New Icons!
 

New huge icon at my Dungeon Craft art site! (Hint: it's the biggest NPC so far, as far as I know...)

Also, various smaller icons, including a sahuagin (sort of modelled in between the old 1st edition and 2nd edition designs), kuo-toa, and duergar (gray) dwarf.

(I used to announce changes on the other forum, but since it is mostly dead, and this forum is cooler, I am officially moving... :) )

For those of you who don't know already, my site is here:
http://two.xthost.info/uatu/

The more visitors the more often, the better, since this particular host deletes entire sites if noone has visited them for a week! :( Help save my site from suddenly disappearing! ;)

Re: New Icons!
 

WOW! That's some of the best DC Art I've seen!! Very nice, and damn, I didn't have a link for you on the IW DC Site--but that's changed! :) I added ya to the links area.

Damn man, I gotta get back into DC! :) I've learned tons since I has worked on it, and I think I will make all the new content for 1024x768. You all think that should be the default res? Because I'm working on a crazy BenQ Widescreen now--with a 8800 GTX, and the res is 1900x1200. Kinda sucks, because the 1024 icons are so small now. :D But no big deal..

Can't wait to see more Edward! Kickass work!! (LOVED the spells and weapon effects and icons the most!)

Re: New Icons!
 

Thanks for the kudos, Ziroc! :) Also, thanks for linking me - that should help keep my site alive :p Updates are sporadic, in waves (right now I am on an "often" wave - I updated just now again, actually... but then I will probably go on a "down" wave... Usually get burned out after a really big icon :) )

As for 1024 x 768 resolution... I haven't even tried DC this way yet :D It does make creating art (big pics, small pics) much harder (especially if I will be pixel-drawing the way I am doing now) - and normal 1 x 1 icons will be pretty small. (On the other hand, some of the larger icons will be easier to see, although they are still limited in movement.) At least icons are the same size whatever resolution you use...

Wow, but your monitor is HUGE! :) DC must look really small...

Re: New Icons!
 

Yeah, that's kinda the downside of having a 24 inch monitor :) but DC in game handles widescreen fine--looks ok)
Yeah, it does take more to make a icon or whatever at the higher res, but I kinda look at it like there's more room for detail--yeah, I know, that takes waaay more time. :D I may try 800x600.. we'll see. OR make a 3D Model of a monster, and render it out at all resolutions lol, that might be actually easier (for me).. dunno yet.

Working on a new 'what if' interface graphic right now.

BTW, here is an AVI I made a while back for the Eye of the Beholder looking level I am making in DC (see attachment)
Also, I made an Icon for Dungeon Craft a while back-- attached too. :)

Re: New Icons!
 

Doh! Guess I haven't the right codecs or something, because I can't view that avi file... :(

3D... I should go and try that sometime again - definitely not my alley right now, so to speak (quite hard to "tweak" things just right - plus, I don't have software!), but it does look fun. :)

Re: New Icons!
 

Yeah, I use 3DS Max, and it's so awesome--I used trueSpace for a long time--btw, v.3.0 is free now I think!
I am working on a large Hotel project currently, here's a render--its no where near done, no textures, and one half is plain box polys..

Re: New Icons!
 

Wow! Looks nice - if 3DS Max is free, maybe I should get a copy, too! (Hope my PC can handle it, though...)

Re: New Icons!
 

That Gold Dragon is amazing, Uatu. :D I'm very impressed.

3DS Max is a bit farther away from free than Photoshop is... :( But there are tons of free applications that work very nicely and many of them on older systems. The two I see being used most often are Blender and Wings3D.

Re: New Icons!
 

Ha ha, actually, I had decided to never do another dragon again... but then I went and did one. Gold dragons don't have wings (or didn't appear to in 1e), which helped, though. Dragons take too darn long to do...

Too bad about 3DS Max not being free! What is the de-facto standard 3D art software around (i.e. the Photoshop of 3D)? What is the de-facto FREE 3D art software, if there is one?

Re: New Icons!
 

It depends on what kind of modelling that you are doing, but I think in general, esp. for non-organic, 3DS Max is the program and for figure modeling it is Carrera. As far as the frre programs go, it used to be Blender, but I've seen a lot of people move to Wings3D.
(This is the perspective of a hobbyist about other hobbyists and professionals in the field of selling models, not of cgi animators.)

Re: New Icons!
 

Hmm... Interesting! Here in Japan, I think a program called Shade is the big one... not quite sure, though (its price has kept me far, far away from trying it!)

Re: New Icons!
 

3DMax and Maya are the two standards in game design these days.. But most game designers use Max, so I went that way..

