Creating Unit Art

2006-04-24T20:39:19Z

Sethd: typo correction.

Here's the information needed to start doing units art for Wesnoth. Please update the wiki with links to examples and other tips and tricks realted to unit art. This page started from [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=104809#104809 this forum thread].

=== Basic unit image specifications ===
*Final format: transparent PNG, 72 x 72 pixels
** 8 bits ''per'' RGB channel. may be listed as "PNG-24" or "8-bit RGBA".
**"Indexed color" or "color map" is different. These will work, but are not recommended.
*the units should be contained in the hex (the white in the attached template)
*Normal Units (humans and elves) are about 40px tall
*Small Units (dwarves and goblins) are a bit over 30px tall
*Tall Units (drakes and great trolls) are a bit under 50px tall
* note: standard unit heights are in flux
*Light comes from a specific direction (for shadings and highlights)
*Unit must look in the lower right direction
*Units are centered horizontally
*Unit's feet are positioned around 55 pixel from the top, lower for taller units
*Shadows at 60 opacity, black color (with blurred and soft borders, see [[Creating_Shadows_Under_Units]]).
*Outlines should be used, made with a darker, but similar colour to what they're surrounding, this makes the unit feel bigger then the amount of pixels you'd use for the same with a black outline. (Black outlines not welcome anymore)
*Use consistent names for your files, beginning with the unit name, so that they are kept together when browsing the files.

=== Unit animation specifications ===
*You can have as many frames for animations as you like. It depends on what you want to get accross
*Images and animations must be done for:
*normal image (1 frame)
*attack for each type (at least one frame - 2 is good - 4 better)
*directional attacks (spear and ranged)
*defense
*death frame
*magical attacks should have 'special effects'

You can also have multiple defense animations (like the thief.)
Defense can be split into ranged and melee animations.

It is important that the unit moves its feet when doing a melee attack. During the attack the unit will move from its own hex to the hex it is attacking. If you don't have feet movement in your animation, the unit will be "sliding" toward it's target, which looks bad.

=== Additional Notes and examples ===

*Test early with different backgrounds. Go to your game terrain files, pick, say, 3 terrains, preferably with different colours, and have a look what they look like against the background, because that way if you have used alpha channels, it may look better in game than as the average standard sprite.

*Test your unit early in the game. Replacing an existing unit graphic with yours is the fastest way (be sure to make a copy of the originals so you don't lose them.)

*If you are animating a horse, you should base it on this [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7592&sid=eb882602a04b48cf8fcce9ca77fbeae0 example of an horse animation]

*The thief is a very good example of what can be done. It has basically all possible animations. It doesn't use the multidirectional ranged images, though, since it's not a ranged unit.

== See Also ==
* [[BuildingUnits]]
* [[Create]]
* [[Create Art and Music]]
* [[Art Tutorials]]

Tiles Tutorial

2006-04-24T20:11:34Z

Sethd: /* Normal Tiles */ Corrected a typo: seperate->separate

=== Normal Tiles ===

Normal tiles consist of a set of 72x72 tiles which are the variants used for a given terrain type. The probability for showing the different variants are given in terrain-graphics.cfg. In addition each terrain type has a set of transition tiles:

* 6 basic transitions: n, ne, se, s, sw, nw
* 6 "2-side trans": n-ne, ne-se, se-s, s-sw, sw-nw, nw-n
* 6 "3-side trans": n-ne-se, ne-se-s, se-s-sw, s-sw-nw, sw-nw-n, nw-n-ne
* 6 "4-side trans": n-ne-se-s, ne-se-s, se-s-sw-nw, s-sw-nw-nw, sw-nw-n-ne, nw-n-ne-se

Few terrain types use all these possible transitions, if any.

It is possible to make several transitions and use different ones depending on which terrain type is adjacent. There is also a need for some special transitions when terrains are adjacent to castles.

Transitions are drawn around tiles according to a what is defined in terrain-graphics.cfg. Each terrain is placed in a given layer. This defines which terrain will draw their transition when adjacent to another. This means that the one which are layered the "highest" will draw their transitions on top of terrain layered further down.

Each of these transitions are stored in separate image files.

'''Example 1.'''

1 tile + the 6 basic transitions:

http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~haskjold/wesnoth/info/normal_tiles.png

'''Example 2.'''

1 tile + 2 x nw trans and a sw-nw-n trans. (This might seem strange, but the trans. are named after where the trans. is drawn in the trans. tile itself, not where it's "attached" to the terrain tile).

http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~haskjold/wesnoth/info/normal_tiles2.png

=== Multihex tiles ===

Multihex tiles work differently. They don't have seperate transitions. One could say the trans are attached to the tile itself. They also behave differently. While normal tiles draw their trans according to the layering a multihex tile will rather overlap terrain either vertically and/or horizontally. This means fx that mountain tops will extend into tiles above removing the need for a special transition. for other sorts of terrain like grassland and other flat ones this must be done in a way that will allow them to mesh into each other. Of course multihex is not neccesarily ideal for all terrain types.

'''Examples'''

http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~haskjold/wesnoth/info/multihex_tiles.png

http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~haskjold/wesnoth/info/multihex_tiles2.png

Note on overlay tiles: you define a background tile which gets drawn first underneat them using the regular layering rules for that particual terrain type.

http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~haskjold/wesnoth/info/multihex_tiles3.png

== See Also ==
* [[Create]]
* [[Art Tutorials]]

[[Category: Art Tutorials]]

The Battle for Wesnoth Wiki - User contributions [en]

Creating Unit Art

Tiles Tutorial