Community Sprites Update Mod v1.06

[Globu]

Community Sprites Update Mod
Version 1.06


UPDATE, APR 27, 2010

Added fixed Son of Shamshiel sprite (no change to graphic; only removed background junk pixels). Added Burnsaber's Deep Seer, Initiate of the Deep, and Great Seer of the Deeps replacement sprite (I have touched them up slightly in a few spots). Made a few more tweaks to Sorceress-series sprites and added a few variants.

(I was informed that the headdress I put on the Lich Queen was a distinctly male one -- the Nemes. So I kept it as a "Tomboy Variant" and added one with a Nefertiti-style headdress/hat thingy.)

DESCRIPTION

This is an ongoing mod aimed at being a community project that provides improved artwork (or quality alternates) for units whose sprites are showing their age in comparison with KO's and Illwinter's more recent standards.

It's rather humble at this point but growing. So far, the mod has 10 or so new sprites, one fixed version of an existing sprite, and 20 or so sprites by Zepath (taken from his Nova Deus mod, most of them optional and disabled by default). However, some modders have planned to contribute sprites, and other contributions are most certainly welcome (particularly for some of those oldest sprites that from the earlier days, like the lich pretenders and vampires). I'm adding some here and there as well, though I'm just learning, myself.

Artwork is a very picky, subjective business, and few will find *all* of the sprites included to be preferable to the vanilla artwork. So, as mentioned, many alternate sprites are not enabled by default (based on my own impressions and that taken from feedback on the thread). A visual preview of all available alternate sprites will be maintained with the mod, allowing the player to pick and choose by simply commenting or un-commenting-out the relevant parts of the mod.

Read the readme for further information.


VERSION HISTORY


v1.06: Added fixed Son of Shamshiel sprite (no change to graphic; only removed background junk pixels). Added Burnsaber's Deep Seer, Initiate of the Deep, and Great Seer of the Deeps replacement sprite (I have touched them up slightly in a few spots). Made a few more tweaks to Sorceress-series sprites and added a few variants.
v1.05: Added Vampire Queen and Lich Queen sprites. Updated Great Enchantress Sprite.
v1.04: Added readme.
v1.03: Added tweaked Palankasha sprite.
v1.02: Added sprites from Zepath's Nova Deus mod (mostly disabled by default)
v1.01: Great Enchantress added.
v1.00: Initial introductory release; gratuitous succubus only.


Original Post:

I did an alternate succubus sprite for my own use, out of sheer gratuity, and I was wondering if anyone else out there would like me to release it as a little mod. If anyone is actually interested in it, I'll turn this thread into a mod thread for it. Otherwise, I'll keep the poor little gal for myself.

Alternate Succubus Sprite Pic (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/album.php?albumid=40&pictureid=361)

[Jack_Trowell]

Why not, she looks good.

;)

[Burnsaber]

I think you could expand this a bit. There are some graphics in dom3 that could use a bit of a face-lift*. One of Zepaths pretender mods gave a new graphic for Phoenix that was really really sweet. I'll try to see if I still can find that mod and the appropiate sprite somewhere. You could combine several of these and call it the "sprite mod" or something.


*I'm looking at you, vanheim infantry/ vampires and the lich pretenders. Actually, I could be bothered (with time)to update the vanheim infantry sprites.

[Globu]

Why not, she looks good.

;)

Thanks!

I think you could expand this a bit. There are some graphics in dom3 that could use a bit of a face-lift*. One of Zepaths pretender mods gave a new graphic for Phoenix that was really really sweet. I'll try to see if I still can find that mod and the appropiate sprite somewhere. You could combine several of these and call it the "sprite mod" or something.

*I'm looking at you, vanheim infantry/ vampires and the lich pretenders. Actually, I could be bothered (with time)to update the vanheim infantry sprites.