BTW, Man, 3DSMax has loads of Organic features--but for REALLY cool organic feature sets, the king currently is Zbrush.

Re: New Icons!
 

I'm sure Max is awesome (it better be with that price tag ;) ), it's just that the community that I'm in leans toward Carrera, though Z-Brush comes up quite a bit too.

Re: New Icons!
 

Hmmm... There seems to be so much 3D software, it is hard to decide what really to start working with (plus, I can't actually BUY anything - my wife will kew me :D )

What's the best free software? Something that can save in various standard formats would be nice.

Re: New Icons!
 

I like Wings3D, but I haven't done too much with it yet. Truespace and Blender have a much steeper learning curve and I never got past it far enough to do anything with either of those two.
I know that Ziroc used Truespace, so maybe he knows enough to get you over the hump if that's the route you want to go.

I just remembered that there is a free version of 3DS Max called G-Max which was designed to be used to mod games. Ziroc might know more on this. I have used this on my previous computer but the resource toll was so high I couldn't really do anything in a timely manner. (That was an old system running at 900MHz with only 128MB of RAM.)

Re: New Icons!
 

Hmm - a free version of 3DS Max sounds good to me, if there is one! Of course, I hope it has enough functions usable to still be useful (saving files, etc.)...

Re: New Icons!
 

I just saw your latest batch of icons - amazing. I don't know what a boobrie is per se, but I will find out. :) Also, that efreet rocks and now I must construct some type of fiery place for him to wreak havoc in. :D:D:D

I think I may have posted about your gold dragon in another thread, perhaps even in another forum, but I want to say again, fantastic job. That is perhaps the single most magnificent piece of DC art to date.

Re: New Icons!
 

Ha ha... The boobrie is just one of those old 1e creatures that was put in the backseat in 2e (no pictures in the monstrous compendiums!), so I wanted to know what one looked like... (This is the reason for making many of my icons...)

I don't know why I made the efreet, but I like it :) I want to make a fiery place, too! But other walls go first... :(

Thanks about the gold dragon - yeah, I think it is my favorite, too. The gold scales really make it look good, as well as the few highlights of other colors (such as the reddish horns). He tends to get stuck if your battle area is not big enough, though! I guess he won't be able to move at all outside... :(

Huge icons are a tiring undertaking (gold dragon was 2 weeks+), though, so I'm not sure I will go through it again... :D

Re: New Icons!
 

The mantas and crystals are very nice. :D

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See the other thread for comments on ixitxachitl shadows ;)

Crysmals were also sort of ignored in 2e, I think :D The 1e description is a bit cooky, though...

Re: New Icons!
 

The crystals remind me of the crystallilne creatures (whose name I can't remember) that you meet underground in Dungeon Siege. I guess that shouldn't surprise since most of the DS stuff is AD&D with a different name. It was still an entertaining game though, if a bit heavy on the fighting and light on the story at times. ;)

Re: New Icons!
 

Dungeon Siege? The Microsoft game (that I only found out after searching)?

Yeah, anyway, AD&D always had the best fantasy monsters - well, 3e is kind of off the mark, though (too corny/comic book-like; the "feeling" is different).

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Unfortunately, WotC has taken AD&D in the same direction as most computer RPG games- bigger and flashier is better. Whatever happened to role playing? ;)

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I dunno, I think that the new creators just don't have that "oomph" that the older creators did...

For example, "darkvision" sounds a lot stupider than "infravision"... Lots of new "prestige classes" also have stupid names, like "blackguard" or "shadow dancer" and so on...

Art of course has changed in flavor from classic fantasy to comic book-like/cyberpunk-ish stuff (although it is well-colored).

This is all besides the point that the game has completely rulified, and is no longer really D&D anymore (change all the rules, yet keep the name? Unthinkable!)

Re: New Icons!
 

The marid is very cool- one could pretty reasonably do an underwater combat. Now, we just have to get working on the walls, backdrops, small pics, big pics, sprites, combat walls, cursor set and borders. :D:D:D:D:D

Re: New Icons!
 

Yeah, I was thinking about that... but got overwhelmed by the thought! :( Aaargh... I think I also burned myself out with that marid... :D

We do have a lot of water-themed icons now, though. :)

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I think that I might work a little bit on some more sea life. We'll see... ;)

I was looking at the FRUA underwater artwork. Arghhh. I had forgotten how much I disliked the way it looked. :( I think that I might try and work on an underwater combat wall and combat wild set; that way at least the combat can take place underwater. :)

Re: New Icons!
 

Yeah, I was thinking of doing an underwater combat set as well (wilderness, maybe... a wall set would require walls, first!)...

