Dune Wars Art Thread

[Slvynn]

@Slvynn: I think the Ordos HUD work-in-progress looks good. Quality work. Of course, you can't really judge how successful it is into you see it in game, but this can be a good test case.

With regards to koma's comment, to me Dunish means the whole universe of Dune, not just Arrakis. That is what we should be trying to capture. I think with the HUDs colours other than dunes and desert are important since as has been pointed out before the desert terrain is largely monochromatic.

One point, I think using green for the Ordos makes perfect sense, but I don't think all the factions need to follow their team colour in the game. For example, having a Fremen one made of rock with inscriptions, etc would be cool, and something dark and black with only hints of red for the Harkonnen. Basically I want to avoid having all the HUDs just following the team colours since we don't particularly want to change those.

We need to get your 2D skills on to texturing some units at some point soon...

on texturing -

sure, bro
i think alot of units need retexture. hope i'll get to it soon enough. Lasergun unit is one of 1st on my own list for being retexturized.

Also on colors:
this is my secret plan:
Harkonennen - Red/black/orange. Rubber/metal/leather. Agree on black as dominant (with some shading and grays following material list)
Atriedes : Silver, D.Green, Blue, Black. (Birds, wings and stylised 4 point stars). )Remeber Paul training apparatus, Sonic warfare , and alia's training. Stars, gravity, sonics, silver fits actually. Silver is also "clean" material, So i want to mix it with white, dark green, and sky blue (Caladan colors) and black, as one of dominant colors of house banner.
Ordos : Emeralds, snakes snakes, Green and bit of black.
BG : Gray!!! Lots of gray shades. and Yellow Accents.
BTl : Black/Dark purple/ pale purple, pale yellow and body color. Main object (replacing snake) will be embryon of child in glass can.
Freemen : True dunish look, dusty.
Corrino : Lots of gold, and purple gems and accents.
Ecaz: multicolor with inclination to green and predator-plant look. Florals build of not so fluffy predatorish plants, roots, Trees, weed, forbidden fruits. May be very transparent impressionist paint integrated into hud. vivid, imaginative.
Ix - cables and circuits, gray, black , white, electro blue and acid green accents.

Btw i have Pantone pallettes ready, if anyone have corel i can send pallette format.

 

[Deliverator]

@David: Cleaned up the plantation NIF so it should live happily in a plantation directory. Did a very quick reskin while at it. I'm having a weird issue where it shows up fine in the pedia, but the old grey skin version is still shown in game. Very confusing. Some crazy caching or something.

Edit: There's definitely something weird about this plantation improvement graphic. It seems to stubborn use the graphic from the PAK in game, but the modded one in the pedia. Really strange. I wonder if this is a consequence of using tags and directory names that are the same as a vanilla improvement.

Edit Edit: I made a copy of the entry in CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml and set the type field to IMPROVEMENT_PLANTATION2 rather than IMPROVEMENT_PLANTATION, and the graphic works fine. I've not come across this quirk before. The entries and art defines used are identical apart from this number 2 on the end of the type. But one improvement shows up blank in game (this is 1.6) and the other works fine. I would advise we change the Type tag of IMPROVEMENT_PLANTATION in CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml to IMPROVEMENT_DESERT_PLANTATION to avoid this issue.

 

[Deliverator]

As Ahriman pointed out, the Shield Fighter has a gun which is completely wrong for a melee unit.

@David: The Chinese Swordsman from danrell's China Units is a decent enough placeholder. Is there time to put this in 1.6?

Link to China Units

Soon it will be time to start making some custom unit models again...

 

[Slvynn]

As Ahriman pointed out, the Shield Fighter has a gun which is completely wrong for a melee unit.

@David: The Chinese Swordsman from danrell's China Units is a decent enough placeholder. Is there time to put this in 1.6?

Link to China Units

Soon it will be time to start making some custom unit models again...

Na, may be some reskin of immortal from ffh as base? i dont like china look on atreides shield fighters.
Btw also shield efect from dune 84 movie will be awesome.

