The general art thread is getting very crowded. Let us put discussion on new building artwork and icons onto this thread instead.

I have quickly gone through the existing building art and icons as of 1.5.5 and made the attached spreadsheet. I have given a "grade" to each art and icon. The grade is "A" if it is pretty nice, "B" if it is not painful but not ideal, and "C" if it is painful. I'm assuming everybody can read a zipped excel worksheet (xls file), if not let me know and I will send you a paper copy by carrier pigeon :-).

Any artists who are interesting in making buildings, please pick out buildings with grade "C" and replace them! Since we plan to redesign the wonders (see adjacent thread), I would not bother to build nice wonder buildings. In fact it may be possible to plunder the wonder artwork to become basic buildings.

All of the religion buildings get "C". I have grouped them together, even if some of them are wonders. What would be nice is to pick one religion, design its 1-3 buildings with a consistent theme, and create new icons which have the proper religious symbol on them.

For both normal and religious buildings, if there is useful art in the download database, please suggest! That will be quicker than designing brand new ones.

There are about a dozen icons which are marked "C *". These are ones where the building art itself is pretty good but the icon isn't. I will use my limited screenshot / art skills to make new icons for these. That way the real artists can concentrate on more interesting work.

I've added some shadows via the texture.

http://i35.tinypic.com/2lvhhdj.jpg

Excellent! I'll put it right in. One thing that helps keep our "hit count" up is to have posts to the download database. Could you post like "Dune Wars Atreides Palace" to the download database, and include a link to the sub-forum and maybe the DW main download for 1.5? A little publicity every week or so helps.

Sure, I'll do it this evening. Also I will texture Harkonnen palace and put there too.

For the Ordos Palace I can convert the one from Emperor:Battle for Dune if we want, although the Ordos Barracks might be even better with the snake head.

For the Ordos Palace I can convert the one from Emperor:Battle for Dune if we want, although the Ordos Barracks might be even better with the snake head.

That certainly looks cool, and we could use it for any civ. Maybe Tleilaxu?

I dont think that any civ should use Ordos unique style. Ordos have their own culture and flavour. Snakes its only Ordos's style.

For the Ordos Palace I can convert the one from Emperor:Battle for Dune if we want, although the Ordos Barracks might be even better with the snake head.

IMHO you should convert all the buildigns from that game if you can :) itd be nice to have them i nthe mod.

IMHO you should convert all the buildigns from that game if you can itd be nice to have them i nthe mod.

I can - it is just a question of time. The conversion is one of the more manual ones and takes a while per building. Still, I will definitely do more. The Refinery I think is a particular successful conversion from Emperor, and there are others that could work equally well.

Walter Hawkwood has converted a lot of the Empire Earth 2 buildings but no quite all of them.

I found this one which is quite nice:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233607&stc=1&d=1257541653

You'll notice it's the same style as the current Landsraad Embassy wonder:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233608&stc=1&d=1257541653

I'm wondering whether we can use these as the Landsraad religion line. Altogether, we need four Landsraad buildings Outpost, Directorate, CHOAM Headquarters and Landsraad Embassy which is a wonder separate from the Landsraad religion, but should probably be similarly styled. I can probably cut parts out of these two to make a third and fourth variation.

Another find in EE2 is this futuristic factory, which with a reskin could look good for one of the later factory buildings.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233606&stc=1&d=1257541653

Building files attached.

I planned those actually to add as Landsraad ones. I dunno if i need to retexture them. In case there is no need (i didnt deicided yet) those will be good as button screenshots. There arew also some buildings that i wil use from differnt set as Choam.

I planned those actually to add as Landsraad ones. I dunno if i need to retexture them.

I think the first two have pretty good textures already. The factory one could be made more futuristic/sci-fi.

I also have these nice golden lions that it would be nice to incorporate into Imperial religion or Corrino buildings. (Ignore the pink and blue bits)

For the mo i leaving factory out, and adding more 1 from here :
http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/2282/inquisition2iw9.jpg
the last one, which completes the set. (this one is outpost)
Te second bunker will be retexturized and used as Technocracy style building.


http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/9365/inquisition1oq3.jpg
is interesting too

I also have these nice golden lions that it would be nice to incorporate into Imperial religion or Corrino buildings. (Ignore the pink and blue bits)


Can you add them on some building?

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/7015/fortsmesody3.jpg

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/7015/fortsmesody3.jpg

http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/6214/templesamericazn9.jpg

i find those great too for imperial

Can you add them on some building?

Yes, that is easy.

By the way I know these EE2 buildings are really beautiful, but just because they are nice models doesn't mean we have to use them all. ;)

Yes, that is easy.

can you check those links i posted now and say if uyou like any of them for imperoial.