That sounds like a great idea -- sounds good to me. Maybe start it off as a sort of limited "Community Assorted Sprite Update Mod." I know the Enchantress pretender in both the vanilla and the Nova Deus mod are both kinda outdated and uninspiring, and I have a new enchantress that, pending some finishing touches, I can throw in. And specifically on the lich pretenders, vampires and Van infantry, yes, definitely.

[Globu]

Alright. It's up.

[llamabeast]

VAMPIRES. I have been thinking that needs to be done for a long time, but never quite had the inspiration to do it.

I think this mod is a very good idea, nice one. I probably have some dragon pretender sprites to contribute at some point as well. I have the main sprite, just not the attack sprite.

[Burnsaber]

That Great Enchantress is well.. great. Truly worthy graphic for a pretender goddess.

While you are at it, I think that it would be best to combine the upgraded sprites from Nova Deus into this mod. Zepath, although awesome, has not been around for years, so I don't think that he will mind and/or care. The new dragons he drew were absolutely fantastic and it would a shame to miss those from this project.

As for the Vanheim Infantry, I'll mix up some new sprites once I'm done with the Byzantium project.

[Sombre]

I don't feel like the succubus really needed an update. There are some units with horrible old dom1 graphics which really do though.

I know Abysia has a bunch of them. Also some of the jotuns (though not all) have really nasty old graphics that could use sharpening up.

[rdonj]

Agreed with burnsaber, that is an excellent sprite for the great enchantress. Whatever else you do with the mod, it would be worth downloading it for that change alone. Also agreed with sombre, I'm not sure the succubus needed an update. Your bat wings are great, though.

[Globu]

Enchantress:
Thanks, Burnsaber and rdonj -- I'm glad the enchantress went over well.

Succubus:
Yes, I recognize as much on the succubus. Again, sheer gratuity. You guys feel it's something that would be best left out or kept separate?

Zepath's Pretenders:
You know, I hadn't even noticed it because I've had Nova Deus in play for so long I could hardly identify which sprites come from it without looking in the mod directory.

A lot of its upgrades, as far as my own preferences are concerned, are absolute musts -- among other things, that mounted archdruid is superb, and with the new sprite the Lord of Fertility now no longer looks like Bob from the next cubicle who has gone wild and is streaking through the building.

If there are no objections, I can certainly include some/most of Zepath's sprites in the mod. I imagine it won't conflict one way or another with Nova Deus, given that it's only changing sprites, correct?

[Burnsaber]

I imagine it won't conflict one way or another with Nova Deus, given that it's only changing sprites, correct?

Correct.

[Gregstrom]

Succubus:
Yes, I recognize as much on the succubus. Again, sheer gratuity. You guys feel it's something that would be best left out or kept separate?


Why not just have a comment with each unit's name just above the entry modifying the unit sprite. Then people can comment out (or delete) any units where they prefer the vanilla sprite.

[Globu]

That seems to be the easiest way that introduces the least complications. In fact, that's likely to be the case with more sprites than just the succubus.


Diving into it Nova Deus, I found some judgment calls to be made. Some will probably be "clearly" preferable to most people, while others will likely be more a matter of finicky preference.

"Clearly," by my best estimation and opinion, the replacements for the following sprites contained in it are definite inclusions:

Arch Druid
Arch Mage
Crone
Freak Lord
Lord of Fertility
Sphinx

The ones that seem to me subject to more differing opinion -- *not* because they are "worse," but because they (a) involve a definite shift in thematic elements and/or flavor, or (b) because the original sprite is quite up to standards are:

The Dragons (red, blue, green, carrion) -- beautiful artwork, but definite change in flavor toward more fantastical dragons

Phoenix (The second form modded by the Nova Deus version would be on the definite list, I think, but vanilla only has one form, and thus we're only considering Zepath's et al.'s firstform -- the smaller, plain white heron. Where the gorgeous fiery phoenix of the second form isn't part of the deal, I know *I* still prefer the original over the little white heron, nice as it is.)

Earth Mother (Not sure -- maybe this goes in the definite list? Higher quality, but it does seem to be less reminiscent of the old fertility goddess idols.)

