16 replies to this topic

[Salk]

Hello and thanks in advance to whoever might help me!

1. What do you need? Item, animation, description...?

What I need is the complete set of .bams (icon, ground, carried) for an item (a stone).

2. Describe the item/whatever in detail! Shape, style, colors...?

Here I would like to give the artist complete freedom about how the Stone of Recall should look like.

UPDATE: I can come with some inputs about how I imagined the stone would look like: the stone is rather small (one and half the size of a fist), greysh in colour and made of porous material; the shape is irregular like a fragment of a bigger rock, in the middle of it there would be a vaguely conic hole whose walls are inscribed with a series of spiralling runes.

On the bottom of the hole I'd like to have a very limited amount of a viscous liquid of a bluish hue (which is intended to work as catalyst).

3. Does it have bonus factors? (+1 thac0 - +5 thac0)

No.

4. What about elemental damage? (Acid, Fire, Ice...)

No.

5. What material is the item made of?

Stone

6. Any deadlines?

No, although the sooner the better.

7. What game and what mod is this for?

Baldur's Gate (BGT) - The mod is Cursed Items.

8. Anything else you'd like to mention?

Not really.

Edited by Salk, 14 June 2009 - 09:14 PM.

[Epantiras]

I'd like to help

But "complete freedom" scares me ;-) besides being made of stone, should it have some "remarkable" features like runes or a weird shape that mark it immediately as a magical item or would you like it too look like a mundane, simple stone?

[Salk]

I'd like to help

But "complete freedom" scares me ;-) besides being made of stone, should it have some "remarkable" features like runes or a weird shape that mark it immediately as a magical item or would you like it too look like a mundane, simple stone?

First of all, thank you!

I can come with some inputs about how I imagined the stone would look like: the stone is rather small (one and half the size of a fist), greysh in colour and made of porous material; the shape is irregular like a fragment of a bigger rock, in the middle of it there would be a vaguely conic hole whose walls are inscribed with a series of spiralling runes.

On the bottom of the hole I'd like to have a very limited amount of a viscous liquid of a bluish hue (which is intended to work as catalyst).

I hope it's easier for you to visualize it after this description.

But by all means do not let my guidelines hamper your creativity!

Thanks again for your offer of help!

P.S. Ma sei italiana?

Edited by Salk, 04 June 2009 - 05:33 AM.

[Epantiras]

I can come with some inputs about how I imagined the stone would look like: the stone is rather small (one and half the size of a fist), greysh in colour and made of porous material; the shape is irregular like a fragment of a bigger rock, in the middle of it there would be a vaguely conic hole whose walls are inscribed with a series of spiralling runes.

On the bottom of the hole I'd like to have a very limited amount of a viscous liquid of a bluish hue (which is intended to work as catalyst).

Ok, I'll see what comes out ;-)

P.S. Ma sei italiana?

Si

[Miloch]

I can come with some inputs about how I imagined the stone would look like: the stone is rather small (one and half the size of a fist), greysh in colour and made of porous material; the shape is irregular like a fragment of a bigger rock, in the middle of it there would be a vaguely conic hole whose walls are inscribed with a series of spiralling runes.

On the bottom of the hole I'd like to have a very limited amount of a viscous liquid of a bluish hue (which is intended to work as catalyst).

Heh... you should've entered that in #2 to begin with .

Keep in mind you have a very limited space to deal with in BAMs. Even with the description BAM, that kind of detail (spiraling runes, for example) is going to be tough to get across. Here is a vanilla description BAM for a gem. Note the size, maybe 100 pixels square at most. Also, you will not get any colour across here if you palette it to match game BAMs.

For inventory BAMs, your detail is far more limited, as the average "stone" is about 25 pixels square. Here are some examples (the left 4 are mine, the 2 on the right are game defaults). You might be able to show some sort of depression with blue liquid, but that may be questionable to the viewer... the runes are likely out of the question at any rate.

As for ground BAMs, forget any sort of details whatsoever, as they are 10x10 pixels or so for stones. You might get the colour of your item across if you're lucky.

(And is it just me or is my tiger's eye too friggin' dark? Looked fine until I saw it against the game background .)

Edited by Miloch, 04 June 2009 - 06:02 PM.

[Salk]

I can come with some inputs about how I imagined the stone would look like: the stone is rather small (one and half the size of a fist), greysh in colour and made of porous material; the shape is irregular like a fragment of a bigger rock, in the middle of it there would be a vaguely conic hole whose walls are inscribed with a series of spiralling runes.

On the bottom of the hole I'd like to have a very limited amount of a viscous liquid of a bluish hue (which is intended to work as catalyst).

Heh... you should've entered that in #2 to begin with .

Keep in mind you have a very limited space to deal with in BAMs. Even with the description BAM, that kind of detail (spiraling runes, for example) is going to be tough to get across. Here is a vanilla description BAM for a gem. Note the size, maybe 100 pixels square at most. Also, you will not get any colour across here if you palette it to match game BAMs.

