H3SW: Character Portraits

Reserved for Uhm's input

OLD POST:

New portraits:

Portraits having questionable status (this means that their very existence is questioned):

- lack of individuality, wrong angle, questionable accessories

- wrong angle, too much to fix

- reference to a mainstream game

- real life portrait, too much to fix

- too much to fix

- obvious frankenstein

- looking too much like Mirini

Orzie, these are mostly old versions! We were improving them with Albe, here are all up to date files:

Dropbox\The Succession Wars Mod\Graphics\Heroes\Hero Portraits\!renamed\large

Edit:
They also have proper palette, you can put everything to your sucession wars.pac

Take a look:

Thanks, I'll have a look. Can't say that they all are "newer" though, for I already see Kivo's portrait along them which should be replaced by a PoL knight and Sir Albe's one replaced by another PoL knight. I already discussed this issue with Sir Albe.

UPD. Charity and Celia look better with your fixes

As for order - I didn't changed it (just added new heroes if there were empty spaces), but all recent fixes I was uploading right there.

Edit:

I know, that there were some new portraits on DF2, but I didn't have time to check them, I will see what's new immediately.

I was about to ask if any of my first portrait fixes made it :p

Ragoon wrote:

I was about to ask if any of my first portrait fixes made it :p

I saved them, but didn't check yet actually. That's what we are going to do after we deal with creatures, actually. Some of the portraits are in a pretty bad shape. This can be done during the test also.

Definitely I don't like his current state:



What do you think of:

1.

2.
?

Nice, I like both of them

I will be also insisting on leaving Kivo as a Knight. Current progress:

-> ->

Uhm wrote:

I will be also insisting on leaving Kivo as a Knight. Current progress:

-> ->

This doesn"t solve the problem with PoL knights as well as real life portraits feature was a mistake. I remember very good how Sir Albe disliked a more fitting version of his portrait because it wasn't similar to his face traits. This is a dead end, Heroes 2 portraits were not based on real people and don't have the same proportions as well as facial traits. This Kivo's portrait doesn't look like Kivo anymore, but this type of hair is anyway not acceptable, as well as such a narrow face while Heroes 2 faces are rather wide and round. Further adjustment will result in a total difference with the original, while there won't be any sense in naming the hero after a real life person. It will anyway feel secondary and redundant near classic portraits. I admit that my initial idea of using real people as a basis for portraits was not that good.

PoL portraits are undoubtedly more canonic and leaving part of them behind doesn't look right. They of course need fixes, but real life based portraits lose to them anyway, they are just 'less classic', so to say, and thus have a lower priority.

Orzie wrote:

This Kivo's portrait doesn't look like Kivo anymore, but this type of hair is anyway not acceptable, as well as such a narrow face while Heroes 2 faces are rather wide and round. Further adjustment will result in a total difference with the original, while there won't be any sense in naming the hero after a real life person.

Meh, nobody expected, that his face in a magical world of Enroth will be identical to his real face, right? We don't have to give him a real name or nick, it can be something completely different.

As for Albert, I will just try to use a different method to make his face more "suitable" for a H2 style

After all, does it really fit so badly? Further improvements are still possible!

Yes, they are possible if we disregard the similarity of portraits and people whose face was a basis. But what do you suggest to do with Lord Alberon, Gallavant and Solmyr portraits? Lord Alberon is purely a knight.

(besides, an adjusted Solmyr could go well for a Wizard, DrSlash even made a draft for a genie version but I am unsure about it)



The "darker knight" (Viscount Kroeger) is planned to enter the Necromancer's lineup under the name of Lord Palmer with some graphic fixes. He will be responsible for the Death Knight specialty I presume.

We can place one of a Knights instead of H3 Lord Haart (considering Kivo). Gallavant is already on place of Sir Mullich. Solmyr is also a Dervish Hero (both Genie and Human fit in my opinion). But when we will put Lord Alberon as a Knight, we will have one vacancy among Dervish Heroes.

Lord Alberon can be whatever we want. Look at Tyro, he would be a better Barbarian than Knight, I think. Alberon can be simply a falsely banished feudal lord (after War of Succession, maybe?), seeking for revenge, thus rising troops out of outcasts and bandits and serving the Church of Baa

I agree, that Sir Albe can be left this time, he should gain new look

Quote :

But when we will put Lord Alberon as a Knight, we will have one vacancy among Dervish Heroes.

Lord Alberon is the least fitting to the Dervish heroes, really. We no longer have a concept where the Dervish hero roster is simply a trash pile for all PoL heroes without any unifying factor behind them. Finally, Dervish is a Magic class now, which already makes some portraits looking at least strange. The Dervish roster requires a lot of improvement anyway, and there are more than 1 vacancies which require attention.

I'd also like to put Solmyr to the Wizards since there are some prerequisites met for this, like the Wizard's Land campaign and the fact that this Solmyr was a basis for H3 Solmyr for NWC back in the time. Some of the Wizard's new portraits cannot stand any criticism currently anyway - they at least can be moved to Dervish if not discarded at this point.

