Dune Wars Art Thread

Deliverator · Jun 23, 2009

Welcome to the Dune Wars Art Thread!

In this thread I'll be keeping you posted on what is going on in terms of Dune Wars art. I'll keep the second post updated with what is currently being worked on.

In terms of suggested art direction, the Butlerian Jihad means that there shouldn't be any robotics or computer controlled stuff (except for the Ix). Everything should look like it could be purely mechanical/clockwork driven. For me, Dune is almost as much fantasy as it is sci-fi. There are plenty of sci-fi mods out there so this is one way to make the mod stand out as unique.

The overall aim is to eradicate anything that doesn't feel like Dune. We want Dune Wars to feel like a turn based strategy game set on Arrakis, rather than a Civ4 mod...

Dune Wars Creations

Sandworm by me

SHAI-HULUD: Sandworm of Arrakis, the 'Old Man of the Desert','Old Father Eternity,' and 'Grandfather of the Desert.' Significantly, this name, when referred to in certain tone or written with capital letters, designates the earth deity of Fremen hearth superstitions. Sandworms grow to enormous size (specimens longer than 400 meters have been seen in the deep desert) and live to great age unless slain by one of their fellows or drowned in water, which is poisonous to them. Most of the sand on Arrakis is credited to sandworm actions.

Fremen Fedaykin and Naib's Chosen by Lord Tirian and myself, adapted from a number of models including seZereth's Govannon unit

FEDAYKIN: Fremen death commandos; historically: a group formed and pledged to give their lives to right and wrong.

Thopter, I adapted this from the original mesh by Katase, texture and additional work by Lord Tirian

ORNITHOPTER (commonly: 'thopter): any aircraft capable of sustained wing-beat flight in the manner of birds.

Sardaukar adapted from Dawn of War Commander model by myself

SARDAUKAR: the soldier-fanatics of the Padishah Emperor. They were men from an environmental background of such ferocity that it killed six out of thirteen persons before the age of eleven. Their military training emphasized ruthlessness and a near-suicidal disregard for personal safety. They were taught from infancy to use cruelty as a standard weapon, weakening opponents with terror. At the apex of their sway over the affairs of the Universe, their swordsmanship was said to match that of the Ginaz tenth level and their cunning abilities at in-fighting were reputed to approach those of a Bene Gesserit adept. Any one of them was rated a match for any ten ordinary Landsraad military conscripts. By the time of Shaddam IV, while they were still formidable, their strength had been sapped by over-confidence, and the sustaining mystique of their warrior religion had been deeply undermined by cynicism.

City Screen by Koma13, with some art support from myself

Reverend Mother by Lord Tirian and myself, adapted from Chuggi's Geisha unit, Birth of Arrakis Cityset by Lord Tirian and Windtrap by Lord Tirian

REVEREND MOTHER: originally, a proctor of the Bene Gesserit, one who has transformed an "illuminating poison" within her body, raising herself to a higher state of awareness. Title adopted by Fremen for their own religious leaders who accomplished a similar "illumination."

Unit Banners by me

Sandstorm by me

CORIOLIS STORM: Any major sandstorm on Arrakis where winds across the open flatlands are amplified by the planet's own revolutionary motion to reach speeds up to 700 kilometers per hour.

_

Deliverator · Jun 23, 2009

............................

Deliverator · Jun 23, 2009

I've done some further work on the sandstorm. It is now animated - you really have to see it in action to get a feel for it. I'm going to try and make the animation a bit more natural.

If you replace stormcloud_sound_stormcloud_parent_stormcloud.kf with stormcloud_sound_stormcloud_parent_stormcloud_high.kf you will be able to see the lightning fx. I'm going to try and get it so the storm is low to the ground but we still have lightning.

Also, I can't find any thunder sounds in the game so if you know where I can get some let me know. The sounds referenced by the original blizzard don't seem to exist which is wierd. There are also atmospheric thunder sounds referenced in Audio defines that don't exist.

Civ4ArtDefines_Unit.xml:

Spoiler :

Deliverator · Jun 23, 2009

My Dune 1984 Special Edition has arrived. It is remastered so the quality of screen captures should be good. I'll redo Irulan first.

