[MOD] Crackdtoothgrin's Graphical Goodies

[Meneth]

In case anyone was still interested, I have a big update that completely finishes the Cumans, followed by another for the Pechenegs and the Bolgars. More details tomorrow, and screenshots.

Of course we're still interested, your Cuman portraits are fantastic.
BTW, you should check out the CKII modding IRC, link in my signature

 

[Meneth]

Taking a sojourn from my usual portrait work to help Arko in his COA mod. Trying to add a little more spice to the muslim COAs, and get rid of that star/crescent/sword stuff. Here's an example:

I only got to the tierced per fess portion of the shields, and I'm an amateur at it. But, rest assured, I gave what I have to Arko so he could work on it.

Tangentially-related: Is there any interest to anyone wanting a copy of the .ai file with the vector emblazons/shi'ar for the shields? I don't know how many of you use vector programs, but I would be willing to let someone use them if they wanted to work on islamic COAs on their own.

What would be neat would be CoAs for counties (and duchies) in the Middle East and Africa, as a lot of the counties and duchies are simply using 2-color placeholders.

 

[Meneth]

And that's what that picture is for. Those are meticulously-researched COA patterns for muslims based on all the available Islamic research I could find. I passed the torch to Arko so that way he could incorporate it into his stuff. I just don't have the time, but hopefully he will be able to make something of them.

I mean the dejure titles, rather than the randomly generated CoAs.

 

[Meneth]

Off the top of my head, I have them for the Pechenegs, Cumans, Volga Bulgars, etc. (In fact, most dynasties of Central Asia), the Almoravids, Almohads, Nasirid Grenadines, Tlemcen, Libyan rulers, Tunisian rulers, Some egyptians, many Turkish (post-tamga) ones too. I'll try to pool them. Last I checked, I had over 1000 source images for reference and about forty books.

That would be awesome.
Better yet, it'd be compatible with virtually every mod out there

 

[Meneth]

That guy in green in the middle is by far my favorite, though virtually all the others look great too, except perhaps the bald guy and the guy to the right of him; their eyes seem a bit 'off'.

 

[Meneth]

question, does this work with either the Prince and the thane or ck2+?

Doesn't work with anything that changes the culture file, and CK2+ is already using BLC instead.

 

[Meneth]

What Meneth said...

As long as they don't mind, I could host a cultures.txt file to make it compatible. I'll have to ask them.

You already have permission for Balansegang

 

[Meneth]

@Crackd: While I think your work looks amazing, most of your portraits have one issue: The eyes.
Most of the eyes look a bit unnatural, and it gives most of the portraits sort of an uncanny valley feel.
For example, most of the eyes in this image feel slightly off:

The only eyes that feel quite right are the green guy's and the guy in the upper-right corner, and perhaps the guy in the middle on the left.

 

[Meneth]

Small eyes are okay. The problem is that some of them feel very dead. The eyes on the very last guy for example, makes him look like an extremely well-preserved corpse rather than a live human.
I think the issue might be that the eyes and the area around them generally lack emotion. Guy #7's eyes look alive for example, as it looks like he's slightly pissed off. The Pope (or something) works as he looks a bit worried. The very last guy just looks like he's staring right through the world.

 

[Meneth]

The last five are actually just the first five again, and none of those faces are randomized. I'm assuming the same criticism applies to the fifth person because they are the same?

Yeah.

 

[Meneth]

IMHO the faces do not look dead, nor the areas around the eyes, I think though the eyes themselves could be tweaked a little. ATM the eyes are a little too shiny, they have a certain artificial glare, glassy shinyness, and I guess that is what makes the whole face look artificial to some people.

I don't think the faces in and of themselves look dead. The problem is that for me, on some of the portraits, the eyes look so dead the person looks like a well-preserved corpse. The issues you mention are definitely part of it, but the lack of emotion in the eyes as well makes a big difference.

 

[Meneth]

And, if you would be so kind as to point out which ones in particular. I've personally had it in mind to tweak #2, 4, 5, and 6. The "technique" developed as I did more of them, which makes an interesting scenario where the quality increases as you go from left to right, haha. Does the same criticism apply to images from within the game? The ones above are not randomized, after all.

1: Slightly off, looks a bit too strained.
2: Seems okay. Not perfect, but okay. Slightly dead look.
3: Looks pretty good.
4: Bit too small. Don't have the "dead" look though.
5: Definitely looks dead.
6: Looks great.
7: Looks great. Not quite as good as 6, but still great.
8: Looks a bit strange due to being almost closed.
9: Looks great. The left eye does slope a bit much though.
10: Looks good.
11: Dead
12: Dead
13: Look alive, but too slanted

Does that help?

"Does the same criticism apply to images from within the game?"
The portraits definitely look much more real than vanilla, and that's part of the problem. It looks real enough that small things, like the eyes, can make the entire thing seem off. The uncanny valley as I referenced earlier.
Vanilla doesn't have this problem, as the portraits aren't realistic.

 

[Meneth]

I'm familiar with the concept of the Uncanny Valley, but I will disagree on the vanilla portraits being 'realistic,' as that definitely was the goal. Otherwise, they could've done painterly style or even cel-shading, or the standard CKI format.

In fact... That provides me with an idea to do a comic-book style set to replace vanilla...

They're realistic to some degree of course, but not realistic enough to fall into the valley

 

[Meneth]

Well that's terrible. I'm putting it on Dropbox and getting it ready for hosting as we speak. *cue five minutes*

See if this works for you.

Do note that Dropbox isn't meant for file-hosting, and links will be disabled after a certain bandwidth limit is reached.
I'd recommend attaching it to the OP on this forum, that's what I do for my mod.

 

[Meneth]

Depends on how big it is; bigger mods exceed the attachment storage limit for the forums, and graphics mods tend to be rather big.

True that; the forum gives 10 MB.