Khalifate facelift: Redux

[thespaceinvader]

It's more than enough to visually distinguish them, IMO - and that's the important thing when levelling up a unit. I'll consider doing something about it as I go through tweaking, but I don't expect to make any changes there - apart from one little niggle, the Naffatun line is the one I'm currently happiest with.

EDIT: first pass done, on to the tweaking now.

And here's the tweaking list for my reference, since it got bottom paged.

Elite Ghazi: right arm needs fixing to move the elbow down.
Ekim Haram: staff needs a rework to make it look decent.
Arif/Immortal: remove the face plates from the helms per noy's request, also rework the helms a bit.
Ghulam al rami: change the visible arm so the shading matches that of the Karadis. It's a bit tube-like at present.
Mamluk: head could use some love.
Mubarizan: maybe shrink the sword handle by a pixel or two, and try to kill the aliasing on the sword blade. This unit will be made into a level 3, and a level 2 added in between, per noy's request.
Ghaznid: tweak the horse's armour so it looks more like it conforms to the shape of the horse.
Level 1 naffatun: brighten the gun body so it is differentiated from the hand. Maybe alter the l3 to distinguish a little better - more TC?
Falcon and Elder Falcon will need some more love.
Amir and Ahadath could use some minor tweaks to make their feet look a little less like they're on tip toes, which will need porting to the others in their lines if i can make it work.

[thespaceinvader]

Fixed Ekim Haram's mace. Don't worry, it looks a lot better with a background.

EDIT: here's an updated Ghulam al rami, too.

[shiremct]

The arm holding the reins on that Ghulam al rami looks a bit... off... like the shoulder meets where you would expect the armpit to be. I think lowering that pauldron a pixel or two and maybe pushing it in a pixel would give a better pose. I can see it's based on the other cavalry units upper torso where they have that shoulder kinda pulled back from the viewer holding a weapon, but this pose (i think) should have that shoulder rotated a bit more toward the viewer... if that makes sense.

Edit: ^^Positioned more like the shoulders of the Ghulam. The Ghaznid can kinda get away with it because of the way that unit holds its spear, but it would look better to get similar treatment, maybe just a one pixel drop.

Also, a suggestion, not a criticizm: Making the arrows stick out a pixel or two more from the quiver would help define them better, would give you more room to add highlights and contrast, and would help draw the focus away from the rider's (not really existant) legs.

[thespaceinvader]

I'll take a look at those crits later on this week or next - for now, I've briefly reworked the Mubarizan, and made a level 2 unit for the line.

Elite Ghazi: right arm needs fixing to move the elbow down.
Ekim Haram: staff needs a rework to make it look decent.
Arif/Immortal: remove the face plates from the helms per noy's request, also rework the helms a bit.
Ghulam al rami: change the visible arm so the shading matches that of the Karadis. It's a bit tube-like at present. Maybe a little more on this.
Mamluk: head could use some love.
Mubarizan: maybe shrink the sword handle by a pixel or two, and try to kill the aliasing on the sword blade. This unit will be made into a level 3, and a level 2 added in between, per noy's request. Possibly the l2 could use a little shortening to the sword so it doesn't look quite so huge.
Ghaznid: tweak the horse's armour so it looks more like it conforms to the shape of the horse.
Level 1 naffatun: brighten the gun body so it is differentiated from the hand. Maybe alter the l3 to distinguish a little better - more TC?
Falcon and Elder Falcon will need some more love.
Amir and Ahadath could use some minor tweaks to make their feet look a little less like they're on tip toes, which will need porting to the others in their lines if i can make it work.

[thespaceinvader]

And reworked Elite Ghazi's arm.

Once the tweaking is done, I'll probably release a deafult+kalifa add-on, so that we can start looking at preliminary balancing against default MP.

[woodmouse]

That looks awesome.

facelift:

Also, I couldn't resist... Metalhead Ghazi.

[thespaceinvader]

lol, another addition to the Wesnoth Band...

[Aura]

The Lv 2 Mubarizan guy has very bad proportions. His left arm looks very long, his head looks out of place, and something bothers me about the legs too (I think it's the wild placement of the top color of shade, and that they are short). His stance is kinda hard to read too, is he squatting or does he just have short legs ?

