Unit portrait pipeline

[fcxSanya]

I think they're three images, but I have zero knowledge about how the menu background works/needs...

They are 3 images indeed, see art/textures/ui/pregame/backgrounds. Logic is implemented in scrollBackgrounds function from gui/pregame/mainmenu.js. There is also corresponding XML layout in gui/pregame/mainmenu.xml and sprites in gui/pregame/sprites.xml

[Mythos_Ruler]

Overall, they're all too dark and lack detail. And the style (the elephant one for instance) is more akin to a comic book than to the current portrait style. Perhaps try a new direction?

EDIT: I could definitely see you starting some kind of online comic book with this style.

[Ludo38]

Nice work Lordgood !

On my opinion, your paintings have too strong contrasts and too much black. They need to be brighter, more colorful, simply more in the tone of the game. If you can stick to the color and light style of the existing icons, I think that will be great. The elephant looks pretty good. The soldier too, but it has almost has a "cartoon" style that contrasts too much to the existing game icons. If you can rework it toward something more realistic, that will be awesome. The woman is fine, though needing recoloring and less contrast as explained before.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Nice work Lordgood !

On my opinion, your paintings have too strong contrasts and too much black. They need to be brighter, more colorful, simply more in the tone of the game. If you can stick to the color and light style of the existing icons, I think that will be great. The elephant looks pretty good. The soldier too, but it has almost has a "cartoon" style that contrasts too much to the existing game icons. If you can rework it toward something more realistic, that will be awesome. The woman is fine, though needing recoloring and less contrast as explained before.

i agree all. too dark. try some more colorish,

[Ludo38]

Oh and to explain more about colors : the purple of the woman clothes don't look good to me. I'd rather see a more natural color, or at least a purple with no "shiny reflection". For now the light effect on it makes it feel plastic ! Also, your elephant now looks too green. Can you come back to its original grey tone ? That felt much better, on my opinion.

Apart from that, congratulations for working on this, that's always a pleasure to enjoy some traditional art on 0 A.D.

[Lion.Kanzen]

i enjoy the color of greek portraits, but the detail is not the best

[Enrique]

i enjoy the color of greek portraits, but the detail is not the best

Dude they're 40x40, there's not much room for detail.

In addition I think they look good, and distinguishable (maybe the background is a little bright for my taste, but it's ok)

[alpha123]

These are absolutely beautiful LordGood. I'm really NOT an artist (I'm a programmer... pretty much the exact opposite...) but they seem to be too dark, which looks good at the size you're displaying them, but I think it might make it difficult to make out at 40x40.

Minor nitpick: back then purple was a highly expensive dye and thus reserved for royalty/wealth, so the purple clothes on the woman is inaccurate.

[LordGood]

Alright, im getting some mixed critiques xP

Thank you for the feedback! I do appreciate it.

From what I gather, I need to dull the background contrast, and draw over the figures with some brighter colors (not necessarily from exterior light sources) So the foreground contrast isn't quite as dramatic. And replace the purple! ( though I think the sacred band pikemen could afford it, I'm not too sure)

I can understand the 'shiny' bit may work with the armor of the soldier but not for the softer textures of cloth and skin, a little blurring and dulling should help at the very least

Now as Enrique said, I can't add too much detail, the scale down won't retain it. I'll save that for the menu backgrounds!

Edited March 18, 2013 by LordGood

[LordGood]

I think the problem I'm encountering is that this 'cartoony' style just happens to scale down well, which is what I'm really trying to push across

That, and I'm more used to the dramatic sweeping light sources, which happens to dull colors, I'm noticing. Maybe I can bring out the brights in a direct light and a saturated dark color in the reflected

[idanwin]

nice one, this one sure would be recognizable at 40x40

[Lion.Kanzen]

that is the Italian Mercenary, if does not?

Edited March 19, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[LordGood]

yes it is the /Italian Allied Swordsman/

lol i always wondered why the Italian cavalrymen had a Punic translation but the swordsman didn't

the translated titles are supposed to resemble Punic phonetically right?

[Lion.Kanzen]

I love this Pose Cavalry for Italian Allied - the Cavalry man in front of course, can you interpretate/convert as Italian, with armor and all, as Italian but with same pose of Battle.

[LordGood]

Keep in mind the Italian cavalryman in 0AD is a spearman, not a swordsman.

I'll see what I can do

[Lion.Kanzen]

Keep in mind the Italian cavalryman in 0AD is a spearman, not a swordsman.

I'll see what I can do

yeah sorry XD

[Lion.Kanzen]

[LordGood]

Right, classes are starting back up so I have a teeny bit less time to do stuff. Good thing I don't sleep

I did a redraw of the Mašal. 'Tis my favorite Carthaginian unit :3

The spearman and archer definately need a redraw too

... well maybe they all do, but ill just doodle here til I strike gold

also, should the sacred band have gold and silver armor or should I leave it bronze? And purple too, talk to me about the purple

[Mythos_Ruler]

That one is a lot better, but the "glow" on the shield isn't necessary. And the soldier should be much brighter compared to the background. His arm and hand are still a little too cartoony (chunky). If some of these things were fixed, then you're well on your way to a good style we could possibly use. The purple isn't bad for a top-tier unit. What about red? Red would probably stand out more.

[LordGood]

Red is nice and bright and would help push the contrast a lot more, but I want to distinguish the sacred band as the upper class soldiers of a wealthy empire

I could brighten the crest, of course. Gotta do a little blendy bloo on that arm

I'm afraid I'm having trouble moving away from the heavyset value contrasts, when the pictures are all big it looks more dramatic and cool and stuff but it wipes out color saturation ;-;

aaah

I am very glad to know I'm doing better though

[JustinOperable]

Here's two paintovers. as you can see, rim lights are helpful in pulling the figure out of the background. I've also darkened the background some and you should make sure you are thoughtful about making the figure clearly lighter or darker than the background. You also have a bad habit of doing blown out highlights that have an atmospheric shine, it muddles your values and makes things less legible. You need to learn the difference between a plane in light and a specular highlight. Most highlights are darker than you expect, and requires value control, speculars are quite light, but are typically harder edged than you'd expect, especially on metal. Lastly I sort of did a little drawover on the arm of the spearman. You should study analytical figure drawing if you can, as you were lacking form in that arm. Think of the arm at it's simplest as two tapering cylinders, it makes them easier to draw in perspective. Keep working at it.

[LordGood]

Excellent! If all goes as planned I should be taking a figure drawing course next fall. My insistence on exaggerating muscle structure tends to destroy any anatomical correctness I manage to put forward >.<

Also, I like shiny things, so I exaggerate that too lol

I'm kind of new to the whole rim lighting idea so let me know it looks

eeh, I should drop the shoulders a bit

Edited March 21, 2013 by LordGood

[Mythos_Ruler]

That's better, Lordgood, but we still need the details (face, body, etc.) to come out more. The subject of the image is still too dark.

[LordGood]

Darkened the thing in the back

defined the clothes and arms a bit more

lightened the shadows, put in new darks

not sure I can throw anymore light onto the face without it looking weird

[Ludo38]

That starts to work very well in terms of balance of light/dark/colour. Really.

If you are ready to remake parts of the drawing, I suggest you remake the head, maybe turn it differently, so that we get to see the face. It will give life to your picture. The helmet is nicely drawn and coloured, but it shines like a glass, too much. Can you soften this /shining/mirror effect ? And finally, maybe redrawing the clothes a little bit, getting rid of some unecessary wraps, on the arm mostly, an occasion to have less black and more of the shirt's green.