Heromachine

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tommy2teeth
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Heromachine

Post by tommy2teeth »

I doubt this is news, but there is a program called HeroMachine that allows you to make portraits of units rather quickly. I noticed most units, outside of Archaic and Default eras, do not have portrait images. I am a horrible artists so this kind of program (there are probably other programs like this) comes in handy. I made this Minotaur in under 5 minutes.
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Elvish_King
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Re: Heromachine

Post by Elvish_King »

Looks good to me, I will try it out soon :D
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Midnight_Carnival
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Re: Heromachine

Post by Midnight_Carnival »

The portrait looks ... ok, ish.
I'm not sure who to compliment on the outcome though, you or the guy who made the program.

Just my opinion and I'm not trying to discourage you from using whichever program you like here:
look at some of the really long threads on this very page, you know, the ones which have 15+ pages to them... look at the stuff people are making on the most recent page then go back to page 1.

I'll tell you the truth, the ONLY way you can be a horrible artist is if you don't try. I haven't submitted a single attempted portrait which didn't get a 'learn to draw' response. I'd love to tell you how I've improved and have you look under my name and see something like "lead art developer", but truth is, I still suck and I'll continue to suck until I have the time and money to spend longer working on Wesnoth related stuff. When I submit stuff, despite all the soul crushing criticism, I learn at least 1 thing from the feedback I get and I will improve.
I know you can make ok, ish looking portraits using a program someone else wrote for the purpose and if you use them in your own campaign some peopel will think they look cool and that they make your campaign worth palying, but do me a personal favor though: please don't stop trying to draw your own.

One more thing: many people have a stick up somewhere about things being in the "Wesnoth style". Using this program to make portraits for your own campaign would work but they will jump on you if you suggest using them anywhere else. Personally I don't care but I thought I'd bring that up before you feel like 'people are kicking your ass for no good reason and what the hell are you even doing on this forum, if they are going to be like that they can keep their stupid little forum and their game... etc' (I've been there often).

Suggestions: 1) draw really rough portratis all in a consistent style and then use your program to make them. Drawing will give you and idea of what you want to portray in the character while the program will make something which looks like it was done by somebody else. Take the images the program drew and make small edits to them to make them "yours" - later on you can draw your own portraits from scratch.
2) check out the infamous :mrgreen: FRANKENPORTRAITS :mrgreen: they were fun!

Ok, good luck and keep drawing, with or without your programs.
...apparenly we can't go with it or something.
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tommy2teeth
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Re: Heromachine

Post by tommy2teeth »

Besides the the fact that my drawings are horrible, I am only using this program because I am trying to give portraits to all units in the Ageless Era. I am working on a mp mod that bring more dialogue into the battle (ex.kill leader, start of game intros, advisors, progress reports etc) and I prefer the bigger portrait images for this. To do this by hand would be too ambitious (the vast majority of units have no portrait art) for a really good artist let alone someone with my current skills).

The portrait artwork that came with Wesnoth is amazing. This program's portrait maker is way inferior to anything in the Default Era or the portraits of the Woodlanders. The Archaic era also has really nice portraits that trump anything I can produce using heromachine.

I just wanted to let others know that there is a program out there than can produce images really quickly. But like most things that are produced quickly, the quality suffers. It even bothers me sometimes that the artwork is so different from Wesnoth style that I am thinking of changing all portraits to heormachine just for continuity sake (in my Ageless Era I use with my comrades). Whether people like the image or not does not bother me (I didn't really like the image either and since have changed it). I probably should of put this post in a different forum, I was just passing along info.

I do however want to say thanks for the tips and encouragement. I enjoyed looking through the Frankenportraits!
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Midnight_Carnival
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Re: Heromachine

Post by Midnight_Carnival »

hey, I wasn't flaming you for using a portrait generator and in my opinion if your campaign/era needs lots of portraits then even stick figure drawings would be preferable to nothing as long as you don't use anything subject to copyright etc (avoiding infamous how itelectual property is a load of crap which stifles creativity rant I've posted many times before) - I was just saying that you shouldn't give up on your creative potential.
It was a wise man who once said something to the effect of every child being an artist until someboyd tells him he's not.
...apparenly we can't go with it or something.
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Gyra_Solune
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Re: Heromachine

Post by Gyra_Solune »

I would say usage of this particular program is ideal if you are indeed going in with the aim of giving a whole lot of units portraits in a roughly similar style all at once. Yes, preferably, it would all be drawn by hand, but...I must actually say, I think people are going to be more turned off by something that looks unappealing than something that looks okay if lazily made. I absolutely encourage learning how to draw good portraits on your own, because that would be super cool! But that takes time and a lot of effort for one portrait when the design of things is subject to change considering the user-made nature of it.

I wouldn't...go and try to apply this to every Ageless unit ever? Mostly because...uhm, there's a lot of factions in there that are very likely to fall by the wayside in the near future because many of them are kind of poorly-thought out and fairly ugly. I'd wait until, say, 1.14 for a lot of them? But there's plenty that are of quality enough that I'd consider how they work compared mainline. Namely a lot of the Imperial units and a fair number of Feudal ones (the clockwork dwarves and Ceresian League in particular look very nice on the whole), and some of the especially top-notch highlights like the Windsong, Vampires, Frozen (I can't find like any information on these, they seem to only live in Ageless at the moment), Minotaurs, Aragwaithi, Devlings, and...the really nice looking Chaos Legion warriors, gunners, and mages where the actual composition of the faction is in a weird state of flux among various eras. Those are the ones I think have a really strong core going, and a number of them I'd even say work in Wesnoth as-is. Vampires are an established thing in the setting, Minotaurs are often requested and reasonable to expect, and the Windsong is, while perhaps a slight bit odd with a concept rooted slightly more in the realm of science fiction, is still easily adapted and an exceptionally well-thought out and realized both gameplay and lorewise.
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tommy2teeth
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Re: Heromachine

Post by tommy2teeth »

I agree with you Gyra, some factions are "kind of poorly-thought out and fairly ugly (not that I could do any better)." Some of those factions in the ME era are so unique, like the Emperors Guard, Infernai, Highlanders, and Tribe, that I still use them despite their looks (though I have edited the appearance of some of the units). Which factions do you think won't be around in Ageless Era for 1.4?
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Ravana
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Re: Heromachine

Post by Ravana »

No faction will be removed from ageless. Instead, I will always be looking for additional ones.

That said, if you think you can improve current art/story situation then just do so.
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tommy2teeth
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Re: Heromachine

Post by tommy2teeth »

On the subject of portraits, is there a way to make the team color show up in the profile picture?
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beetlenaut
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Re: Heromachine

Post by beetlenaut »

tommy2teeth wrote:On the subject of portraits, is there a way to make the team color show up in the profile picture?
Sort of. If you use the correct shades of magenta in a portrait, you can add the image path function ~TC() to the file name to select a team color. You would have to specify the color to be used though, so it would probably only be useful for specific cases.
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Vulpine
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Re: Heromachine

Post by Vulpine »

IMHO using Heromachine is a good idea, though it has its limits.

I would actually suggest opening it in gimp and adding shading (using another layer or five in case things don't go as expected). I'm not an artist, and personally suck at coloring&shading.
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