Is it worth having portraits of multiple moods?

[irrevenant]

I was just looking at this screenshot and I was struck by the incongruity between the portrait image and the text.

Is it worth coming up with more dramatic alternate portraits (presumably by the same artist, or at least in the same style) for dramatic pronouncements like these?

If so, will the engine even support it?

Thoughts?

[tsr]

Is it worth coming up with more dramatic alternate portraits (presumably by the same artist, or at least in the same style) for dramatic pronouncements like these?

If so, will the engine even support it?

The engine supports it, since you can set the image to be shown with a message explicitly.

And yes, I think it's worth it, not top priority, but still worth it.

/tsr

[Dragon Master]

we've definately discussed this before and the result was a "yes but not now"

[Noyga]

It is already done for some campaigns units, for example Deoran in TSG.

[Sapient]

If you look for the thread "Thief portrait too sad", I argued that if we only have one thief portrait it should have a sly grin.

[zookeeper]

Yes, it's good to have multiple portraits for the same character for use in different mooded dialogue. Whether that's worth the effort for that particular character can only be decided by the one who's designing the campaign and character in question.

I heavily disagree with the idea of having portraits for unit types in the first place, so I obviously think this would be extremely silly to try to apply for them.

[Dave]

I think the answer is, "sure, whenever an artist feels like doing it, please go ahead!"

[methinks]

Heh I remember this being discussed ages ago when Wesnoth was in early development and fmunoz was almost the only artist It would be super-swell to have this, but let's face it - it won't happen soon. Even providing the game with a set of single portraits for all the units is time consuming. However providing portraits to small % of the units would have dramatic impact on the completion of the process, as just a few of those appear often and with different emotions (say, Defaldor).

Anyway good luck on the quest to all the artists that will undertake it

[Jetrel]

I think the answer is, "sure, whenever an artist feels like doing it, please go ahead!"

Yep.


For one example, delfador is in need of a portrait to match "I am delfador the great, prepare to die!" The thief also needs a rehash of his generic expression. But right now, I deem the TC/sprite-renovation project as having a much greater improvement to the core game than making portraits.

This of course will change when said project is done.

[wnsk]

I heard this joke about Arnold Shwarzenegger once that he supposedly had the same kind of facial expression for all emotions. If true, all portraits should be based on Arnie's one-face-fits-all neutral expression.

Seriously, I think it would not be too difficult to modify 1 basic portrait (with a neutral expression) to produce variations of the same portrait but expressing differing emotions. One needs to change only the mouth and eyes/eyebrows, I think. But that might be considered "cheating" heh.

[Kestenvarn]

I heard this joke about Arnold Shwarzenegger once that he supposedly had the same kind of facial expression for all emotions.

I have never heard that joke before, but I know exactly what it is referring to. In his earlier movies he would go white-eyed and tense, often enough for you to actually notice the pattern. The bare chested fantasy movies, especially.

[irrevenant]

Seriously, I think it would not be too difficult to modify 1 basic portrait (with a neutral expression) to produce variations of the same portrait but expressing differing emotions. One needs to change only the mouth and eyes/eyebrows, I think. But that might be considered "cheating" heh.

It would be nigh-impossible to do that and make it look good. Emotion is expressed by body position as well as facial expression. See the screenshot I originally linked to for an example - no amount of fiddling with the face is going to make that thief look exuberant...