Morgo's Royo Portraits Thread

Discussion in 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' started by Morgo, Jan 27, 2013.

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  1. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Re: Circle of Eight Modpack v7 / v7 NC General Commentary & Discussion Thread

    @Morgo, I checked out the new version. Looks good except the grey versions need the one pixel black border too.

    350. I wouldn't recommend that many though ... people start to go portrait blind around 100 I think. It was long held that there was indeed some mysterious limit at which the game would start crying and break down, but that's not actually true. The PC limit in portraits.mes is what determines how many there can be - 350. The old days issue was that there was no scrollbar to look at others beyond what could be displayed on one page.

    Not likely at this point.

    I don't think we'd really want two Royo packs, so I would encourage you to make your own and we could host that. Don't worry about nudity, we'll just flag it as 'nudity - teenagers click here.' . ;)

    I understand your desire to give credit, but we would already be doing that by calling it the 'Royo Portrait Pack,' and we generally don't like to include superfluous documents with stuff like that. People want the portraits in useable formats, not readmes. :)
     
    Gaear, Jan 30, 2013
    #16
  2. sirchet

    sirchet Force for Goodness Moderator Supporter

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    Re: Circle of Eight Modpack v7 / v7 NC General Commentary & Discussion Thread

    I really hope this happens, in my opinion there are way to few portraits to choose from and the Royo pack offers a good quality of choices.
     
    sirchet, Jan 31, 2013
    #17
  3. Morgo

    Morgo the friendly Drelb

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    Re: Circle of Eight Modpack v7 / v7 NC General Commentary & Discussion Thread

    @sirchet
    Thanks for the support :)

    For those same reasons I've used the pack for so many years and I kept updating it for my own personal selfish needs. I guess I should have said something sooner. This has become my main project now, and I should have a final version with about 70-80 portraits within a week.



    @Gaear
    Thanks for all your info and help :)

    :drunk: I had a 'senior moment' there; my bad. Thanks for finding that :) I just went happily along fixing the small and minis and completely forgot about their greyscale equivalents. I can fix those just like the others, no prob. Thanks for taking the time to proofread my work for errors.

    I had already planned on keeping the pack to less than 100 portraits or 5 MB for the rar, whichever came first, so no probs there. I can't imagine making a 350 portrait pack; or even using one. Sounds like a career event.
    I just didn't want to make a pack that crashed ToEE out ;)

    :mrhappy: That's hillarious !
    If you're OK with it then so am I. One pack IS easier, thank you.

    Yea, I guess you're right now that I think about it. Traditionally, I've always given credit for other peoples contributions on my projects (I'm Neutral Good, remember). Going forward, I'll remove the docs directory entirely for all future release submissions.


    New Snag
    I'm getting a 'washed-out' color effect on the new portrait when copying into the orig portrait tga file. (I'm using Photoshop CS3, btw) I can stop the 'washed-out' effect by copying into a new image with 'don't color manage this document' option selected during creation and then add the white alpha channel; BUT, the new image cannot be saved into tga format.
    Any ideas on what I've done wrong ?

    Two sample tga files, before and after:

    Edit- Outdated link removed. Problem solved. Thanks Gaear !

    Am I just being too critical and the image looks OK; or, should I pursue a solution ?


    Edit-
    OK, all the greyscale smalls and minis are done now too. Sorrrrry about that :blush:
    I also deleted the doc directory, and the pack has been renamed to "Luis Royo Art Portrait Pack". I added his first name for clarification, since there are multiple Royo artists (Romulo Royo paints similar content and sometimes works with Luis Royo; and, Jose Royo who does mostly modern impressionist paintings). Adding the word "Art" to the portrait pack may help with any nudity controversy.
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2013
    Morgo, Jan 31, 2013
    #18
  4. Morgo

    Morgo the friendly Drelb

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    Re: Circle of Eight Modpack v7 / v7 NC General Commentary & Discussion Thread

    Update
    So far, I've put together 19 new 'big' portraits in 130 x 150 jpg format; and I'll make the 'small' and 'minis' later. I still have a good deal of artwork to sift and sort through to make more portraits from; but, this is where I'm stopping for tonight.

    I still can't get PS CS3 to stop washing out colors and output in tga so I can make a finished product :( I'll beat on it later.