Lord Haart is far from perfection, that is true, but removing him from the main hero roster is strongly against the initial idea of lore consistency. He fought for Ironfist in the first war, and he is presumably fighting on the Roland's side in the second war, being present in one of Roland's scenarios in H2 (with the portrait of Sir Gallant). I still cannot understand why you suggest replacing 1 classic portrait requiring slight fixes with another non-classic portrait which requires even more fixing and which is not even known to Heroes 1-2 fans. Yes, sometimes the work becomes not required for the retail. Kivo's and Sir Albe's portraits could be still used for campaign-only heroes.

Gallavant with lower and rounder head looks like he has been just mauled. I like the style, but I definitely don't like that cropped/lowered head.

Same with bigger "cartoon" Sir Gallant eyes.
Take both variants in upsacale to 640 pix height and compare with the upscaled original.

IMO, none of the portraits needs to be over-cartooned.

Just so you guys know, I am sorry about all the personal portrait caused and I have no complains if the portrait is used, as it is now or fixed to fit the style better, or simply not used at all. Basically, do what you want with it because it has nothing to do with me anymore

Also, I would like to keep all the H1 heroes in the roosters. They are in great quality and fits the lore, so I don't see why we should have them.

@Orzie I didn't mean Lord Haart portrait from H1, I mean a free place designed for a Lord Haart in H3. After adding Sir Mullich, Lord Haart became available only on a custom maps, if I recall corectly. So we can put there one additional hero. I will comply to the rest of your decisions.

Quote :

Some of the Wizard's new portraits cannot stand any criticism currently anyway

? Only Doc Emmet Brown is questionable. And I would replace this one:

,
with this:



The rest is perfect.

@BoseDrache Wat
Gallavant reminds me only this gentleman:





I am still working on eyes, they're the most tricky part

I actually like this one. Maybe just a few fixes (background etc.), but I wouldn't discard it completely.



Any guidelines for the portrtaits if I want to contribute (class/race preferences etc.)?

Oh and do you intend on using these graphics? As a Xeen fan, I would like to see these people around again.

Quote :

@Orzie I didn't mean Lord Haart portrait from H1, I mean a free place designed for a Lord Haart in H3. After adding Sir Mullich, Lord Haart became available only on a custom maps, if I recall corectly. So we can put there one additional hero. I will comply to the rest of your decisions.

The more - the better in this case. Also, perhaps some of the heroes will be available on maps without water (HotA-style) if we implement this kind of feature, so none of the portraits should be scrapped.

Quote :

? Only Doc Emmet Brown is questionable. And I would replace this one:

Yeah, Doc is the first candidate to be scrapped or left behind for a while. I am not against the suggested change also, but that portrait will require a decent improvement in future.

Uhm, I will update the hero roster today, and I will add the real life portraits also.

Quote :

Oh and do you intend on using these graphics? As a Xeen fan, I would like to see these people around again.

We in fact already took all we could from Xeen:

(still in development)




(but this is also questionable)

Uhm wrote:

Definitely I don't like his current state:



What do you think of:

1.

2.
?

I'm more for the second variant, but I anyway don't like the darker skin which was made in one of the fixes. Probably we should orient on an untouched version in this case (at least for the hair, or maybe not - the hair in the second variant are the closest to what we need). The eyes should be also brighter, more like blinking glass.

A demonstration of "copying" vs "cartooning".

Spoiler:

It shows how the whole downscale 64x58 was made as well. Yes, it were tons of comparisons in upscale mode for better correspondence. Good but slow method.

Orzie wrote:

I'm more for the second variant, but I anyway don't like the darker skin which was made in one of the fixes. Probably we should orient on an untouched version in this case (at least for the hair, or maybe not - the hair in the second variant are the closest to what we need).

Yes, his hair is brown and that was my fault making it black.

I don't see your point. When I am looking at original, bigger image, I've got the feeling, that Gallant is staring at me, maybe a bit above my left arm. Straight conversion makes him looking at something in the left upper corner, because the white reflex on his eyeball became too big compared to original. I've just made him looking straight. Yes, after upscaling him he will look like he has a cast, but it dissapears (at least for me) when we will bring back normal scale:

1.Original
2. BoseDrache
3. Uhm

So what made his eyes cartoonish?  I am asking honestly, are they too big, too light, they're crossed?

He looks like if his eye pupils are white and he's blind. White spots don't look like glares. He looks -more- straight, yes. With blind eyes.

The trouble with BoseDrache's eyes is that they remind pig's eyes for a little, while for Uhm they have too much lighting spread around instead of being concentrated in the eyelid as it was for the original. I suggest a combination of your fixes.

1.Original
2. BoseDrache
3. Uhm
4. C-c-c-combo! (more sanity in the eyes but enough glitter)

As for the white pixel position on the eyelid - can't decide really, both options are fine. My choice is probably shifted a little towards BoseDrache's variant because glass balls instead of eyes is a widely known H1 portrait feature. But I don't have objections if it stays centered - it really doesn't matter in the long run.