Custom campaign 'art' in need of comments and criticisms

Casual User · Post by **Casual User** » December 16th, 2005, 9:21 pm

Good afternoon!

I've made a few custom images for a campaign I'm writing. The images looked great in theory, but crappy in-game. I'll post them below along with the biggest problems I find with them, and I'd like some suggestions on how to improve them.

Casual User · Post by **Casual User** » December 16th, 2005, 9:23 pm

and a last one...

Disto · Post by **Disto** » December 16th, 2005, 9:59 pm

Screenshot?

Casual User · Post by **Casual User** » December 17th, 2005, 2:04 am

An actual screenshot would have been 2.5 MB ...

Here's a condensed screenshot.

Ranger M · Post by **Ranger M** » December 17th, 2005, 2:13 am

would be nice if you actually put the images on your campaign, I just downloaded the latest version hoping to see how they work, but it still has the old shepherd, and when I checked your image file none of these were there,

also I don't see anything wrong with them except they all look so similar, the only noticable difference is the weapons, but good effort (maybe change some colours?)

Casual User · Post by **Casual User** » December 17th, 2005, 2:20 am

How did you manage to download my campaign, I haven't posted it anywhere (I only have two scenarios done so far, anyway) ?

Ranger M · Post by **Ranger M** » December 17th, 2005, 2:31 am

Then who made that campaign that also uses shepherds and woodsmen (sorry, I had played it before and when I saw this I assumed that they were the same.)

should check up up these things in the future.

BTW are you going to change the colours a bit like I suggested?

Post by **irrevenant** » December 17th, 2005, 2:42 am

I agree with the need for a bit more colour differentiation.

The woodcutter's beard should be longer, but it's never going to look right against clothes that are so similarly coloured.

Also, the shepherd seems to be holding a club. Wouldn't a solid walking stick (with a crook) be more appropriate?

toms · Post by **toms** » December 17th, 2005, 6:08 am

Tipp: Normally shdaows are black.

Look exactly on the standard units. You can learn a lot from them.

Post by **irrevenant** » December 17th, 2005, 10:24 am

toms wrote:Tip: Normally shadows are black.

Actually, they aren't. The artistic representation of shadow is quite complicated:
* In daytime, the shadows will generally be tinged with blue from the sky.
* Shadows will also often be tinged with reflected light from the object that casts them.
* Shadows are often represented as complementary colours (I don't understand this one - if anyone can tell me why this is, I'd appreciate it!)

They should also probably be translucent, as the colour of the surface beneath is also partially distinguishable.

All that said, using light grey is definitely a non-standard approach...

Post by **Boucman** » December 17th, 2005, 12:16 pm

shadows are black according to http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/Creating_Unit_Art

of course, in real life they are not, but for consistency's sake, make them black, 60% opacity

Disto · Post by **Disto** » December 17th, 2005, 1:37 pm

Also if you are making art with shadows where the units have black outlines , to make it easier to remove the shadows for animation don't make them proper black, then you can select them by colour without losing the outlines.

Post by **Jetrel** » December 17th, 2005, 6:47 pm

irrevenant wrote:
toms wrote:Tip: Normally shadows are black.
Actually, they aren't. The artistic representation of shadow is quite complicated:
* In daytime, the shadows will generally be tinged with blue from the sky.
* Shadows will also often be tinged with reflected light from the object that casts them.

Artistic representation, shmartistic representation. What you've said is correct, however, as boucman pointed out, our shadows, like those of many 3d games, are standardized as being black. Because of this, it's better to follow the standard, although I personally suggest taking the shadow, as a separate layer, and applying a 0.5 pixel gaussian blur to it. Make sure that the shadow takes up all the space that would be obscured by the unit above it when you do that.

The business about shadows being tinted blue from the daytime sky is correct; this is, in 3d rendering jargon, what is known as ambient lighting. In our case, however, we're assuming none - in cases where a unit was in forest, or whatnot, they would be tinted a different color than blue, and the complexity just gets out of hand.

irrevenant wrote:* Shadows are often represented as complementary colours (I don't understand this one - if anyone can tell me why this is, I'd appreciate it!)

Someone's smoking an impressionism doobie? No, really. We as humans can change the color of something completely and still recognize the shape, although if we get the color dead right, that gets recognized as well. A number of artists, in times past, made paintings that were deliberately dreamlike in appearance; which aimed to represent not merely the shape of the subject, but how the artist felt about it. Complementary colors look good next to one another, and as such, those were often used.

irrevenant wrote:They should also probably be translucent, as the colour of the surface beneath is also partially distinguishable.

Correct general art ideas, and this is true in wesnoth - our shadows have 60% opacity, or are 40% transparent (depending on how you look at it).

romnajin · Post by **romnajin** » December 19th, 2005, 2:22 am

I recomend removing any blues in the images.

the 3rd Zar · Post by **the 3rd Zar** » December 19th, 2005, 7:49 pm

The most annoying part of unit construction for me is the bowstrings.

your's seem to fade in and out as you look down them... Any Ideas or suggestions? anyone?