    During the image selection, I included some of his more popular art from Heavy Metal and PlayStation magazine among others.

    To view what I've got so far (19 new portraits, and 2 portraits I'll change in the old pack) grab the 113Kb rar file from:

    Edit- Outdated link removed. See post #21 below for current link

    I'm open to comments, suggestions, requests, ideas, helpful hints, a potion of healing (my eyes are killing me from staring at the screen)
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2013
    Morgo, Jan 31, 2013
    #19
  5. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Re: Circle of Eight Modpack v7 / v7 NC General Commentary & Discussion Thread

    Hey Morgo, are you saying that the portraits get washed out when using the 'Portraits Made Easy' templates after you place the Royo art onto them? Is your Royo layer at 100% opacity?

    You might try just making your own template. Do this for each different size of portrait:

    1. Create a new .psd of the correct dimensions with a white background.
    2. Crop your Royo art to the same dimensions as above.
    3. Place the Royo art in the .psd as the top layer and see what happens.

    For the smalls and minis, add this step:

    1. Turn on the grid and set it to display at 1 pixel.
    2. Zoom in so you can see each pixel.
    3. Using your rectangular marquee tool, select a box that has a one pixel border all around it on the outside.
    4. From the select menu, click 'Inverse.'
    5. From the layer menu, click 'New Fill Layer' > 'Solid Color' and make it black. Now you have your black border and you can place your Royo art under it but on top of the white alpha for each portrait.

    p.s. - I split this off into it's own thread. There are probably a few comments here and there that are directed at GenCom&Dis, sorry.
     
    Gaear, Jan 31, 2013
    #20
  6. Morgo

    Morgo the friendly Drelb

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    @Gaear
    Wow, thank you for giving this project it's own thread :)

    Your above help and info has paid off big time, my many thanks ;)

    I have completed 1 -new- portrait (all 5 tga's); and, 2 replacement 'big' only portraits (for orig pack; small & minis stay the same)
    http://www.mediafire.com/file/sggd73ydoqn87se/Sample_Finished_Portrait.rar
    (I selected portrait 55 to test final conversion since I'm definately going to keep that one)


    For general cleanup, I have deleted from MediaFire all but the 4 files of:

    Sample_Finished_Portrait.rar - 137 KB

    Royo_Original_Portrait_Artwork.rar - 12 MB
    Contains the full size artworks for the first 36 portraits in the original pack.
    Link avail by PM

    New_Portraits_174_JPG_Format_Preview.rar - 1.17 MB
    Contains all the portraits I'm considering for adding to the 36 from the orig pack (orig 36 previews also included) and the 2 portraits from the orig pack that are changing. The jpg files are 130 x 150 standard.
    I already don't like some of the new ones; and, they're not all going to make the final cut. The completed pack will have 100 or less portraits.
    http://www.mediafire.com/file/2fws7afs2he7l1t/New_Portraits_174_JPG_Format_Preview.rar

    New_Portraits_174_JPG_Format_Sorted.rar - 1.0 MB
    Contains all the portrait jpg previews, new and old; but, sorted between two directories- one for keeping and one for dumping. My preliminary choices have yielded up 54 new portraits to be added to the orig 36; making the pack a total of 90 portraits.
    http://www.mediafire.com/file/75ik5nfiw5h5fin/New_Portraits_174_JPG_Format_Sorted.rar


    Edit:
    Updated the link for the new portrait jpg previews.
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2013
    Morgo, Jan 31, 2013
    #21
  7. Morgo

    Morgo the friendly Drelb

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    Hello World
    Feel free to grab the previews (see link above) and make suggestions on what stays or goes. I'm done pounding the keyboard for now; but within 24 hrs, 74 portraits will have their electrons recycled. Any future portrait pack updates will be for compatability issues with new release mod packs only, and not for portrait content changes. If you stumble upon this post and find a particular portrait you have to have, I'll take suggestions for inclusions up to the completion date of the pack.


    @Gaear
    After weeding out the crop, I'll rename the survivors in proper numerical sequence. The finished product file names will be "Royo_0010_B.tga" and so on. I'll also update the portraits.mes file.

    Edit- For a shiny presentation, I'll also group each gender together within the pack, and create an index sheet.

