Popular Post Flix 5,116 Posted April 13, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted April 13, 2020 **This mod is now included in Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition, so be sure to use the version of Portrait Overhaul packaged with that mod, if you use EE.** DOWNLOAD THE STANDALONE PORTRAIT MOD: Introduction: Every creature in Sacred 2, whether friendly NPC or enemy, has an icon created for it, This icon is displayed in various places, such as dialogues, merchant interfaces, the quest log, and the "Last Opponent" window, which serves as a kind of recent Bestiary. In vanilla, these icons are made from 3D renders of the creature in question. This is a great idea in theory, however these renders are squashed down into tiny 96x96 icons, which means in many cases you can hardly tell what you are looking at. Even when you can, the models are usually very unappealing to look at in this format. Most either show the creature very far away or comically close up. Anyway, this project aims to revamp all the icons with new artistic ones that are true to the look of the actual models but which also provide the creatures with more character and personality. In-Game Examples: I started, as a proof of concept, with some High Elf portraits. Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/TOPvZs5 5 Link to comment
Dax 481 Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 And so it begins... Here, I made some quick experiments and added a new canvas. In this case, the portrait size shrinks down to 75x75 pixels. Visibility should be still ok, picking the right colors might be a bit tricky due to the silver-grey style of the GUI. 1 Link to comment
Flix 5,116 Posted April 13, 2020 Author Share Posted April 13, 2020 8 hours ago, Dax said: And so it begins... Here, I made some quick experiments and added a new canvas. In this case, the portrait size shrinks down to 75x75 pixels. Visibility should be still ok, picking the right colors might be a bit tricky due to the silver-grey style of the GUI. Very cool look. I will probably have to avoid adding extra borders to the portraits however, due to how many different sizes and places the portraits will appear, some already with frames, some without. Link to comment
Popular Post Flix 5,116 Posted April 15, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 15, 2020 High Elves are complete. Never mind the duplicates; some NPC's you'll never see the portraits for since they're not involved in quests or trading; this was my way of making sure most, if not all, portraits will make an appearance in-game at some point. New: Old: 1 1 1 Link to comment
Dax 481 Posted April 15, 2020 Share Posted April 15, 2020 Nice collection, Flix! Very nice collection! 1 Link to comment
Popular Post SANGEL 13 Posted April 15, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted April 15, 2020 (edited) @Flix Perhaps we could use a generative nerual net to create more of those portraits provided you can lead me to a place with lots of those icons. I'll train the model and give you the generated portraits to choose from, heck we could actually animate the portraits with some in-painting techniques. I guess some of those portraits may not be perfect, but I guess that since you are such a great artist, maybe be you can give them a little polish. PM me if you wanna work on this project. Edited April 15, 2020 by SANGEL 1 1 Link to comment
gogoblender 3,070 Posted April 15, 2020 Share Posted April 15, 2020 @Flix @Dax Dax... look where your work has taken direction... from all your efforts starting with Sacred Underworld and now you have friend Flix who has been so touched that the changes have extended to his work in Sacred 2... Flix, your collection of portraits for Elves alone is jaw dropping... and just seeing the collection of Elves together like this in game looks like Art Piece.. I remember when Schot was writing up the replace code in the Wiki for when he was trying to takeout cut and paste pictures change them into Data to make the pages less blocky. for dialogue pages..http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Template:S2_Dialogue http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Category:NPC_Dialogue_Portraits I remember seeing the portraits then, but this has elevated to a new scope Love the community and execution here! gogo 1 Link to comment
Dax 481 Posted April 15, 2020 Share Posted April 15, 2020 1 hour ago, gogoblender said: Dax... look where your work has taken direction... from all your efforts starting with Sacred Underworld and now you have friend Flix who has been so touched that the changes have extended to his work in Sacred 2... gogo Flix must be a working machine. Sorting portraits and assigning them correctly takes a while. He has either a co-worker, or has moved on to Espresso Coffee intensity 12-14. (He was on Espresso level 9 a few days ago) 1 Link to comment
gogoblender 3,070 Posted April 15, 2020 Share Posted April 15, 2020 4 minutes ago, Dax said: Flix must be a working machine. Sorting portraits and assigning them correctly takes a while. He has either a co-worker, or has moved on to Espresso Coffee intensity 12-14. (He was on Espresso level 9 a few days ago) heh, i was thinking same thing about him...! lol i sense a few Overnights here ! gogo Link to comment
desm 329 Posted April 15, 2020 Share Posted April 15, 2020 21 minutes ago, Dax said: Flix must be a working machine He indeed actually is. I won't throw him too flowers, he'll have enough when all his projects will be achieved, but all the work he actually does is impressive. I wish I would be able to do the same 1 Link to comment