I haven't seen the FRUA version, but the underwater scenes in Gateway to the Savage Frontier were rather... mm... plain? (Just blue for the water floor... I could do that in about a second (select... fill!) :) )

Re: New Icons!
 

Manikus, I saw an awesome underwater combat wilderness set that was on the FRUA depository (Giga, I think...). some of the old school FRUA art sets that the community made were sweet. You can do better, as your working with the updated size and all, but if anyone wanted to see what they did they should check out the old school stuff.

Silentthief

Re: New Icons!
 

If it's FRUA, it's on my hard drive. :)

Re: New Icons!
 

Put up two new icons - an umber hulk and a mind flayer. The umber hulk is, hmm, well, I dunno. It basically is plagued by the same problem as my sahuagin - 1st, 2nd (and even 3rd) edition designs have changed a great deal, so I am not really sure how to make them, and take a middle road in general.

The umber hulk looks hulky, at least... I don't like the bug-like-ness of 2nd and 3rd edition designs (3rd is the worst!), but the 1st edition design was a bit cartoony, too, so... Not quite sure how to do the eyes, though (right now they are pupiless as in 2e).

Mind flayers are much easier to do :D

Re: New Icons!
 

Here I am, minding my own business, eating some dinner and getting ready to watch a little telly before wrapping up some homework, and you pull these two on me. :)
These are great icons. :D I am a big fan of umber hulks and illithid. They are great enemies. And, it just so happens I have this design I'm working on (and have been for years) that needs some umber hulks and illithids. Now, I won't be getting any t.v. watching done (and who knows if I'll do the homework tonight or just get up really, really early tomorrow) b/c I have to bust out DC and "work" for a while.

BTW, I hope you've kept your weekend open, as I've heard a rumor that the next release could be coming out then... ;)

Re: New Icons!
 

Ha ha - well, good to hear that those icons were just what you needed! Umber hulk size was another problem, but as you can see I just stuck them in the middle of a larger space.

Next release so soon?! Cool - I had imagined it to be months or years from now :) Maybe we will be able to implement nasty psionic blasts for the mind flayers, too, then - wondering what to do about graphics for that (just nothing? Psionics should probably be invisible, but then again, a pinkish blast-type thing would be cool, too).

Er... Sorry if you don't get your homework done, after all ;)

By the way, I wonder who coined the term "illithid?" Maybe it was Ed Greenwood - in 1st edition, they were just mind flayers, I think.

Re: New Icons!
 

Reuploaded the umber hulk (recolored the shadow black (all my shadows are pure black) - I thought I did that already, but I guess I had used a non-pure black by accident...).

Anyway, a few new icons: vodyanoi, electric eel, giant slug (witha accompanying spittle). What? The vodyanoi looks like a recolor of the umber hulk? Er, uh, it most certainly is NOT! :D (Easy, quick icons are happy icons.)

One problem with the spittle is that it shoots out of the giant slug's middle - but oh well, what can we do...

Re: New Icons!
 

These are very nice. I've never played using a vodyanoi. I know that the monster manual says they are relatives of umber hulks and look similar, I just have a hard time buying that- I want the description to be different and for them to look more aquatic. :D

Re: New Icons!
 

To be fair, the vodyanoi did have its own entry in the old 1e Fiend Folio - but as 2e tried to condense things somewhat, quite a few monsters became just a paragraph or so, while others were just sacrificed (like fire bats). The Field Folio picture of them has the little fins on the sides of the head and eyes in the middle, so that's how I drew mine. :) (Until I took at look, I left the two outside eyes instead - was quite a different creature.)

Re: New Icons!
 

I got curious and went out researching 'illithids'. It turns out that Gary Gygax came up with the idea of mind flayers, and the term illithid was first used in a TSR newsletter in 1975.
Voyadnoi is the name of a Russian water sprite, first used in "What's That In the Water?" by Mark S. Harcourt in Dragon #68 in 1982. :D (Anything to keep from doing my Trig homework ;).)

Re: New Icons!
 

Hmm, cool! :)

(And trigonometry sucks, but at least we don't have to do it the old way (without calculators, using tables instead)! Get to it! :D )

Re: New Icons!
 

Doing it without the calculator is the only thing that makes it tolerable. ;)

I took a ton of math years ago...back when I was thinking of being something engineery or sciency. Now, I've got to take some of it over again b/c I forgot so much of it. :D

Re: New Icons!
 

Hmm - any math that you have learned before about the age of 12 seems to disappear if you stop doing it for just a year or two :(

Super-high-level math is really cool stuff (well, people who can do that stuff are cool), but it's just so difficult that I will avoid math for now...