Emblems mod updated - improved readability

[Chazar]

Ballbarian said:I regularly check Illwinter's news page for new downloads and patches, but the last one listed there was 2.15!

Yeah, Illwinter are usually the last to notice any new patches & updates for DominionsII...(on their website that is).

[Jurri]

I finally made some tweaks to make the guis more readable. The emblems remain the same; I'm mostly happy with 'em as they stand. I couldn't figure out a way to easily switch the emblems, so embelms that fit the theme aren't convenient. (Which is sad, 'cause I like my Black Forest emblem more than the base )

Hey Ballbarian, I wanna see how you tweaked it!

[PashaDawg]

I like it!

[Endoperez]

Some of the GUIs are just great. I love the Marignon one, it shows the whole 'sun above' in recruitment and nation overview, the streams of light can be seen in the info panel of the main screen, and the buttons in the left don't have any duplicate suns but the exit screen again shows the shine but not the sun itself. Very nice! Ulm is also quite good, and several suit the nation well (esp. Abysia). However, I don't like all of them, and many of them are too bright, straining my eyes if I would try to play with them on.

Also, I don't like Caelum's GUI, it really doesn't look like anything. Jotunheim's GUI is very good, but having a good picture of ice would be perfect for Caelum...
Mictlan's red blanket of a background doesn't work with their units. The green capes really stands out from the red. I don't know what would look good, but possibly some volcanic rock with red stains on it, or a picture of stone wall of Macchu Picchu or something.
Tien Chi's background would have to be refitted a little, so that the tree either is in left (not visible on the buttons on the left part of the main view) or looks like the same tree grows through the two button-groups.
Man's background is a very good idea, as Man represents coming of civilization, agriculture and fields. However, I think a field of more ripened to gold of autumn would work better if not made too bright. The green suits of the Tuatha in the theme have too little contrast with the background.
I don't really understand what Pythium's background stands for, and the fact the halo appears in both button groups and the info panel in the main view is slightly distracting.
Ermor needs a different background. Their units are all dark, and need a dark background or the details will be lost. Dark gray would probably do well, as it would help the dark purple of the Ermorian banners and shields to stand out a little. In fact, dark grey with skulls or "scream" faces embedded into it works quite nicely, but Gimp crashed when I was toying with different border options...
Machaka is just plain ugly. C'tis does't look like much, but at least it doesn't distract from playing.
EDIT: Pangaea and Vanheim seemt to have just random green and grey background. The green works for Pangaea, but it would still be nice if there was something better...

[Jurri]

Thanks Pasha! Endoperez, good points, there, thank you. However, you and me probably have waay different monitor settings

I find Mictlan gui quite playable myself, and in my view it's the only real possibility theme-wise. I don't get how volcanic rock fits 'em, either. I'd love to see your take on it, as well as other nations, however! Especially if you've got something ingenious to replace the skin of the jungle beast/mud theme of Machaka, I'm all eyes. With Ermor, if the gui is changed to something more vivid the emblem ought to change too: I kinda prefer a conservative approach to death themes, but you're probably right about the color issues. If it isn't too much work, please rework the gray gui, 'cause I really want to see it! Noted on T'ien C'hi... I suppose I should do some testing on where exactly are the cropping and stretching points, but that would be too much work for a lazy bum like me

(Hey, I had Gimp crashing on me too often some time ago, but then I set the tile cache or something like that in the environment settings to an apparently more correct value and there haven't been problems since.)

[Endoperez]

It seems I haven't calibrated my monitor since the last time I reinstalled Windows... I'll see if that makes any difference.

The Ermor theme, while worked better with my eyes/monitor, wasn't very artistic. Just copy-pasting scream and skull images around, and resizing few of them.

Does anyone happen to know of a free library of nature photos? I would love to find a forest screen for Pangaea (check the little pictures of Pangaean temples and their starting sites!). Picture of forest could work much better than the generic green background, and a picture of blue-green ice/glacier or something similar could do well for Caelum...

A lazy bum like you should check the Marignon GUI. It shows the cropping points very clearly! And thanks about that file cache hint!

[Jurri]

Hey, you're right about the Marignon gui thing! Dude, how dumb can I be?

To me it's obvious that the 'generic green' is foliage, but that may be because I saw it before making it a proper background texture Anyway, you'll find at least a couple dozen free texture libraries with google, f. ex. with the keyword 'texture.' Most have nature photos as a category, among others. I'd wager glaciers and the like can be found similarly.