Loyalists - Biggerism and size cleanup

[Jetrel]

Done; I'll do B with some slight influence from D (lessening the highlight of the tasset). I'll begin the commits tomorrow; this and the royal guard are basically done. The spearman is the next candidate for *finishing*, and he's nearly there; look for him past midday; he just needs a new tasset.


The tasset was a short "skirt" of overlapping metal plates, (in this case) presumably attached to the breastplate configuration, with a belt wrapped above its hinge. It formed a "skirt" of metal around the hips, shielding them while remaining flexible, and covering what the leg plates did not. These aren't codpieces, and I've never drawn one* - anything that looks like one is quite subject to the ambiguities of very granular mosiacs (what sprite art is). They might serve the same purpose of protection, but costumewise they were intended as free-hanging pieces of metal, mounted only at the top.



*Nor, do I think I ever will. Doesn't strike my fancy, is all.

[Jetrel]

Spearman edit:

[Sapient]

So Eleazar's silence may be inferred as tasset approval? I notice you moved away from the high-contrast version as per his suggestion. Both look nice to me.

[JW]

Spearman edit:

I don't like the tassets at all. I really think they make the units look worse than before. Sorry to be contrary. I'll keep my nose out of here.

[Zhukov]

I'm pretty neutral (sp?) on the tassets. As part of the overall armour design they are certainly an improvement. On the other hand they make his legs look a tad short.

[Jetrel]

After sleeping on it for a day or two, I've decided to up the size of these guys even further (e.g. 1-2 pixels more). They're still not taller than the elvish fighter, but things seem more right, now. This means more work for me, but hey, ... what the hell. May as well get it right.

Really, the biggest thing is that the level-2 humans ARE bigger than level-1 elves, now, which was what bothered me about the last batch.

Anyways, unless there are some explosive complaints, I'm going to dive headlong into propagating frames for these fellows.

[deserter]

The spearman somehow looks a bit too fragile to me. (A thing that's been there as long as I have been around) For example the bowman looks physically stronger than spearman, To me at least...

This is more apparent when the units are seen in-game. Not so much in png's.

Maybe the spearman's shoulders should be a bit wider? (I think it might be the shoulderpads that do the effect.)

[Jetrel]

Maybe the spearman's shoulders should be a bit wider? (I think it might be the shoulderpads that do the effect.)

That can be done. Whaddayathinkathis?

[deserter]

Maybe the spearman's shoulders should be a bit wider? (I think it might be the shoulderpads that do the effect.)

That can be done. Whaddayathinkathis?

That fixed it!
Great job.

[Jetrel]

The relevant base frame from that edit.

[turin]

So, now that this is all done, could we get some numbers for how tall (in pixels) elves, orcs, men, dwarves, and goblins should be, exactly? I'd like to know so I can get the Imperial Era units up to the right height before I animate them...

[Jetrel]

So, now that this is all done, could we get some numbers for how tall (in pixels) elves, orcs, men, dwarves, and goblins should be, exactly? I'd like to know so I can get the Imperial Era units up to the right height before I animate them...

Use the level-1 fighter from each race as the "archetype". Heights "in pixels" are somewhat of a bad measurement, since the stance creates a bit of variance; what's important is how tall they "look".

But what we do have right now is roughly:
Human spearman - 41px
Elven Fighter - 43px
Orcish Grunt - 42px
Dwarven Fighter - 30px
Goblin Spearman (L0) - 30px

With increases of about 2-3 pixels per level, sometimes more.

Note that, as has been said a zillion times, orcs and goblins are literally born into the same "litters"; born like quintuplet humans would be, and like many animals are (dogs, cats, pigs). What happens is that only one or two are the big "uruk-hai-like" orcish grunts (and any orc with that kind of body will gladly take the grunt caste); a few of the others are sort of "half orcs", or "lesser orcs"; these guys become the archers and assassins; or just become manual labor, and the rest are goblins. This is why there is so much variance in the size of the orcish race, and why orcs/goblins alone are the exception this way.

[Jetrel]

So, yeah, uh - the bowman frames have all been finished. Not committed, yet, but finished.

Also, in other good news, that thug I finished lately was at 40px, and the poacher(L1) was also 41px (he has more hair, or a green hat on his head, than the thug). I was sizing those guys against the same reference, and it's dang nice to know I won't have to redo them at all.

[Jetrel]

The frames for the spearman have been finished by Zebulon, and I'll be committing them and the bowman later tonight.

I have a new, slightly larger Royal Guard, as seen in the picture below. I also have an edit to the Pikeman that matches the Swordsman much more closely than before (it's an exact match on size, for one thing).


I'll be finishing all the frames for the Swordsman and Royal Guard tonight, and committing them; Zebulon has asked for more stuff to do, so I've tossed the Pikeman in his direction. Believe me, I'm very thankful for his help.

Zookeeper has also said he'll help with modifying Redeth's animations to fit the new sprites; as notoriously good at alignment as he is, Zookeeper should have no trouble keeping the finer points of those animations intact.


I'm going to work on a more interesting modification to the halberdier, if I can - nothing that would break the animation by redeth, but something to further differentiate him from the pikeman.

Time to rock and roll.

[Jetrel]

Frames for swordsman (not including idle animation) finished.

EDIT: Royal guard frames come tomorrow.