10 replies to this topic

[Argent77]

One thing that bothers me a bit is that many creatures use the same animation while being different creatures. For example there are at least three different kinds of genies you encounter in vanilla BG2. But it is impossible to tell a djinni from an efreeti outside of combat, although they originate from different elemental planes. This is doubly annoying as my Djinni Companion mod I'm currently working on contains a variety of different genies.

So I thought to color shade some of them using one of the many RGB-altering IE effects, starting with the efreets. All of them look rather good, but I cannot decide which tan looks best. (The top-right one is the unaltered version.)

(Sadly the animations aren't paletted, so the coloring always affects the whole creature.)

What do you think, which one looks most efreet-ish?

[Almateria]

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impossible to tell a djinni from an efreeti outside of combat

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[Rhaella]

The middle red guy is probably closest, though the top red is my actual favourite. Maybe because everything else (clothing, sword, etc.) isn't quite so red there.

[edit] By top, I mean the third one. Not sure if the second one on the top is a candidate as well, since it's more a djinni with a sunburn than an efreet.

Edited by Rhaella, 09 March 2012 - 04:37 PM.

[Miloch]

This was already done in Infinity Animations, though we discarded the poorly-implemented colouring effects (they look really bad in bright light or darkness). We slotted new animations for each genie instead.

[-JR-]

I thought Djinni had a tail and Efreeti had legs.

[Miloch]

There's legged and legless versions of both - I guess it depends on how they want to appear (or whether you just let them out of a bottle...).

[Argent77]

'Rhaella', on 10 Mar 2012 - 00:35, said:

The middle red guy is probably closest, though the top red is my actual favourite. Maybe because everything else (clothing, sword, etc.) isn't quite so red there.

[edit] By top, I mean the third one. Not sure if the second one on the top is a candidate as well, since it's more a djinni with a sunburn than an efreet.

Yes, it's a difficult choice.
Forgotten Realms Wiki states that efreets "have red or black skin that is always burning" while the djinn's "skin tone ranges from pale blue to a more common olive-brown or dark tan".

Too bad their swords are also affected by the coloring, else I would choose one of the two bottom-left ones. Hmm, maybe a pulsating glow instead of a static color will enhance the "burning effect" of their skins, have to test it.

'Miloch', on 10 Mar 2012 - 00:52, said:

This was already done in Infinity Animations, though we discarded the poorly-implemented colouring effects (they look really bad in bright light or darkness). We slotted new animations for each genie instead.

Yes, I've looked them up, too. But the genies provided by the Fiends&Genies package don't look very different to my color shaded genies (except for their blades which look better).

'-JR-', on 10 Mar 2012 - 00:54, said:

I thought Djinni had a tail and Efreeti had legs.

This is inconsistent in BG2. While most efreets have legs, the efreet guardians of King Strohm's tomb in Firkraag's lair have a tail, for example.

[Miloch]

The waist-sash on ours isn't red either (looking more like the 4th one in your row), but the skin colour is probably closer to the 2nd (from left) or 3rd. Those are a bit too monochromatic though.

Move your genies into areas with bright light or dark shadow. Depending on which opcode you're using, you'll really see how bad it can be. I would use the 3rd one though, I guess, and if IA is installed, strip out the opcode (DELETE_CRE_EFFECT) and WRITE_SHORT 0x28 the IA animation (0x5fbe for a legged efreeti).

[Argent77]

'Miloch', on 10 Mar 2012 - 01:43, said:

Move your genies into areas with bright light or dark shadow. Depending on which opcode you're using, you'll really see how bad it can be.

I'm using opcode 51 which looks good even in very bright/dark areas. But you are right for opcodes 8 and 52 which look very ugly in any environment.

The clothing and swords of the IA version look better, but I think the skin color is a little too bright. Although this might change when I place both into the same environment.


I will definitely take advantage of IA if it's been detected. There are a couple of creatures in my mod which will benefit from it.

BTW, does IA provide different rakshasa or yuan-ti versions? I haven't found one yet.

[Miloch]

Most creatures will look darker in normal areas. It looks like the area in your first post is a very bright one.

There are 3 yuan-ti (myu1, myu2, myu3) and a yuan-ti halfbreed. Just the standard rakshasa though. What do you need a different one for? It would be good to have a female rakshasa - I think there's some in NWN but those are kind of a pain to port until we refine that process a bit.

[Argent77]

'Miloch', on 10 Mar 2012 - 22:25, said:

What do you need a different one for? It would be good to have a female rakshasa - I think there's some in NWN but those are kind of a pain to port until we refine that process a bit.

In one of my quests the party encounters a cult dedicated to Ravanna which is lead by an Ak'chazar High Priest (the Ak'chazar are a subrace of the rakshasa). It would be nice to see a difference in their appearance, either because of their race, class or social standing (rajah, maharajah).