Androdion 884 Posted April 15, 2020 Share Posted April 15, 2020 Will this change become a standard in EE (and by extension D2F), or is it going to be an optional module? Link to comment
Flix 5,116 Posted April 15, 2020 Author Share Posted April 15, 2020 Thanks for the kind words all. It's good to know it's well-received. A project like this is meaningless without an audience. And it doesn't feel like work when it's fun. I love fantasy artwork anyway, this is just an excuse to browse through lots of it. The mechanical part I've sped up with shortcuts in GIMP ("work smarter not harder") so processing the portraits goes pretty quick once I've selected them. 29 minutes ago, Androdion said: Will this change become a standard in EE (and by extension D2F), or is it going to be an optional module? Not sure yet, it's too early on. I'm leaning towards optional module in EE. For D2F, I spent way too much time in years past making 3D-rendered portraits for all the new monsters and characters already. I'm VERY reluctant to toss all that out. 1 Link to comment
Androdion 884 Posted April 15, 2020 Share Posted April 15, 2020 3 minutes ago, Flix said: Not sure yet, it's too early on. I'm leaning towards optional module in EE. For D2F, I spent way too much time in years past making 3D-rendered portraits for all the new monsters and characters already. I'm VERY reluctant to toss all that out. I read you. I think that in D2F it won't fit, but between optional module and full integration I guess you can poll it and have a grasp of what your audience wants. Personally I think these portraits would fit well being standard in Enhanced Spells, but not as much on "vanilla" EE. That's my two cents. Link to comment
gogoblender 3,070 Posted April 17, 2020 Share Posted April 17, 2020 On 4/15/2020 at 11:13 AM, Flix said: And it doesn't feel like work when it's fun. I love fantasy artwork anyway, this is just an excuse to browse through lots of it. lol, Iove this too... I can relate! gogo Link to comment
dimitrius154 612 Posted April 17, 2020 Share Posted April 17, 2020 On 4/15/2020 at 6:13 PM, Flix said: I spent way too much time in years past making 3D-rendered portraits for all the new monsters and characters already. I'm VERY reluctant to toss all that out. Just in case, you can make portraits in higher resolution, those will be resized to 96x96 by the engine itself, keeping much of the detail. Link to comment
Flix 5,116 Posted April 17, 2020 Author Share Posted April 17, 2020 37 minutes ago, dimitrius154 said: Just in case, you can make portraits in higher resolution, those will be resized to 96x96 by the engine itself, keeping much of the detail. Hm, I briefly experimented with this, they seemed too blurry. I suppose I could revisit the idea and try applying a sharpening filter first. The portrait size and position in-game is apparently defined in the various xml files in skin-xml.zip. For example you may not have known that Merchant and Runemaster portraits are off-center from the frame (Blacksmith is ok and provided the template for correction). The error is not noticeable with vanilla portraits because all portrait edges (except bottom) are transparent. The overlap only becomes apparent when switching to fully opaque square portraits like I have. Accordingly I'll have to package some corrected xml files with the portraits. 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Flix 5,116 Posted April 17, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 17, 2020 Northern Humans (Artamark) are done. New: Old: 3 1 Link to comment
dimitrius154 612 Posted April 17, 2020 Share Posted April 17, 2020 Very interesting. Unfortunately, there's no easy way of removing background, keeping just the NPC part of the image. Cause that's what I would suggest. Link to comment
gogoblender 3,070 Posted April 17, 2020 Share Posted April 17, 2020 The portraits are so rich... this is really adding premium feelings good job Flix! gogo 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Dax 481 Posted April 17, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted April 17, 2020 (edited) Once more a nice collection. Mmh, I could use some of those portraits myself, but I am too lazy to rework everything. Wow, wait! Send me the hooded guys! I got trouble to find good portraits for the mages in Mystdale Castle. Edited April 17, 2020 by Dax 1 1 Link to comment
Flix 5,116 Posted April 17, 2020 Author Share Posted April 17, 2020 34 minutes ago, Dax said: Once more a nice collection. Mmh, I could use some of those portraits myself, but I am too lazy to rework everything. Wow, wait! Send me the hooded guys! I got trouble to find good portraits for the mages in Mystdale Castle. Will do, I'll send them tonight when I get home from work. 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Flix 5,116 Posted April 20, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 20, 2020 Southern Humans (Bengaresh) are done. New: Old: 3 Link to comment
gogoblender 3,070 Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 Flix, I can't get how you can go through so many portraits so quickly, seeing so man human faces together like that is really cool to see as well... specially with all this social distancing going on its strangely comforting gogo Link to comment
Flix 5,116 Posted April 21, 2020 Author Share Posted April 21, 2020 1 hour ago, gogoblender said: Flix, I can't get how you can go through so many portraits so quickly, seeing so man human faces together like that is really cool to see as well... specially with all this social distancing going on its strangely comforting gogo Haha yeah I get it. It's almost like one of those photo collages of families you see in living rooms. Or maybe even a little bit of Brady Bunch going on lol? 1 Link to comment
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