Cultures and Portraits Revamp

[untequiller]

Here's a mockup of the Alan portrait set untequiller and I were discussing earlier. I tried it with the celtic portraits as a base as untequiller suggested as an alternative to the Western faces, but it didn't really turn out as I hoped (they still looked too Celtic in my opinion), so I tried it with the Mediterranean portraits as a base (which was actually untequiller's original suggestion).
Not too bad, I guess, though I dunno how much they look like real Alans. It's actually almost the same as the Georgian/Armenian portrait set I'll be trying out next, the only difference withthat is that they'll have Russian headgear. I could make the Alan and Georgian/Armenian portrait sets the same, too, possibly, I'm consdering that.

Really not bad, in my opinion. I actually did not define which of the packs better fitted for Alans (Celtic pack's too much Celt-ish, Norse one's too much Nord-ish... lol ) So I decided to suggest you using the visual stuff underrepresented on the game map.
By the way. Here are unique visual reconstructions for Alans (XI-XIV cc. period):
http://dom-np.narod.ru/rekon/hazar/pril1.htm
http://dom-np.narod.ru/rekon/hazar/pril2.htm
http://dom-np.narod.ru/rekon/hazar/pril3.htm
http://dom-np.narod.ru/rekon/hazar/pril4.htm
http://dom-np.narod.ru/rekon/hazar/pril6.htm
http://dom-np.narod.ru/rekon/hazar/pril7.htm
http://dom-np.narod.ru/rekon/hazar/pril8.htm
http://swordmaster.org/uploads/2010/polovac/allanian001.jpg
http://swordmaster.org/uploads/2010/polovac/allanian002.jpg
http://swordmaster.org/uploads/2010/alanas/nobile-alan-archer.jpg
http://swordmaster.org/uploads/2010/alanas/horse-alan-archer.jpg
http://gorets-media.ru/uploads/alany_6.png
http://gorets-media.ru/uploads/alany_10.png

So I'd say unique Alanian and Byzantine features are combined in their dress-style.

And I do recomend you to use Byzantine headgears for Alans/Georgians/Armenians, though.
As for dress gfx: Russian dress gfx fo Alans; Byzantine dress gfx for Georgians and Armenians.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Thanks all for the suggestions and pretty pics.

Since the Byzantine gfx has that odd group of "empty" headgear, I'll see if I can practice on that photoshop program Crak'd showed us, and put some Russian hats in those empty slots (so it'll be a mix of Byzantine and Russian headgear essentially) and see how that turns out for the Alan and Georgian/Armenian portrait sets.

 

[CrackdToothGrin]

Thanks all for the suggestions and pretty pics.

Since the Byzantine gfx has that odd group of "empty" headgear, I'll see if I can practice on that photoshop program Crak'd showed us, and put some Russian hats in those empty slots (so it'll be a mix of Byzantine and Russian headgear essentially) and see how that turns out for the Alan and Georgian/Armenian portrait sets.

If you need help with it, let me know. I've been using Adobe products professionally for about a decade now, so I can give you tips.

 

[Ixor779]

I'm no expert but being in the Roman sphere didn't genetically alter the Alans from an Asiatic steppe race to a Mediterranean race.

 

[iron0037]

I'm no expert but being in the Roman sphere didn't genetically alter the Alans from an Asiatic steppe race to a Mediterranean race.

I suggest a Google Image search on 'Ossetian' to get an idea of what modern descendants of the Alans look like. You can also search 'Alan warrior' to get an idea of what people think they looked like. In both cases, the look that cybrxkhan put together is reasonable to me. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by Asiatic. The Alans were originally an Iranian people, presumably with a wide array of facial features as is typical for Central Asians. Unfortunately, the game can't capture that much portrait variety for a single culture. Of course, origins aren't all that important since people intermingle with the natives over time. Modern Bulgarians and Turks appear little like the original Bolgars and Ottomans.

 

[Ixor779]

Bulgarians were a minority settling in Slavic and Greek lands, Ottomans in almost solely Greek. Not quite the same as a steppe peoples getting pushed around by Huns, Kazars, Pechenegs, Kipchaks, Mongols(the many tribes of the empire) and then Russians. Also never a good idea to say Image search Croatian if you want to see what an ancient Illyrian looked like.

 

[iron0037]

Well, your original statement implied that you expected genetic continuity from the moment the Alans arrived in Alania to the game period of CK2. If that was the case, then I imagined you also expected genetic continuity to the present day and would therefore consider modern Ossetians representative of their medieval ancestors. Are you suggesting something different than this, that there was no ethnic mixing from the 1st through 15th centuries? It was only after that when Alans started to gradually become more like Ossetians? Even if that was the case, I guess I'm not really understanding what you suggest CPR do with the Alans to represent their original form. Do you want to use something like the Mongol or Muslim faces?

