UTBS unit images (for Quartex)

[Zhukov]

Ok quartex, here is the base image for that Sentinel.
It doesn't have any animations yet, as I thought I should see if you like it before I go too far.
I don't know how obvious this is, but it is basically a hack of an existing unit. I included the Desert Hunter's cute little cap, just to keep the connection. I also made the bolas bigger and gave him a shortsword. I might include some slightly more fancy armour/clothing.

So...
Anything there that shouldn't be? Or not there that should be? Changes you want to see?

EDIT:
To everyone else who won't have a clue what I'm on about: quartex asked me to do this image for his campaign.
And to Devs/Mods who are wondering why the heck I'm using the restricted forum: as quartex requested this image it will be made to his preferances, so I decided to 'filter out' the tirade of comments.)

EDIT #2::oops: Whoops, it's actually called a Prowler, not Sentinel.

[Eleazar]

And to Devs/Mods who are wondering why the heck I'm using the restricted forum: as quartex requested this image it will be made to his preferances, so I decided to 'filter out' the tirade of comments.)

The purpose of this forum is to avoid the flood of random comments. You are welcome to post here, especially since you are a regular with art skills, and UtBS is probably on it's way to becoming official.

[Boucman]

yes, you are a regular contributor, it means we trust you to be reasonable when using moderated forums.

but these forums are here to be usefull. So you certainly CAN post there if you want to.

it's not like "we allow you to post there because you won't do it"

we allow you to post there because we think you will post there in a responsible way

[quartex]

I hope we're done arguing over semantics.

Zhukov,
We could have had this conversation in a private medium, but posting it here is fine too. I very much agree that it is good that you posted this here and not in the open forum. Although I encourage comments, I don't need the entire forum posting about a work in progress.

Thank you Zhukov for your quick response to my request for new unit artwork. It looks very nice. I like how you made it conform to the new elf body type but also used features from the previous hunter and sentinel units.

One of my difficulties with the desert elves is that they tend to look awfully monochromatic, lots of brown and tan and not much else. They look like a black and white photo stained sepia.

So I was looking at this trying to figure out what highlights we might be able to add to the unit without making it look bad. Here's one idea, the level 1 and level 2 have brown bolas, what if we made these bolas metallic colored and sword silvery instead of yellow.

This image looks fine and it may be that there isn't much that can be done to improve it, but I wonder if fiddling with the coloring might help make it look a bit more impressive as a 3rd level unit.

Otherwise you're free to go onto doing the animations. Feel free to copy the bola attack from either the Hunter or the Sentinel.

P.S. I am continuing to rework UTBS as a candidate for official inclusion. I'm currently rewriting the 5th scenario which is taking some time. But I hope to have the artwork and revisions finished in the next 2-3 weeks.

[Zhukov]

Righto...
Recoloured weaponry, as requested.
I should be able to get started on the animations soon.

P.S I got the name right this time.

[Zhukov]

Here we have the beginning of the bolas attack. There are three options, choose which you like best. The only difference between each of them is the blur effect (or 'swoosh') on the bolas. (Oh yes, and I got rid of the metallic colouring, like you asked.)

-> The first (a) has the blur done in the same style as the existing Hunter and Sentinal images. Personally I think it looks rather lame, but I thought you might want to have it that way for the sake of consistancy.
-> The second (b) was done with a smudge tool. The blurs are seperated from the balls by being on a different layer.
-> The third (c) is a very slight variation. The balls have been blended into the blur. (This is my favourite )

Also, would you like the stance to change while he is whirling the bolas? The Hunter/Sentinal images don't shift stance, however I think this one would look better with a smallish change, perhaps if the sword arm was lowered while he is spinning the bolas...

P.S.
[excuse]Sorry this took so long. However since college started again my free time has gone out the window, drastically. I only have time to do Wesnoth stuff on weekends.[/excuse]

[Darth Fool]

One thing that you might consider doing is team coloring the graphics. Maybe make the bola team colored?

[Boucman]

by changing the position of the bola balls, you can give an illusion of acceleration ad use it as a base for an attack animation

[quartex]

by changing the position of the bola balls, you can give an illusion of acceleration ad use it as a base for an attack animation

Zhukov, those ranged attack animations look beautiful, thank you very much. I do like Boucman's suggestion, I believe the Desert Hunter's bolas change position somewhat and it works very well.

Right now none of the Desert Elves have team colors, and since they are almost always controlled by the player, I don't think that team colors are necessary. The main reason I'm not rushing to add team colors to the Desert Prowler is that if I do it on one unit I'd want to do it on all of them and I have several others art projects that are higher priority right now.

As for the amount of blur, when I first saw your images, I thought they were three frames of the ranged attack, where the blur increased as the bolas spun faster and faster. In general the second and third image look much better than the first. But would it be possible to gradually increase the blur as the bolas speed up, while spinning the position of the balls at the same time? Feel free to test how the animation looks in-game while you are working on them. If you change the desert hunter unit file to make these the default images, you should be able to test the unit images while playing the first scenario of UTBS.

[Zhukov]

I have been blessed with...(massive drum roll followed by clash of symbols)...A FOUR-DAY LONG WEEKEND!

Which means I can actually do something more enjoyable than homework, like UtBS images! I felt guilty about not even looking at these for so long, so I am doing an all-nighter to get this fellow complete.

Okay, thats out of my system. Here we have the ranged animation more-or-less complete, depending on what you think of them. Unfortunately implementing the idea of increasing level of 'swoosh' was surprisingly tricky. So I have simply made three spinning frames with the balls in different positions, different hand positions, and slightly varied amounts of 'swoosh'. I am thinking that you could use the cycle twice, but make the images display closer together the second time round to give the impression of acceleration. Maybe you could even use the cycle three times...I dunno.

Note that the images do not have to be used in the sequence that they are numbered, that is just the order in which I made them.

Another thing: this is probably the stupidest possible time to bring this up, but I realised that in reality a bolas would not spin like that. All the balls would spin in a bunch. So while this hopefully looks good, it messes with realism. But hey, WINR, so I guess it's of no real importance.

Here they are. Enjoy.

Damnit, I need sleep. It's 3:20am here. (If I post something like "ttttuokijhy6tghyik9o" in the next few minutes, it's probably a sign that I have collapsed on the keyboard.)

EDIT: Yes, I really do need sleep: I forgot to attach the images.

[turin]

The images?

[Zhukov]

Who the hell was the genius who decided to implement an attachment limit of 3 images? If I ever corner him somewhere quite, dark and isolated...

Regardless, here is the last image:

(And I edited the others into my previous post, where they should've been.)

[quartex]

Zhukov, thank you very much. These look really beautiful. The combination of the blur and the changing positions is going to make the ranged attacks look sweet.

You're right that technically a bola wouldn't be swing like this, but it looks much cooler this way and I don't think it's a big issue. Artistically I think the the pattern of the previous units is a good one to follow.

I think the hardest part is done. All that's left is the melee attack image and the defend image. I assume you've completed the base image, although you haven't posted it here yet.

I'm going to go implement these images right now and test them out.

[Zhukov]

Thanks.

I didn't post the base image? Easily fixed.

[quartex]

Thanks!