Vampire Queen (Very different feel, at least to me.)

Prince of Death (This one I have to confess looks very off somehow, while the original is quite decent. It seems to be a definite shift of theme in a different direction, but it may be that it just rubs me the wrong way.)

Moloch (Same base sprite as PoD, but works better. Otherwise same as PoD above.)

Lich and Master Lich (I personally prefer them, but they are *definitely* quite at variance with the originals in theme and style.)


I think that's all, though I may have missed one. I think the rest are all in the nature of additions rather than changes.


Thoughts? Other things to include?

Attached is a preview to get a sense of it. I didn't include vanilla action sprites in order to keep the image size down.

[llamabeast]

I think none of the ones *not* on your list of definites should be included.

Additionally I don't like Zepath's crone, lord of fertility or sphinx.

When in doubt I think the vanilla sprite should be used. The unfamiliarity of a new sprite is only worthwhile when the new sprite is actually better.

Your enchantress is great.

[llamabeast]

Oh, actually I do like Zepath's dragons better than the originals. Though it's a pity their necks are so long.

I think I might like my dragons even more, but that's assuming I ever get round to finishing them.

[Sombre]

I honestly think few of those are actually better than the originals.

The kind of graphical improvement I'd really like to use would be one that attempted to clean up and sharpen up the graphics in the same style as KO has. Just making them less blocky and lowres, without adding too much detail or replacing them with a graphic that's basically taken from somewhere else (as many graphics are, though usually modified).

[MadGiraffe]

Hiya, just got trough the (IMO unnecessarily) long process of registering mostly for the purpose of helping with stuff like this.
Here's a list of units I'm currently working on and planning to improve (for now, hope to polish all the graphics to a certain degree eventually, at least fix the shadows/shading/bad anatomy/silly poses):

-all the Bandar apes; want to make them more look like actual anthropomorphic gorillas instead of just humans in cheap gorilla costumes (no offense to the original artist;)) And that includes the undead versions too. Because undead apes is just too much fun.

-dragons! Could be a little more dragon-y (in the chimeric sense) and 'epic'. And some pictures of what you, Globu, consider a 'classic' dragon would be nice.

-Sphinx; you know why...

-horror; doesn't strike me as 'horrific' as of now, although maybe only in the sense that I don't know what the hell I'm looking at (again, sorry original artist :angel).

-dark vines; making it look more vine-y and less slimy.

-same for other 'muddy' vine creatures.

-mammoth; mammoths aren't just simply hairy elephants.

-Kraken; could live to look a little more menacing, think Pirates of the Carribean. Rawr!

-Manticore; rawr.

-Werewolf; again, rawr. And all wolves/animals(tigers, lions, etc) for that manner.

-Shamblers; anatomy and design could use a little love. Especially the thralls.

-Air elemental; needs more 'wooshy' stuff.

-Vampire queen; as suggested, looking into making her look less generic and more like an actual queen/mother of vampires. Hmm, Lilith anyone? Who says an ages old vampire queen can't look sexy? :P

-think that's it for now, I'm open for any suggestions of units you'd like to see changed.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Another thing, any ideas anyone on how to get animations into the game? That would be splendid. At least for the attacks, swap it out with an animated sprite. Doesn't work with simply .tga graphics though, so that would require coding into the engine, is this possible? Simplest way would be to code a sprite swapping sequence with time intervals I think. But that would depend on how they coded it. Edit- just reconsidered this method and don't think it would be very smart doing it this way, costing resources, that can eventually lead to significant lag with large battles
Haven't really looked into it yet how 'open source' the engine is on that kind of stuff.
-willing to take this part of my post somewhere else if you want me to, but I have the habit of not wanting to make new threads too quickly.

[Globu]

I honestly think few of those are actually better than the originals.

I think none of the ones *not* on your list of definites should be included.

Additionally I don't like Zepath's crone, lord of fertility or sphinx.

When in doubt I think the vanilla sprite should be used. The unfamiliarity of a new sprite is only worthwhile when the new sprite is actually better.