[thespaceinvader]

Noted, and added to the tweaks list. For now, tweaked level 1 naffatun to distinguish the hand from the gun.

Elite Ghazi: right arm needs fixing to move the elbow down.
Ekim Haram: staff needs a rework to make it look decent.
Arif/Immortal: remove the face plates from the helms per noy's request, also rework the helms a bit.
Ghulam al rami: change the visible arm so the shading matches that of the Karadis. It's a bit tube-like at present. Maybe a little more on this.
Mamluk: head could use some love.
Mubarizan: maybe shrink the sword handle by a pixel or two, and try to kill the aliasing on the sword blade. This unit will be made into a level 3, and a level 2 added in between, per noy's request. Possibly the l2 could use a little shortening to the sword so it doesn't look quite so huge, also some fixing to the legs and proportions..
Ghaznid: tweak the horse's armour so it looks more like it conforms to the shape of the horse.
Level 1 naffatun: brighten the gun body so it is differentiated from the hand. Maybe alter the l3 to distinguish a little better - more TC?
Falcon and Elder Falcon will need some more love.
Amir and Ahadath could use some minor tweaks to make their feet look a little less like they're on tip toes, which will need porting to the others in their lines if i can make it work.

[Guidrion]

The L3 naffatun's backpack could use some love. It really looks like a golden barrel attached to his back. It looks a bit cheap.
That and the mask of the arif and the immortal are really the only thing that bothers me in this otherwise really great job! I can't wait to see that faction going mainline!

[thespaceinvader]

It's intended to look like a big brass barrel - that's basically what it is.

And yeah, the arif and immortal helms are going to be reworked - noy wants to avoid obscuring the faces, and my nostalgia filter on those helms (which I designed a couple of years back and re-used) has worn off, so I can see their flaws.

[Zerovirus]

oh hi
TSI
dont be miffed
heres a gift
a gift for you TSI
now I must say goodbye

Just an idea for maybe something to make the Lv3 more interesting. A diagonal side nozzle would fit with the idea, and even if you don't take anything from this, no prob. Cylinders are remarkably easy to shade and the sprite took me like 5 minutes. I could probably turn it into a golem if someone wanted me to anyways

[thespaceinvader]

The simplicity was intended - he's carrying, basically, a large barrel of fuel, and a pump. You press the end of the pump, and it squirts the fuel, which is ignited by... something - a pilot light or spark. You pull back on the pump, and it loads another shot - the earlier two levels, presumably, would manually reload. From hyperspace arsenals.

I'll consider adding complexity, as i think about potential other alterations to the l3.

[woodmouse]

I hope you don't mind I tried to fix the Mubarizan.
(I moved the upper part of the head 1 pixel to the left (our right) and made the arm shorter and tried to change its angle a little, and lenghtened the legs 1 pixel (and did some wrinkles to them))


(and with shield on different angle if it looks clearer... but it doesn't.)

[thespaceinvader]

I don't mind, but you didn't succeed, so thanks anyway.

EDIT: so, I spoke with noy last night and with some help we've hammered out a number of new names. Discussion about them here is NOT appreciated, however, take it to IRC or create a thread in factions & eras. I've also been reworking the former mamluk (now jawal), to try to fix some issues. Turns out, bows are difficult to fit onto horse units, but I think I've found a couple of reasonable poses - I wasn;t happy with the original, which is included on the tree. These two are by no means ideal either, but they're the best I've managed.

New tweaks list including new names:

Jundi and Arif feet need tweaking to see if the impression of standing on tip toes can be averted, and any changes cascaded to their advancements. Need to think about a second branch for the jundi line.
Ghazi sword needs shrinking, and other fixes suggested by Aura need enacting.
Mubariz and Batal need their face plates removing and general reworking on the helm. Maybe also something to distinguish them a little better - a plume, perhaps.
Faris needs the horse armour fixing so it looks better, and maybe the horse colour changing to match the next level up.
Naffatun l3 wants some re-thinking, maybe, to enhance the barrel's appearance and add a little more distinctiveness.
Ghulam al rami needs some more attention on the arm.
Falcon and Elder Falcon need some more love.
Jawal and l3 need some more attention, perhaps.

Things are a lot closer to completion now, though.