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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 18, 2014 04:32 AM |
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Orzie said:
fred79 said:
Orzie said:
Honestly - yes, it still looks a bit alien. I don't know what to change in it particularly, but probably darken his back edge a bit (the outline) and get rid of the purple color totally (it is very notable on his left hand - the pixels are visible).
there are no purple pixels on his left hand. there are red pixels on his left wrist, that are supposed to be there, as it is exposed flesh.
it is a mutant zombie. if i got rid of the purple tint of what's left of it's skin, it wouldn't be a mutant anymore, would it? it would be gray instead, which i don't find matches a zombie at all. especially the blue-gray that is the original walking dead/zombie. i liked the putrification factor with HoMM2's zombies, which is why i'm using them to replace the current zombies. i toned the colors down enough, that they aren't glaring anymore. if you look at certain other HoMM3 creature defs, you will notice they have more color than most of the Necro faction anyway.
i wanted to exchange some HoMM3 creatures with HoMM2 creatures, and not deviate too much from the originals. i feel i have done that with the mz, and will be doing so again with the HoMM2 zombie, which I will be using in place of the current HoMM3 walking dead.
as for the shadow for the back of the mz, i think it has enough. the power lich, by comparison, doesn't have much directional shadow, either. in fact, if you compare most of the HoMM3 defs, they lack stronger shadows, as well.
of course, sitting the mz next to the wight doesn't help the comparison/continuity, as the wight is much darker. it's the darkest out of the entire Necro faction. 
hmm... i don't know if it's the power of suggestion, but now the mz DOES seem a tad light in shade(maybe a -3 or -4 in brightness will fix)... thanks for your input, orzie. 
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 18, 2014 05:09 AM |
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Orzie said:
I don't say everything you do is wrong. I just say that if you make a proper graphic asset to complete your maps/mods
Sure. And no offense, this is why I am telling that you need more experience in modding to gather a more low-brow perspective on this. For example, SW mod, you join it, 80% of work is already done, the scripting part is done by Kegolo. Who now left and no one knows where he is.
Question: what would you do if you joined the project from scratch and nothing were done? Exactly as Kalu, you would struggle with erm basics then beg around someone to help (like we all sometimes). And what you do if someone is giving you parts of code and then suddenly leaves the team because his cat is ill or whatever? You are stuck and look stupid with a amazing mod 63% done and no way to finish it, right?
No pun intended, this was the example I needed to make you understand why teams are rarely functioning. Everyone made here some awful experience, HoTA on top, their team disintegrated how many times and we thought it will never be completed. When I was working on a huge project, I had a three people team, Astaroth as graphical artist, Jim Vogan as co-scripter. We worked hard for 14 months (!), then Astaroth had a bad day and vanished. 1 month later me and Jim disagreed on some script and broke team. 14 months vanished like nothing, project was half completed and not playable.
You can upload Succession wars while 80% done then ask people to ignore this or that until is graphically ready, but the kind of mods I do, if not 100% playable, game will not even start.
This is why my projects are and will always be one man show. I had so many idea to put in, so few free time, I can't handle the failure due to other people bad moods. And when you work alone, you can't do everything at professional levels, thus you need to make compromises. This does not mean graphical part is something I take lightly. Usually it takes me up to 6 months to gather then modify the external graphics to fit what I want, then 1-4 months for the code. So is still the most important part but not the most vital. The most vital is the idea behind all.
As I said, in HoMM scenarios, the graphics are there to support ideas, not to show "a graphic". This pattern changes if is about a new town, a new factions or complete graphic overhaul mods, as SW. I don't think we disagree on that.
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Orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 18, 2014 05:59 AM |
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Edited by Orzie at 17:07, 18 Feb 2014.
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I joined a project which had lots of work already done fully consciously, because I of course understand things you think I don’t. I am mainly a Lords of Magic modder, so you’d better not see me as a recent joiner – I just did not mod HMM3 specifically. I was a scripter for Lords of Magic. I saw the potential in the SW Mod, and I love it’s idea (it was my dream). I knew that the SW Mod has a great chance of appearing as a complete product. So that I feel deep respect for Mr. Kalu, because he did a lot of work. However, if the SW Mod team leader was not an artist (Kivo) who can draw nicely and replicate the style professionally, I would think twice before joining the team. An artist who can do the needed things is a rarity, and often a guarantee for the mod to be completed. The programmer can be found a bit more easily (and graphics can attract him, but programming features can attract artists not so good and you understand that).