Your enchantress is great.

As for the others, it seems I "clearly" overreached with the definite list.

So perhaps the list of definite improvements is much shorter. Of course, it's likely this will be a pick-and-choose thing anyway, so the question becomes a policy decision as to where to draw the line.

Thanks, llamabeast.

The kind of graphical improvement I'd really like to use would be one that attempted to clean up and sharpen up the graphics in the same style as KO has. Just making them less blocky and lowres, without adding too much detail or replacing them with a graphic that's basically taken from somewhere else (as many graphics are, though usually modified).

I may try my hand at it myself some time later, but I make no pretense here; I'm neither skilled as an original artist or a reviser of old low-res images. My work so far is just adaptations of miniature pics and other images (though I am getting the hang of more extensive modifications in that regard, which may or may not transfer as a skill to revising old sprites). So I suspect I may not be able to produce what you're talking about here.


Oh, actually I do like Zepath's dragons better than the originals. Though it's a pity their necks are so long.

I think I might like my dragons even more, but that's assuming I ever get round to finishing them.

-dragons! Could be a little more dragon-y (in the chimeric sense) and 'epic'. And some pictures of what you, Globu, consider a 'classic' dragon would be nice.

Actually, you know, I do like Zepath's dragons aesthetically on some levels, but I find the attack sprites to be a little bit underwhelming, and they look anatomically unwieldy. I hope you finish those dragons soon, llamabeast.

And, to answer you as well MadGiraffe, the reason they don't appeal to me so much stylistically, and why I consider them "more fantastical," is because I prefer a style with a bit more of a nod toward physiological believability. Four-legged dragons with wings are usually drawn with dinky connections to the main body and no noticeable musculature to support them, with the hand-wave rationale of "they fly by magic." Okay, okay, I can handle that, since no creature of a dragon size IRL, as far as I've been made to understand, could fly without massively huge wings and musculature (and I don't think there are *any* four-legged creatures with wings, are there? -- that hits pegasi, chimerae and so forth as well), but, again, it's just my preference for a depiction that at least takes into account the need for those things.

In that regard, if you want a picture of a dragon that, anatomically, I find much more believablish, actually, the vanilla sprite is pretty decent in that regard. Not perfect by any means, but much smaller body-size/mass to wing ratio. But I suspect epic and physiologically-accurate pull in opposing directions.

But remember, in the end, I am most certainly not the arbiter of right and proper dragon here. Just stating my own preference.


Here's a list of units I'm currently working on and planning to improve (for now, hope to polish all the graphics to a certain degree eventually, at least fix the shadows/shading/bad anatomy/silly poses): [ . . . ]

Welcome. I'm relatively new myself.

Excellent. I look forward to seeing your work. Although, as you can see so far, it's a pretty tough crowd here when it comes to revising existing artwork. :D

Of the things you mentioned, I have done a mammoth for Kennydicke's Mongol mod. It's not necessarily limited to use only with his mod and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, but it is noticeably bigger than the standard elephant and mammoth and is not set up with a howdah and Caelians.

Big Mammoth (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/album.php?albumid=40&pictureid=441)

[BigDaddy]

The Mammoth is beautiful. It might be challenging to rotate the head to make it look really professional, plus it only attacks something that's it own size.

That said, it does look really great, and it is more than worthy any for any mod.

[Globu]

Thanks, BigDaddy. I may give a whirl at rotating the head when I get a bit better.

I might also throw a howdah and some Caelians on it and see how it goes over.

Oh, and, MadGiraffe: ironic that I didn't see it when I read your post the first time, but I actually was working on a Siberian tiger when you wrote that. Too big (by intent) to replace the vanilla tiger (which I really like, actually), but here's a shot of the provisionally-complete WIP:

Strange Sighting (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/album.php?albumid=40&pictureid=445)

[Burnsaber]

Why not just have a comment with each unit's name just above the entry modifying the unit sprite. Then people can comment out (or delete) any units where they prefer the vanilla sprite.

