Graphics

[Flux]

Try this.

Combined with the marquee it looks pretty good.
Thanks!

[Buster's Uncle]

Pew! Pew! Pewpew Pew!

[Flux]

Pew! Pew! Pewpew Pew!

*A wild idea appears!
ID: "Modern Pistol"
Location: Signature, line 2

EDIT:
Dialogue: "But then the laser isn't "BLUEFLUX""
yeah, I think I'll stick with the lonely laser.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay, I went ahead and finished it on my own, he said, citing lack of interest.



One of these days I'm gonna go all Little Red Hen on you guys.

---

I doubt I'll bother to do any more of these - because again, logos are easy, and generally the last thing anybody does on a faction, and not something easily made generic - these aren't likely to see a lot of use, but no one can say I didn't try to cover all the bases.

[Flux]

Your portraits template confused me a bit, so I made my own. I think there was a bunch of small slots that had no apparent use.
And now I present to you Leaderheads1 by me!
Took basically every leaderhead possible from the game Supreme Commander.
Also posting my template, just in-case anybody else wants it.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'll explain tomorrow.  Have a good night.

[gwillybj]

BU: Neat idea with the King of Spades. My faction would, of course, use the Joker.

[Buster's Uncle]

Of course, the joker was the first thing I thought of, but I was using a screenshot from Windows Free Cell - no joker available.''

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay, Flux, you already know this, but:

16.)  The Datalinks leader portrait.  The leaderhead is important to establish the personality of the faction, the storytelling elements being what make SMACX so special, and what an art modder specializes in.  As with the Small Report Logo, to maintain stylistic consistency with the official factions, it is important that you include the scanlines, or your factions won’t fit in with the Firaxis ones or the custom factions others made.  The scanlines, of course, represent the low technology everyone starts with before they get the rebuilding of civilization well underway.

17.)  Small Council leaderhead.  This is what displays in the Planetary Council screen when you’re not planetary governor.

18.)  Big Council leaderhead.  This is what displays in the Planetary Council screen when you are governor.

19.)   Diplomacy leaderhead.  What other leaders see when they talk to you one-on-one.

Four different copies of the leaderhead in a faction graphic, right?  I just set them adjacent in a row touching with a flipped row butted against underneath to save space.  I think the arrangement I came up with for the Portraits template optimizes the use of space in the file - I can't image how it would be possible to pack all four sizes with no gaps - even with a complicated arrangement that separated the leaderheads in a set.  -And the idea is sort of to idiot-proof and make it as easy as humanly possible for beginners and non-artists to get started on the visual side of faction creation.

There's nothing wrong with leaving a little more work for the end-user to do by only posting the largest, datalinks, size, and leaving off the scanlines (although I'm sure that will result in mostly lazy scanline-skipping on the part of the end-users), but you gots to improve your size/cropping technique.  Half that set is kinda useless because you squished them narrow to fit the box - and at least two widened enough to show. 

Pretty elementary to size them proportionally close to 198x164 and then crop to exact dimensions and copy/paste.  I go over how to do this repeatedly in tutorials I know you've seen.  You can do it.

[Buster's Uncle]

Logos1



20 logos, size/cropped and scanlined, ready to copy/paste into the .pcx of your next custom faction.

Logos are the easiest aspect of a SMACX faction graphic to create, but it is hoped that these graphic goodie files will give beginners at faction modding a leg up.  See also the Bases, Diplomacy Landscapes and Portraits series, also in this section, and for info on art techniques and/or to communicate with BU and ask any questions, see the Graphics thread: http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=1237.0  These are a lot of work to create, so please be sure to credit me in the empty space of the .pcx.  Posting to let me know you found it useful would be okay, too.

[Flux]

Pretty elementary to size them proportionally close to 198x164 and then crop to exact dimensions and copy/paste.  I go over how to do this repeatedly in tutorials I know you've seen.  You can do it.

hmm
Hmmmm...
Your right.
I need to make these all into more painting-like leaderheads for my own good. Along with fixing the other little things.
Then I will convert to your template I suppose. It's about just making it easier for the others, right?
I think the hardest part was how low-quality the picture was when I first opened it up and zoomed in. You can hardly tell what anything is. I mean, the details are only a few pixels it feels like. I actually zoomed out a few times to make sure things were what I thought they were.
Steps:
1. Removing wrinkles/lines
2. Decided to make him have a few war scars for good measure. Gash on his cheek and a bruise on his cheek.
3. His hair doesn't need so much detail I've decided. Probably the most time-consuming part of this was removing to spike from his head (surprisingly)
4. There is pink around his eyes. Going to get rid of that. Also re-doing the eyebrows.
5. Finishing touched. Don't think I did much here.
6. Adding a new background, and converting to SMAC pallet... Literally all of the colors went through. First time that has ever happened to me.
7. Increased contrast. Saved the pic.

Well, that is the first time I tried to edit a picture to make it look painted by myself. Looking for feedback.
Here is my first attempt:
(first pic is first edit, second cut-out, 3rd is original)
So... I guess I succeeded sort-of? Looks very rookie.
EDIT: Just noticed a flaw. Gonna update that.
POST EDIT: Fixed it.

[Flux]

I accidentally included part of the background in his hair 
Fixed it though.

[Buster's Uncle]

Interesting.  I like that you're making to effort to get better.

Where's the original from?

[Buster's Uncle]

And ooh.  You edited in another shot while I was posting.  I like him against the new background.

[Flux]

And ooh.  You edited in another shot while I was posting.  I like him against the new background.

Interesting.  I like that you're making to effort to get better.

Where's the original from?

Well, the original is from the game Supreme Commander. He's a strategist in that game if I remember right. I put most leaderheads in from that game in the Leaderheads1 thing. I found one really good portrait that I didn't put in though, she looked way to fat when you tried to crop.
And you mean the third one for the new background? That was the original, the Jedi council is mine. You can tell, the face looks significantly different.
Let me try and put mine in the original background, see if that is better.
Ooh, going to need to edit it. Apparently it doesn't fit the original outline very well. I guess I should've kept it in the first background.
All-in-all, I'm going to say that was a decent first try.