For inventory BAMs, your detail is far more limited, as the average "stone" is about 25 pixels square. Here are some examples (the left 4 are mine, the 2 on the right are game defaults). You might be able to show some sort of depression with blue liquid, but that may be questionable to the viewer... the runes are likely out of the question at any rate.

As for ground BAMs, forget any sort of details whatsoever, as they are 10x10 pixels or so for stones. You might get the colour of your item across if you're lucky.

(And is it just me or is my tiger's eye too friggin' dark? Looked fine until I saw it against the game background .)

Yes, I do realize many of the details won't show up but I gave the description of how it would look like mostly for the description icon (which gives some possibility, despite the limited size). I understand the color in the bottom won't show anywhere and that it's very hard to even draw a little bit of the runes but this is the guideline and whatever comes out of it, is well accepted.

However, quite some help in this comes from choosing the right perspective. The description .bam is where I probably imagined most of them might show actually. For the ground item, I had no kind of requirement but a small greysh dot. For the inventory one instead an above view might help showing the liquid in the bottom.


And yes, your tiger's eye look a bit dark actually.

Edited by Salk, 04 June 2009 - 08:46 PM.

[Salk]

Ok, I'll see what comes out ;-)

Thank you very much!

P.S. Here is a further development: http://www.shsforums...t=0#entry451358

Edited by Salk, 04 June 2009 - 08:50 PM.

[Epantiras]

I did two versions for the description BAM, I could not decide which one looks best ;-)

Let me know wich one you choose and/or if there's something to change.

Once you're happy with the descripion BAM, I'll do the ground and inventory BAMs. And, of course, I'll add some transparency to the description BAM so it can blend with the GUI.

Attached Images

• 

Edited by Epantiras, 05 June 2009 - 04:36 AM.

[Salk]

I did two versions for the description BAM, I could not decide which one looks best ;-)

Let me know wich one you choose and/or if there's something to change.

Once you're happy with the descripion BAM, I'll do the ground and inventory BAMs. And, of course, I'll add some transparency to the description BAM so it can blend with the GUI.

They are both very good and extremely close to what I had in mind but overall I think I'd opt for the first one!

I think it already looks perfect the way it is so I can't really suggest any change to it!

Thank you very much, Epantiras!

Edited by Salk, 05 June 2009 - 05:15 AM.

[Miloch]

I did two versions for the description BAM, I could not decide which one looks best ;-)

They both look quite nice. What did you use to draw them?

[Epantiras]

They both look quite nice. What did you use to draw them?

Paper and pencil ;-)
I've scanned the drawing, increased the contrast a little with Paint Shop Pro 7, then I set the layer to "multiply". I took the scroll-like background from the game files and put it in a new layer *below* the layer with the drawing.

[Miloch]

Paper and pencil ;-)

Cool.

I took the scroll-like background from the game files and put it in a new layer *below* the layer with the drawing.

You won't need that layer for the actual description BAM of course, since the game automatically puts it on the scroll background.

[Epantiras]

You won't need that layer for the actual description BAM of course, since the game automatically puts it on the scroll background.

That was just to see how it would have looked ;-)

[Epantiras]

Done!
Let me know what you think.
BTW you may consider using the ground icon for gems or for "misc item" instead of mine, but the choice is yours.

(sorry for the double post)

Attached Files

•  stone.zip   18.27K   129 downloads

Edited by Epantiras, 07 June 2009 - 08:18 AM.

[Salk]

Done!
Let me know what you think.
BTW you may consider using the ground icon for gems or for "misc item" instead of mine, but the choice is yours.

(sorry for the double post)

Very nice!

A couple of small "issues" for the inventory icon: the colour of the shadow and of the lower part of stone is identical (black) and that is a bit confusing. Could you make it a darker shade of grey instead (while keeping the shadow black of course)? And also, could you reduce sensibly the amount of liquid in the bottom of the hole? It should be barely visible.

Said that, I like it very much and I thank you again!

[Epantiras]

A couple of small "issues" for the inventory icon: the colour of the shadow and of the lower part of stone is identical (black) and that is a bit confusing. Could you make it a darker shade of grey instead (while keeping the shadow black of course)? And also, could you reduce sensibly the amount of liquid in the bottom of the hole? It should be barely visible.

Ok, I'll do my best ;-)

EDIT
I've attached the new version. How does it look now? I did not have a chance to test it on the game.

Attached Files

•  istone.bam   2.79K   121 downloads

Edited by Epantiras, 08 June 2009 - 04:08 AM.

[Salk]

A couple of small "issues" for the inventory icon: the colour of the shadow and of the lower part of stone is identical (black) and that is a bit confusing. Could you make it a darker shade of grey instead (while keeping the shadow black of course)? And also, could you reduce sensibly the amount of liquid in the bottom of the hole? It should be barely visible.

Ok, I'll do my best ;-)

EDIT
I've attached the new version. How does it look now? I did not have a chance to test it on the game.

Oh my!

Sorry for replying late to this!

I never noticed you editing this post so I thought you were still working on it!

I think it looks perfect now!

Thank you very much!