And also, if you think that I have come like a carrion to the already finished project – it is not true. I contribute most of my free time to it, I created the info sources and maintain them, I do art which was not done before. The mod has an unbelievable jump in progress since I have come. Because I believe that the SW Mod can make it to the end. Yes, it is a big luck that the project had so much already completed features, but Mr. Kalu never intended the project to be serious like it pretends to be now. We have the higher standards, and we know what to do to fulfill them.
Kegolo has also done good (I believe he retired because of his Ph.D. coming), but currently I have to beg the programmer to fix all the bugs he left. Yes, he fixed many Kalu’s bugs, but still the map editor is in horrible condition (the creatures are totally mixed up), the cool features like “3 level s of Dragons in one Dragon Tower” are implemented wrong and buggy (and must be re-done from scratch, and such is the situation with some graphic assets - it's sometimes easier to make from scratch rather than to seek for a mistake somewhere. You do programming and you understand what is looking at a code made by another man. Things can be tricky). We never forget the contribution of people. The qualified and consistent work is rarely a result of a one-man team. Mr. Kalu and Kegolo are mentioned everywhere.
Also, concerning graphics – I feel no problem in paying for what I can’t do myself if I cannot ask/beg/convince people to do it for free or for exchange (Mostly, I pay for the art for my Lords of Magic mod – and I prefer to pay to the professional). I love my projects to be qualified and good-looking. The fans also love such projects much more. If you spend time on it (which you could spend on earning money), it doesn’t differ much when you spend also a bit of your money to have your mod looking good. At last, the mod is a gift to the community. The good-looking and bug-free mod is a much greater gift.
Fred, sorry, I will answer you later – I’ve got a short time for writing at the moment. Actually I have some things to explain you (especially concerning settling things down with Kivo - now I know for sure that his ignoring of you was a shameful occasion and was not intended to be like that).
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Orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 18, 2014 05:01 PM |
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Edited by Orzie at 17:05, 18 Feb 2014.
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fred79 said:
there are no purple pixels on his left hand. there are red pixels on his left wrist, that are supposed to be there, as it is exposed flesh.
it is a mutant zombie. if i got rid of the purple tint of what's left of it's skin, it wouldn't be a mutant anymore, would it? it would be gray instead, which i don't find matches a zombie at all. especially the blue-gray that is the original walking dead/zombie. i liked the putrification factor with HoMM2's zombies, which is why i'm using them to replace the current zombies. i toned the colors down enough, that they aren't glaring anymore. if you look at certain other HoMM3 creature defs, you will notice they have more color than most of the Necro faction anyway.
i wanted to exchange some HoMM3 creatures with HoMM2 creatures, and not deviate too much from the originals. i feel i have done that with the mz, and will be doing so again with the HoMM2 zombie, which I will be using in place of the current HoMM3 walking dead.
as for the shadow for the back of the mz, i think it has enough. the power lich, by comparison, doesn't have much directional shadow, either. in fact, if you compare most of the HoMM3 defs, they lack stronger shadows, as well.
of course, sitting the mz next to the wight doesn't help the comparison/continuity, as the wight is much darker. it's the darkest out of the entire Necro faction.
hmm... i don't know if it's the power of suggestion, but now the mz DOES seem a tad light in shade(maybe a -3 or -4 in brightness will fix)... thanks for your input, orzie.
You have a point, but you should acknowledge that purple color was only used in H2 and MM4-5 for Undead just because these games don't have enough wide palettes and greyscale undead don't look so interesting. But the realistic color for the walking corpse is of course gray which is shown in MM7 and HMM3.
You of course can leave purplish gamma as is, but I would advise to play with it a little, if not to change. H3 creatures are made by 3D modeling, and they have just another lighting, contrast and all. Their lines are very contrasted in comparison to HMM2 creatures - say, the Dendroid which is made of harsh contrasting lines. So does the lighting - while you have the bright front part, the back is shaded gradiently. 3D is really hard to replicate by conventional pixel art techniques. Your advises to LW in his Romanian town thread did make it cool, but he needs to play a little more with the lighting and contrast to make his buildings (I suppose he took them from Google) fit completely. But he's got a really nice progress.
I am not even talking about the overall style of the zombie which is anyway looking too cartoonish even in your fixed form. Yes, you did fix the lighting and gamma on some point, but there is also a thing called 'drawing style', which is not sufficient at that point. It's like when you look on classic portraits and portraits taken from other games/mods. These portraits are made in the same palette and they don't conflict much with the environment, but they are not HMM3-styled. They are too much like real people portraits.
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 18, 2014 05:25 PM |
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Edited by fred79 at 18:13, 18 Feb 2014.
