Mod: Community Sprites Update Mod v1.06

[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]

Originally Posted by Globu

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

Correct.

[Gregstrom]

Originally Posted by Globu

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.

[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 ).

-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]

Originally Posted by Sombre

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

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

Originally Posted by Sombre

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.

Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by MadGiraffe

-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.

Originally Posted by MadGiraffe

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.

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

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

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.

[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