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EU4 - Development Diary - 15th of November 2016

Hello, my name is Carlos Lundhall.
I'm a 3D-artist here at Paradox Development Studio and today I'm going to talk about a coming visual change in the coming 1.19 patch: New vanilla sprites!

I started playing EU4 when working on the Mare Nostrum dlc to get a feeling for the game I was working on, and BAM! I was hooked!

I now have 300+ hours in the game (I know, I know, it’s not a number to brag about) and love playing underdogs like Teutonic Order and Byzantium.

Under all this hours in the game it really scratched my eyes seeing the old vanilla sprites compared to the new ones, so I decided to remake them, one by one.

Here's a comparison between one of the new vs old sprites.
old_new_comparison_tier_1_02.png


At first I was thinking of this as a personal project that would take a lot of time to realize.
But after finishing the tier 1 western vanilla sprite using my free time and what we here at Paradox call Personal Development Time (basically we get a day each month to work on what we want as long as it is related to what we do in some kind, to develop our skills and try out new things), I pitched the idea to Catalak to give me some actual work time to redo some sprites, and I got it!

From there it was business as usual, taking the sprites trough my character pipeline.

So what does the pipeline look like?

First off there's a lot of research. I have a good 1200+ reference pictures for all the different tiers combined, and it's being filled with new references almost daily (I guess I like to collect stuff).

Then comes the concepts, where I try to do it old school style and just draw it on paper.
concpets.jpg

As you can see I had the ambition to remake the tier 1 cavalry also, but there was no time for that.

Next thing is to make the sprite!

I'm not going to bore you guys to death with all the technical 3D stuff that goes into making a model, so in short the process is as follows:
* Concept
* High poly modeling
* Low poly modeling and UV mapping
* Texturing
* Get the model into the game.

This picture below visualizes the process in a VERY rough manner.
process.jpg

Also there’s a lot of feedback from my dear colleagues, especially mr Carlberg, whom is a bottomless well of history knowledge and technical 3D stuff.

I stumbled upon some obstacles along the way, one of the biggest obstacles was that there was some tags that used copies of the vanilla models, and were unique in the script.

This gave me some countries that needed either
1. be redirected to use the new model and texture, and be colored with dynamic coloring, or
2. to make unique textures for them.

I went with the second option, here's some of them.
renders_tiers_1-4.jpg


Finally I remade the weapons also, I felt that they too needed a level up in visual quality.
western_generic_weapons_remake.png



And here's the final sprites.
western_generic_remake.png

For the tier 3 sprite I felt that we had such high quality material already, so I put together a sprite from existing parts.


So that was all for me.
Thank you for your time and I hope you enjoy the new sprites!
 
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Great job, the change was much needed. Now i see why the more recent unit packs used to have the low resolution weapons, it felt so strange. Now that the unit packs have a little bit of attention as well, i'd like to ask if it was possible to fix some minor unit pack issues that are often brought up at different places but always somehow get lost.

1. Tier 1 Italian DLC units use wrong one-handed animation, it's easy to change it in the dlc files, but I'd rather have it fixed officially since i don't know how to make a mod for it and have to rewrite it directly in the game files, which seems wrong ^^
2. Mamluk special cavalry models are overridden by the new infantry models. Easy to fix it by changing version number in the dlc files and some people might actually like the infantry models more, but since people paid for the original, it would be fair to let them use it.
3. Please release the old italian "T3" unit models for modding purposes, while the change was much needed due to immersion reasons, people paid for the original and it would be nice to put them to some use so that none of your work is wasted :)
4. Bukhara should totally use the Uzbek models, Prussia the T2 Brandenburg model and the new Golden Horde tag should use the (now) Great Horde models, just to keep things consistent and avoid some small disappointment when forming logical successor countries :)
5. The new 16/17th century rifle floats in the hand of the vanilla eastern T2 units, I don't even know how i managed to notice that one, let's hope it will be fixed by replacing the old models altogether :D

Anyway thanks for your work, you finally made playing tags without unit packs somewhat more satisfying again!
Very much so this. I have posted a similar suggestion/request quite a few times since the beta was released and I really hope it gets noticed. Also, the new Nubian tags need to use the Nubian skins.
(@DDRJake notice me, senpai!)

On the OP, these look very nice and will certainly improve the aesthetic of the game! Can't wait to see the other tech groups get updated!
 
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These look beautiful! Good work, and thank you.
 
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Byzantium ought to use Theodoro's models, the Turkish models don't really fit. Either that, or the Greeks need new models. If you look at Medieval II: Total War, Byzantine gunners (The equivalent of T2 infantry) are equipped with platemail, which isn't too farfetched.
 
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Does anyone know what the things hanging from the straps on tier 2 units are? Some sort of ammo? Bells? I've always wondered.
gunpowder containers
 
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@Nifelfang did countries like Denmark, Castille, and England really have their flag/Coat of Arms on the front of their uniforms? Or is that just done to make them stand out from each other?

Pretty sure during the Hundred Years War the English wore a form of the St. Georges Cross rather than the Coat of Arms. Edward III did it to make his army, which mostly consisted of archers, feel like a more unified force.
 
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I'm more and more feeling that Tier 2 should be split in 2 sub-tiers ro achieve a greater consistency :
Tier 2 'High' should cover the Renaissance armies of the late Italy wars, Bauernkrieg, the Spanish conquest of the Americas up to the expansions of Ivan the Terrible. Tier 2 'Low' cover the French religious wars, the Dutch indépendance war, the Thirty years war and the English Civil War. Fashion and weapons changed significantly during the period covered by Tier 2 and there is no uniformity on the Paradox models covering this period : depending of the country, you can have a Lansquenet with colorful crevés and halberd fighting a musketeer with the twelve apostles on the shoulder. It's kind of a pity and regretfully you can only attribute only one tech to show a new Tier.
Paradox should really think splitting Tier 2 to increase realism and immersion.
 
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Does anyone know what the things hanging from the straps on tier 2 units are? Some sort of ammo? Bells? I've always wondered.
Little containers of gunpowder to prime and load their muskets/arquebus, it eventually got replaced by having small packets with both gunpowder and shot in it. Packets where just convenient but the containers where seemingly better then using a powder horn which made it difficult to gauge how much powder you just put into your gun.

Edit: Seems like I gotten beat to the punch by a mile here.
 
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