know that it's probably just my pet peeve, but the eyes seem crucial element to me. Right now, they are not expressive enough. Personally, I am not even sure if these are the eyes or some sort of knobs on the nose. And it annoys me to no end!

Eyes on the previous version of wyvern were much more well-defined.

Quote :

Eyes on the previous version of wyvern were much more well-defined.

That's because that Wyvern was once fixed by me. The new one was adjusted by Agar again, but I didn't find time/inspiration to put my 2 cents there.

Probably Ragoon will be able to do this.

I'll change the animation soo, thank you very much for your insights.

Also, I've got a head design from our old friend Kivo and put parts from Agar's old design to final piece:

Omg, it looks amesome!!! I like it so much more all of a sudden!

I think that the change thighs not make much sense. It was just a sketch. I tried to make some red patterns but left unfinished)

I still like it though

Ragoon wrote:

I still like it though

Cold you try a more colorful/light chest ? Some animals have that, like a mating ritual.

I love the animation, he looks similar to a dragon but you make a great job in diferentiating it. Tge head looks superb! Maybe a bigger/longer mouth would look good, like an animal that swallows fish in full.

Just my opinion, love your work as always!

Ragoon wrote:

I'll change the animation soo, thank you very much for your insights.

Also, I've got a head design from our old friend Kivo and put parts from Agar's old design to final piece:

Yeah, I was also not satisfied with the new head (I like the older one, which you chose, more). But still the Wyvern will require a decent overhaul sometime, to be more different from the Dragon.

First of all, I love the new Treant.
About the Wyvern, I like the neck and I think it should stay long, because in my opinion it looks bad ass and on top of that makes it look like the creature is diverged from a snake, instead of a lizard (Which is the case for the Warlock's Dragons.) This also is in line with his non scaly skin (like an anaconda's) instead of the scaly Dragon skin (like an iguana).
If you want the creature to be more different from Dragons you could give it a pointy tail like

this.:

But in my opinion the Wyvern is already a beauty and differs enough from the dragon. (I mean, come on, it doesn't even have arms! That's freaking cool)

This is my final edit (lol) I agree that the neck is too static during the flight of the creature. It makes it look like

this.:

Yeah, the treant looks awesome! Love it and love the glow it has!

I would still prefer to call it an Evil Tree... Sounds much more spooky to me! Plus, it's not associated with good. Maybe it's a bit silly since trees do not walk, but whatever.

Here you have fixed flying:



With start+landing:



And attack:


They might seem worse in quality of work, because it is the hardest one yet to animate and I'm already sick of it.. Need a break, will do something else before damage+death for it

The other reason is that I dont feel very well lately.
Will update animations thread now, peace

Amazing work always!Must have taken a lot of work to do properly!

You work to hard ragoon, it's good but don't burn yourself out We already waited a lot for this mod, waiting a little bit more will be no problem. If you burn yourself out the mod will be set back for months so we need you take care!

Amazing work friend. Take a break and come back stronger