CK2 Dev Diary #70: The Art of the East

[Jaang]

Obviously, I'd like to find a way to make everyone happy and would be interested in pointers and/or possible solutions.

I like your art Good work.

 

[CrackdToothGrin]

- obviously it means that they all are look alike, in comparison with original portraits at least. Also here are severe lack of fat people, all of your portraits are just pretty faces that made to appeal to general crowd. Sorry, but thats just my opinion. In general you are definite improvement over person that made russian/celtic/norse/old medi portraits. Plus garbs from your portraits are very detailed which put them in severe contrast with original ones, that also a point of dislike for me ( not detalization itself but contrast it brought ).

- i doubt that you will make me happy. Pretty faces are pretty much your style as far as i understand and considering that forum community is desires pretty faces and not much else ( everyone remeber those anti-fat face threads of old? I remember them. ), im not expecting that you will change your style because of single person like me.

Whether I like it or not, I change after reading every single piece of criticism, harsh or laudatory.

I actually kinda agree with some of that reasoning, though. I'll explain when it's not four in the morning.

 

[KAMCITY13]

There was a peasant rebellion during the short lived reign of the Hsin dynasty of Wang Mang known as the Chimei, or the Red Eyebrows. They used to paint a large red line over their foreheads to distinguish themselves from the Imperial Forces.

Chinese dynasties also obsessed over what elemental power their dynasty drew power from and thus what colour the Imperial armies would be to best harness that power in accordance with the Eastern Five Elements (Water-black, Fire-red, Wood-green, Earth-yellow and Metal-white).

The Qin Dynasty drew their power from Water and wore Black.

The Han drew their power from Fire and wore Red. Wang Mang the Usurper (who overthrew the Western Han, but was defeated by the Eastern Han) believed an ornamental lake would keep Han rebels at bay when they overran his palace due to the Han drawing power from fire. It didn't work.

Thanks for posting this as I forgot the reasoning for the dynasties colors and their association to elements. For some reason in Dynasty Warriors the Han soldiers wear purple instead of red.

 

[TheDungen]

Also here are severe lack of fat people

Well fat people shouldn't be random like in the vanilla faces either, it should be linked to the traits. I could see in ck3 that each face came with a fat a thin and a normal mode. And thin does not mean fashionably thin I mean thing like in sick or starving.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

Thanks for posting this as I forgot the reasoning for the dynasties colors and their association to elements. For some reason in Dynasty Warriors the Han soldiers wear purple instead of red.

Probably because Koei's color scheme is: Red - Wu, Green - Shu, Blue - Wei.

 

[Sanny]

The portraits kind of scare me I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad.

 

[YankeeGamer]

The Event pictures are amazing

 

[CrackdToothGrin]

- obviously it means that they all are look alike, in comparison with original portraits at least. Also here are severe lack of fat people, all of your portraits are just pretty faces that made to appeal to general crowd. Sorry, but thats just my opinion.

No need to be sorry for having that opinion. My take-away is that you find the face combinations too attractive, even if you go about it in a confrontational sort of way.

Here's the thing: I kind of agree with you on this.

By virtue of the "paper doll" system used in the game, pieces generally have to be symmetrical and often close in size and placement. What happens when you perfect symmetry? You get a rise in overall attractiveness, according a fair amount of research I've read on it. Other research I've read on facial attractiveness also often makes reference to a term called "hypernormality" which seems to be exhibited in some of the faces through random combinations (The Supermodel look).

It turns out that there are a lot more things about faces which the game just cannot truly model without a more responsive system like a real-time 3d model. The shape of the overall head, the height and placement of the ears, asymmetrical features, particular micro-movements of the face, certain facial expression preferences unique to the individual... The list goes on. Honestly, it's like reading a body of text and getting the meaning wrong because the voice tone and body language isn't in the conversation.

Usually people have one or two features exaggerated. I only have 10-12 "slots" and can't make each one have an exaggerated feature. These same faces also need to have enough individual variety between themselves, but also be representative enough to look similar to actual individuals. They have to be some particular shade of skin that not everyone will agree with, and then they have to match up with each other on a random jumble. Then the hair has to try and fit inside headgear, even though it cannot adaptively change size. Beards, too, are static, and cannot - for instance - follow the jawline, so if your character has a beard it might hide 2-3 of the pieces that provide variety.

