Thanks for replying!
My eyes have always interpreted this pattern as poorly resolved script. Anyone I see wearing this is going to loose about a million awesome point now I will perceive them as wearing a woven wicker loincloth instead. I suppose at least they won't be wearing the EQ EULA on the belly anymore! I'm also sad to see the 'sea gulls' I perceived on the leather belt buckles are now just crosses!
You guys have done a great job achieving clean edge highlights and shadows. That is undisputed, they create unambiguous shapes and add clarity to the armour.
Further criticism, hopefully more constructive. I didn't want to go too deep last time as to not cause offence:
However, the textures you showcased are missing some of the extreme/sunburst highlights. Take a look at the human cloth textures
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
You can see there is an extreme highlight missing from the clavicle. This absence makes the collar bone look like it might circle up around the base of the neck like a T-shirt collar, instead of continue sideways along to the shoulders as it does in reality. This highlight creates more than clarity of detail; it creates the illusion of 3d and the illusion of a continuing shape beneath the clothes, even though we can't see it.
The leather on the human also lacks extreme highlights running down the centre of chest and the front of the legs.
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Now this is what I think about when I imagine leather pants!
I love these sunburst style highlights, so am sad to see them absent. Sure maybe it isn't appropriate for a human mucking around in the dungeon of undead frogloks to have armour so brightly lit they might as well be under South Ro's sun at midsummer midday. I understand that decision. However, I personally love the appearance of heroic characters, a shining beacon against the dark and dangerous world of Norrath; The artistic style creates a narrative about the characters to me. Such highlights, away from the edges of textures, also create a depth illusion, I suppose working almost like bumpmapping.
The other creator of depth in the original textures are the shadow some of the details cast on the others. Look at the leather chest. The golden chains and leather straps fix a leather shield to the centre of the armour. The bulky chains and straps cast a large shadow on the leather beneath, giving an impression they don't lay flush to the surface of the leather and block the path of light from above. Look again at the original texture; there are lines that define the edges of detail that are much finer than the shadows of the chain/straps/shield; as such we know the shadows from the chain/straps/shield are intentionally large to convey the idea they are significantly thicker/raised than other details.
I love a lot of the extra work that has been added which the original resolution couldn't support. On the leather wrists, between the studs is a lovely line of highlight that creates the impression of the leather creasing outwards between the studs. Lovely! Lots more details like this, but if I was to offer praise on these points it wouldn't be constructive, just a massive wall of text.
I'm really happy there are different packs for different tastes too, this is a really good move.
Quote:
Originally Posted by paulgiamatti
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
It's only potentially constructive if you give examples like you did with the green robe, which is an example that's not constructive because that robe texture contains no script - that's just a cross-thatching pattern which was redone by Nysus to be much more fine-grained.
Before and after:
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
So I mean, I just flatly disagree when you say "a lot" of the updated art is lacking in highlights or shadows to give the illusion of depth and texture - that's the primary thing that all of them improve upon. As I stated in this thread's first iteration, a lot of them are different in subtle ways which is why we're making two separate packages: one which contains all of the redone-by-hand textures which were painstakingly worked on by Nysus, Xevin, Joyelle, Sorn, Cucumbers, and myself, and one which will include none of the redone character/armor textures opting for 100% upscaled-from-original textures. So the former will be the "maximum quality" package, and will contain the most differences from the originals - which is to say, it will be the package which has superior highlighting and shadowing and detail and nuance, with some very minor departures from the original stock textures as shown above. The latter will be Cucumbers' "maximum classic" package, which will be of lesser overall quality and detail, but will still be a massive improvement over the originals because the upscaling does 90% of the work. |
Sorry if I'm getting too excited by specific elements of shadows and highlights, but one of my other hobbies is hand painted figurines so I am used to looking at these things from a particular perspective, which might not be so relevant in this instance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sorn
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Attachment 8176Attachment 8179Attachment 8178
Original (64x64) > Cucumber's upscale (256x256) > My retouches
Redoing the hair to be realistically grizzled on certain models takes a while (and honestly it's difficult, because 256 is NOT very big), but I'll take a look when I do final edits to all the faces. (I'm reviewing all screenshots to see where I need to do more work.)
As for the faces being softened, they were originally quite soft from what I can tell. Pixelation is hell on the skin, what can I say...
|
TBH you are all doing an awesome job, I appreciate how much easier it is to sit here criticising than to actually go through the time consuming process of getting these things done!
Obviously, thank you very much for taking the time and effort to do this, they really are great and I'll likely be using them, even if there are a select few details that don't always suit my preferences.