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i played around with the purple color when i was coming up with a formula to transfer it over. purple stayed, because all of the other colors didn't say "mutant zombie" to me.
i very well understand how hard 3d is to replicate with Photoshop, believe me. but it's not impossible, just more time-consuming. i fixed all of the differences between HoMM2 and HoMM3 defs, for the MZ. the shading gradient, like i stated before, is fine the way it is for the MZ, as many of the HoMM3 defs do not have the same shading.
lol, how does the MZ look too cartoonish? have you taken a close look at the Vampire Lord, for instance? that's a mighty big head(and no neck), with a mighty big mouth on him. he could pass for a baby walrus with that grill. have you ever noticed the wraith's torso during the mouse-over frames? it appears to have a beer gut(even if it is supposed to be the ribcage).
as for the drawing style, take a look at the skeleton directly above it. how do you not notice the similarities? is it because the MZ has a slight grin, that you can't take him seriously? he deals plague, man. and he does so with a smile, because he thinks it's funny when people die of the plague. do you know of any other creature in the HoMM3 world that is so hilariously evil? 
i think your apparent hatred of the color purple is throwing your perspective off, man. no offense.
(removed unneeded quote)
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Orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 18, 2014 05:29 PM |
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Edited by Orzie at 17:32, 18 Feb 2014.
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Lol, no. I don't hate purple at all. But still I see that the zombie is not yet fitting. I don't know what's wrong as I am not able to convince you in particular, but it still doesn't look native. Of course it's much more fitting than the prototype, but still.
Also, if you regard to Purple or whatever color as only the defining of Mutant, I must say that mutations are much more often shown in many, many games with the malformed shape of the creature itself. 
Ah. I guess you could have played with the contrast more. The color transitions for the zombie are too smooth in comparison with other guys. Hope that might help.
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 18, 2014 06:11 PM |
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Edited by fred79 at 18:12, 18 Feb 2014.
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well, i guess it's potato/potata then. i'm a huge fan of 'ol tarman, that's why i have him.
no, i don't define mutant by the color purple. that's retarded. funny, but retarded.
about the contrast, i actually had to find a sweet spot with that. more contrast makes the MZ look more akin to HoMM2. i used less to help it blend better. less separation that way, gives it the illusion of possibly being 3d-made. there is certainly a definition loss because of this, but any sharper, and certain parts of the def stand out too much, throwing the whole thing off. the version you see there is the best i could get it to closely resemble HoMM3 creatures, with all of my hours of tweaking and error-correcting, and re-tweaking and re-error-correcting, starting over with a completely different formula, rinse, repeat, etc.
what sucks about the formula for the MZ, is that it isn't transferable to the other HoMM2 defs. each one, i have found, is unique. even the regular HoMM2 Zombie differs from the MZ, when comparing with the other defs. the same basic formula still works, but all of the tweaking to get it to maximum visual effectiveness is different. it's a damn good thing there are only certain ones i want to transfer. it's a pity that the 2 Zombies will probably be the easiest, compared to the others i have in my plans.
(removed unneeded quote)
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted February 19, 2014 12:51 PM |
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Thanks Salamandre for the historic view.
I'm not a member of this community for time enough to have it, when I discovered WoG Era had allready published.
But you talked about some maps (Last Hope, Adjudication, Toran Rift and Thunk) I didn't found on Maps4Heroes.
Does someone knows where to find them? I found some in Celestial Heavens but files must be damaged cause I couldn't open them.
Thank you.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted February 19, 2014 01:56 PM |
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Maybe THIS is still up. Found it using the search function here
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Orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 19, 2014 02:34 PM |
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To turn this conversation to a more on-topic direction, I have to say that we are going to have the Last Hope campaign as a custom one in The Succession Wars Mod too. I don't know if we will use scripting or just make a photographically exact conversion, because we don't have map scripters in the team at the moment. But the H2-ish versions are planned to be made.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 19, 2014 07:10 PM |
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Pure graphic conversions will work (nice to look at), but gameplay will be screwed.
Had same idea years ago, converted Beltway and 7 lakes from H2 to H3 (keep distances, monsters level and all) then didn't work as in H2, timing, fights, moves radius, all was inaccurate when playing MP.
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Era II mods and utilities
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Orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 19, 2014 07:44 PM |
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Edited by Orzie at 19:45, 19 Feb 2014.
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Well, generally I don't see a point in making an exact conversion for this mod specifically. Still, if we want the same gameplay, we can simply get HMM2, isn't it? That's why in my conversions I try to make the game at least balanced between the players. The different movement points, the drastic difference in artifact buffs, different fight difficulties and many other things just won't let us replicate. I have to say that H3 gameplay is easier than H2 one (at least, on these maps). So that I have to increase the level of monsters significantly.