 

[Ahriman]

I would vote against a model carrying an actual physical shield. The shield on the shield fighter is an energy shield from wearing a shieldbelt, not a physical metal shield.
A physical shield they were carrying would just be confusing.

Several unit models will eventually need personal (energy) shields; the shield fighter, the kindjal warrior, the ginaz units and the sardaukar units.
Maybe the scorpions and high-end walkers as well, ideally.

 

[Slvynn]

Ah and few models need serious reskin bc they look to vga-monochtromatic (lasergun for example, but there are more.)

abouut physical shield - me too,
the energy shield can be modified glow of great people, enlarged and merged with fighter model, or glow of ffh fireball/elemental merged with fighters (2 models merged), with skins and colors adjusted.

Afaik you can break models and remove shields and weapons. So some model of decent looking medieval fighter can be cracked up, and then instead of physic shield equipped with overlay model of some glowy recolored elemental.

 

[davidlallen]

As Ahriman pointed out, the Shield Fighter has a gun which is completely wrong for a melee unit.

Sigh. This is due to several generations of renaming. It was shock trooper, a guardsman unit; somebody changed it to shock trooper, a melee unit; and then somebody renamed it to shield fighter.

@David: The Chinese Swordsman from danrell's China Units is a decent enough placeholder. Is there time to put this in 1.6?

If I understand the screenies correctly, that unit is wearing metal armor and carrying a physical shield. That doesn't work for me.

Soon it will be time to start making some custom unit models again...

Looking forward to it!

 

[davidlallen]

@David: Cleaned up the plantation NIF so it should live happily in a plantation directory.

I think The_J has pointed out the root cause in the modpacks thread. I do not understand much about the buildings/civ4plotlsystem.xml file. It refers to IMPROVEMENT_PLANTATION with directory soilenr. I think that may be why stuff is not showing up as expected in game: the pedia doesn't use this. Also civcheck doesn't check this type of field because the syntax of plotlsystem.xml is unlike any other file.

I don't want to get too tangled up in this while trying to release 1.6. So for now, I will use the original nif, rename the directory desert_plant, and rename the improvement IMPROVEMENT_DESERT_PLANT. This seems to be working. We can research and then fixup the plotlsystem file in 1.6.1 or whenever.

 

[Deliverator]

Na, may be some reskin of immortal from ffh as base? i dont like china look on atreides shield fighters.

I was only meaning this as a placeholder. I consider most of the unit art placeholder. Sometimes it is worth replacing a very inappropriate placeholder with a slightly better placeholder. Creating beautiful Dunish custom units for everything will take quite a while. Most of the models need a new model, rather than just a reskin in my opinion. People need to understand that art was pulled in from multiple sources to create the mod. Eventually everything can be replaced, but custom modelling and texturing for 60+ units is going to take a little while.

Sigh. This is due to several generations of renaming. It was shock trooper, a guardsman unit; somebody changed it to shock trooper, a melee unit; and then somebody renamed it to shield fighter.

The mod evolves. This is natural and a good thing, not something to sigh about.

If I understand the screenies correctly, that unit is wearing metal armor and carrying a physical shield. That doesn't work for me.

You were looking at the wrong unit, nevermind. I should have posted the exact unit I was talking about. I fully understand that shield doesn't mean physical shield. I have a couple of ideas on how to do the shield effect, so I'll try that out soon.

 

[Slvynn]

As i wrote yo you, david, in PM, but you didnt replied yet, i wanted to ask you to add my name to your mod team (i think and i hope i am part of it). I dont like to be random contributor with project i love and work for quite alot. I think i shown what i do and can do, and hope there is any problem with that. I'll tell you immidiately, that i cant work for project if i am not part of it.

 

[davidlallen]

As i wrote yo you, david, in PM, but you didnt replied yet, i wanted to ask you to add my name to your mod team (i think and i hope i am part of it). I dont like to be random contributor with project i love and work for quite alot. I think i shown what i do and can do, and hope there is any problem with that. I'll tell you immidiately, that i cant work for project if i am not part of it.