On this vein, why just put them all in, but comment out those that seem a bit "undominions", then people can just replace a few marks to get the Zepath's dragons if they want to get those.

Because the mod would make only cosmetic changes, all players in a MP game could a widely different versions of the mod without any chances of hosting errors and the like. So you wouldn't have to fear incompactibility issues.

[Gregstrom]

Yes, that'd definitely be nice.

In fact, for MP you could just C&P any appropriate sprite changes into the end of any .dm file the game was using.

[Globu]

That's the route that makes sense to me as well. I'm putting up version 1.02 right now, which includes the following enabled by default:

Great Enchantress
Succubus (may change this)
Arch Druid
Arch Mage
Freak Lord

All the rest of Zepath's replacement pretenders are included but commented out.

[Ragnarok-X]

Thanks, please expand it !!!!

[WraithLord]

Awesome :clap:

More please.

If this mod were to be bundled in CBM. Oh man, that would be so nice :)

[Globu]

Opinions: Very minor tweak to Palankasha sprite's head, as an upgrade/replacement to be included. Good? Bad? Original is just fine?

Explanation: The vanilla Palankasha sprite is missing something. It may be just me, but the head comes off as an orange snake head more than a tiger head, even with the ears. Trying to figure out what was missing, it finally clicked. Head is too wedge-ish. Whiskers added in front gives more weight to the front of the head (as is characteristic of tigers), giving the impression of a more tiger-ish face.

Nothing else modified. See attached image.

[Burnsaber]

It's certainly a small tweak, bit I really see no harm in including it. It definately looks more "tigery" now.

I'll make and contribute the new Vanheim human infantry sprites once I've managed to update rest of my mods.

[Sombre]

I think the focus should be on the sprites which really suck, personally.

The lanka ones are all fine, but there are many sprites in the game left over from dom1 and 2. See the roman banner guys.

[Globu]

It's certainly a small tweak, bit I really see no harm in including it. It definately looks more "tigery" now.

I'll make and contribute the new Vanheim human infantry sprites once I've managed to update rest of my mods.

Good enough. Thanks for the feedback on it.

Sounds good on the Vanheim human infantry.

I think the focus should be on the sprites which really suck, personally.

The lanka ones are all fine, but there are many sprites in the game left over from dom1 and 2. See the roman banner guys.

Of course. The palankasha was just a quick, opportunistic thing that arose out of using its head as a rabbit head.

[Globu]

Alright. Dovetailing off of work I've already done, I decided to make a replacement for that vampire queen using the sorceress as a template. Attached.

Look, guys, vampire queens are supposed to be hawt. Dead, cold flesh notwithstanding.

I couldn't figure out how to do a good brooch for the cloak at that scale -- if anyone wants demonstrate for me how to pull that off, have at it. As it stands, the cloak clasp ends up looking more like a choker. Which, I suppose, goes toward the theme one way or the other.

[Burnsaber]

Niiice. You could recolor the skin and add a silly eqyptian hat and then we could have ourselves a new Lich Queen.

[Globu]

Not a bad idea at all. I'm on it, though the headdress is kicking my ***. This is all on the bleeding edge of my still very rudimentary artistic skill.

:hammer:

[Globu]

Alright. New version up, now with more queens.

[reverend]

Nice work, I'll be using this! :)

[Sombre]

Pretty cool. I didn't mind the old sprites on those much though.

[WraithLord]

How about revitalizing the wyrm and the oracle?

[Sombre]

What's wrong with the wyrm sprite? : /

[WraithLord]

What wyrm sprite?? I didn't see any. Is that my poor eye sight at play? :doh:

[Sombre]

The one in the game. It isn't a lowres leftover from dom2. Those are the only things in dom3 that are a real eyesore and should be replaced first, imo.

[Globu]

I think he is saying that the wyrm sprite is fuzzy and indistinct. I get the same impression -- like I'm looking at an old red-and-blue separate-image 3D they used in movies, but without the goofy glasses. It could most certainly use a sharpening-up, but yes, it's clearly not as bad as some.

