Poachers

Contribute art for mainline Wesnoth.

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Vyncyn
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Poachers

Post by Vyncyn »

I was reading some of the topis in Art Development and noticed a lot of sprites and animations were left unfinished. Last updates for many were around 2010-2011.
Are there any particular reasons why they were discontinued (eg. Development said no)?
Some animations look already fluent and "only" seem to be missing shading (for example: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=32311&start=30). It would be pretty sad if all that work goes to waste.
Are they free for the community to work on?

Additionally viewtopic.php?f=18&t=28609 says a few base images could use improvement, but it isn't really up to date.
I'd like to work on the poacher(line) if no one else is already doing it. Are there any design problems with this unit (colour, stance etc) or does it just need a general polish?
Last edited by Vyncyn on April 21st, 2017, 8:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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zookeeper
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Re: abandoned mainline sprites/animations

Post by zookeeper »

Vyncyn wrote:Additionally viewtopic.php?f=18&t=28609 says a few base images could use improvement, but it isn't really up to date.
I'd like to work on the poacher(line) if no one else is already doing it. Are there any design problems with this unit (colour, stance etc) or does it just need a general polish?
I don't think there's any problem with the poacher or any other core unit listed there, the thread is simply old and fell out of date. The campaign units in need of updates are listed in the newer thread, but core units are essentially done except for a few exceptions like boats, fire guardian and maybe some of the khalifate units.
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Vyncyn
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Re: abandoned mainline sprites/animations

Post by Vyncyn »

But a lot of units on the list have been worked on and have a (yet) uncomitted baseframe or are missing animations, like many of the elves and loyalists. Even though the current spirtes are good, there was a plan to create even better graphics.
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Jetrel
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Re: abandoned mainline sprites/animations

Post by Jetrel »

Vyncyn wrote:I was reading some of the topis in Art Development and noticed a lot of sprites and animations were left unfinished. Last updates for many were around 2010-2011.
Are there any particular reasons why they were discontinued (eg. Development said no)?
They weren't stopped for any particular reason other than people going inactive. I was the main force behind getting all of these done, and I basically had to back-burner my involvement on Wesnoth for several years because at the time I was fresh out of college, and "working on wesnoth" wasn't giving me any employable skills. At this point in my life I was actually deeply concerned about my employability in a broad sense - I didn't know if I was going to "flunk out" of my first few real jobs, and be one of those losers who can't keep one (and has to go back to living with mom and dad) - I don't know if I was crazy to be thinking that, since everything turned out fine, and I've gone on to have a decent career, but it definitely colored my decisions at the time.

Because it was what I had trained to be, and was my only career option with something other than garbage pay-grade, I needed to get serious about being a programmer. Wesnoth unfortunately didn't have any room for me as a programmer, and (in my very well-informed opinion), being a pixel-artist wasn't something I wanted to do as a paid career. So I started getting much more involved in a couple of other projects where I could spent a large portion of my time programming, and be directly mentored by some extremely good programmers. This led to me gradually slowing to a tiny trickle of work on wesnoth.
Vyncyn wrote:Some animations look already fluent and "only" seem to be missing shading (for example: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=32311&start=30). It would be pretty sad if all that work goes to waste.
Are they free for the community to work on?

Additionally viewtopic.php?f=18&t=28609 says a few base images could use improvement, but it isn't really up to date.
I'd like to work on the poacher(line) if no one else is already doing it. Are there any design problems with this unit (colour, stance etc) or does it just need a general polish?
Yeah - you're welcome to work on those; as long as you do good work, I'd be quite happy to see those get finished.
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Vyncyn
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Re: abandoned mainline sprites/animations

Post by Vyncyn »

Don't want to work on animation right now, so I made some new base sprites for my addon, one of which might be a passable replacement for the huntsman.
huntsman.png
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taptap
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Re: abandoned mainline sprites/animations

Post by taptap »

Are you waiting for complete sets of animations or are you committing finished animations as such without waiting for e.g. every direction. This refers to cavalry animations in particular: horseman has 80 or so frames in total, ... yet all the upgrades have none.
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Re: abandoned mainline sprites/animations

Post by The_Gnat »

Nice job Vyncyn I always like your sprites! I think the dagger looks a slight bit oddly shaped. Also this huntsman looks smaller than the last huntsman and the ranger.
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Vyncyn
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Re: abandoned mainline sprites/animations

Post by Vyncyn »

They are roughly the same size; He might appear a little smaller due to his different pose.
huntsman-size.png
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The dagger is supposed to be curved with the tip pointing west or north-west, but you are right. I'll change it a bit.
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Re: abandoned mainline sprites/animations

Post by The_Gnat »

Oh yes i see. When looking at the two there is one thing for certain though: the new sprite is far better than the old! 8)

Also it might be a good idea to make the bow larger because the huntsman is primarily a ranged unit (compared to the ranger, which is a mixed fighter). Even though it was not done in the original sprite, other level 3 ranged units such as the master bowman and sharpshooter have more pronounced bows.

Image

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Vyncyn
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Re: Poachers

Post by Vyncyn »

Revision of bow and dagger
huntsman.png
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Re: Poachers

Post by ForestDragon »

:hmm: i think the dagger is too curved now. i think making it simply straight would be good enough. there's also something that feels wrong about the bow. in my opinion, i don't think that you need to strictly follow the pose of the old sprite. you could try experimenting with the bow holding pose a bir
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Vyncyn
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Re: Poachers

Post by Vyncyn »

And another iteration.
huntsman.png
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Re: Poachers

Post by ForestDragon »

Vyncyn wrote:And another iteration.
huntsman.png
nice! i think this image should be used for Trapper, though, considering it's size.
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Vyncyn
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Re: Poachers

Post by Vyncyn »

I could easily make him one pixel higher if needed, but like I said before his size is nearly the same as the huntsman (if you messure foot->hood he is even taller than the old one). The Trapper is 2-3 pixel smaller, so I'd rather make another picture for him.

Do any of the developers have thoughts about this? Zookeeper mentioned before new mainline sprites are mostly complete (exept some campaign units and animation). The huntsman wasn't much work for me as it is just a recolouring of a unit for my addon (will be added in the next version), but I woudn't create new sprites if I don't plan on using them myself or if they don't have a chance to be mainlined.
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zookeeper
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Re: Poachers

Post by zookeeper »

My personal preference would be that from the latest iteration, I'd keep the less curved dagger, but not the vertical bow. I have no particular opinion on the size.

I also think the our-left foot could use a subtle edit which I think I more or less succeeded in making.
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