Firemaster's art development thread

Post by **Urs** » October 7th, 2007, 2:00 am

Even if it's black, it's not completly black. It still has highlights. Even if it's a demon wraith outlaw. Otherwise, it looks like a black shape with red dots on it.

FireMaster · Post by **FireMaster** » October 7th, 2007, 2:06 am

Kestenvarn wrote:Not seeing much on my screen other than a blob of black.

Look closely and you'll see red eyes,and weapons.

FireMaster · Post by **FireMaster** » October 7th, 2007, 2:38 am

Here are more.Same colour scheme I'm afraid.

Post by **irrevenant** » October 7th, 2007, 3:38 am

If you're going the solid black shadowy look, why not give it the full shadow treatment: Gaussian blur @1.5 & 40% opacity? It's procedural so you can churn out a lot of units rapidly that way.

Stilgar · Post by **Stilgar** » October 7th, 2007, 3:40 am

irrevenant wrote:If you're going the solid black shadowy look, why not give it the full shadow treatment: Gaussian blur @1.5 & 40% opacity? It's procedural so you can churn out a lot of units rapidly that way.

IMHO that made it look even worse. I don't know if to be impressed or appalled.

Post by **irrevenant** » October 7th, 2007, 4:59 am

Master Stilgar wrote:
irrevenant wrote:If you're going the solid black shadowy look, why not give it the full shadow treatment: Gaussian blur @1.5 & 40% opacity? It's procedural so you can churn out a lot of units rapidly that way.
IMHO that made it look even worse. I don't know if to be impressed or appalled.

A little of both?

Ah well, it was an idea...

FireMaster · Post by **FireMaster** » October 7th, 2007, 7:00 am

irrevenant wrote:If you're going the solid black shadowy look, why not give it the full shadow treatment: Gaussian blur @1.5 & 40% opacity? It's procedural so you can churn out a lot of units rapidly that way.

How do you do that,I don't know how

Post by **thespaceinvader** » October 7th, 2007, 8:21 am

60-80% opacity would look better. But you definitely need some sort of blur to counteract the HORRIBLE anti-aliasing that arises by filling carefully built outlines with pure black. But yeah, these look dreadful as they are. I'm not going to pussyfoot around the issue. I can see what you're trying to do, but you're not really getting there, and you're making a mess out of other peoples' careful work by doing so.

To do Gaussian Blur, go Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and use a value of 1.5 in both boxes. Don't worry about any of the rest of the options in the dialogue box. To change layer opacity, open the Layers dialogue, select the layer with the unit on it (you'll need to remove or separate out the shadow onto another layer) and edit the value in the top right next to the opacity slider. You could also just slide the slider, but it's not nearly so accurate.

If you ever start creating your own units from scratch, that is something you will NEED to remember, since it is a quick and easy way of making unit shadows with soft edges (1.5 width Gaussian Blur and 60% opacity).

Post by **Blarumyrran** » October 7th, 2007, 9:09 am

they look just like the wraiths of Elder Scrolls: Arena.

FireMaster · Post by **FireMaster** » October 7th, 2007, 9:52 am

What is the HTML reference of tan colour?

Post by **thespaceinvader** » October 7th, 2007, 9:58 am

Google is your friend.

Post by **Blarumyrran** » October 7th, 2007, 10:00 am

thespaceinvader wrote:Google is your friend.

NO! Google is the enemy!

because the Righteous Crusader himself has said

Steve Ballmer wrote:I'm going to [censored] bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to [censored] kill Google.

Post by **Kestenvarn** » October 7th, 2007, 6:09 pm

FireMaster wrote:
Kestenvarn wrote:Not seeing much on my screen other than a blob of black.

Look closely and you'll see red eyes,and weapons.

Well now, that changes everything.

Post by **turin** » October 7th, 2007, 6:14 pm

I do like how he puts random red dots on the heads and calls them "eyes" without giving thought to where the eyes were before be coated the image in black... I'm pretty sure in most of those images one eye is in the middle of the guy's forehead, and the other is sitting on his ear.

Post by **thespaceinvader** » October 7th, 2007, 6:17 pm

Good point, now that you mention it. All four sets of eyes are far too high up, and they are all placed as if the head of the unit is looking straight at camera, while all 4 units actually face slightly down/right.