Loyalists - Biggerism and size cleanup

[Jetrel]

One of the primary goals in doing the team-color conversion was to help normalize all the unit heights according to race and level. This has gone very well, with one minor gaffe; that being the loyalists. Fixing this is of course no fun, but this needs to be done. Another of the primary goals in the TCC was to make our unit sprites utterly FINAL. Almost without exception, to set our images in stone, so that people are completely free to animate anything. This of course means that I can't leave a lingering issue like this.


I'm tweaking the size, and the detailing on a number of the loyalist units; I'll mostly be doing this myself, since it should actually be a rather easy job for many of them. Their heights will be set to be just slightly shorter than an elven/orcish counterpart, at least for melee units. Other units can be shorter.


The list goes like this:
Spearman - Slight increase in size, cleanup of chest area.
Swordsman - Slight increase in size, major reworking of armor
Royal Guard - Slight increase in size, major reworking of armor
Pikeman - Slight increase in size. Add swordsman shoulderpads.
Halberdier - Slight increase in size. Add royal guard shoulderpads.
Javelineer - no changes.

Bowman - Slight increase in size.
Longbowman - Slight increase in size.
Master Bowman - Slight increase in size, replace breastplate with swordsman's, replace helm with one of Neo's.

Sergeant - no changes.
Lieutenant - Almost no change (add shoulderpad and waist guard from swordsman).
General - no changes.
Grand Marshal - possibly no changes, may add shield from neo's earlier edit, and increase size by 1-2px.


Now is the time to give comments about these units, because after this revision, I don't ever want to touch them again. It's borderline absurd that I'm doing this at all, but it needs to be fixed.

I'm a bit dubious about the shield on the royal guard; something major needed to get changed about his pose, though - I might shoot for a down-angled sword like the marshal, or ... something else. Also might make the shield gold in color.


(Also, I'm aware of the situation with idle animations, and have a solution for that, too. Redeth won't need to redo anything.)

[Jetrel]

Also, for those who are wondering, the mages are getting an extreme makeover after 1.2 - one which will correct their height. The fencer line is fine, as are the horse lines. The HI line is waiting on how this pans out.

The other finished TC races - dwarves, undead, woses, trolls, ogres, goblins, orcs, saurians, and elves, need no edits of this nature; this came up because the loyalists alone were the sore thumb sticking out (partly because they were one of the earlier TC jobs).

When neo takes on the drakes, he'll eliminate any size issues there.

[wayfarer]

The waist guard on the Spearman looks funny and the shield of the Royal guard seems to be too low. Everything else is an improvement.

[turin]

The chest armor on some of the units, most notably the Swordsman, Royal Guard, and Master Bowman, make the units look like they're trying to be female. Other than that... well, like wayfarer, I find the Royal Guard to look a bit odd, and I'd like for there to be more differentiation between the Pikeman and Halberdier. But looks really nice.


May I ask why orcs are taller than men?

[Jetrel]

May I ask why orcs are taller than men?

IIRC, that _should_ be only the grunt line. If the assassin is, I need to to look into that.

Edit: I checked the assassin, and he's 1 px shorter than the human spearman shown above, which is perfect.

The grunt line is like LotR's Uruk Hai; big, beefy orcs, which should be slightly bigger than the average guy. The others are more like quasi-goblins, and the "true" goblins should be (and are) so small and stunted as to be no bigger than dwarves.

[Sapient]

While you're giving the Royal Guard a make-over, might I suggest painting all of his armor rather than half of it? Of all the units, he should have the most team-spirit. If you don't want to go that far, then at least transition between the two colors with a sash or sword-belt crossing over his chest. Anything is better than a half-steel checkerboard.

On a positive note, I think the shield does emphasize his guard-ness.

[Eleazar]

May I ask why orcs are taller than men?

This isn't something Jetryl just made up. Wesnothian Orcs (as opposed to Goblins) always have been huge.

I appreciate the work, you've put into this Jetryl.

So it's "speak now or forever hold your peace" time?
I like the new Royal guard with less TColor. Even with desaturated TColors he often looked odd.

Improvments i'd like to see, though probably not enough to do them myself. In order of importance.

1) I'd like to see the "spike" on top of the Royal and Halberdier, either removed or replaced with a plume, or at least reworked. It's really big. Against light backgrounds it doesn't look like a spike. Even when it can be clearly seen, it doesn't seem connected to the helmet, like it's just ballancing on top.

2) I'd rather see the spearman with a TColor shield than TColor leg-warmers. It's just odd to have the shins as the primary location of TColor.

3) The new Lieutenant looks nearly as strong and tough (He's got Huge pecs) as the Royal Guard, or Halberdier, whereas he's actually a much weaker unit. I know you're trying to portray leadership, but i think a little less Beef, and a little more fancy gear would get the idea across better.

