Dune Wars Art Thread

[davidlallen]

@ LT, It maybe too late for promotion icons, but deliverator would love your help on texturing the new thopters.

 

[Slvynn]

Here is some preview and sketches for Turn Button (Red-Green) one with worm. Few options, some vitrage. Wit hwithrage i think i need bit diferent frame, but it can work, even with turning night/day, or saturate-desaturate.
Also added lone worm , built in into hud.
Need your feedback and thoughts.

Check 5 (edit - just added) pics, its just sketches, directions. Still need proper shading. Some stuff can be adjusted to civ-specific HUDs.

 

[Deon]

Hmmm, it's a bit hard to understand . Maybe some color variation and contrast or a different picture would be better?

 

[Slvynn]

Are you sure that some pics are hard to understand? check pics : all those on top are sketches, vector build forms, circles are'n good, so refer only to top pictures.. All those pictures are just sketches, but they are already some starting point. As you see from picture 3 all that is just vector shapes, which can be shaded in any way, fitting Civ-specific HUD. Then on picture 1 you have version (which need shading improvement for sure) of worm with orange light , build it into a hud.
#rd variant is to make some picture like picture 2 (big, zoom for real size) , and picture itself will change day/night colors. Sure ,it need some coloring/shading improvement. Please refer to vector forms (pic 3 at top, and pic 1 )

Edit: removed unrelevant circles, and added transparency shaded vector map (i call it vector sketch)
Sure it need some shading, all i need to hear from others that they can see those forms (i e vector worm build) as turn button - sure after more proper shading, and sure may be with different base for every HUD.

 

[koma13]

Are you sure that some pics are hard to understand?

Maybe Deon is stoned again.

I think you are on good way, especially with shaders added. The variant I currently like most is the third image in zbz.jpg, mainly the lower half of the sandworm. Also the idea of having a night-day transition is nice. It would be interesting to see it in a direct context, maybe you can make a screenshot of the main screen (without interface) and place some of your graphics on top of it. My only concern is, how these art fits into the existing style of dune wars. I once had the goal to have a consistent art style but already horrible failed when doing city- and homeworld screen.

 

[Slvynn]

Great.
I plan to integrate this into Civ-specific Huds, today i start work on Ordos one , and then i will adjust them all , and then will place them above game graphics with their transparency. Then we will make more deep adjustments .
BTW i agree with you on 3rd pic in zbz. But if i use it its more mouth light direction, and not day and night, though i will make more experiements later, to see how 3rd zbz pic can fit into night/day mechanics.
Also i made worm's head bit flat to match up well-known and used by all civ-layers round form.
About style - its cool and its fit, imo. Homeworld screen is spice guild, city screen is sity screen, and worm is just emblem of dune, with some art touch (not photo, a drawing) will give some mysterious/deep feel about game, plot and planet.

 

[Deliverator]

@ LT, It maybe too late for promotion icons, but deliverator would love your help on texturing the new thopters.

Indeed. Slvynn has blitzed through the Promotion icons, but there are plenty of other things to do.

 

[Deon]

I meant 3 on the left, where the worm is small and there's a sky on background. Other are quite fine, I like them.

 

[davidlallen]

@ slvynn

Before we declare the promotions project complete, could you make a sandrider one? You can see in my previous promotion box screenshot that it is still using the unit graphic which is light brown, instead of a nice chocolate colored one. You could just put up the one dds file, and I will put it into the release.

Also, one other good project for gamefonts is to fix up the icons for the bonuses. In the city screen, you can see which resources are connected to the city. Almost all of these are mixed up, and we do not have gamefont size icons for the bonuses. It is a little painful to create such tiny icons, but it would help the game look more finished.

The fonts are controlled by file assets/xml/art/civ4artdefines_bonus.xml. For example:

		<BonusArtInfo>
			<Type>ART_DEF_BONUS_CRYSTAL</Type>
			<fScale>0.66</fScale>
			<fInterfaceScale>7.0</fInterfaceScale>
			<NIF>Art/Terrain/resources/crystal/markermanamined.nif</NIF>
			<KFM></KFM>
			<Button>Art/Terrain/resources/crystal/crystal.dds</Button>
			<FontButtonIndex>92</FontButtonIndex>
		</BonusArtInfo>

This gives the location of the button, which you can use as a starting point for the font. Also you see the font button index, which shows the position within the gamefonts file to be used. It may be that some of the gamefonts entries already exist, but the xml font button index is wrong; in this case you can just update the xml. But probably in most cases there is no game font entry for the bonus.

Would you be interested in cleaning this up?

 

[Slvynn]

@ slvynn

Before we declare the promotions project complete, could you make a sandrider one? You can see in my previous promotion box screenshot that it is still using the unit graphic which is light brown, instead of a nice chocolate colored one. You could just put up the one dds file, and I will put it into the release.

Also, one other good project for gamefonts is to fix up the icons for the bonuses. In the city screen, you can see which resources are connected to the city. Almost all of these are mixed up, and we do not have gamefont size icons for the bonuses. It is a little painful to create such tiny icons, but it would help the game look more finished.

The fonts are controlled by file assets/xml/art/civ4artdefines_bonus.xml. For example:

		<BonusArtInfo>
			<Type>ART_DEF_BONUS_CRYSTAL</Type>
			<fScale>0.66</fScale>
			<fInterfaceScale>7.0</fInterfaceScale>
			<NIF>Art/Terrain/resources/crystal/markermanamined.nif</NIF>
			<KFM></KFM>
			<Button>Art/Terrain/resources/crystal/crystal.dds</Button>
			<FontButtonIndex>92</FontButtonIndex>
		</BonusArtInfo>

This gives the location of the button, which you can use as a starting point for the font. Also you see the font button index, which shows the position within the gamefonts file to be used. It may be that some of the gamefonts entries already exist, but the xml font button index is wrong; in this case you can just update the xml. But probably in most cases there is no game font entry for the bonus.

Would you be interested in cleaning this up?

When you planned realease? I will place DDs for sandrider in few mins , just check this thread being updated with file, however i have my inspiration and plan to start to work on Ordos civ-specific HUD. I will try to take care about that tomorrow.

Please also (important) refer to my post 586 (i think) in this thread, where i made new icon for Spacing Guild replacing greek helm but failed to insert it into a game via xml.

EDIT: Attached Sandrider Promo, you need to change XML entry for it ,because it used Sandworm unit icon.

 

[davidlallen]

When you planned realease?

The detailed discussion for releases is on the "incremental patch discussion" thread right now. Usually it is Sunday morning my time (24 hours from now) or Sunday night my time (36 hours from now).

Please also (important) refer to my post 586 (i think) in this thread, where i made new icon for Spacing Guild replacing greek helm but failed to insert it into a game via xml.

@ koma13, I do not know how to guide Slvynn on this. Can you suggest?

 

[Slvynn]

Ok i'll take a look, do you have skype?
Also attached file to previous post, need to change entry for it.

 

[Slvynn]

Another, separate post with odd question : i now looked on plan for Civ-specifc HUds, and i have one important question : is it such important, and can we make change for 2 civs national color? I dont think any reasons to keep Freeman blue while Atreides Dark Green. Simply Atreides HUD will be Bird-themed, birds - sky - honor - bulue color, and While Freeman Blue hud will look odd, ochre-brown is much better for them. Is it possible to change civ colors to match overall theme and HUD ?

 

[Ahriman]

Fremen blue makes sense; the color of their eyes. And their units are already very brown/earth tones, they need a color on their banners that will stand out so they can be noticed.

Green and black are the colors of House Atreides. It makes perfect sense to keep those. There are repeated references in the book to paul worrying about the march of the green and black atreides banners in jihad.

Purple for the emperor is also a no-brainer, and the light green for ordos works well (kinda sepentine). Red for Harks works too.

Don't really care about the rest.

 

[Deliverator]

The rationale for the colours is here.

The only one I'm thinking of changing is Harkonnen to red. Despite the fact their banner is orange in the books, I can't shake the fact that they'll look better in red.

Brown as a team colour looks bad against the landscape. I'm happy with the team colours as they are - they need be distinctive and we have that at the moment.

For the HUD I think something simple, stylish and not too distracting is what we want. If it has too many picture elements then I would be concerned that it will be overpowering. I know when they were developing the FFH2 HUD they tried out some very dramatic designs, but ultimately they went with something much simpler which I think was the right decision.

 

[koma13]

Please also (important) refer to my post 586 (i think) in this thread, where i made new icon for Spacing Guild replacing greek helm but failed to insert it into a game via xml.
@ koma13, I do not know how to guide Slvynn on this. Can you suggest?

First, that greek helmet is from the minimap, I don't think it's a good idea to replace it with a homeworld button. But you can place the new button in a single dds file without any xml and I add it with python. Check out the button from the revolution screen to get properties...

 

[Slvynn]

I am not building too dramatic designs (its impossible, not necessary and i dont have time for that) but style and color is a key, Is it possible to make freeman tan color (like it was for sietch freeman in that post?).
@koma i dont understand what you actually talking about.
You dont want that help being replaced? You dont like icon? And what revolution screen and how i find it, i am new to all that modding and finding things within xml? Any direction of folder/file perhaps?

 

[Deliverator]

As I said before, brown/tan as team colour was removed because it didn't stand out from the terrain. We don't want to bring it back.

I'm not sure matching the HUD to the team colour is that good an idea anyway - it will be too garish in many cases. Personally, I think a single HUD irrespective of what team you are playing is fine.

 

[koma13]

@koma i dont understand what you actually talking about.
You dont want that help being replaced? You dont like icon?

I just use the greek helmet (current homeworld button) as a placeholder from the minimap buttons.
See:

If you replace that button it will also be changed in the minimap. We don't want this. Maybe it's best if you just send me the new button you made in a single file...

 

[Slvynn]

As I said before, brown/tan as team colour was removed because it didn't stand out from the terrain. We don't want to bring it back.

I'm not sure matching the HUD to the team colour is that good an idea anyway - it will be too garish in many cases. Personally, I think a single HUD irrespective of what team you are playing is fine.

You can just to change its RGB but thats boooring. I want to trebuild HUD , almost same as it is now ,but to make some adjustments, integrate turn button with worm, and give to some places and boarders Civ features.

Another question, for next patch release can you change RGB value of HUD? I failed doing that because it need some messy xml/thm changing. See post 586 in this thread.