[WraithLord]

I agree with Globu. The wyrm image in the game is not bad. It just doesn't do justice to one of the most magnificent monsters in dom-III universe. Wyrm is the stuff of legends, it exists in one way or another in almost every sea faring culture. The image should be on par with the legend :)

[Burnsaber]

I was doing the UWGIM update, but the MA Atlantis human mages kept burning my eyes. Globu is free to include/tweak these as he wishes.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/picture.php?albumid=34&pictureid=477

Not my best work, but enough to be a definate improvement.

[Sombre]

Yeah that's the kind of improvement I like to see. Nothing radical, just lo-res to hi-res.

[Globu]

Thanks, Burnsaber. I'll integrate those in.

The New_Great_Deep_Seer is a new unit, not a revision of an old one, right?

[Burnsaber]

Thanks, Burnsaber. I'll integrate those in.

The New_Great_Deep_Seer is a new unit, not a revision of an old one, right?

MA Atlantis has a national pretender called Great Seer of the deeps (http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Great_Seer_of_the_Deeps).

[Globu]

Ah, okay. Got it.

[linlin]

here is a try for the Ermor standard.. i'm not sure at all of the format needed, and the alpha thing.. so dont hesite to tell me if i need to change something, and to comment the sprite

[linlin]

maybe some time it will be possible..

[Globu]

Nice work, Lain. A bit different from the style of the other Ermorian units, but it does look pretty good.

Yeah, Dom3 seems to be a bit picky about the alpha, and displays those poorly, making them the typical dark "halo" around the sprite. The general convention here is based on the method used by Kristoffer O -- plain sprites with no alpha, using 0,0,0 as background transparency and, as you know, 255,0,255, for shadow.

(The game apparently can handle alpha transparency, but it's not really clear to me how it does it or how to properly take advantage of it, from what I've read. I'm still trying to figure it out.)

You may or may not know about it (you're clearly far more advanced in graphical artwork skill than I am -- I'm still most definitely a beginner), but, in case it happens to be helpful, a great short post giving some information about it can be found here (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=563611&postcount=3).

[Globu]

Updated.

Burnsaber, I touched up the Seer sprites just a bit, and changed two of them a bit more substantially to remedy something that I don't like about that series of vanilla sprites: the heads that look a bit too long and thin.

If you would prefer I left the heads as is, though, no worries -- just let me know and I'll change them back. As for now, versions with the heads unchanged are included as alternates.

I've also made a few adjustments to some other sprites and included a fixed, but otherwise unchanged, version of the Son of Shamshiel, who had almost-black background junk pixels that spoiled his... er... look.

[Sombre]

The flying form of the siren has some floating black pixels that you could easily clear up, btw.

[Globu]

Yeah, the siren always bothered me because of that. Glad you reminded me of it. Just made a fixed version to go into v1.07.

[WraithLord]

What about eater of the dead?

[Herr Heimlich]

Will you also redo the Iron Dragon?, seeing as you´ve already done the other dragon versions.

[Globu]

What about eater of the dead?

Yeah, it's pretty bleah. One for the to-do list.

Will you also redo the Iron Dragon?, seeing as you´ve already done the other dragon versions.

Oh, those weren't me -- those were made by Zepath (who's UA right now). Dragons are still a little ambitious for me at this stage of my newbie skills. Again, another one for the to-do list.

[WraithLord]

Kewl :)

You should watch this movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363547/) first to get into the proper mood :D

[WraithLord]

Perhaps a few more entries to your ToDo list :)
- Ether warrior & lord
- Fairy queen
- Ghouls & soulless
- Ivy kings

[Herr Heimlich]

Is this still worked on?

[Stavis_L]

Is this still worked on?

I think most of the people who were contributing more or less vacated this forum in favor of the one here (it's on the 3rd page of the mods thread):

http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?act=idx

...there's at least one update later than the latest on this board.