Warcraft Classic HD

[Altruistic Anduin]

I was thinking, LongbowMan, you tint the surface of the Arcane Tower just a tiny bit with pink where the orb or special effect will be placed (the top... bowl, whatever it's called), to give off an illusion of lighting, since the magic sphere is pinkish? How does it look like if you try it? Too much?

 

[Retera]

Rather than applying ConstantColor with a geoset anim color, another option as well is to have an additive unshaded layer with a white glow texture wrapped lightly over top of the geometry of something if you want to have the appearance of glowing. Maybe I'm stating the obvious, just saw this and thought I'd leave a suggestion.

 

[Altruistic Anduin]

Rather than applying ConstantColor with a geoset anim color, another option as well is to have an additive unshaded layer with a white glow texture wrapped lightly over top of the geometry of something if you want to have the appearance of glowing. Maybe I'm stating the obvious, just saw this and thought I'd leave a suggestion.

Oh, my bad. I just don't know much about models and how they actually work in-depth. I only know model file and texture files, and boom. lol

 

[LongbowMan]

I was thinking, LongbowMan, you tint the surface of the Arcane Tower just a tiny bit with pink where the orb or special effect will be placed (the top... bowl, whatever it's called), to give off an illusion of lighting, since the magic sphere is pinkish? How does it look like if you try it? Too much?

Is it pinkish, though? I'm pretty sure in the Arcane Tower it's team colored.

 

[Altruistic Anduin]

Is it pinkish, though? I'm pretty sure in the Arcane Tower it's team colored.

Pretty sure it's one color. And I guess it's not pinkish but a bit bluish (ref. to the one encircled in green). The shade or "lighting trick" should be brushed on where I drew the red semi-transparent squiggles. Like a subtle coloring that makes it look like the blue magic ball is emitting some kind of light.

Kind of unrelated, but have you tried communicating with @Vinz? Perhaps they can help with better-quality ability effects that is still Classic-friendly in HD. I often grab custom effects from their resources, and they've made existing abilities like Blizzard, Rain of Fire, Thunderbolt, and some other, but slightly better in quality than vanilla. Still close, though.

 

[LongbowMan]

The shade or "lighting trick" should be brushed on where I drew the red semi-transparent squiggles. Like a subtle coloring that makes it look like the blue magic ball is emitting some kind of light.

I see what you mean, I'll think this through, this may have some unforeseen consequences.
.

Kind of unrelated, but have you tried communicating with @Vinz? Perhaps they can help with better-quality ability effects that is still Classic-friendly in HD. I often grab custom effects from their resources, and they've made existing abilities like Blizzard, Rain of Fire, Thunderbolt, and some other, but slightly better in quality than vanilla. Still close, though.

I haven't been able to recruit him yet, his too busy, unfortunately

Rather than applying ConstantColor with a geoset anim color, another option as well is to have an additive unshaded layer with a white glow texture wrapped lightly over top of the geometry of something if you want to have the appearance of glowing. Maybe I'm stating the obvious, just saw this and thought I'd leave a suggestion.

Definitely not constant color. I think what @Altruistic Anduin meant is to just paint some color on the texture aka light reflexes.

 

[Altruistic Anduin]

I haven't been able to recruit him yet, his too busy, unfortunately

Oh, I see. Maybe on post-project, then - after everything, or at least the Human and Undead faction?

Definitely not constant color. I think what @Altruistic Anduin meant is to just paint some color on the texture aka light reflexes.

Light reflexes, that's it. You can make it as an alternate texture that just adds these little things for detail. If ever you're on Ziggurats, I was going to ask for a similar thing - the Nerubian Tower can have the "claws" or whatever to be touched by some ice, or have some frost around them. Maybe the Nerubian sphere or stone on top of the Ziggurat is actually cold that way?

 

[YourArthas]

Oh, I see. Maybe on post-project, then - after everything, or at least the Human and Undead faction?

Light reflexes, that's it. You can make it as an alternate texture that just adds these little things for detail. If ever you're on Ziggurats, I was going to ask for a similar thing - the Nerubian Tower can have the "claws" or whatever to be touched by some ice, or have some frost around them. Maybe the Nerubian sphere or stone on top of the Ziggurat is actually cold that way?

If you ask me keep everything purist, those little details can be added by fans later on. I like nerubian tower of reforged for example but for remastering cases it is better to keep it simple and purist

 

[LongbowMan]

Guard Tower WIP
Boosty | Patreon

 

[Kacpa2]

Taking a little side step, I decided to check if I can quickly improve some tilesets, and it seems that Classic HD option for Reforged actually has some nice material to use. It's the first time I take something from Regorged. Of course, they don't quite fit the style yet - but when mixed properly with SD textures, they provide acceptable results.

SD -> HD -> War3HD
View attachment 592272View attachment 592273View attachment 592275

Problem with these is that og tiles still look more detailed somehow even if its mainly them being a bit more noisy. It just makes it look empty and bland when it doesnt have this painted-in harsher shading. Your attempt looks heaps better than what they done, but still isnt quite there i would say. I know i sound like a bit of a broken record with this regarding your textures, but i mean it, it has to keep it. Its part of the style of the game and i still would preffer it stay on the buildings too tbh.

Tower looks great, though same as with other textures, let the contrast be. let the lines be bold and harshly shaded black and highlights bright even if we do have engine shading on top. Dont be afraid of these
Meshwork looks amazing as always. And its primary thing Wc3 needs touched up.
For example the planks on top of the scout tower just should have those thicker lined gaps same on the door, when its tamed down it just looks uite muddy and faint from the distance especially if we take the further zoomed out camera thanks to increased limit.

Ah, I meant custom campaign for the TFT, because that's where I played it. I referred to the Orc campaign as the demo, not TFT itself, because it felt short and incomplete, not realizing it should be a continuation of the prologue campaign for ROC, and it takes place before the official ROC Orc campaign.

I know, full prologue is in there too, including voice acting that was missing in TFT. I dont get why they axed it from RoC, its quite a bit mistake as all the dub work done for original release obviously is missing stuff for that (and i wish what we got in 2020 was just patching up the gaps with good impersonators for nonenglish version as new dub is just awful and i hear the same things about other nonenglish versions. Even when they got the same actors the direction and quality of translation is hidious, when they had original right there. Kind of emblematic of Reforged as a whole sadly)

 

[IronBladeClan]

Problem with these is that og tiles still look more detailed somehow even if its mainly them benig a bit more noisy. It just makes it look empty and bland when it doesnt ahve this painted in harsher shading. Your attempt looks heaps better than what they done, but still isnt quite tehre i would say.

ngl, I agree with this. I was just too afraid to say anything to upset the hype train before.

I don't know anything about textures or modeling, but I feel like it's possible that the only way to improve on the SD terrain or to fix the HD terrain is to redo is from scratch, b/c the original is pretty good, and the HD one is just so cartoony.

Put differently, I'm perfectly happy with the vanilla SD terrain and/or using Quenching Mod. If I used these SD building models but also had to use that new grass is-as, tbh I'd consider the grass to be an unwanted side effect

I think it's great that you (LongbowMan) took a break to play around with the terrain to see what was doable quickly, but I for one wouldn't complain one bit even if your work only revolved around the models and didn't even touch terrain - the SD terrain wouldn't have even occurred to me to think about if I hadn't followed this thread and seen your post about it

 

[LongbowMan]

Tower looks great, though same as with other textures, let the contrast be. let the lines be bold and harshly shaded black and highlights bright even if we do have engine shading on top. Dont be afraid of these

You're right, I gotta add some boldness. It's not intentional really, I just over-refine the texture sometimes when I spend too much time painting at close distance. Having said that, I have to mention that some of the harshness and contrast will come back after I downsize the texture and apply Sharpen, as I do with every texture. I definitely need to widen the gaps between planks though.

Problem with these is that og tiles still look more detailed somehow even if its mainly them being a bit more noisy. It just makes it look empty and bland when it doesnt have this painted-in harsher shading.

That's work in progress, I'm still looking for the right balance. I just want a suitable background for the asset showcase, and the old tilesets are just way too lowres.

Put differently, I'm perfectly happy with the vanilla SD terrain and/or using Quenching Mod. If I used these SD building models but also had to use that new grass is-as, tbh I'd consider the grass to be an unwanted side effect

Don't worry, it's just a matter of tweaking. I heard you, and I'll try to keep it more in line with the OG, because I also like how its design.

Since we're discussing this, here's another iterarion of Lordaeron grass:

 

[Kacpa2]

You're right, I gotta add some boldness. It's not intentional really, I just over-refine the texture sometimes when I spend too much time painting at close distance. Having said that, I have to mention that some of the harshness and contrast will come back after I downsize the texture and apply Sharpen, as I do with every texture. I definitely need to widen the gaps between planks though.