4) In some areas i feel your trying to hard to cram contrasting definition into every pixel, like the metal "loincloths" or the Lieutenantet's armor. It's harder for the eye to resolve it into form, when lots of small areas 1 pix wide are borderd by strongly contransting small bits of color. Attached is a quick example. I didn't refine it much, but i think it illustrates how saving the high contrast to separate larger, more important portions, makes the over-all form more apparent.

5) The new Royal Guard seem to be carring his shield too low.

[Jetrel]

May I ask why orcs are taller than men?

This isn't something Jetryl just made up. Wesnothian Orcs (as opposed to Goblins) always have been huge.

Thank you.

I appreciate the work, you've put into this Jetryl.

So it's "speak now or forever hold your peace" time?

For me, too. I've gotta get these right, now, because I intend to open the doors to people doing whatever animations they want. Hopefully, we'll get so many that it would be a major undertaking to redo any single unit. It's a tough decision, but it needs to be made. If we were using 3d models or something, it wouldn't need to be made; but this is why blizzard won't be putting out another pre-raytraced diablo anytime soon; the next diablo game is going to be real-time rendered, because they can make a change to one thing, and have it propagate globally. Sprite art might look nice, but that one thing is what *really* makes it lose to 3D (I consider "viewing from arbitrary angles" as part of this, btw - because in sprites, those would be additional images you'd need to propagate changes to, if you even had those drawn).

I like the new Royal guard with less TColor. Even with desaturated TColors he often looked odd.

Well, I'm game for whichever looks better. Here you can see what Sapient's proposal looks like, and judge from there. I'm not too keen on how this came out.

1) I'd like to see the "spike" on top of the Royal and Halberdier, either removed or replaced with a plume, or at least reworked. It's really big. Against light backgrounds it doesn't look like a spike. Even when it can be clearly seen, it doesn't seem connected to the helmet, like it's just ballancing on top.

For loyalists, the plume indicates leadership. Feathers don't signify this, but the straight-out military horsehair(?) plume does. I don't want to remove these spikes, since the design element is one I'd actually like to see more often, but I'm game for reworking this until you like it - I've done one shot at bettering the definition on it in the picture below.

It's _supposed_ to be big, though.


I could try changing that, if you'd like, to something more simple in shape; something just protruding without the indent at the bottom.

2) I'd rather see the spearman with a TColor shield than TColor leg-warmers. It's just odd to have the shins as the primary location of TColor.

I'll give that to his shield; the "leg warmers" are supposed to be greaves of a sort, but dilated like they are, they get a bit funny.[/quote]

3) The new Lieutenant looks nearly as strong and tough (He's got Huge pecs) as the Royal Guard, or Halberdier, whereas he's actually a much weaker unit. I know you're trying to portray leadership, but i think a little less Beef, and a little more fancy gear would get the idea across better.

I actually didn't increase his size at all; and he's no bigger than the swordsman. I just gave him the swordsman/spearman's new shoulderpads, and waist-guard.

4) In some areas i feel your trying to hard to cram contrasting definition into every pixel, like the metal "loincloths" or the Lieutenantet's armor. It's harder for the eye to resolve it into form, when lots of small areas 1 pix wide are borderd by strongly contransting small bits of color. Attached is a quick example. I didn't refine it much, but i think it illustrates how saving the high contrast to separate larger, more important portions, makes the over-all form more apparent.

It's a page out of neo's book (or pekka's even - by chiaroscuro shading), and actually, the waist-guard edges are straight imitation of the ones the orcish grunt line has. Look at the earlier edit he made of the Grand Marshal to see this in spades. Those waist guards are somewhat nebulous in what they could be, but I see them as either lacquered metal, or as bits of a leather cuirass protruding from under the breastplate, with riveted edges.

Still, I'm going to do some tweaks to a few of the units who use this, and try and bend things a bit in your direction. It can be overdone.

5) The new Royal Guard seem to be carring his shield too low.

Fixed, see below.

[Sapient]

ooh, thanks for entertaining my proposal! For what it's worth, I think it's a big step up in awesomeness from the 1.1.11 version.

[wayfarer]

Can't you give the whole gang a kind of TC colored loincloth. Aka everthing heavy armored else it looks like they are wearing a short skirt.

Something like this


Edit damned typos

Don't drink and type.

[Jetrel]

Cant you give the whole gang a kind of TC colored loincloth. Aka everthing heavy armorded else it looks like they wearing a short skirt.

Something like this

I'm afraid if I do that, it might attract too much attention to their crotch. But hey, why not? (Test edit, soon).

[wayfarer]

Even more than the Elvish Champion with his fancy belt ?

Well only for lv2 and 3 as a sign for their skills in battle like a black belt.

[JW]

everthing heavy armored else it looks like they are wearing a short skirt.

I agree with this. I don't know about TC on the crotch though.

[Sapient]

I don't know about TC on the crotch though.

Sounds like some kind of disease...nah. Skellies already have that fashion statement. The skirt, or whatever the actual term is for that armor piece, looks fine to me.

[Jetrel]

Candidate for the final version of the Royal Guard: