Portraits

[rjohansen]

Here's another one

Original

portrait

I used this as a reference (a screen from the latest DD)

This is really good. What Filter was it? Is it free or do you have to buy it?

 

[Magnus Imperator Rex]

Wow. I just really cannot imagine many leaders of the time redone in anime. I actually would like to see it done now because my head draws a blank as to how it would look . . .

why did you say this?

p.s. picture edited for no swastikas.

FDR, Stalin (or Budyonny), Vichy France, Tojo, Heydrich, Chamberlain, Himmler.

 

[FOARP]

Here's another one

Original

portrait

I used this as a reference (a screen from the latest DD)

Really good work. I guess we'll have to do a lot of colourising, since the more obscure leaders won't have colour photos out there for them, but it does at least appear possible - maybe a bit more work than before, but not undoable.

 

[Daelyn75]

why did you say this?


View attachment 137585


p.s. picture edited for no swastikas.

FDR, Stalin (or Budyonny), Vichy France, Tojo, Heydrich, Chamberlain, Himmler.

Not bad, but still no grumpy Churchill. I had pictured people with enormous pink hair, but OK.

 

[Axe99]

@smederevo991 - that's looking really good . Just a comment in case it helps, absolutely not a criticism, but the textures might be a tiny bit 'smoother' than those in the vanilla HoI portraits. I don't have Photoshop working on this machine or I'd have a play myself, but if there were some tweaks to the filter? Also I think you can use a layer mask to selectively apply filters to different parts of the image. Once the layer mask is set up, it's pretty straightforward to adjust which parts of the image it covers - maybe that'd help for some of the differences in texture 'grittiness'?

 

[smederevo991]

Thanks for your tips, I agree that I didn't nail that one well, but hey, I'm still experimenting with different methods

I think this one is closer to the in game gfx.

 

[Axe99]

Thanks for your tips, I agree that I didn't nail that one well, but hey, I'm still experimenting with different methods

I think this one is closer to the in game gfx.

Don't sell yourself short, your pics are coming together very well, and that one looks top notch . What'd be a good thing to do (and I could possibly help do it, if I got my act together, although you may have it sorted by the end of the day at your rate ) is set up a Photoshop template with layermasks and the like, so people could drop a photo in the base layer, then play with the layer masks to get it right. There'd still be a need for manual touch up (and colourising in a good deal of them), but it might help in terms of setting up a workflow for these things.

 

[rjohansen]

Brilliantly done @smederevo991 - I try, but can't get the same good results. I have Photoshop CC 2015 and the "Oil Paint Filter" was removed a couple of version ago - CS6 perhaps?

I found a free filter though, called GREYCstoration, that may work if I get the settings correct. I would assume, that whoever make these images at Paradox is probably doing it through an action - what if they could release that? But your images also come pretty darn close. Perhaps you could create an action when you are satisfied? Or even make a tutorial. The people above probably are in the game though, Quisling and Nygaardsvold So I will be interested in seeing how they look. Can hope for a DD on Norway some time perhaps.

 

[smederevo991]

@Axe99
Thanks, It would be nice if you made such template, I'm afraid I'm too messy and in lack of time to do it now, but we still have plenty of time before the game goes out. Also, I would like to see which portraits are going to be in the game, before starting making my own. It would be nice if some dev could post a list of portraits in game per country, so we can organize ourselves


@rjohansen , your portraits look also very nice. You just need to mess with it manually a bit, like using the smudge/sharpen/blur tools, and also dodge/burn/sponge, in order to get it quite right (here's a nice tutorial for these tools).

You can check some of the screenshots for reference

 

[smederevo991]

I wanted to try and see if I could make something from an awful quality black and white photo, seeing how probably most of the lesser known leaders and commanders will be like that. I think it's not bad, although I'm not quite satisfied still.

But yeah, It will be possible for modders to make custom portraits, it just will require more time and a bit more skill than croping a black and white photo like we used to do for the older games

 

[Magnus Imperator Rex]

Wow u guys are doing real quality work. Good job.

Can you guys do a portrait of the leader of the Azad Hind nationalist group, Subhas Chandra Bose? If Japan kicks the Brits out of India, he will most likely be head of state.

With Ghandi

Meeting Hitler.

Discussing matters with Tojo.

 

[Axe99]

@Axe99
Thanks, It would be nice if you made such template, I'm afraid I'm too messy and in lack of time to do it now, but we still have plenty of time before the game goes out. Also, I would like to see which portraits are going to be in the game, before starting making my own. It would be nice if some dev could post a list of portraits in game per country, so we can organize ourselves

Time I got off my lazy rear and got Photoshop set up then . I'd been waiting until the game released as I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it before we knew exactly what was needed, but it shouldn't be too difficult to sort. @Magnus Imperator Rex - any suggestions on the colours of Bose's clothing in that first shot you posted?

 

[Magnus Imperator Rex]

. @Magnus Imperator Rex - any suggestions on the colours of Bose's clothing in that first shot you posted?

I guess this is close to how he looked like.