Anyway, the goal we try to achieve while converting H1, H2 and H3 maps is primarily the graphics. There is no point in making the gameplay 100% exact as H2. Moreover, WoG provides a lot of opportunities to enrich the maps with scripts, additional objects, multi-functional events and all that. The thing that must be also of course kept in mind is still the balance between players though.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 19, 2014 07:52 PM |
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Orzie said:
Anyway, the goal we try to achieve while converting H1, H2 and H3 maps is primarily the graphics. There is no point in making the gameplay 100% exact as H2.
Well, here is the mistake (thus my remark). Regular/generic maps will probably not change much-what is already bad will probably remain bad-, but for a quality campaign as Last Hope-tested pixel by pixel- you will get a new game, untested, with unpredictable results. Nothing will work as the author intended, and that campaign has hundred of events.
Good luck
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Era II mods and utilities
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Orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 19, 2014 07:54 PM |
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Edited by Orzie at 19:55, 19 Feb 2014.
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No, in the case of Last Hope and other custom scenarios of course things are different. This is the main difficulty. Maps like these will need more testing and polishing. That's why we prefer to prepare generic maps first, like the same Beltway, Surf and Turf and others. They are already created and being tested as we speak.
My favourite map of all time was Ghost Planet by Charlie Watkins, but I don't have an idea yet how it can be properly converted with 100% saving Charles' idea. Perhaps later.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 19, 2014 07:58 PM |
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Have you already done Beltway?
Here is the version I did for H3, I kept the maximum of details similar to H2. (scroll until you find Beltway)
Maybe you can directly use it, with the new graphics. But even Beltway suffers in H3, the monolith south 2 ways which we loved so much to block with one scout, now will not work. In H3 a battle will follow.
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Era II mods and utilities
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Orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 19, 2014 08:05 PM |
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Edited by Orzie at 20:11, 19 Feb 2014.
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Salamandre said:
Have you already done Beltway?
Here is the version I did for H3, I kept the maximum of details similar to H2. (scroll until you find Beltway)
Maybe you can directly use it, with the new graphics. But even Beltway suffers in H3, the monolith south 2 ways which we loved so much to block with one scout, now will not work. In H3 a battle will follow.
Sure, I did, as well as a good number of other maps, but thanks anyway.
Yes, the portal makes its correctives. Perhaps we will be able to find a way to change the effect (classic blocking was good for custom scenarios, but for random ones you could not also for example reach the main location because the computer just sat over it, like it was for me in one of the Price of Loyalty missions). Also it is not very optimistic to have such portals in multiplayer.
The map list is something around this as we speak.
I plan to release the Extra Map Pack which includes all of these sweeties pretty soon when a bit of testing will be done and some maps will be finished. Currently there are too less maps in the mod release, and all need fixing.
H1 maps:
M - Gateway
M - Jolly Roger
M - Two if by Sea
M - Archipelago
M - Around the Bay
M - Claw
M - Continentia
M - Continentia (Allied)
M - Gringo Land
M - Hail Britannia
M - Hermit's Isle
M - Neighbours
M - New World
M - Sea Breeze
M - The Jester
M - Town Haul
H2 maps:
XL - Clouds of Xeen
XL - Dragon Wars (in progress)
XL - Dominion (in progress)
XL - Grim Reaper (in progress)
XL - Surf and Turf
L - Alteris
L - Alteris 2
L - Good vs. Evil (in progress)
L - Seven Lakes (in progress)
M - Beltway
M - Broken Alliance
M - Dragon Rider (in progress)
M - Fool's Gold
M - Hail Unicorns!
M - Heroes
M - Mineral Wars
M - Portals
M - Quadruplets (in progress)
S - Arrax the Jerk
S - Dungeon Below (2 versions - with and w/o underground)
S - River Crossing
S - Key to Victory
S - Pandemonium
S - Skirmish
S - Slugfest
S - The Back Door
S - The Other Side
H3 maps:
M - All for One
M - Barbarian Breakout
S - Arrogance
S - Arrogance (Allies)
S - Dungeon Keeper
S - Good to Go
S - There Is Not Enough Space!
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 19, 2014 08:59 PM |
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Warmonger
Promising
Legendary Hero
fallen artist
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posted February 19, 2014 09:11 PM |
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Wasn't Seven lakes XL? I remember that map was huge at it took forever to finish it back then. Still, it was an amazing experience
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The future of Heroes 3 is here!
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 19, 2014 09:55 PM |
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Was large, we never played XL maps multiplayer.
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Orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 20, 2014 08:30 AM |
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Edited by Orzie at 08:31, 20 Feb 2014.
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Sure, thanks a lot. I hope there are a lot of things having exact coordinates - this really helps. The obstacles usually have to be fully replaced with new ones due to the different object passabilities and such.
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