Spell icons - anyone want to help?

[Pazyryk]

You might have noticed that all the spell icons use one of 3 empty spell scrolls:



Obviously we need something on those scrolls to make each spell icon unique!

The whole list of spells (both in and planned) is in the game manual (look for arcane and divine spell lists). I think we should have a greenish tinted set in addition to the 3 above. The breakdown is:

Whitish: Arcane
Blue: "normal" Divine
Red: Divine spells for the Fallen (the alt forms)
Green: Divine spells enabled by Pantheism policies or linked to cult rituals

I've attached the Gimp master template below (with the 256 size icons) if anyone wants to help.

 

[Xavion333]

So I looked at these, coming up with what to use for the icons is really hard. Some of the stuff is pretty similar to each other, like call heaven's guard, call angel, and call archangel. It doesn't help that my art skills are pretty limited. I did make try making a green version though and seeing what they looked like with the brown scroll end things, I prefer it myself.



If you had ideas for what you wanted them to look like and I think I could actually do it I'll give them a shot. I've been playing around with basic lines for things like runes but I haven't managed to make it look any good yet.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Hi. Searching through my mess system (i doubt i can call it a file system anymore), i found a magic arrow icon i made some time ago after the "fire pot" icon and before i vanished for some time from the boards
I had a scroll background but i can remove it easily if you want just the arrow on your own scroll, or i can give you the scroll alone if you want a different scroll for arcane spells than divine (rather than just different colors)

 

[Pazyryk]

@Xavion333, Yeah, I like the brown scroll ends too and your green blank is perfect. @Bob Morane, I went back to your old post but there wasn't a blank, so I googled and found the one above (which I liked better).

The arrow for the magic missile is fine as a starting point. I think it would be best if symbols were all black. Or maybe only a very minimal color set (black, deep purple) that contrasts well with with all the blanks. Maybe we need 4 or 5 at least to sort of coalesce around a particular style. Yeah, it's hard to differentiate some like Call Angel and Call Archangel. Maybe just an extra marking like a symbolic crown or something. A good source for symbols is google images for "alchemy", "occult" and similar words.

Edit: Just looking at google images for alchemy and that brings up an issue. Should symbols look like what the spell is? (I.e., Summon Demon is recognizably a demon.) Or can they be very abstract symbols? Either is fine with me and I'll just let whoever is doing it decide. Abstract is possibly easier since you can't really represent a lot of the spells. And it does work because the mouse-over gives you the spell name and help instantly (I think players will learn them without really trying since each caster likely only has a few to <10 spells).

The easiest way for me to handle these if if you add a separate layer (on top of the blanks) to the Master256 file. Or, the "next easiest" way is if you post an image of the symbol only with alpha (png or whatever) that is already in the 256 size. I keep all these Master256's in one place and generate reduced atlases as needed.


Edit2: Oops! I didn't notice it was two different people posting above. For now, maybe we should see some potential symbols for maybe 4 or 5 spells (at large and reduced size so we can see how they would look in-game). Then we can decide on a unified approach and go from there...

 

[Xavion333]

What size should I be checking them at? I've been doing 64x64 and 48x48 so far.

As far as colours go maybe see if you can have one colour per school of magic? or maybe just tint them even. I've been trying for themes in the icons and having it so you can roughly guess what they are if you know the spells. If you can guess these dozen icons then I suppose I succeeded, list is below anyway.



The icons are as follows.
Explosive Rune, Hurt, Heal
Protective Ward, Summon Abyssal Creatures, Call Heaven's Guard
Seeing Eye Glyph, Summon Demon, Call Angel
Breach, Summon Archdemon, Call Archangel

Thoughts would be useful, although I'm not even sure why I actually did this in the first place. Art is not my strong suit, not like math or coding but oh well here's some art.

 

[Pazyryk]

Sorry I didn't get back to this.

Just as a technical matter, lines need to be thicker. You can see that if you shrink it down to in-game size.

I want to say this nicely, but ... well, I'm not too excited. The style gives me a bit of a happy-unicorns-and-ponies feeling. I think it is the "plumpness" of the heart and wings. It's not a heart you would see on a deck of cards, for example.

The Seeing-Eye Glyph is good, and the ground below it would be a good unifying theme for Runes, Glyphs and Wards.

 

[tecumseh23]

I'll give it a shot. Just a few I did real quick:



From left to right: Breach, Evil Eye, Heal

 

[Pazyryk]

Apparently I'm an art critic now.

I'm still not excited about any of these. It's the "spray-can" effect that I don't like this time. Thanks for trying.

 

[tecumseh23]

Everyone's a critic.

Could you tell us exactly what you're looking for? So far I got thick lines, no overly happy feel, and no spray can. Anything else?

 

[Pazyryk]

You want me to have ideas? It's so much easier to criticize...

I see a lot of icon images here that give me the right impression.

 

[ls612]

Apparently I'm an art critic now.

I'm still not excited about any of these. It's the "spray-can" effect that I don't like this time. Thanks for trying.

Have you tried shrinking them down and seeing what they look like in-game? I suspect that at the size of an icon that any blurriness will be considerably harder to see.

 

[Pazyryk]

Yeah, it still looks free-hand to me at game size. And eventually these will go into the Civilopeida with large icons.

Hmmm... I didn't want to say explicitly, but heck. There are many icons on the web that are well-crafted. I'm no artist. The blank scroll and the Cult Runes were borrowed, as are all other mod icons as far as I know (although we may recolor and texture them).

I guess the question is whether folks want icons that "look like what they are". This is a bit of work and take some looking around. We might have to grab from some other game-source. I'm 90% sure that's what Bob Morane did in the post above. I'm fine with this if someone wants to assemble a set of them.

Or would players be OK with abstract/arcane/alchemy-type symbols that don't attempt to look like what the spell is? These are much easier to find. (No one has to remember them because you always have the mouse-over anyway.)

Or it could be a mix of the two I guess.


Sorry to be picky. I'm afraid now that I chased Xavion333 off the forum...

 

[BrokenSky]

Tbf some of those symbols match quite well to spells anyway... From http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...=isch&ei=PEmjU9CfKIG3O8i9gdgG&ved=0CAIQsCUoAA

Seeing Eye glyph: silver 8
Heal: Vitriol 3
Protective ward: year
Breach: silverspirit
Explosive Rune: Spirit of Mercury
Call heaven's guard: silver 4
Call angel: Silver 1
Call archangel: silver 5
Summon abysial creatures: Sulphur 3
Summon Daemon: Sulphur 10
Summon Archdaemon: sulphur 8.

 

[Pazyryk]

That was my thought exactly. And when actual meaning matches up in a fun way (sulphur <-> devil) all the better. Although that's not really necessary.

 

[Horem]

Anything you like in the pictures that can possibly be transfered to a scroll?

 

[Pazyryk]

There's a lot of good stuff there. Some could transfer. Others maybe would take a little alpha work to "fade" at the edges. Right now I'm leaning toward the alchemy/arcane symbols approach. Or at least that's how it'll be done if I do it myself.

I'm thinking however that this set is a much better source for other icons like techs and promotions. Much better than the current "yellow triangle" promotion icons.

 

[tecumseh23]

Those look nice.

I don't really think it's necessary to make original, hand drawn symbols anyway. After all, FFH didn't...

 

[Civitar]

@Pazyryk: I have a lot of runes sitting around here from WH, most of which I have no way to put into my mod. Besides the three sets I attached, there is a large set of LOTR-ish Dwarf runes (I recognized the "G for Gandalf" in there, seriously). If you like them, I can make a lot of spell icons for you in not very much time (or you can have some little brother do it since it'll be tedious), using all of the different-colored scrolls.

Spoiler Runes of the Asur (elves) :

Spoiler Runes of the Ratmen :

Spoiler Not sure you'll want these, but including anyway :

 

[Pazyryk]

@Civitar, those are fine. But to tell the truth, I still prefer the old authentic arcane/alchemy symbols (here's a set). They look more ... authentic ... to me.

More importantly, anyone can make these. You are one of exactly two people that have the ability and interest to produce fantasy unit art. So I don't want to see you in this tread .

 

[Lord Yanaek]

If what you need is someone to vectorize those and put them on you spell templates, i can do this. However, i can probably guess that either the purification or magnet icons can make nice magic arrows

But for some of the icons/spells, i really can't say what to put on what as they are pretty abstract. I can go for total random or you can tell me what you want.