I was thinking meso fortress n4 from link 2 and meso temple n2 from link 3 as set

I think the 3rd from left in the second link could be OK if we remove/adjust the pyramid and reskin it a golden colour.

In general, I don't want anything that is obviously meso-american, I see Imperial as being more about grand Greco-Roman pillars and lots of gold, etc. There is a post here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8252417&postcount=106) I did which has various shots of Arrakeen from the CoD miniseries. I like the way the buildings have a mixture of ancient and modern styles.

Regarding greco-roman pillars, I have used the vanilla parthenon and temple of artemis as the two Mahdi buildings, as noted in this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8609325&postcount=830). Both of these are the historical definition of pillared buildings.

There is a post here I did which has various shots of Arrakeen from the CoD miniseries. I like the way the buildings have a mixture of ancient and modern styles.

I think these look great.

Just for info i found numerous amazing buildings.
Now plugging them in.
Will make Atlas for new icons.
Imperial got golden mideastern style (shadamm was padishah anyways)
Landsraad EE style futuristic (there is a nice set)
Zansufizm - pink tinted Tao buildings
Mahdi - Tinted to dusty orange greek wonders
Shai hulud - some fantasy stonish buildings with awesome shrine for it
Also fixed number of other buildings.
Techno shrine is now ex war academy
War academy is new awesome model of futuristic fort.

The problem with Fscale. I will need help for sure with it.

Just for info i found numerous amazing buildings ... The problem with Fscale. I will need help for sure with it.

Excellent! Some of the existing buildings have very poor icons; even leaving the art the same, having a new button would be great. Also one original goal was to make buttons for the religious buildings, which have the right religious symbol on them.

For fscale, I think about it in two parts: fscale and finterfacescale. In game, only fscale is used. In the pedia viewport, fscale and finterfacescale are multiplied together. What I usually do is ignore finterfacescale first. Set fscale, look in game (not in the pedia) and get the size right. Then, leave fscale the same and look in the pedia viewport. If it is the wrong size, adjust finterfacescale. If you try to adjust both at once, it is very complicated. Does that help?

Thanks that helps alot....
i messed actually alot with those parameters and got bit crazed :P

Sure i am touching some worst icons which not related to religious buildings.

Does that help?Note, the in-game appearance isn't simply the fScale, but it's the fScale multiplied by the scale in the CityLSystem, in case the given LSystem uses scale factor as well (though it usually defaults to 1.0). Now, I know that Dune Wars, in general, does not mess with the LSystem, but if something appears really odd scale-wise, this might be a helpful clue.

Cheers, LT.

While working on stuff i found thing that i want to change - Shrine for Mahdi called Dune Messiah , and i'd would rename it as Keep of Mahdi - the huge palace that Paul built for himself.

I would like to keep the Keep (!) for a Wonder - we have few enough ideas for Wonders (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=338614) as it is.

It is a bit unusual the shrine being called Dune Messiah I suppose, but we could have a nice statue of the Mahdi or come up with some other name.

I already picked art by davids suggestion, did quite lots of work
if you want to peer - here they are - buildings + religions .
Buildings got serious revolution.

Mmmmm well i think i'll publish it, may be you'll be able to help me with FScale.

Here is my art pack for buildings + religions

this not include gamefonts fix and action buttons (still need to do)

Please peer into it, and i will appreciate if you help with FScale
there quite lots of new buildings arts (models from here and there), tinted, with new icons. Still need to fix gamefonts and to finish work with FScale.

This is great! Here are a couple of suggestions.

a. The three imperial building buttons do not have enough contrast. The buildings are yellow and the background is yellow. Can you put a different background? For the Atreides Palace building button, I put a background of the Atreides flag.

b. The existing Landsraad Embassy is the same building as the Landsraad Shrine (CHOAM Headquarters). Is there another building in that set to use? Whatever you do, the Landsraad Embassy button is an old one and it should be redone.

c. The Landsraad and Qizarate building buttons also lack contrast, same as (a). The Qizarate Shrine (Temple of Alia) is especially bad from this standpoint.

d. The Zensufi Shrine looks nice with the purple roof. But, the Zensufi Temple has a green roof. Can you make it purple instead?

e. The Zensufi Temple button is hard to understand. Perhaps if you zoomed in on the building to show just part of it, it would be easier to understand.

f. The Prison Camp button is pure black.

g. The War Institute button is the vanilla market button?

h. A few of the buildings are fine in the pedia but too small in game; I guess you should increase fscale and then decrease finterfacescale by the same: Mahdi Temple, Shai-Hulud Temple, Shai-Hulud Shrine

i. The Qizarate Shrine is fine in the pedia but too large in game

j. The Shai-Hulud Hall (Temple of the Maker) is small in game, and also it appears way outside the city. This will cause the Force Shield to appear huge. Can you edit the nif file so that the building appears at the center?

k. The hospital building is tiny in the pedia and tiny in game. Anyway, it does not look much like a hospital. It has a dome, and torches burning outside. Can we use this building for something else?

l. Something is wrong, or weird anyway, with the Intergalactic Comm Tower. In the pedia, you can see the ground tower and it is very small. In game, you can see the satellite, and it is huge. Can you make it just the tower, and eliminate the satellite?