    When you get a free moment, would you check the sample finished portrait I made ? (see link above) Please let me know if it lives or dies so that I can begin full scale conversion. :chainsaw:


    Thanks again for all your help with this project :thumbsup:
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2013
    Morgo, Feb 1, 2013
    #22
  8. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Yeah that looks fine. btw, you can upload a .rar as an attachment here up to 1 MB in size, so you don't need to put those little ones on Mediafire. Also you can upload .jpeg images and place them right in your posts for demonstration purposes.

    One thing you may want to bear in mind for positioning re: the small and mini portraits is that the HP bar has to fit below the portrait, within the portrait. Generally to accomodate this I leave some space beneath the chin. On the top side I usually crop the images a bit over the hairline. ToEE's portraits are so small that putting a whole head in there makes it appear quite tiny.

    Don't worry though, I'm not saying you have to re-do everything. ;) It's just something to keep in mind.
     
    Gaear, Feb 1, 2013
    #23
  9. Morgo

    Morgo the friendly Drelb

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    @Gaear:

    Great, thanks for checking :) I've now got a quick easy way to make the pack based on that portrait sample passing muster. (I wrote a batch routine that does the bulk of the work for me, and makes portrait pack creation easier)


    Thanks, I didn't know that and I never noticed an option to do so. I'll look for it. Sure saves using an image hosting site -and- a file hosting site. Does the board have an edit/remove option for later ?


    -Very- valuable info :thumbsup: I checked in-game, and the bottom 2 pixels are covered by the HP bar, and a third pixel is lost to the frame around the portrait. I will take this into consideration when head hunting. I need to think smaller; ironic since in the sample I previously sent, I made the head as big as possible to make clear viewing easier for the EU, and subsequently lost some of the detail by the HP bar. I've attached :roll: another completed portrait sample set that I just did while typing this reply. I allowed for chin space. All portraits other than the attached sample have now been stuffed back into the 'need processed' directory. I'm determined to make this the highest quality possible, to meet Co8 standards for game play; and, to showcase the great looking unique content that already stands out from the other packs.


    No prob, very little of the original pack is left already ;) What do you expect since it was originally made in 2003 ? :dizzy: I would much rather spend the extra time to do the job right to have a high quality finished product I'm proud of. I don't mind fixing something as long as I know it needs fixed :yes: I'll revisit the original smalls and minis (and I won't forget the greyscales this time) :blush: I'm also looking at re-cropping some of the original 'bigs' so that they follow the viewing standard of head, shoulders and chest only. All of my new ones do, and some of the originals are bringing down the overall pack quality.



    Updates:
    I'm ready to update the portraits.mes file now. (All portrait tga files are created and properly renamed [via my batch routine] with just drag and drop 'bigs', head crop, greyscale, and black borders left to do). Is it true that I can use any available slots ? (not assigned/no declarations), provided of course I follow proper numbering and naming conventions/syntax. Are there any fields of empty slots that are reserved and intentionally left out (like at the end of the monsters declarations) ? Does it matter where the unused empty slots occur (like at the ends of PC races of human, elf, dwarves, etc) ? Is the initial section (commented out as being "temp/gnomes") fair game for use ? (lotta empty slots there)

    Timeline:
    Since I'm going back to the drawing board for several originals and redoing all headshots; I now expect to have a completely finished pack by Monday (it's Friday night now). Sorry for the delay (I expected to be done tomorrow or Sunday at the latest).
     

    Attached Files:

    Morgo, Feb 2, 2013
    #24
  10. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Yeah, you can do that through the edit button and manage attachments interface.

    As long as they are in the PC range, yes.

    Just stay in the PC range and you will be fine.

    No.

    Yes, just append after the existing ones like with everything else. Don't use 000 though - that's Boba Fett.

    Take your time, no rush. :)
     
    Gaear, Feb 2, 2013
    #25
  11. Morgo

    Morgo the friendly Drelb

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    @Gaear

    Thanks for the portraits.mes file info. I re-used the one from the current 7.6.0 Icewind Dale pack (no sense re-inventing the wheel) since it added 83 portraits and was well balanced for where it distributed the new portrait file slot declarations and left room for future game updates. The ID portrait pack stopped at slot 326 with portrait 83. I added portraits 84 thru 90 in slots 327 thru 333, and monsters begins at 350. Before I reuse any section with the name 'temp' in it, I want to make sure that it's permissable ;)

    Since this is not Unix, am I safe to believe that the file name declarations within the portraits.mes file are NOT case sensitive ?