Deliverator · Jun 24, 2009

Banners

I've wanted to improve the banners for a little while. I've basically done two things:

1) I've a adapted asioasioasio's Modern Flag NIF to be a more medieval squarish banner. I think this suits the Dune heraldry, but it also means that the flags are not as distorted and therefore look better.
2) I've gone through the flags to try and improve on them. There's still a bit more work needed on these - the Atreides and Harkonnen can be improved.

davidlallen · Jun 24, 2009

I find the flags largely indistinguishable. If you are reworking them, I also suggest to make the flag background colors the same as the player color. That way, it will be easier to tell who is the owner of some incoming unit. I had also suggested changing the playercolors to make them more different; for example, there are two almost indistinguishable white colors, and two almost indistinguishable greens, and two browns. Changing those first and then changing the flag colors to match would help.

Deliverator · Jun 24, 2009

Yeah, I was thinking of reviewing the player colours at the same time. The Atreides really should be green for example. I'll try and get the flag colours consistent with the player colours as far as I can.

keldath · Jun 25, 2009

the flags/banners looks awesome - really like the atriedis flag -its like in the book!

Deliverator · Jun 25, 2009

Banners and Team Colours (or Colors if you prefer)

Here's a run through of my updated banners and team colours.

Atreides
Team Colour: Dark Green
The books describe the Atreides banner as green and black, but this doesn't look very attractive. Also, green seems to be the more dominant colour, from Dune Messiah: "a yellow robe trimmed in Atreides green yellow for sunlight, green for the death which produced life." I've gone for a dark green with a red Atreides hawk on a white shield.

Harkonnen
Team Colour: Orange
I haven't verified this myself, but apparently the Banner of House Harkonnen is orange according to p.233 of Dune Messiah. In the books the Harkonnen symbol is a griffon, but Westwood decided a ram was more appropriate. I'm using a ram symbol you may well recognise for now as it seemed to work well, if anyone objects I'll find a griffon.

Bene Gesserit
Team Colour: Yellow
The colour choice was purely to keep a range across the spectrum for easy recognition. The illustration is by Mark Zug the same guy who did the picture used in the existing flag.

Fremen
Team Colour: Royal Blue
Again I chose the colour more for spectrum spread and recognition. The blue matches the top half of the flag. I like this one as it has the desert dunes in the background.

Sietch Tabr Fremen
Team Colour: Tan
Got a new copy of the worm graphic from Google Images and adjusted it so that worm is more in the centre. The tan matches the tan in the top half of the image.

Spacing Guild
Team Colour: Turquoise
Just an improved version of what we had. I'm quite happy with how the nebula in the background worked out. The team colour matches the nebula.

Ordos
Team Colour: Middle Green
Didn't change the colour on this one as I don't think it is too similar to the Atreides green. I could always make it lighter.

Corrino
Team Colour: Purple
Gold lion on purple background - a bit of a no-brainer for the Imperial House.

Bene Tleilax
Team Colour: Magenta (Bring on the old school computer colours!)
A colour more chosen for distinctiveness. The icon is again from Emporer with another nebula background.

House Fenring
Team Colour: Red
Red was now vacant with Harkonnen going to orange. Count Fenring is an assassin and that's about all we know. I've gone for something heraldic looking from an army crest - it's a sea serpent with a dagger/sword and wings by the looks.

Deliverator · Jun 25, 2009

Finally I have changed the barbarian symbol to something that should work both for the Smugglers and Native life:

I've done buttons too as you see below and attached all the necessary files for you to try out the new banners. The art defines XML goes in XML/Art and the Civilizations one in XML/Civilizations, the color xmls go in XML/Interface.

davidlallen · Jun 25, 2009

Deliverator said:
Banners and Team Colours (or Colors if you prefer)

Here's a run through of my updated banners and team colours.

These look great. Is it possible to use white instead of one of the two greens? The others seem easily distinguishable from each other and from the desert terrain colors. (Thank you for not using any browns.)

Deliverator · Jun 27, 2009

I could change one of the greens to white, but I'd rather try and make the two shades of green really distinct. Two reasons, 1) I think both Atreides and Ordos should be green theme-wise and 2) I am conscious that Keldath is planning to add more Houses at some point in which case it is good to have a distinct colour in the bank. To be honest, if we have 15 houses it is going to be quite difficult to keep all the colours really distinctive.

I'll try and tweak the Ordos colour and flag to make them more distinct.

keldath · Jun 27, 2009

your right d,
i am planning on 15 houses

.

Deliverator · Jun 27, 2009

Sandstorm

This is the finalized version of the sandstorm.

+ Scaled to four different sizes for the different strengths of storm.
+ I have tweaked the animation to keep it interesting.
+ The occasional lighting flash should now be visible.
+ Added thunder sound effects
+ Reduced the volume of the environmental wind sounds as I thought it was a bit high.

Let me know if I have missed anything in the attached RAR.

davidlallen · Jun 27, 2009

keldath said:
your right d, i am planning on 15 houses .

I really think we should get the unit tree straightened out and make 8 *interesting* houses before adding more houses. Most of the UU/UB in the game are so far up the tech tree, I have never even hit them in any of my games. The only one I have used is the Sietch UB since it gives +1 movement.

deliverator said:
This is the finalized version of the sandstorm.

Excellent! You mentioned lower poly count versions of spice. Is that uploaded already? And if you have the screenshots for any better LH, please upload those. It sounds like a 1.2.1 may be coming today. I'm not convinced the crash is due to the python, but if I can add back in some of the effects without any crash appearing, there may be a 1.2.2 shortly after that.

Deliverator · Jun 27, 2009

davidlallen said:
I really think we should get the unit tree straightened out and make 8 *interesting* houses before adding more houses. Most of the UU/UB in the game are so far up the tech tree, I have never even hit them in any of my games. The only one I have used is the Sietch UB since it gives +1 movement.

I agree with you that we really need to make the existing houses play differently and be interesting to play. There should be more UUs per house IMO. I think Keldath is planning to focus on that more once we have the core Dune mechanics sorted.

Excellent! You mentioned lower poly count versions of spice. Is that uploaded already? And if you have the screenshots for any better LH, please upload those. It sounds like a 1.2.1 may be coming today. I'm not convinced the crash is due to the python, but if I can add back in some of the effects without any crash appearing, there may be a 1.2.2 shortly after that.

The optimized spice is posted below. I have Dune 1984 LHs for Irulan, Duke Leto and Stilgar (as much as I don't mind Berkoff's Stilgar) which I can give you for 1.2.2 as well - just need to make buttons.

I noticed that your new LHs (Ghanima, new Leto II, etc) seem to a bit thin horizontally in game - I don't suppose you have the original source screengrabs? It would be good to get the aspect ratios consistent...

Deliverator · Jun 27, 2009

Refined Spice

A new version of the spice.

+ All textures are now 256x256 rather than 512x512 for performance.
+ I have added a second variant for every tile so that the edges of patches are more varied.
+ Minor refinements to colour and effects.

The one problem I would dearly love to fix is where the edge of the tiles sometimes have a transparent line. This is not because there is actually a gap - all the tiles actually overlap slightly - it is because for some reason from certain angles the transparent edge of an upper tile is 'seeing through' the non-transparent part of the lower tile to the desert. You will noticed if you use Ctrl-Right or Left arrow key to rotate the view that the spice is pretty much seamless then.

I've tried to fix this in a number of different ways without success. I may see if some of the graphics gurus around can suggest something, but until then this is the best I have.

davidlallen · Jun 27, 2009

Deliverator said:
I noticed that your new LHs (Ghanima, new Leto II, etc) seem to a bit thin horizontally in game - I don't suppose you have the original source screengrabs? It would be good to get the aspect ratios consistent...

Apparently even when following instructions I suck at that. My screen grabber gives me 720x480 which is severely squished. So I expand by 120% horizontally and save as "part 1". Then I crop/shrink to 64x64 for the button. Then back to "part 1", stretch another 120% horizontal, and crop/expand to 512x512.

Is there a step I have missed?

All my useful original screen grabs are here:

http://jendaveallen.com/fury-road/outgoing.zip (19MB)

I'll try and tweak the Ordos colour and flag to make them more distinct.

If you leave the flag the same but tweak the color slightly, just send the rgb value, or the one altered xml.

Deliverator · Jun 27, 2009

davidlallen said:
Apparently even when following instructions I suck at that. My screen grabber gives me 720x480 which is severely squished. So I expand by 120% horizontally and save as "part 1". Then I crop/shrink to 64x64 for the button. Then back to "part 1", stretch another 120% horizontal, and crop/expand to 512x512.

Is there a step I have missed?

I think if you'd used 128% instead on 120% they would have been perfect. I do it this way:
1) Select an area of the original making sure the height is 1.28 times width and crop.
2) Resize to 512x512.
3) The button should just be a cropped square of the original image resized to 64x64.

I'll try and redo them from your originals.

I've attached the three I've done so far.

Deliverator · Jun 27, 2009

davidlallen said:
If you leave the flag the same but tweak the color slightly, just send the rgb value, or the one altered xml.

OK, updated colours for Ordos. Also toned the magenta down a bit.

Spoiler :

Change Ordos civilization to use COLOR_PLAYER_DUNE_ORDOS_GREEN as their colour.

Dune Wars Art Thread

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