As for the first shot, I'm not too knowledgeable on Indian fashion of the mid 20th century but I guess that's a white traditional khadi being used, maybe with some dhoti (indian pants) underneath but I'm not sure about this last part. This is how it probably looked:

 

[Axe99]

Cheers, appreciate the advice . I'm terrible at modern fashion, and my mid-20th century Indian fashion is even worse.

 

[Magnus Imperator Rex]

Cheers, appreciate the advice . I'm terrible at modern fashion, and my mid-20th century Indian fashion is even worse.

I will enjoy seeing what you can come up with

 

[Axe99]

Here's a first take - I'm not quite happy with it (and I was rough as guts with the background gradient, so that's off as well, but I've got all the colours/backgrounds and the like as individual layers, so anything/everything is editable, and some of it will be edited). Playing around with what's in the base install of Photoshop CC, I colourised the photo and replaced the background in one file (keeping all the layers separate), then collapsed it all, saved as another file and applied a smart filter (just a filter that you can change if you find you don't like it, good for experimenting ). I used the watercolour filter with brush detail at 14, shadow intensity at 0 and texture detail at 1, but will have a look around tomorrow and see if I can find better. Interested in thoughts - particularly of the bits that need fixing . I just colourised the trim on his top yellow for the moment, as getting all the detail in there properly will be a right pain, and I'm more interested in getting the filter right at the moment (no point spending an hour colourising Chandra if he ends up in the base game).

Edit: With an added rough take on the pic of Chandra in uniform, in colour. The image wasn't as high-res, and wasn't as high quality, so harder to work with, so not as happy with this.

 

[Axe99]

Had another go - still not entirely happy, but happier at least. Given it global saturation*, contrast and vibrance filters, and applied a selective (layer masked) Gaussian blur over everything but the edges, to smooth the textures out a bit, so the watercolour filters provides the hard lines, and the blur makes everything smooth in-between. Still pretty rough (don't look to closely at his right jaw, should have been a bit more careful there) but at least closer, at least in my delusional mind . Feel free to pillory as appropriate - it's still a bit too 'impressionist' for my liking. At the very least, I think we'll be able to get pictures that'll look close enough to what's in vanilla that it won't be too jarring.

* although, looking at this and the in-game images, I'm thinking perhaps less saturation and more vibrance? Hang on, let's see what that looks like..... I like that a bit better, but let me know if I'm wrong.

If we can get a template that we're happy with, I'm very happy to do a bunch of these for mods, just so long as we can sneak Percy Hobart in there .

 

[Lifthrasil]

Fair use doctrine can cover many (all?) of the historical personalities even if the photos are not in public domain. There is an educational aspect to HoI. I hang my hat on that for my mods. Being an American & distributing my mods from America (I can't control who downloads and if they break a local law). It my not cover Paradox because they are in Sweden, but Steam is an American company and the sole retailer for HOI IV so it might.

In Germany, video games are NOT considered educational or even artistic. They are considered entertainment, as far as I know. That's why swasticas in movies are fine, but in games they are forbidden. I doubt that PDX could get away with copyright infringement by claiming educational use in a game, especially as they use it commercially. Let alone you and your mods (although you don't use them commercially, but it would probably still not be considered "educational").

 

[Gamer_1745]

In Germany, video games are NOT considered educational or even artistic. They are considered entertainment, as far as I know. That's why swasticas in movies are fine, but in games they are forbidden. I doubt that PDX could get away with copyright infringement by claiming educational use in a game, especially as they use it commercially. Let alone you and your mods (although you don't use them commercially, but it would probably still not be considered "educational").

You are correct that that is what I think the 1990's ruling. I think video games have changed and perceptions can change on them which could mean court rulings can change. There are two issues you bring up. One Germany's law regarding educational use of historic images (German law & U.S. are different on this issue) and the other are computer (video) games educational under German law. Does German law effect Sweden & Swedish companies? Paradox used to sell physical copies of their game in Germany and those games had to meet German law. Does an international download have to meet German law?

I feel comfortable that my mods meets U.S. law (even if they were for sale (school text books are a commercial product that are educational)) and are uploaded to a U.S. server (I checked). So I am operating in the U.S. and am only subject to U.S. law. Now people in other countries download the mod (very many in Germany) and I don't think they are breaking German law by downloading (even if they paid to do it). Would Germany (the government) threaten a foreign online distributor that if a product didn't meet German standards that they would block Germans (individuals) from access? I think they might if it was overt Neo-Nazi stuff. Not sure on other issues. I know China blocks some stuff I upload, but not in Hong Kong. I cannot meet every countries laws (N. Korea & Iran) and I don't care to.

 

[FOARP]

Suffice it to say that the risk of infringement proceedings being brought exists and there is no obvious, reliable defence against them even in the United States. Any claim to the contrary relies on rather tenuous arguments about the educational/etc. nature of mods, which has not been actually demonstrated in court or in an opinion anywhere.

However, discussion about this is rather academic given that it is unlikely that proceedings will be brought by the rights holder in relation to relatively small-scale non-commercial use such as that seen in mods. Paradox, I understand, pays a licensing fee for the images it uses to avoid exactly this kind of issue (from Corbis, if I'm not mistaken - at least this was the source for EvW).

But like I said, this is academic. I'm much more interested in the excellent work I see above in creating portraits from photos.