Emblems mod updated - improved readability

[Jurri]

Attached. Comments here, please!

Oh yeah, to summarize the mod:
-Changes national flags into emblems
-Changes the user interface of each nation into a different one
Hence the zip contains 35 images and thus is a bit largish (1,5M)

Update: Big thanks to all commentators, especially Cherry. I've done most of the corrections suggested, and then some.

[Saber Cherry]

I really like the new GUIs; they're great! I won't start a new game without them

Some comments on the GUIs:

Abysia: Great! Might look better with a border, though.
Atlantis: Great!
Pythium: Perfect!
Man: Great!
Ulm: I like it, but it's a little high-tech, and a little busy. Makes me feel like I'm playing Total Annihilation on Metal Heck.
C'tis: Perfect for Desert Tombs. It's probably not possible to do a different gui for the Desert and Swamp themes, though
Arco: Very pretty. A sky theme is appropriate, but... if it was possible to change the text to white (which it probably isn't) then a night-sky starscape would be perfect. However, if the text is black, that's not possible.
Caelum: Really nice! It looks a little bit "blue" and watery, though. I brightened it (increased gamma, brightness, and 'green' level), and it looks more icy.
Ermor: Very thematic, but... a bit too busy for me
Marignon: Nice, though a bit plain.
Pangaea: Looks a bit like green marble. Something a bit more 'foresty' might be better - with leaves and / or bark, for example...
Vanheim: Very nice! A little dark, though (for the text); I thought it looked better with an increased gamma, brightness, and blue level (makes it look colder).
Jotunhiem: Very nice!
Ryleh: Nice, but needs more tentacles. Just kidding
Mictlan: Nice! Dark like blood, yet does not reduce legibility.
Tien Chi: Very Oriental... BUT... it really interferes with reading the text.
Machaka: Thematic, but also a little too busy (hard to read the text).

These are just my opinions, of course, so don't feel compelled to change anything if you like it as-is

[quantum_mechani]

I liked most of the user interface themes (though a few are a bit hard to read). However, I really prefer Illwinter's flags to the imblems.

[Zen]

First Impressions:

Abysia: Fantastic base. A good idea might be to have a little darker tone of the same style for the borders. It's light enough you can see and it doesn't obscure anything.

Atlantis: Great Flag Icon. I think the tileset might need to be a lighter blue or add in a lighter green. It is still a little too dark.

Pythium: A little dark. And a little heavy on the lens flare. Maybe there would be a way to mute the pure lens flare aspect. The style is nice though if you can get the right lighting.

Man: You might want to switch the Border color and the Inner Portion color. The Dark Green is hard to read. You also might want to add more treelike aspect if that is what you were going for.

Ulm: I like it, however because of how the pattern is broken up. It makes it harder to read things. It seems that edges break up right on key portions of words and numbers making it have a slight eye strain. This may just be a me thing.

C'tis: Hah, Dinosaur. It's probably just a me thing but I don't think that accurately represents C'tis. Maybe if it was a skull of a lizard head. No problems reading this one. Though it seems just a little bland. Perhaps you could make the borders sandy or wrapped in jungle vines to simulate the different aspects of C'tis.

Arcoscephale: Looks fine. I don't know what the icon is, but it's the same color as everything else. No real defining characteristic.

Caelum: Like the Icon. The colors are a little harsh. This style with the Arcoscephale color might be better. Especially since the Arcoscephale is semi-transparent.

Ermor: A little too busy for me. Makes it hard to read.

Marignon: Good Icon. Might be better if instead of the pure cross, you could take aspects of the Phoenix (?) Inside the cross and use it's wings on the crossbeam, etc. The background is great though, easy to see and has it's own unique style for the nation.

Pangaea: Good base but dark. A little hard to read the Unit Icons but other than that, pretty solid. I think if you just modified the center a little so it's lighter it would look fine. Suffers from the same effect as Arcosephale, no real defining imagry.

[Zen]

Another note. It seems you can't resize your screen and maintain the GUI or change from Fullscreen to Windows Mode without it converting back to the base GUI.

[ioticus]

I can see the emblems but not the interface changes. What am I doing wrong?

Nevermind, it's because I'm using version 1.15.

[WraithLord]

Haven't had time to try all the nations but what I've seen is really good.
Thanks for a great mod.

[Jurri]

Thank you all! The tentacles didn't scale well, so they had to be nixed If the text color could be changed it would certainly make it a lot easier to create a distinctive feel for each nation... Wonder how hard that would be to implement, considering that apparently all text in the game is on the same background. But the guys are busy with dom3 so better not to bother 'em.

Ulm and Ermor are like that mostly for stylistic reasons... If you've got a thematic idea for either of them that involves colors outside the white-grey-black range please share! Also Machaka and T'ien C'hi, both require a strong thematic element to make them distinctive, IMO. I guess the color levels can be fiddled with a bit, but if someone has a great thematic idea for either of them that's not so obstructive, let me know!

I figured that Man is grass and Pan is foliage or trees, mostly for the colors. (Man=dark green, Pan=light green) I couldn't get actual leaves or trees to work since they need pretty sharp contours to be recognizable... Mebbe I'll try again once inspiration strikes.

The redder border for Abysia is such an obvious improvement that I'm miffed I didn't think about it myself Definitely to be implemented. The C'tis borders, well... I kinda wanted a desolate desert feeling for it, going the Egypt/pyramid route. I wouldn't want the guis to be too loaded with clashing themes, so. The lizard head is so cute, why do you hate it More to the point, Ermor has the skull and I think it would cause some problems to have two similar insignia. Not that a lizard skull is anywhere near a human but still.

The suggestions for the tweaks in color levels I'll look at later on... I won't mind if you'll post altered versions, to save me the trouble, either. After all, the goal is to create thematic, distinctive guis and emblems for each nation that are also usable. The cosmetic mods also differ from the gameplay ones in that the pics don't need to be the same for each player in MP, thus there's really no reason to preserve version integrity. Not that I ever saw an MP using a cosmetic mod, but still

[Ballbarian]

I can see the emblems but not the interface changes. What am I doing wrong?

Nevermind, it's because I'm using version 1.15.

I'm running 2.15 and I can't seem to get the backgrounds either. Emblems show, but not the gui changes. Am I doing something wrong?

[Ballbarian]

Answered my own question. I regularly check Illwinter's news page for new downloads and patches, but the last one listed there was 2.15! I didn't realize that there was a 2.16 released. That solved my problem.

Good work Jurri. Thank you very much for the effort you put into this. I will have to tweak it for my own tastes, but you have given me a solid foundation to start on.