Using portrait icons in info/status-bar

[mameluke]

Hi,

this idea came to me since wesnoth has made very huge improvement in the portrait-arts - due to kitty, lordbob, spaceinvader and those I forgot.

I think it's clear that good art and design is very fundamental to a game that wants to reach a lot of players.

I have figured out two arguments which I'll try to explain:

1) So I was sad that this great portraits are only used in dialogues (and the help-lexicon, but that's even less seen).
The thing is that we have nice artwork for every unit, but the dialogues are often just between the same kind of main-units.
So a player doesn't sees much of the art the game can offer.
If a player is focused on multi-player he will actually never ever see the art!

2) If the picture in the info-box is the same as in the game, this is kind of redundant information. I do know which unit I have selected because the hex/ground is highlighted.
So I have the same graphic double. But if there would be a small potrait this would give me more information about the unit, how it looks like - and will give me a better game experience.

So I have tried a little with gimp.

Here you see my main idea.
How it is now:

And how it could be:

I also tried to put the portrait in the lower right corner, but I think it's not that good:
OPTION A:

So how do you like this?
OPTION B:

If the idea is somehow valid, somebody should maybe contact the artists to look at this tread, thx.

[mameluke]

I just noticed that this maybe would need some more change in the code, since the portraits should be selected by gender.
So that a female mage also gets the female portrait.

With this in mind I find the idea even more valid, because you then can see the difference of the gender much better in-game, since the sprites aren't that clear due to limitations of pixels.

[hhyloc]

In my opinion, I think it unnecessary because the portrait too small to make any different, for me the portrait as well as the sprite has their own "advantages" I don't know this is the exact word Beside, you can still know clearly which unit is male or female just look at their sprite. Also, I like the feeling when you right-click the unit, select the unit's description and see the fantastic portrait

[Speedbrain]

Maybe it's just me, but I usually have a hard time telling whether the sprites are male or female with some exceptions (mages come to mind).

I like the idea of having the portraits on the right side on the top, where the sprite is shown again. I don't know how hard it would be to do or how much work it will take to code the changes, but I like the idea.

Just my 2 cents.

[MDG]

Even better if ThemeWML allowed a choice between the sprite or the portrait. Multiple themes could be set up and then everyone could have what they wanted.

[solsword]

I'll throw in a vote of confidence here. The portrait art that we have now really is one of the most beautiful things about the game, and the point about multiplayer is quite valid. More exposure for those lovely portraits is a good thing.

On the other hand, not all units have good portraits (especially in UMC, or, for example, TRoW). It might be nice, were this implemented, to have a key in the [unit] tag, similar to "profile", that let the campaign designer specify whether a portrait would be used directly in the interface, with the default being "yes". That way, there's an easy way to use the sprite if it looks better than the portrait.

[Aethaeryn]

Maybe it's just me, but I usually have a hard time telling whether the sprites are male or female with some exceptions (mages come to mind).

I like the idea of having the portraits on the right side on the top, where the sprite is shown again. I don't know how hard it would be to do or how much work it will take to code the changes, but I like the idea.

Just my 2 cents.

Female units tend to have more "chest area." (Is that the politest way to put it?) If that fails, check to see if their leg is exposed (females, elvish archer line) or covered (males, elvish archer line), or check hair length. I admit it's easier to tell if you have two side-by-side, one male and one female.

[thespaceinvader]

Too much clutter is not a good thing. That would be extra clutter - bear in mind that not every user has the same GUI space you do.

You can see the portrait easily by looking at the unit description.

[Aethaeryn]

Even better if ThemeWML allowed a choice between the sprite or the portrait. Multiple themes could be set up and then everyone could have what they wanted.

Agreed. Some may say that OAB, but when it's a matter of mere taste like this, I think OAG.

[mameluke]

Too much clutter is not a good thing.

so you want to say it's a decision of "clutter" vs. game experience?

I don't agree that clutter is the right term (as I translate it in german) for your artwork!

bear in mind that not every user has the same GUI space you do.

I don't get the point here, since in the gimped example the same space is used. (the portraits have to be downscaled to about 70x70)

[Aethaeryn]

Too much clutter is not a good thing.

so you want to say it's a decision of "clutter" vs. game experience?

I don't agree that clutter is the right term (as I translate it in german) for your artwork!

I think he means that the Option A is too much clutter, and I'd agree. The status bar to the left is too crowded on some screens if you have more than three attacks, and adding another field (showing the portrait by END TURN) would clutter small screens even more.

EDIT: I meant to say Option A when I said Option B.

[thespaceinvader]

Option A is too much clutter. GUI junk. Option B is less usable, because the important thing with the side bar is to see which unit you've clicked on - the portraits don't always make that distinction clear.

There's also the issue of needing yet another portrait size to be added. I'd say no to this.

[Ken_Oh]

Don't take that bottom section of side bar away from me after we just got it back!!

[mameluke]

Since I don't know exactly which option A/B you guys name I edited the first post and added a label OPTION A/B
(maybe you can edit and correct your posts if stuff gets mixed up now?)

Option A is too much clutter. GUI junk.

Don't take that bottom section of side bar away from me after we just got it back!!

I agree that option A is not a good solution (so why did I post it then? ). So lets focus on option B from here on now, thx

[solsword]

Option A is too much clutter. GUI junk. Option B is less usable, because the important thing with the side bar is to see which unit you've clicked on - the portraits don't always make that distinction clear.

There's also the issue of needing yet another portrait size to be added. I'd say no to this.

I'm not convinced. First of all, as previously mentioned, it's pretty darn clear which unit is selected. Plus, the sidebar says things like "Elvish Fighter". And the sprites are pretty distinctive... used in this manner, people would quickly become able to recognize a unit by its portrait.

As for your second point, we do have ~CROP and ~SIZE image path functions. Although this would be far from ideal, it shouldn't take too long for someone with knowledge of the system to hack together a version that does this. And then we can try it out and see if it looks any better. If we wind up really liking it, we may decide that it's worth the effort to make a dedicated folder with smaller versions of the portrait images that have been resized by hand (or by a 'convert' script using custom parameters, which should be able to do a good enough job). If it's just meh, then we can scrap the idea.

As mameluke pointed out, having the sprites there is completely redundant with the sprite sitting out there on the field, except to provide quick visual confirmation of the type of unit selected. Because the portraits would do this just as well, there's no advantage in the system as it is now (that I can see) other than the fact that it already exists.