BTW, I also said to look up 'Alan warrior.' In this picture, #1 is an Alan nobleman from the 7th-10th century. It's taken from this book, which is part of a well-researched series on ancient weaponry, attire, and appearance.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Concerning the Alans, they had already settled in the region for centuries if not a millennium, so quite a bit of mixture must have happened. Now, I agree that having the Mediterranean portraits isn't 100% accurate, but neither really is having the default African portraits for, say, the East Africans, so I figured it was the best compromise I could come up with for now. As the pictures various others have showed me demonstrate, the Alans look like they had a reasonable amount of resemblance to the people of Iran, Caucasus, ERE, and so on, so I'm fine with that.

There's also the issue of little genetic information available online about the Alans. Whereas, say, Wikipedia does talk a bit about the Cumans and states the Cumans were a mixture of Asian and Caucasian looks (which is unsurprising), there isn't much on the Alans proper. The closest we have would be the Ossetians, the modern-day descendants of the Alans; there the Wikipedia page says:

The Ossetians are a unique ethnic group of the Caucasus, being the only people found on both the north and south slopes of the mountain, also speaking an Indo-European language surrounded by Caucasian ethnolinguistic groups. The Y-haplogroup data indicate that North Ossetians are more similar to other North Caucasian groups, and South Ossetians are more similar to other South Caucasian groups, than to each other. Also, with respect to mtDNA, Ossetians are significantly more similar to Iranian groups than to Caucasian groups. It is thus suggested that that there is a common origin of Ossetians from Iran, followed by subsequent male-mediated migrations from their Caucasian neighbours

So basically using the Mediterranean faces - which are currently also used as the basis for the Byzantine, Caucasus, and Iranian cultures in CPR - seems to make reasonable sense. It's Wikipedia, yes, and it's vague, but it sounds reasonable enough to me given the history of the Alans.

 

[Heatth]

From what I can understand, the only problem with cybrxkhan, faces last page are the clothes. The 'Alan people' pictures all show them with distinctly Asian-ish clothes. The face pack posted earlier was dressed too western.

 

[cybrxkhan]

From what I can understand, the only problem with cybrxkhan, faces last page are the clothes. The 'Alan people' pictures all show them with distinctly Asian-ish clothes. The face pack posted earlier was dressed too western.

Hmm. I can see what you're saying. I tried the Russian clothes, which while somewhat oriental, is kind of hard to see. I could see how they look with the Mongol clothes, although I really hope we get some pretty colorful clothes whenever they do that Turkish/steppe portrait DLC anyhow.

 

[Heatth]

The Mongol clothes get pointy hats, doesn't it? Might work. That is the first thing I noticed on the Alan pictures and is likely to be the most obvious clothe feature in a face portrait.

 

[cybrxkhan]

The Mongol clothes get pointy hats, doesn't it? Might work. That is the first thing I noticed on the Alan pictures and is likely to be the most obvious clothe feature in a face portrait.

Yeah, I just looked at it and the Mongol hats match up well enough with the pictures shown above. I'll try Russian clothes and Mongol headgear for some variety and see how that works.

 

[TheRealAlu]

This looks like an interesting mod. But which cultures still use the original arab portraits? I'm assuming that hopefully not all of them got replaced.

 

[cybrxkhan]

This looks like an interesting mod. But which cultures still use the original arab portraits? I'm assuming that hopefully not all of them got replaced.

All the Arab cultures except the Levantine and Andalusian Arabs, I believe.

 

[Alerias]

Any reasons why this would not work with 2.0 as-is?

 

[cybrxkhan]

Any reasons why this would not work with 2.0 as-is?

Probably minor incompatibility due to changes in cultures (nothing game breaking but pretty annoying) but it shouldn't be too much to change, I'll take a look at exactly what the new patch changes.

 

[Alerias]

Probably minor incompatibility due to changes in cultures (nothing game breaking but pretty annoying) but it shouldn't be too much to change, I'll take a look at exactly what the new patch changes.

Makes sense. You probably use something similar, but WinMerge is great to compare the changes between the old and new files. I use it regularly to compare old and new when I need specifics on some changes between two patches.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Makes sense. You probably use something similar, but WinMerge is great to compare the changes between the old and new files. I use it regularly to compare old and new when I need specifics on some changes between two patches.

I use winmerge too.


Anyhow I hope to get a new version of CPR up really soon, much sooner than usual, because I won't really be adding any new portraits. I'm planning to play a bit of semi-vanilla SoA later today, but I want to update CPR too because even I can't stand playing with Arab portraits everywhere.

 

[zombieflanders]

I use winmerge too.


Anyhow I hope to get a new version of CPR up really soon, much sooner than usual, because I won't really be adding any new portraits. I'm planning to play a bit of semi-vanilla SoA later today, but I want to update CPR too because even I can't stand playing with Arab portraits everywhere.

Be aware that CPR changes the checksum, and therefore disables achievements and Ironman mode.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Be aware that CPR changes the checksum, and therefore disables achievements and Ironman mode.

Yeah, that's true. But me myself I don't care much about those, so I'll be fine.