Making unit cards with MilkShape3D and GIMP 2

[Assurancetourix]

Taksashila:

[Shadowwalker]

I wonder what your version of the Getai and especially the Hayastan unit cards will look like.
From what you previewed so far I get the impression that your cards are a clear improvement over the - already good - current unit cards.

Keep up the great work - I hope you get it done entirely so that this eye candy can be included in the official mod (or at least be a proper submod).

[Assurancetourix]

Hayastan:

[Assurancetourix]

I wonder what your version of the Getai and especially the Hayastan unit cards will look like.
From what you previewed so far I get the impression that your cards are a clear improvement over the - already good - current unit cards.

Keep up the great work - I hope you get it done entirely so that this eye candy can be included in the official mod (or at least be a proper submod).

You asked twice about Hayastan so I decided to make them. I hope you're not disappointed. I might need to redo the Iranian Skirmisher, there is something wrong with the hat.

[rinza00]

Hey mate! Great job! I like you Taksashila set, it's just amazing.
Hope you have enough zeal to finish them all

[Assurancetourix]

Hey mate! Great job! I like you Taksashila set, it's just amazing.
Hope you have enough zeal to finish them all

Thanks man! I have to admit it really feels endless but positive reactions keep me motivated.

[Shadowwalker]

You asked twice about Hayastan so I decided to make them. I hope you're not disappointed. I might need to redo the Iranian Skirmisher, there is something wrong with the hat.

Hehe, I totally forgot that I already asked for their cards.
Didn't mean to force you in any way. The Hai are just among my top 3 factions and I was very, very curious, that's all.

That said ... I'm very glad you did their cards now.
They are stunningly beautiful!

Seriously - the armeniam spearmen have one of the most beautiful cards already ... and you still managed to improve them.
Great work.

The fact that the cappadocian spearmen and skirmishers are clearly different in their appearance - without changing them too much - is another outstanding accomplishment.

I'm absolutely amazed!
Thank you very much.

[Sarkiss]

The fact that the cappadocian spearmen and skirmishers are clearly different in their appearance - without changing them too much - is another outstanding accomplishment.

indeed. well done:-)

[Assurancetourix]

Getai:



The Komatai and Peltenai don't have the regular pose of skirmisher units because the visual is bad with the thureos and it's a way to show they are relatively capable melee units.

[Shadowwalker]

Absolutely gorgeous and very fitting for the fierce Getai.
Soooo looking forward to use these ingame.

Repeating myself: please keep up the great work. You're about to improve my favourite strategy game even further.

[melvidh]

Hello,

Awesome job so far. If i am not wrong you have arround 130 cards already, impresive! . I dont know whats the exact amoount of different units we have in EB II 2.3 rigth now, but you must have like 1/4 or 1/3 of them all already.
I hope you dont get bored/tired of the "job" before you have them finished!. The full set would be a great addition to 2.3a if you ask me.

Regards:
melvidh

[(:Baktra:)]

These unit cards really are awesome!

I especially like the pose for the slingers.

It would be cool if you had access to the new units and skins the team is using. Just so that they would meet your uniformity standards and/or so we could see some more eye candy.

Great work!

[AnthoniusII]

Wow, the detail of these cards is stunning! Which mod is this? I like the way sword and javelins are displayed together.

You have to know that I'm very new at this. I have neither the knowledge nor the tools do to much better. For example, I don't know what is GOAT, I don't have PS and I don't even know how to open mounted units. In the beginning, my idea was to make pictures for the info panel but I wasn't satisfied with the result so I decided to focus on the unit cards instead. I still have plenty of cards to do so I'll have the time to get better, I guess.

Reducing the digital noise sounds like a great advice, I'll look into it.

