Mod: Nation - Tomb Kings - v1.03 released (March 2009)!

[Kristoffer O]

> I'll attach a sequence showing the steps he went through, just because I think it's interesting and you might too. Man, looking back on the early stages is hideous!

Interesting indeed! Hideous? No way! Most sprites start up as a vaguely humanoid lump of color. I'd say your mode of work is rahter similar to mine, but I think you have some good shape-up strategies. I tend to get stuck in details of a particular part of the sprite. You increase detail level mote evenly than I do, and I believe that is good.

And thanks for the compliment

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

While I have plenty of technical skill (transparencies, animation, editing basically), let it never be said I have artistic, aesthetic talent.

Here's my attempt at making the King live again.
Zombie Elvis (attached).

[llamabeast]

Actually LP, the shape and proportions of that are pretty good. It just needs shading.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

The shape and proportions are pretty good because I hijacked your longdead sprite. I have no clue how to go about shading other than random, semi-transparent dots, though.

[llamabeast]

Well I just treat each limb as a cylinder, roughly. So the leftmost edge is light, then a line of medium pixels, then dark. Then I go over and modify bits depending on their angle (generally the upper leg is more horizontal and therefore its top surface would catch more light). Then also I darken bits near joints. e.g. the top of the inside leg will be very dark. I take quite a, erm, non-artistic approach to it - I just try to guess how much light each bit will catch.

Also more recently I have been using colour filters to alter a load at once, saving heaps of work. So if I think the lower leg should be a little darker than the upper leg, I just select the whole lower leg and decrease its brightness.

[llamabeast]

I've just posted a backstory for the nation in the first post. Let me know what you think.

[Sombre]

It's a solid backstory. I'm basically ignoring the dom3 world and trying to sum up the huge Warhammer backstories in the descriptions, while adding in some extra stuff explaining necessary changes.

Looking forward to this llama. Ogre Kingdoms is about 75% of the way to a first release, where would you say Tomb Kings stands? We could set up a little warhammer only game when we have 3 or 4 nations ready.

[llamabeast]

Yeah, it's quite different to the Warhammer backstory.

Hmm, how complete - maybe 80-90%? The graphics is essentially done (just a couple of things to finish off) and the coding of all spells and units is done. So just descriptions (only just started on them) to go, plus little things like the flag, banner, and fort types. Tell you, making a mod nation is a massive job! I can't believe you've done several of the things! This one has taken an fairly huge number of hours.

[Sombre]

Yeah they're a lot of fun to make though :]

I've slowed down a bit recently, but I'm sure I'll go through another mad-modding phase and crank out a nation from nowhere.

Looks like I'll have to do a little burst on the ogres so I can release something to coincide with your Tomb Kings though. Maybe a very stripped down first release, missing a few units and so on.

[llamabeast]

Well I wouldn't rush. Personally I won't be up for a Warhammer mod game for about three weeks, as I have a bit of a busy time on. Would be good then though.