Call to Arms: The Screenshot Contest has begun!!!

**|Lorre|** · August 31, 2007, 05:56 PM

Did you ever dream of one of your works being included in the next SV edition?

Now you can!!! SV Developer team needs you!!! We are doing some graphic restyling for menus and loading screens for the next releases of this mod, so here it is how you can help:

- We need screenshots of battles in high resolution and high detail (shadows on, reflexes on etc.)to be included as loading screens. You of course have to use SV mod (2.0 or 2.1 beta): try to catch some scenes that give the feeling of a medieval battle, and the best results will be included as loading screens in future editions.

RULES:

Screenshots from SV MOD ONLY!!! (Not Vanilla, not other mods)
Screenshots must be taken from battles only, no campaigns!
Screenshots should not have text, filter, symbols or other over it, just plain battle images.
You can post screenshots in this thread only.

You have 10 days from now (1st September) to submit your shots: the best ones will be used as loading screens and your nickname will be credited

The trumpets sound.... Call to arms, my men!!!

**|Lorre|** · September 03, 2007, 05:36 AM

C'mon lads!!! Don't you want to help?

**Drtad** · September 03, 2007, 10:03 AM

You could take pictures from both my AAR's and edit them to your liking if you want.

**Demokritos** · September 03, 2007, 01:08 PM

We may want to help but have no material which we think is good enough for such a thing. I certainly don't. Yet.

PS. If you ask me, having battle scenes to do this job may not be the best way to enhance the experience of the game. There's already a great deal of battle and conquest in it, so, for balance, I would have looked for things that steered the mind towards the age or feeling of that period instead. I will elaborate on my reasoning in the suggestion thread soon.

**DaVinci** · September 03, 2007, 03:56 PM

You can edit the picture as what concerns colour, brightness, filters, effects, and so on, but try not to transform them into a Dragonball Z episode please.
Screenshots should not have text over it, just plain game images. You can integrate some medieval art in them, if you think it suits (like borders, and so on)

We need pure battle-screens, if possible in high res, but at least 1024x768x32, they shouldn't be edited, no filters, no effects, no medieval art, as this will be our job.

As the majority plays with banners enabled, they should be left activated.

@ Demokritos: We need material for the loading screens instead of the vanilla ones, that's all.

**SicilianVespers** · September 04, 2007, 08:21 AM

Aeneas Veneratio has also given permission to use pics from his Byzantine AAR:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=100356

**Demokritos** · September 07, 2007, 08:19 AM

For those with hardware that appears unable to run the game with high resolution and so take screen shots with the preferred quality here, like me until about a weak ago, the tip is to turn Triple Buffering in the 3D settings of your graphics card on and then install a little programme called Riva Tuner (found at www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner) and let it run with Windows startup. Then your hardware suddenly might be able to run the show on maxed resolution etc!

For my part in the contest, sorry, still have no images good enough for such an elevated place...

**DaVinci** · September 07, 2007, 08:58 PM

You can take a look into this thread (ChivTW) for motive types, especially the last posts there show good samples for a kind of finished loading_screens, but the editing will be our work, unless we won't find somebody who wanna make the whole job for a bunch of new loading-screen

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=93741

In case there is a volunteer who has fun to make it all (will be highly credited), just pm me or SV.

**Demokritos** · September 09, 2007, 03:35 PM

Just checking a couple of things. The first of the pics below is not the kind of motif you want here, but I thought it fun to see that with SV you sometimes get this "Glory to the King!" image reminiscent of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (I took several pics from this moment). But the other pic is the kind of motif you want, right (with room for cropping away unwanted parts of the sky etc)?

My new campaign with all video settings on max has only reached 1111 AD, so the images I get still have little variety in troop types (there are only peasants, spearmen and archers for foot soldiers). I will not try and get a better image for you guys by shooting custom battles, because that would be cheating. Pics with a SV story are more fun.

**DaVinci** · September 09, 2007, 07:04 PM

Originally Posted by Demokritos

Just checking a couple of things. The first of the pics below is not the kind of motif you want here, but I thought it fun to see that with SV you sometimes get this "Glory to the King!" image reminiscent of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (I took several pics from this moment). But the other pic is the kind of motif you want, right (with room for cropping away unwanted parts of the sky etc)?

My new campaign with all video settings on max has only reached 1111 AD, so the images I get still have little variety in troop types (there are only peasants, spearmen and archers for foot soldiers). I will not try and get a better image for you guys by shooting custom battles, because that would be cheating. Pics with a SV story are more fun.

Well, i offered you already to join the beta testing (unfortunately you resisted), then you would be able to playtest with latest stuff, and you could do a lot actuall screenshots for loading screens, plus we would help/show you, how you would test those screens for the in-game show

).

**Demokritos** · September 09, 2007, 09:26 PM

Yes, it seems like the next release of SV will have a lot of changes. I'm really excited about that - SV is already the mod I prefer most! And, as a member of the dev team, one would have a first hand experience of the new goodies and an opportunity to test how things work out. But sadly, like I said, I have no time to be there for you guys (anything else) on a regular or certain basis right now.
I just thought that, with a little more guidance, some more play and a lot of luck, I still might be able to help you out with an image of the kind you're after here. The better the tools you give the public to do what you want, the quicker the public might deliver. I take it that a screenshot for a loading screen must be cut to give room for the M2TW/SV logo on top and the quotations on bottom. If you describe how much of the picture must be taken away at the minimum like that people can test what images might work directly and save both themselves and you some time.

**DaVinci** · September 10, 2007, 06:36 PM

As said, it would be the best case, if there would be one helper (one), who decides to produce the loading screens, completely. In this case he must be aware of the seize of the finished screen files (tga, to find in the folder loading_screens), and should be able to test them out in its own installation (while backing up the former vanilla files), else, they just should have a tempting and constant design (ie. colour filter), btw., no logo on these pics. And, this contributor would get access to the dev version.

Alternative, we ask after several screenshots, which we will collect and edit. In this case, it might be a better choice, if we wait for after the next release to have just updated units on the screens.