The mod is called "The Great Conflicts 872-1071" and its under development.
Step one. Transform a mesh to ms3d (milkshape). For Human models this tool is the simpliest. GOM (PRESS THIS LINK)
Use joints to create the pose you want.
If you have Banzai's animation examples you can use animerge option of GOAT 1.1 to import some animations (espesialy for archers).You can find GOAT 1.1 here.
In any case when you have the pose you need go to milksshape's low righ window and select "maximise". Take a screenshot and save it.
Open Photoshop or GIMP2 and transform that picture to .tga format and select 32bits.
Open the .tga copy and make the alpha chanel black. Then the areas that you want to be shown make them white.
Now...For the details.
In the Photoshop (unforthuntly i do not have GIMP) in the tools bar there is a button "filters" (sharpness, reduse noice etc).
I personaly chose reduse noice ONLY AFTER i made both UI cards ussing the SAME pose i took in my picture.
Make some experiments in game to see what values of reduse noice satisfy you most.
BEWARE: Too much reduse noice create white pixels and make UI cards useless. So make some experiments. Good luck.

[Assurancetourix]

Sweboz:



PS: Early and Late versions displayed for Warjoz and Druhtiz.

Once again, note that the picture doesn't reflect my actual progress because for several of these units I've also made other combinations which aren't shown here.

[Assurancetourix]

The mod is called "The Great Conflicts 872-1071" and its under development.
Step one. Transform a mesh to ms3d (milkshape). For Human models this tool is the simpliest. GOM (PRESS THIS LINK)
Use joints to create the pose you want.
If you have Banzai's animation examples you can use animerge option of GOAT 1.1 to import some animations (espesialy for archers).You can find GOAT 1.1 here.
In any case when you have the pose you need go to milksshape's low righ window and select "maximise". Take a screenshot and save it.
Open Photoshop or GIMP2 and transform that picture to .tga format and select 32bits.
Open the .tga copy and make the alpha chanel black. Then the areas that you want to be shown make them white.
Now...For the details.
In the Photoshop (unforthuntly i do not have GIMP) in the tools bar there is a button "filters" (sharpness, reduse noice etc).
I personaly chose reduse noice ONLY AFTER i made both UI cards ussing the SAME pose i took in my picture.
Make some experiments in game to see what values of reduse noice satisfy you most.
BEWARE: Too much reduse noice create white pixels and make UI cards useless. So make some experiments. Good luck.

I tried to reduce the noise using the selective Gaussian blur from GIMP. Here is my first try:

I'm pretty shy as it's my debut with this tool so I went for something very light. The picture is not in the M2TW size (48x64) but in 150x200 because I wanted to see clearly what was changing. By the way, do you know if there is some serious issue using higher resolution than the vanilla one? I guess the reduction of noise becomes even more important when the size of the picture is smaller, right?

What I do at the moment is: 1) slightly increase the luminosity and saturation because I think the render is quite dark on MilkShape 2) apply sharpen filter and 3) I started playing around with the selective Gaussian blur.

[AnthoniusII]

The noice reduse values are the same for both UI sizes. Atleast for me.
But your choices maybe correct depending on the models lighting and their textures. The result is great by the way!

[_Tartaros_]

The picture is not in the M2TW size (48x64) but in 150x200 because I wanted to see clearly what was changing. By the way, do you know if there is some serious issue using higher resolution than the vanilla one?

this will lead into a wired graphic bug causing the game to crash after some more clicks to UI-Buttons.

[Assurancetourix]

this will lead into a wired graphic bug causing the game to crash after some more clicks to UI-Buttons.

That's weird because I've changed some portraits using a higher resolution (111x155 instead of 69x96) and I didn't encounter any bug. Could it be that using the same ratio prevents the crash?

[Skiffle]

By the way, do you know if there is some serious issue using higher resolution than the vanilla one?

Unfortunately, there is at least one. A recruitment report would look like this (i just scale up default unit card to 150x200):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Assurancetourix]

Unfortunately, there is at least one. A recruitment report would look like this (i just scale up default unit card to 150x200):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Haha, indeed. The quality would be better with the cards I'm making but your demonstration is convincing. I'll stick to the vanilla resolution then.