    I've attached (see, old dogs can learn new tricks) the final vrs of the new portraits.mes file and a sample of my completed new portraits with better head shots.

    The irony in all this is that I'm currently using mod pack 7.1.0 with a game in play, so I can't upgrade to 7.6.0 and try the new content out yet. :sadblinky:


    Note- For the portraits.mes file, I used a rar container because a .mes extension yields an Invalid File warning; and, renaming it portraits.mes.txt yields a warning about exceeding the forum's limit for that filetype.


    Edit-
    Right after I sent the sample completed portraits, I remembered that portrait 25 was not greyscaled yet. I've already fixed it ;)

    Re-Edit-
    I still need to modify the Royo gender file name declarations within portraits.mes; but the attached example shows what slots are being used. It's 4:30 AM and I've been up waaay to long....
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Feb 2, 2013
    Morgo, Feb 2, 2013
    #26
  12. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Looking good. :thumbsup: You'll notice that one advantage to laying it out in portraits.mes as it is in the other official packs (and now yours) is that the clumps of new portraits always occur in groups of 7 (except for the last, if the total figure is a number not divisible by 7). This is good becuase ToEE displays portraits during character creation in rows of 7. The Co8 modpack stock portraits are already grouped in 7s by race so each race has distinct groups of rows. Now, your added photos will fall in with that as well in terms of being distinct as Royo portraits. They'll be grouped in and limited to rows of 7, with no sharing of rows going on with stock portraits. :)

    It may seem unnecessary but that sort of thing helps with portrait blindness. The human mind is always looking for patterns to help it quantify and organize stuff, and this way it can divide all the portraits into fewer and smaller manageable sections instead of one big wall of portraits.
     
    Gaear, Feb 2, 2013
    #27
  13. Morgo

    Morgo the friendly Drelb

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    I'm not going to bother starting out with @Gaear anymore; I don't think anyone else is here but you and I :shrug:


    Onto today's business. Pack status and current data for review:

    The 40 -new- female portraits, numbered 25 thru 64, are completely done. :joy: The portraits.mes file is also :yes: completely done. I have not done the 14 -new- male portraits, numbered 77 thru 90 yet. I have stub versions (all copied from -old- portrait 76) with the correct -new- file names in the 77 thru 90 positions (allows drag and drop editing for creation). When I'm done with the 14 -new- male portraits, I will be revisiting the 24 -old- female portraits numbered 1 thru 24, and the 12 -old- male portraits numbered 65 thru 76 with a critical eye and scissors in hand. I have all the HiRes artwork that the 36 -old- portraits came from, so I may just redo the -old- ones completely so that the pack is uniform in quality and consistent in crop selection decisions. Ignore the included jpg files; they're just the sample images I'm using, and they will be removed in the finished version.

    I've posted a link (6 MB) for the current incarnation of the project -=HERE=- in case you'd like to inspect my work and see the progress.

    Thanks again so very much for taking your time to proof-read all the junk I've sent, and to have been so helpful throughout this project. :thumbsup:


    BTW- If anyone else is reading this, feel free to share comments, suggestions, ideas, free beer, chips or whatever else you want. :)
     
    Morgo, Feb 2, 2013
    #28
  14. Morgo

    Morgo the friendly Drelb

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    Pretty funny- you posted after I viewed here, but while I was still typing my above post. :p

    That is excellent news ! I'm so glad that it worked out like that. It makes portrait selection so much easier on the EU; and, makes the pack look so much better. I had no clue that they were grouped as such.

    I know, I love watching Derren Brown work his trickery manipulating that concept ;)
     
    Morgo, Feb 2, 2013
    #29
  15. sirchet

    sirchet Force for Goodness Moderator Supporter

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    Well installed 7.6NC on the laptop to take on the road with me.

    It looks like I might get to have new portraits for my next new game Monday night. :D

    If it's not done, no worries. It gets done when you get done with it.

    Btw, I am kind of pumped about new portraits though, I probably said that already.

    I have a great memory, it's just real short ..... I have a great memory ... Oops, see what I mean. :p
     
    sirchet, Feb 3, 2013
    #30
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