You sent me the PM ten minutes ago. I have now responded. Please let me know which other places I should list your name, and I will do it immediately.

 

[Deliverator]

There isn't really an official team for the mod as such. The list of names has just organically grown as people have contributed a significant amount to the mod. If you are contributing stuff to the mod then you are as much a part of things as anyone. As things stand there is no secret developers forum or anything like that. All the discussion is here on the forum.

 

[Slvynn]

Done, sent PM about top of Wellcome thread, thanks, also we need some advertising, promotion video at some point, and Screenshots thread being updated and linked from main Wellcome thread.

Sorry if i am bit fussy with that but being man of my profession its just way of approach, i need to be calm and feel completely as part of the project to have a good inspiration musas and nice output. Prove once, and then just be part of it, not only in your occupation, but in feedbacks, testing and free time thinking.
Did you add any of those tech icons from take 2? Should i touch that again more deeply? Or can i focus on UI for now (fixes and surgery improvements can be done pre-next patch closer to release)?

 

[davidlallen]

Did you add any of those tech icons from take 2? Should i touch that again more deeply? Or can i focus on UI for now (fixes and surgery improvements can be done pre-next patch closer to release)?

I guess getting icons everybody can agree upon is hard. Of course all your promotion icons are in; but I did not add any of the tech icons from take 2. Do you feel that they are easy to recognize at 50%?

 

[Slvynn]

I guess getting icons everybody can agree upon is hard. Of course all your promotion icons are in; but I did not add any of the tech icons from take 2. Do you feel that they are easy to recognize at 50%?

They are not best, but some of them are good and distinguishable even at 30% , i was tired yesteday after job, through i am personally very visual being, i distinguish things by their color and/or composition, but sure , people are different. I 'll touch them seriously closer to next patch release, lets say week before, just inform me. Now i want to focus on UI, b/c thats very big project, and then some unit texture fixing and more things what anyone of team may require help from me, and some your projects too. Tech icons will be fixed, though later, there is no point to do them now, bc patch is released and they play minor difference it overall game look compared to bad textured units or vanilla ui.

 

[Ahriman]

I like the new promotion icons, very nice.

 

[Slvynn]

Thanks enjoy
Also, if you see any 2d art improvement that can be made , please post it here, i'll try to get to it when possible (perhaps closer to next patch due my big HUD project) .

 

[keldath]

hey guys,
just wanted to say,
that i think that everyone who does something for dune mod, well, systematically,
should be in the unofficial team , its always nice to see your name on a mod you helped on.

 

[davidlallen]

There is no official vs unofficial team. I have added Slvynn and Deon into the credits list in the welcome thread at the bottom of the first post. If there is anybody who has made major contributions who I left off, please let me know.

 

[Slvynn]

I have also another idea -
as part of retexturising project (SLV06)

1.Fixing textures of bad-textured units.
2. For common all civ units make different texture. Is it possible and easy to code that different civs will use same model but different texture? Making civ specific models is huge project, but if we just retexture units for different civs, they will look distinct, and that may be enough for most of units.


Please comment (2) .

(SLV05) Civ Specific HUDs
Currently WIP, Big project. As soon i finish 1st 2 i will pass psd files and previews for critique as well as comparison with vanilla/instruction (some adjustment of info/unit list fields required ).
I trying to keep original placements of key vanilla buttons and hud features, but some of them may be moved few pixels around.

(SLV04) Tech icons. I gathering visual material, Lets say in week i'll put some kind of graphics table with fast previevs and options.


(SLV07) Era/Shrine Pictures. Atm DW using vanilla ones, which is not good. I think we'll keep a style of monochromatic look of those? Anyone got material? I'd like to start discussion here on this topic. How we distinct eras and shrines visually? 1 head is good but more - better. I'll need your input here, brainstorm, ideas. Those must look good, so...