Irkalla's "Firaxis-Like" Civilization Icon Tutorial

[Irkalla]

and untick RGB ?

you don't have to. It just shows you what's in those channels. Alpha 0 will display as red, alpha 255 will be white. Pinks are inbetweens. I think if you disable RGB it will show as black and white, but don't quote me.

This is all just for previewing. It has no effect on the finished product.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

Well, I managed to complete 14 icons using your excellent tutorial.

I saved them as 1 unit dds files... both the color and alphas. Tested with one civilization.

Had a problem, though... while the alphas worked, my icon showed up as a grey circle in every place that the icon could be viewed.

I have put icons I have created before into the game with no problem... but they were 1-layer rather unsophisticated things.

I think I made some mistake converting to dds.

Question... should I delete all invisible layers? Should I merge the remainder?

I have a feeling these are my errors, but thought I'd ask before putting in too much work altering files.

Thanks... I very happy with the results of following your tutorial and just this one little thing needs to be overcome. Then I'll be a happy camper. Compared to the previous icons I created these are so much better.

Thank-you.

 

[Irkalla]

did you have an alpha layer on the colour icons?

 

[Craig_Sutter]

I have an alpha channel if that's what you mean?

 

[Craig_Sutter]

I removed the alpha channels on the color icons but now I'm getting red squares and the 64 texture is not loading message.

If I ignore that, the game sends me an error message about 32 bit and crashes.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

Reading up, I guess i needed to keep the alpha channels... I suspect it must be the invisible layers and multiple layers... I'm going to try merging the layers and see what happens.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

That got me texture loading errors again, and a red square.

I'll start from the beginning again as the grey icons at least loaded.

Have to do that later though as I've got to leave for now.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

Merging layers lost me my alpha channel... so redoing the process. No time right now so later.



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Addition #1:

Sorry about that... continuing then, that worked and the icons are in game. The odd thing is that the icon in the civilization screen is huge, for no reason that I can determine. I checked all the icon files and they are the proper sizes. It is very strange.

Addition #2

I've figured it out... all of my icons are oversized. In the resizing I simply went from 600 to 256, 128, 80, 64, 32. However, that actually did not resize the icon itself but everything, outside border and all.

Should I clip the image to the edge of the icon and then resize?

 

[kingchris20]

I can tell you that I rarely ever diverge from an image's original colors. There's not much I can help you with other than suggesting practice. I've come a long way myself, going from this to this

I might suggest trying some of the tutorials for anyone with photoshop:

http://www.photoshoplady.com/tutorial/develop-a-machinery-downloading-icon/3893
http://www.photoshoplady.com/tutorial/design-a-nice-icon-writing-on-a-book/4547
http://www.photoshoplady.com/tutorial/create-a-stylish-mail-icon-in-photoshop/1236
http://www.photoshoplady.com/tutorial/how-to-create-a-super-shiny-pencil-icon/653
http://www.photoshoplady.com/tutorial/design-a-detailed-compass-icon-in-photoshop/698


You can use a smart blur filter if you really want to, I suggest following it with inner and outer glows. Civ V icons do not feature black edges.

Awesome tutorials, I have added them to my favorites so I can go over them one by one in detail!

Also, suggestions? good, okay, bad?

 

[Craig_Sutter]

I'm having major issues resizing the 600x600 icon.



As you can see, I'm not getting a border.

What I've done so far is delete the black area around the icon and the ring layer. This gets me a 512 icon on the 600 sized image. However, when I resize to 256, 128, 64, 45 and 32, I get the oversized icon. As you can see, it overlaps where the metallic ring that a normal civ icon has ought to be. There is no surrounding ring.

The above screenie is my best effort so far.

Is there a systematic approach that I can use to get the proper icon size from the 600x600 original?

Thank-you.

BTW I realize the icon is not very good. The colors don't show the detail and depth very much. I'll rework it later, but first, I want to get it to at least work ingame.

 

[Pouakai]

I'm not sure about the tutorial, but usually it's the image, not the actual icon, that's the same size. Here's what size the icon should be:

174 = 256
88 = 128
44 = 64
31 = 45

I'm not sure about 80, but what I would recommend is that if you have just the icon, resize it to 174 x 174, then using photoshop extend the image size to 256x256 with a transparent background and then scale the extended one to the relative sizes

 

[Craig_Sutter]

Thank-you. Worked like a charm.

Addition 1: I am a little dissatisfied with the quality of the actual icon symbol. I have been using the highest pixel count pictures I can find, assuming as in leader icons this would lead to best results. Now I am wondering if I should instead use original images as close as possible to 174 to minimize resizing. Could anyone advise me on this.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

Here are the icons for my mod.... thanks for all the advice.







Any guesses as to what civs there are?

 

[Pouakai]

Just a reminder that they're usually only two colours, not three - the first atlas has most of them with three colours, so might want to look at changing that

 

[Craig_Sutter]

Unfortunately, I know that, but I was trying to get close to actual coats of arms and flags and could not see any way to do hearts in anything but red. Black lines, however, I cheated on by using drop shadow. May change them later though with more research.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

I have a question about using the icons in game...

Irkalla, do we keep the outer ring visible as part of the icon, or do we delete it or make it invisible? I ask because I have been deleting the outer rings; however, when I look at the icons in comparison with with "Firaxis" icons, it seems to mean they have a bit of the outer ring. I remember reading in one of your tutorial posts, though, that keeping the outer ring was not needed.

Could you clarify how much, if any, of the outer ring should be installed as part of the icon?

Thanks.

 

[sukritact]

I assume you mean the ring in the icon unaffected by all the gloss.

I do suggest you keep some of the outer ring, there is a good amount visible; you could scale down your icon, or blow up one of firaxis's if you'd like to see how much you should keep.

 

[Homusubi]

Awesome tutorials, I have added them to my favorites so I can go over them one by one in detail!

Also, suggestions? good, okay, bad?

Two things about that one. Firstly, the bad news. I can see the individual pixels, so you might want to put a softening effect on it... it might look better ingame though.

Secondly, the good news. I knew that was the Ayleids even before I saw that it was you posting it.

 

[kingchris20]

Two things about that one. Firstly, the bad news. I can see the individual pixels, so you might want to put a softening effect on it... it might look better ingame though.

I haven't even had a chance to see what it looks like in game, I'm still learning the ins and outs of what BNW has added to the XMLs, I hope to have TES BNW ready by the end of the month! 12 different civs is a lot to think about! I will definitely make it look the best I can before I put it out there!

Secondly, the good news. I knew that was the Ayleids even before I saw that it was you posting it.

I had a feeling this would be the most recognizable symbol for the Ayleids!

 

[Homusubi]

Here are the icons for my mod.... thanks for all the advice.

View attachment 354285

View attachment 354286

View attachment 354287

Any guesses as to what civs there are?

Top left, third picture, is Northumbria. I assume the rest are Holy Roman Empire microstates of some description.