New saurian units

[Talentless]

This thread aims to discuss sprites and animations for new potential Saurian units including:

• Lv3 upgrades of the augur tree.
• Alternative skirmisher upgrades.

You can check the progress of the individual units in these pull requests:

• #6905: new skirmisher alternative upgrade branch. Mixed fighter with some defensive capabilities.
• #6911: level-3 upgrades of the augur tree.
• #6912: optional alternative skirmisher upgrade for campaigns and UMC. Focused on ranged attacks.

Current unit sprites can be found in this add-on.

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Initially I'd like to discuss the sprites of the new augur final upgrades. I feel like it's the least controversial change that already proved quite useful for soon-to-be-official campaigns. The current sprites are not quite simple recolors, but they might need to be a bit more distinctive to match mainline quality. Perhaps a slight pose change or a subtle enlargement of the sprite (similar to Ambusher > Flanker) might do the trick.

[doofus-01]

Judging the level 3 magic saurians by how differentiated they are by testing your add-on in the scenario editor:
- The prophet is good as is. The color and hat make it different enough, though maybe the staff could be a little gaudier.
- I'm less sure about the seer. This is an alternative proposal for the seer - I'm not completely convinced of it, but I think it would be more easily distinguished on the map.

[Helmet]

My 2 cents: if one had its tail curved downward, it would change the profile and make it appear more distinct.

[Talentless]

- The prophet is good as is. The color and hat make it different enough, though maybe the staff could be a little gaudier.

I've used the Flanker's palette for the weapon: golden base, silver tip. Both staves that I've proposed were supposed to match Flanker's general style, since it's the only level-3 Saurian unit for now.

- I'm less sure about the seer. This is an alternative proposal for the seer - I'm not completely convinced of it, but I think it would be more easily distinguished on the map.

The gem on the forehead seems a bit too bright, I'd probably go with something halfway through between our proposed sprites in terms of the headgear. I do like the new pauldrons. I'll try to propose another version this week.

[doofus-01]

My 2 cents: if one had its tail curved downward, it would change the profile and make it appear more distinct.

Yeah, a slight change in pose would help. These saurians do move around a lot, so maybe differentiation can be found in the standing animations as well.

I've used the Flanker's palette for the weapon: golden base, silver tip. Both staves that I've proposed were supposed to match Flanker's general style, since it's the only level-3 Saurian unit for now.

General style seemed OK, I just thought it could go further.

[Talentless]

Yeah, a slight change in pose would help. These saurians do move around a lot, so maybe differentiation can be found in the standing animations as well.

I've changed the tail to face downwards. I will also adjust the idle animations. Defend, magic and melee frames will also likely require some changes.

I've also made the gem and its golden trim a bit darker for consistency with the flanker headgear. Let me know what you think.

[doofus-01]

Looks reasonable to me, though it's hard to tell how significant the tail change will end up being, given the animations and north-facing frames. Looking forward to seeing what you do with those. Thanks.

[Talentless]

I'm attaching a complete set of SE animations for the new Seer sprite (seer-se.zip). I ended up scraping the inverted tail placement to speed up animating process and for consistency with NE pose. Please verify if anything needs adjustments.

seer-se-bob.gif (4.32 KiB) Viewed 1514 times

seer-se.zip

(35.49 KiB) Downloaded 30 times

Also, just to confirm, this is the sprite that I'm using as a basis for NE animations.

seer-ne-bob1.png (992 Bytes) Viewed 1514 times

[doofus-01]

These SE frames are looking good; similar to the soothsayer but not too similar. Maybe a subtle magic halo could be added as a separate layer

EDIT: For "magic halos", I'm thinking some sort of sparkling aura for the healer and staff-to-hand lightning for the offensive unit. These would not be part of the sprite image frame, they can be added later.

[name]

I just want to say I hope the Seer and Prophet sprites can be ready in time for 1.18. They really add a lot to both multiplayer and singleplayer, and feel like some of the only advancments still sorely absent from the game.