That's work in progress, I'm still looking for the right balance. I just want a suitable background for the asset showcase, and the old tilesets are just way too lowres.

Don't worry, it's just a matter of tweaking. I heard you, and I'll try to keep it more in line with the OG, because I also like how its design.

Since we're discussing this, here's another iterarion of Lordaeron grass:

View attachment 593467View attachment 593470

I presume you use some ai image gen for these? Looks better, though ai does some weird things in few places. I am also pretty sure flowers are meant to be milkweed or something alike instead of those sort of flowers.

 

[LongbowMan]

I presume you use some ai image gen for these? Looks better, though ai does some weird things in few places. I am also pretty sure flowers are meant to be milkweed or something alike instead of those sort of flowers.

Um, no, as I said earlier, I use original textures overlayed on top of Reforged classic HD and do some color correction. AI wouldn't preserve tileability, and painting everything from scratch would take an unreasonable amount of time.

 

[Altruistic Anduin]

I took a screenshot of your Town Hall model remake to make this 256x256 icon. I'm not gonna commit to it, though. I'd probably still leave that to Elf Knight. I'm morely just showcasing the frame I made for future Classic HD icons. It's no 1:1 to the original 64x64, but I think it turned out well, don't you think?

 

[Kacpa2]

L

I took a screenshot of your Town Hall model remake to make this 256x256 icon. I'm not gonna commit to it, though. I'd probably still leave that to Elf Knight. I'm morely just showcasing the frame I made for future Classic HD icons. It's no 1:1 to the original 64x64, but I think it turned out well, don't you think?

View attachment 593504 View attachment 593505

Looks great

 

[Altruistic Anduin]

Looks great

Thanks. If I get some sort of burst of motivation, I might try and catch up with Longbow and see if I could recreate the icons for the buildings he's done. Say, should I add a team color background for icons with originally none or black background, like the Town Hall here?

 

[LongbowMan]

Thanks. If I get some sort of burst of motivation, I might try and catch up with Longbow and see if I could recreate the icons for the buildings he's done. Say, should I add a team color background for icons with originally none or black background, like the Town Hall here?

Nice one! I'd stick to the original, I think black background for buildings provide a good contrast. By the way, I noticed the original doesn't have clock arrows:

I don't know why, probably for the sake of readability? Anyway, in your version, I would choose the time where the arrows do not overlap, 2pm for example. And yes, I would appreciate it if you provide the project with upscaled icons like this!

 

[Altruistic Anduin]

Nice one! I'd stick to the original, I think black background for buildings provide a good contrast. By the way, I noticed the original doesn't have clock arrows:

View attachment 593520

I don't know why, probably for the sake of readability? Anyway, in your version, I would choose the time where the arrows do not overlap, 2pm for example. And yes, I would appreciate it if you provide the project with upscaled icons like this!

Alright, no background it is, then. As for the clock arrows, perhaps they didn't want to settle for a specific time to look good, lol - but I'll try to remove them via TRMS for the same of matching the original icons. Just tell me how so there's no need for back and forth file-sending. I believe the arrows can be removed anyway, right? I'm gonna need a better method than to just eyeball the angle of the icon and the scene I'm taking a screenshot of. Do you know a good overly software I could use?

 

[LongbowMan]

Just tell me how so there's no need for back and forth file-sending.

I mean, you can just select them and delete, that's all to it. Just don't accidentally save the model after that

Do you know a good overly software I could use?

Hmm. Maybe PureRef? It's free, lightweight, and you can make it stay on top of other apps.

 

[deepstrasz]

By the way, I noticed the original doesn't have clock arrows:

I think it does but they can't be seen due to pixels. I kind of understand it shows 01:40 or 07:10.

 

[IronBladeClan]

I think it does but they can't be seen due to pixels. I kind of understand it shows 01:40 or 07:10.

Now that you mention it, it kind of looks like something to me too. I see maybe 6:43 lol

 

[Altruistic Anduin]

I'm trying to redo the Town Hall, but the perspective is just so warped. I'm using Twilac's RMS but I can't get the model to move, only adjust the angle unlike the original RMS. But the original RMS has a set amount of inching and angling; Twilac's version is a bit more smoother.