Medieval Portraits Project

[polak966]

some ruskies and bulgarians

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[brennas]

Byzantine guys & chicks (some prior to 1080)

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[Recon]

I hate being the pessimist here because I love the idea and all but I can't help to think that the result will be a confused expression with all the different styles I've scrolled through here (Piggy being my favorite ).

The reflection of reality in art from the darkages/middleages was non existent, it was no more than simplified extravaganza with the only purpose to display wealth and power in order to intimidate or impress the mob. And therefore in my opinion absolutely worthless as immersive portraits.

The art from the renaissance and age of enlightment (which most of the paintings here is from) could very well work, but only 5-10% the timeline of DotS is covering this era.

Why not use the portraits from the original Medieval:TW? I think CA did a great job here and on top of that you would have time for some things..

[sumskilz]

I totally agree with you Recon and I'm also skeptical that we can gather the number of portraits we'd need. That said, I don't think this effort will be in vain because there are a number of uses for period art even if they don't work out as family member portraits.

[Hross]

Exactly, Sumskilz is right. These pics -if they don't work for portraits could get used for ancillaries or all sorts. And we have already discussed the MTW protraits, so we are keeping our options open mate. We whistle while we work.


EDIT: Besides how many portraits would you want per culture? Your family tree can only show so many... right now I have around 50+ at least for each culture (not including religious agent portraits of which I have infinity). Which is considerably more than Third Age mod uses.

[Egir]

Hello!

First of excellent work on the mod, impressive even to a professional historian like myself. Congrats!

Now, to the matter at hand. I was involved in earlier days in the development of the RusExpansion, the Russian mod on the first Medieval. I was in charge of portraits, partly because I have a huge database (of around 10-12000 images), partly because I had a lot of spare time in those days. I still have all the stuff from those days, many portraits already done (dimensions for the old Medieval - 84x131 pxls, but easily changeable, in their frames). Most are of the highest quality. Are you interested?

Here are some examples from my collection (press to full view, as the forum distorts the colour density and quality a bit):

[Cvetko]

John VIII Palaiologolos (Emperor of the Romans reigned 1425-1448) he was portrayed by Benozzo Gozzoli during his visit to Italy.
Sorry, if it was posted before.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../24/Palaio.jpg

[gaunty14]

Just thought I'd post that I'm the new guy on the team working on the portraits ^-^

also is there a prevalence for head and shoulders or full body portraits?

[Hross]

Welcome dude!
I think you can judge what works best, we prefer our craftsmen to be their own masters. Don't forget to join us at lefora.

[Fire-dweller]

Shah Ismail Safavi I

[sumskilz]

also is there a prevalence for head and shoulders or full body portraits?

Crop like in Vanilla, otherwise the images will be too small to actually see.

[gaunty14]

Okay after cropping all of the images I don't think there will be enough to offer enough variety between characters.

So...can everyone please find some more or can I delve into films/modern photos and take caps. granted it will break the image and authenticity perhaps.

[sumskilz]

Okay after cropping all of the images I don't think there will be enough to offer enough variety between characters.

Exactly as I expected.

or can I delve into films/modern photos and take caps. granted it will break the image and authenticity perhaps.

No point in doing that since the original MTW portraits would be a preferable solution, though they would also need cropping in order to fit the M2TW engine.

This discussion should actually be brought up in our dev forum.

[DenniZ]

So did you guys even read Egir's post? From the looks of it he has a lot of portraits to offer.

[Hross]

Yes thanks, more than half posted are not medieval, others have already been posted.

[Tuskin4]

Frederick and Henry Barbarossa

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Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia

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[Egir]

Hello all...

In the old Medieval (and its expansions) the idea was the following - to keep the basic portraits as they were, and to edit the portraits for Kings and heroes (there was a specific txt which I had edited, which gave a large number of heroes, that is real historical figures from the Middle Ages, with historical traits and characteristics, vices an virtues, and, of course, portraits). Why not do it like this? It is better that just throwing all custom made portraits in the common pool, because the game assigns them randomly, and in this way you may have a Russian 'voivode' [commander] wearing a Templars tunic. How far does the game permit heroes appearance? Is it possible to break generals being tied to a family tree? (to address this final question in detail I am opening a new thread, "Generals, Nobles and Governors")...

[sumskilz]

the game assigns them randomly

It doesn't exactly assign them randomly, it draws them from a pool for each culture in the order that they are in the file so you won't have a Russian voivoide wearing a Templar's tunic.

How far does the game permit heroes appearance?

Custom portraits for individuals can be scripted.

Is it possible to break generals being tied to a family tree?

Yes. There will be a family tree but not all generals have to be in it. You can make generals recruitable.

[Egir]

2 sumskilz

This es excellent news.

So the pool is more numerous than the standard Muslim/non-Muslim/Mongol one? (what I meant by randomly was that if we throw in the pool for France portraits of eponymous and anonymous knights, there is a possibility of Bertrand du Guesclin being some random guy unless his portrait is specifically scripted.)

Also, has anyone counted the exact dimension of the portraits in the game? Is it around 84x131 pxls?

[sumskilz]

Also, has anyone counted the exact dimension of the portraits in the game? Is it around 84x131 pxls?

The vanilla portraits are 69x96 except some of the custom portraits which are exactly twice that - 138x192.

EDIT:

So the pool is more numerous than the standard Muslim/non-Muslim/Mongol one?

You can make more cultural sets. In vanilla, there actually isn't a Mongol one. They use the Muslim portraits. There is an Eastern European set in vanilla but some portraits are the same as other European cultures.

what I meant by randomly was that if we throw in the pool for France portraits of eponymous and anonymous knights, there is a possibility of Bertrand du Guesclin being some random guy unless his portrait is specifically scripted

Yeah, that's right.