This is great! Here are a couple of suggestions.

a. The three imperial building buttons do not have enough contrast. The buildings are yellow and the background is yellow. Can you put a different background? For the Atreides Palace building button, I put a background of the Atreides flag.

b. The existing Landsraad Embassy is the same building as the Landsraad Shrine (CHOAM Headquarters). Is there another building in that set to use? Whatever you do, the Landsraad Embassy button is an old one and it should be redone.

c. The Landsraad and Qizarate building buttons also lack contrast, same as (a). The Qizarate Shrine (Temple of Alia) is especially bad from this standpoint.

d. The Zensufi Shrine looks nice with the purple roof. But, the Zensufi Temple has a green roof. Can you make it purple instead?

e. The Zensufi Temple button is hard to understand. Perhaps if you zoomed in on the building to show just part of it, it would be easier to understand.

f. The Prison Camp button is pure black.

g. The War Institute button is the vanilla market button?

h. A few of the buildings are fine in the pedia but too small in game; I guess you should increase fscale and then decrease finterfacescale by the same: Mahdi Temple, Shai-Hulud Temple, Shai-Hulud Shrine

i. The Qizarate Shrine is fine in the pedia but too large in game

j. The Shai-Hulud Hall (Temple of the Maker) is small in game, and also it appears way outside the city. This will cause the Force Shield to appear huge. Can you edit the nif file so that the building appears at the center?

k. The hospital building is tiny in the pedia and tiny in game. Anyway, it does not look much like a hospital. It has a dome, and torches burning outside. Can we use this building for something else?

l. Something is wrong, or weird anyway, with the Intergalactic Comm Tower. In the pedia, you can see the ground tower and it is very small. In game, you can see the satellite, and it is huge. Can you make it just the tower, and eliminate the satellite?


I'll need help of Deliverator here i think. there are few things that i dont know how to do yet.

a. Ok.
b. Need to find proper building. I have one in mind. Need retexture. Hope i'll do it today evening. I have button for embassy, i thought that old is ok.
c. Ok, i'll increase contrast. Perhaps background will help.
d. perhaps i will change model. Thats it. Dai Miao.
e. I think its ok. Too much of work so i will pass this only one :P
f. Odd... why? i need to check...
g. odd...i think it appeared correct to me, as my new button. Very odd. It should be Futuristic fortress same as model. I'll recheck at home at evening. Thanks for noting.
i. Yes i know. I adjusted all models to pedia but then found that other value and that some of buildings look too big or too small.
j. I dont know how. Need Deliverators help here.
k. Need to check for what what thing we can use this one. I think i have proper hospital building.
l. i need Deliverators help here. I just dont know how to adjust it.

hey guys,
heres a modcomp that i can add,

it can give us some new options towards tweaking the buildings:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=341521

what do you say?

Well atm i am at home but i dont know how to tweak 3d models. All i can do is graphical intrusion, but removing sattelits or centring model isnt thing i can do.

Please work on all the other points besides removing the satellite and re-centering the shai-hulud hall. These are not fatal. Perhaps deliverator will have a chance to look into the nifs, but that can happen in parallel. If we can release something today or tomorrow, that would be great.

Yeah i was thinking same .... Atm i will release Relgions and Building update and some relaease of Action buttons which will be improved more in future. I just feel wrong to leave as it is - but i am not sure i have today / morrow to make all that at perfection. We'll see though, atm on my paper action buttons are much better than vanilla ones, if there will be place for improvement, it will have its day.

Ok i plan a relase tomorrow evening gmt, kinda tired after job and all that.
Alot done and more to do, but not today :)
So far fixed allmost all of issues , but i left hospital as i made (it kinda fits even, with proper fscale).
If someone have good building for hospital feel free to propose.
CHOAM will use bit retinted, enlarged version of SDI building.

I may not have time to look at the building fixes until the weekend, just so you know.

I may not have time to look at the building fixes until the weekend, just so you know.

ok thats no problem
i will leave those , and we may fix it later.
I know things about time, and often there is not enough of it.