- i doubt that you will make me happy. Pretty faces are pretty much your style as far as i understand and considering that forum community is desires pretty faces and not much else ( everyone remeber those anti-fat face threads of old? I remember them. ), im not expecting that you will change your style because of single person like me.

I probably won't; But I'm going to try. At least you like the clothes, even if it's too jarring to you compared to the original sets.

Well fat people shouldn't be random like in the vanilla faces either, it should be linked to the traits. I could see in ck3 that each face came with a fat a thin and a normal mode. And thin does not mean fashionably thin I mean thing like in sick or starving.

With a 3d model - That's just a set of morphs to apply to a base model. Doable.

Current system? It would require triple the work to render three times the faces. That would require me to create and render 252 separate heads, per pack, on average. Unless the devs made the DNA slots tied to properties files and then cut out the obese faces to their own layer and made sure the system could properly assign ethnicity to the layer (which should be easy inside the properties file, I think.).

 

[Admiral Boysen]

Hi everyone!

Today I thought I’d talk a bit about the new art and music in Jade Dragon. If you’ve been following the development, you’ve probably noticed some of it already. Obviously, there are a lot of new icons, window frames and other interface bling. Most of this is the work of the inestimable Bjarne Hallberg, our main artist on Crusader Kings II.

View attachment 305218
Tibetan Holdings

What about Chinese holdings? Those were historically quite different from nomads.

 

[TheDungen]

No need to be sorry for having that opinion. My take-away is that you find the face combinations too attractive, even if you go about it in a confrontational sort of way.

Here's the thing: I kind of agree with you on this.

By virtue of the "paper doll" system used in the game, pieces generally have to be symmetrical and often close in size and placement. What happens when you perfect symmetry? You get a rise in overall attractiveness, according a fair amount of research I've read on it. Other research I've read on facial attractiveness also often makes reference to a term called "hypernormality" which seems to be exhibited in some of the faces through random combinations (The Supermodel look).

It turns out that there are a lot more things about faces which the game just cannot truly model without a more responsive system like a real-time 3d model. The shape of the overall head, the height and placement of the ears, asymmetrical features, particular micro-movements of the face, certain facial expression preferences unique to the individual... The list goes on. Honestly, it's like reading a body of text and getting the meaning wrong because the voice tone and body language isn't in the conversation.

Usually people have one or two features exaggerated. I only have 10-12 "slots" and can't make each one have an exaggerated feature. These same faces also need to have enough individual variety between themselves, but also be representative enough to look similar to actual individuals. They have to be some particular shade of skin that not everyone will agree with, and then they have to match up with each other on a random jumble. Then the hair has to try and fit inside headgear, even though it cannot adaptively change size. Beards, too, are static, and cannot - for instance - follow the jawline, so if your character has a beard it might hide 2-3 of the pieces that provide variety.



I probably won't; But I'm going to try. At least you like the clothes, even if it's too jarring to you compared to the original sets.



With a 3d model - That's just a set of morphs to apply to a base model. Doable.

Current system? It would require triple the work to render three times the faces. That would require me to create and render 252 separate heads, per pack, on average. Unless the devs made the DNA slots tied to properties files and then cut out the obese faces to their own layer and made sure the system could properly assign ethnicity to the layer (which should be easy inside the properties file, I think.).

Yeah well I have already said elsewhere I think that ck3 should have full 3d models for characters, sort of like the sims. Perhaps even one that could render their entire body... just think how much medieval fashion you could get in there if you weren't limited to their faces and shoulders.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

What about Chinese holdings? Those were historically quite different from nomads.

They currently use Iranian holding arts, I believe.

 

[Sonmi]

Man, Crackdtoothgrin is a great artist. I hope in the future he can redo the Irish and Russian portraits, which are just awful.

I'd rather they fill in the gaps in terms of representation of cultures over them redoing old packs, some of which being entirely matters of personal taste, it's not like they were vanilla Greek levels of bad. (I really like the Celtic portraits, to be honest)

I mean, we still don't have portraits for Hungarians, Western Slavs, Berbers, or Levantines, using the few limited DLC we have left only to replace something that was already done before seems to be a bit of a waste of opportunity, as far as I am concerned.

