Unit and Technology Portraits

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

 

1. So, in Atlas I create a map and use one of the 'Special' terrains, such as purple, cyan, or green as the default terrain. These colors are easy to select and cut out in your image editing software (Photoshop, Gimp, Photopea, whatever) and just like when filming FX for movies, the right (contrasting) background color can ensure that you get a clean mask. Very important to turn off distance fog and bloom. I also turn off anti-aliasing, so that you get a nice crisp edge when selecting the background from the unit (or vice versa). 

 

2. Zoom in on the unit, but not so close as to start getting foreshortening effects. You want the unit to appear relatively flattish. 

 

3. Once I've setup the scene and get the camera and lighting I want, I use the Big Screenshot option to make a nice big detailed screenshot. The Big Screenshot option gives you a nice big 4K screenshot with which to cut out your unit.

 

Import that screenshot into your image editing software and you are ready to start making your portrait. Make sure to set the image mode to RGB 8 bits per channel.

 

4. With the Rectangular Marquee tool, select a good position for the unit. Make sure that the marquee is SQUARE SHAPED. In Photoshop, the SHIFT hotkey makes the marquee perfectly square.

 

5. Now crop the image.

 

6. Then duplicate the background or first layer so that there are 2 of them.

 

And make the bottom one all black.

 

7. With the top layer selected (the layer with the unit) use either the Magic Wand tool, or the Select -> Color Range tool (Magic Wand may use more clicks, but either works). We are going to select all of the CYAN (light blue) sections of the image.

 

So, since I have a nice even-colored background that contrasts nicely with the foreground unit, and since I turned my Anti-Aliasing off, there is a nice crisp edge that will help me select only the background with either of the afore-mentioned selection tools. 

Once the cyan sections are selected, DELETE them. Since you made that black background layer, you will be able to see what cyan parts you missed.

 

Now you have a nicely cut out unit layer. Now duplicate this layer. 

 

8. And now we will resize the image to 256 x 256, the resolution of the unit portraits in-game.

(can you see how sizing down the image as "anti-aliased" the edges for you?)

 

9. Now, add this image as another layer, just below the 2 unit layers:

 

Almost there. To add the finishing touches we are going to add layer effects or "Layer Styles" (in Photoshop) to each of the unit layers.

 

10. Top layer always gets a Drop Shadow.

With an OPTIONAL Bevel and Emboss. The Bevel and Emboss is only added to help dark areas, such a black hair or black horses, stand out from the drop shadow.

 

11. Almost there. Next is how we achieve the nice brown, noisy background color. Select the 2nd unit layer down. Add an "Outer Glow." 

Outer glow values are as follows --

Land Units

• RGB Color: 255, 138, 0
• Opacity: 10%
• Noise: 50%
• Size: 100 px

Naval/Water Units: 

• RGB Color: 0, 255, 255
• Opacity: 20%
• Noise: 20%
• Size: 200 px

Technologies: 

• RGB Color: 0, 168, 255
• Opacity: 10%
• Noise: 50%
• Size: 100 px

 

 

12. From here, the last step is to go ahead and save your new portrait in the correct mod folder for portraits. Make sure to save it in the PNG format, non-interlaced.

 

 

 

The cool thing is, once you've done one portrait to your liking you can save that project file for future reference. In Photoshop you can just copy all of the layer styles over to any new portrait you're working on. Attached is the file for the image I just created:

unit_portrait_01.psd

 

 

 

 

Edited August 8, 2022 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Once you have the work flow down, it becomes very easy to make new portraits.

Another tip is once you've made a map in Atlas with one of the special terrains, all of the lighting effects turned off, etc. you can save that map to use for later portraits you might want to create.

[CovenantKillerJ]

Thanks dude, I'll try this out next time i'm modding the game!

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Let me know if there are details I need to flesh out!