Art Request -- Iconized GUI Theme

[fabi]

I have a question concerning your layout: What happens if you have more attack types which often happens in UMC? How is the layout adjusted then?

More of blade,pierce,impact,cold,fire and arcane? Or more of meele and ranged?
Extra weapon ranges need to come with their own icons, or they will just get an extra icon for generic range types.

The resistance icons are currently hardcoded.
Thus no non conventional resistance will be displayed at all.
I like to ship the first version with this fault and take care about dynamic displayed resistance types later.
How many extra resistances should be supported? Is two enough ?

Besides, there is one other thing I'd like to mention: The only thing I regularly look at when selecting units are life, EXP and attacks. The EXP and life still are at the top, but the attacks are quite important for me. And these you put at the very bottom, which is IMHO a bit inconvenient to use. However, that's of course only my opinion.

This is easy to change, I will make some screenshots having those 2 sections switched.

Why not currently use the images used for the status effects: skull for poison (and it's the official risk symbol!) and the snail for slow?

They are in the wrong size.

Dextrous could be an reticle, and concealment a variation of the other campuflage icons with a dune.

The reticle is no better for dexterous than the eye.
I think it needs to be something more generic.

[Drakefriend]

I have a question concerning your layout: What happens if you have more attack types which often happens in UMC? How is the layout adjusted then?

More of blade,pierce,impact,cold,fire and arcane? Or more of meele and ranged?
Extra weapon ranges need to come with their own icons, or they will just get an extra icon for generic range types.

Why are they hardcoded? Can this be changed?
.

Why not currently use the images used for the status effects: skull for poison (and it's the official risk symbol!) and the snail for slow?

They are in the wrong size.

I actually meant the motives, not the currently used pictogramms. I do not think it would be to hard to draw a skull and a snail in the needed size.

What about (if the wrong size, adjusted or "similar to"):
berserk: The same as the attack icon
stuns: circling stars (like in cartoons)
feeding: maybe a gaping maw? a piece of meat( )?

[fabi]

Why are they hardcoded? Can this be changed?

Resistance types are not hardcoded.
You can easily add more of them in a UMC.
What you can't do is assigning an icon to them.
The same was true for abilities and traits, with the difference that it was easy for me to add an icon attribute to their wml tags.
A resistance is not defined within an own wml tag but only by the left side of an attribute if I understood correctly.

So I hardcoded the assignment of the icons to the mainline set.
This can be changed, but I want to do that later.

I actually meant the motives, not the currently used pictogramms. I do not think it would be to hard to draw a skull and a snail in the needed size.

Yes, would be nice to have similar icons for the status and the weapon special that causes it.

What about (if the wrong size, adjusted or "similar to"):
berserk: The same as the attack icon
stuns: circling stars (like in cartoons)
feeding: maybe a gaping maw? a piece of meat( )?

If berserk were for the dwarfs only my suggestion were a glass of beer

[Atz]

Made a few options for poison, marksman, magical and melee.

icon_options.png (3.8 KiB) Viewed 5529 times

Personally, I think 1.2, 2.1 and 3.2 work best. Not sure which of the melee ones I like.

[Drakefriend]

I agree, especially 1 2.

[fabi]

Made a few options for poison, marksman, magical and melee.

icon_options.png

Personally, I think 1.2, 2.1 and 3.2 work best. Not sure which of the melee ones I like.

I like them, still someone with an art director title needs to give them his blessings.
The poison one that suits me best is the second as well, also I would prefer to have the same bottle for curing.
So poison and curing are the same bottle but with different iconic labels, I am still looking for an antidot symbol for the curing one.

The first marksmen is fine, just that we have now 3 possible symbols for marksmen, in need are we for dextrous.

I can use even two of the melee icons since It can be distinguished between attacks where the defender doesn't have a counter attack.

[beetlenaut]

I am still looking for an antidot symbol for the curing one.

How about an ankh? It symbolized life, and it's already used here and there in the game for "good stuff." (There is one on the top of the White Mage's staff for example.)

[lipk]

How about an ankh? It symbolized life, and it's already used here and there in the game for "good stuff." (There is one on the top of the White Mage's staff for example.)

But it's also used on the holy water flask, and I think many would associate it with arcane attacks because of that in the first place.

[Jetrel]

Personally, I think 1.2, 2.1 and 3.2 work best. Not sure which of the melee ones I like.

Agreed.

I like them, still someone with an art director title needs to give them his blessings.

I appreciate the deference, but it's probably a good idea not to make me a bottleneck for minor things. Especially little things that don't incur some support cost resting only on a few skilled individuals.

We've got a community of decent artists with valid, informed opinions; if they think something is good-enough, it's safe to go-ahead without needing me to stamp every single thing for approval (another area this is rather bothering me in is the image-localization effort - I'm not the only person here with a clue about typography). We have a lot of other informed people, so let's not waste their expertise.

It's worth being careful about replacing existing art, or asking first if you're gonna create a new kind of art (which would add another cumulative burden to the team), but little stuff like this shouldn't all need explicit approval.

[Atz]

An attempt at some more icons.

more_icons.png (4.14 KiB) Viewed 5027 times

(Top row has the poison bottle in the middle for comparison)

I tried putting an ankh on the poison bottle for cures as suggested, but getting it to be readable at that size was difficult. I'm still not entirely happy with how it looks - I think it looks like it's just floating in front of the bottle, instead of actually being a label, and for that reason I prefer the heart symbol on the left bottle.

Looking at them next to each other, I also worry that even with the different symbols poison and cures might look too similar at first glance. If that's an issue I was thinking it might be a good idea to flip the "cures" bottle horizontally, so it's lit from the opposite direction. It makes it stand out a little more from the poison, but the bottle is still recognisable as the same bottle.

Not real sure about the ranged one, either. I'm pretty happy with 4.2, the problem for me is showing a return attack without the frame being either overcrowded, having large empty patches, or intersecting with the number in the corner. I thought about doing a more stylised arrow traveling in a arc, which might be able to fill the space better, but it makes it harder to draw a readable arrow because of the odd angles. I might have to try again later. Or someone else can have a go.

[artisticdude]

Just me, or does it seem like all of the icons here could stand a bit higher contrast? Right now they're a little too washed-out looking, IMO.

[Shinobody]

They all follow original Melon's palette, so no wonder they are.
Also, couple of suggestions:

igt.png (1.84 KiB) Viewed 4942 times

Legend:

1.1 - feeding
1.2 - plague
1.3, 1.4 and 2.1 - different versions of cure. Based on original "bottle" 2.6 icon, and ankh is based on "heal" icon.
2.3 and 2.4 - extracted from Melon's discarded versions of "Arcane" resistance. Second could possibly work as Plague.