 

[JodelDiplom]

The art in general is cool. But the CoAs look as un-Chinese as can be. More like T shirt logos for beer brands. Not cool.

 

[Warial]

No need to be sorry for having that opinion. My take-away is that you find the face combinations too attractive, even if you go about it in a confrontational sort of way.

Here's the thing: I kind of agree with you on this.

By virtue of the "paper doll" system used in the game, pieces generally have to be symmetrical and often close in size and placement. What happens when you perfect symmetry? You get a rise in overall attractiveness, according a fair amount of research I've read on it. Other research I've read on facial attractiveness also often makes reference to a term called "hypernormality" which seems to be exhibited in some of the faces through random combinations (The Supermodel look).

It turns out that there are a lot more things about faces which the game just cannot truly model without a more responsive system like a real-time 3d model. The shape of the overall head, the height and placement of the ears, asymmetrical features, particular micro-movements of the face, certain facial expression preferences unique to the individual... The list goes on. Honestly, it's like reading a body of text and getting the meaning wrong because the voice tone and body language isn't in the conversation.

Usually people have one or two features exaggerated. I only have 10-12 "slots" and can't make each one have an exaggerated feature. These same faces also need to have enough individual variety between themselves, but also be representative enough to look similar to actual individuals. They have to be some particular shade of skin that not everyone will agree with, and then they have to match up with each other on a random jumble. Then the hair has to try and fit inside headgear, even though it cannot adaptively change size. Beards, too, are static, and cannot - for instance - follow the jawline, so if your character has a beard it might hide 2-3 of the pieces that provide variety.



I probably won't; But I'm going to try. At least you like the clothes, even if it's too jarring to you compared to the original sets.



With a 3d model - That's just a set of morphs to apply to a base model. Doable.

Current system? It would require triple the work to render three times the faces. That would require me to create and render 252 separate heads, per pack, on average. Unless the devs made the DNA slots tied to properties files and then cut out the obese faces to their own layer and made sure the system could properly assign ethnicity to the layer (which should be easy inside the properties file, I think.).

Could I ask on what pictures/murals did you base Chinese armours?

 

[CrackdToothGrin]

Could I ask on what pictures/murals did you base Chinese armours?

From the book "画说中国历代甲胄," mainly. It has a lot of layered reconstructions of armors. One of them in the book was also worked on with popular depictions of Lin Chong from Water Margin.

 

[benjaseth]

Well, that went fast The new Arab portraits mod has become a reality! It only took an evening to accomplish.
Here is the link to the new mod:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1164768974

And a teaser picture from the mod in-game (viola!)

 

[Keizer Harm]

Well, that went fast The new Arab portraits mod has become a reality! It only took an evening to accomplish.
Here is the link to the new mod:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1164768974

And a teaser picture from the mod in-game (viola!)
View attachment 305501

Hmm, I think you should have kept the original skin tone for them (there's an easy setting for that in the graphical culture folder), but it's looking waaaay better already

 

[TheDungen]

Hmm, I think you should have kept the original skin tone for them (there's an easy setting for that in the graphical culture folder), but it's looking waaaay better already

Nah not the original orange but perhaps a shade darker than this. At least for Egyptians and Bedouins, this skin colour is fine for levantine. I have friends from Iraq and Lebanon who are paler than this.

 

[benjaseth]

Well, the absolute best thing would be if CrackdToothGrin, decided to apply his considerable talents to making an entirely new portrait pack for the Arabs. Since he is lurking in this thread, maybe he even gets a chance to read this message - and feels inspired to do it

 

[Rags17]

Well fat people shouldn't be random like in the vanilla faces either, it should be linked to the traits. I could see in ck3 that each face came with a fat a thin and a normal mode. And thin does not mean fashionably thin I mean thing like in sick or starving.

I know I am going off topic here, but that's actually a great idea ! I know that the face portraits are already made up of a base portrait plus nose, cheek and chin overlays (etc), but how about making every single portrait a "gaunt" version, then making the majority of the characters have the "normal" cheek and neck overlay to flesh them out, with a few having the "fat" overlay which similarly fills out these areas. Voila - instant gaunt, normal and chubby versions of every character.

It would require redoing every single portrait in the game so I know that it's not too much of an ask !