Only question for you – do you can explain me how I can get rid of separate part of model in Nifviewer.
The problem, noticable, is in Intergalactic Com Tower. That satellite – I don’t know how to get rid of it. It, I think, appeared from older model. The tower itself is small, so if I use FScale then this satellite appear very huge and very low, and visible. The tower, i found, is really awesome, and old eifel Tower cant be compared to it, 1. because its eifel tower, 2. new tower is really nice one model for intergalactic com tower.

Edit: folder called ICT in attached assets pack. While other adjustments are not critical, alreayd solved or will be solved with ease by myself, this one seem to be.

Also i have another guess but i cant test it because i at job now - may i remove this satellite through art defines xml?

It is quite easy to remove elements from the NIF with NifSkope. I can take a look tonight.

It is quite easy to remove elements from the NIF with NifSkope. I can take a look tonight.

thanks , thats only thing i need desperately, other issues already fixed , and 2 ones which 3d model based are very minor. Except this one, which, seems to me, have very easy solution for one who knows how all that model 3d stuff linking working

There is a good tutorial about nifskope at this link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11641). Slvynn, you may be able to learn a little about nifskope and do easy changes with this. However, for the particular ICT model, I looked into the nif and I am confused. In nifskope and in the pedia, I simply cannot see the satellite at all. I wanted to just remove it in nifskope. But I cannot find it. So this particular one may require deliverator's help.

Yep i know i am confused too with this issue
last thing - may be its art defines xml file problem

The problem with the Intergalactic Com Tower is just because the effect of the wonder is to give a free Communication Satellite in every city. The graphic you see is the Communication Satellite. The Com Tower graphic is there too it's just the fScale needs to be more like 12-14.

The wonders beginning Intergalactic are hopefully going to removed when we redo wonders since they are some of the least thematic and cheesy, but that gold marker graphic is good with a nice animation and can surely be used for something else.

Other comments on the graphics:

The Zensufi reskins are nice.

The Imperial Buildings are pretty good base. I might make some adjustments to the models to give them a Dune twist, add some lions, that kind of thing.

On the Mahdi: I think this religion (together with Shai Hulud) is a less of an establishment religion. Mahdi is about fanatic guerilla militants and I think their buildings should reflect that. It would be cool to have some caves and chambers hewn out of rock for them. Spartan military structures with religous banners, etc, but this will need some custom modelling.

The Qizarate compared to Mahdi *is* an establishment religion so structures like your Dune Messiah shrine or the Dar Al-Hikman (i think that's the Hagia Sofia) are what I envisage for them. Stuff like the pictures I linked to of Arrakeen which is taken from the Children of Dune series set during the Qizarate's most dominant period.

The Shai Hulud ones are good for now. Maybe we'll do something with some worm influences at some point.

The Great Processor is a good choice, but the replacement Hospital is a little bit too ancient looking IMO. I think the Hospital should probably be one of the more sci-fi/furistic buildings. Still it's OK for now.

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

Unrelated to this, can we use the current Imperial Space Port for the Corrino Palace? It is an icon from the film that people will recognise. I can give it a more reflective gold finish at some point.

Thanks for the comments.
I did mahdi as it described - and david requested. There was no direction so i took one , which was proposed by david.
Dune Messiah building is good, i think, because it resembles Keep which Muad'Dib built to him.

I know about hospital, need proper model, but this looks like some suck establishment. Dune is kinda feudal world, and it have mixture of Ancient/futuristic things. Agree with you completely - its OK for now, and we'll recheck it later.

Dune is kinda feudal world, and it have mixture of Ancient/futuristic things.

Exactly right! This is one of the most interesting things to play with - the mix of ancient and futuristic.

Dune Messiah building is good, i think, because it resembles Keep which Muad'Dib built to him.

The Keep is built in between Dune and Dune Messiah, after Paul has become the establishment and settled in Arrakeen. By that stage his followers who fought for him against the established order are on their way to becoming the bureaucratic preisthood of the Qizarate. Also, as I've said I'd like to reserve the Keep for a wonder so the art can still be used.

Lets keep it as it is - i really done big amount of job its late, and i must cut action buttons. That take alot of time.

We'll discuss it more, and change if necessary , when we will have wonder updates.

Lets keep it as it is - i really done big amount of job its late, and i must cut action buttons. That take alot of time.

We'll discuss it more, and change if necessary , when we will have wonder updates.

Sure, I wasn't suggestion we change them all again right away. Modding is an iterative process. Trying to get everything right first time is exhausting. It is better to aim for incremental improvements with each patch. These days I prefer to avoid the 'big projects' and just improve a few elements (units, buildings, whatever) with each release. This way it stays fun and doesn't turn into hard work.

I'll do some custom modelling on some of the religion buildings all some point - using existing models can only take you so far.

After Action buttons i am back to HUD. I really need to advance.
And yep little by little its good, because that way its less hard and tiresome.