Faction symbols and banners

[Rodion Romanovich]

A splintered sword, shield, or spear, (or all three) beneath a cross or triune symbol, is a common Irish symbol from the period (mind you; the Dal Riadans (Scots) are also ostensibly Irish during the period, and used similar imagery). Similarly, a horizontal broken sword with three entangled serpents over it, or a spear over three serpents, was also fairly popular. I like the cracked wood background of the Welsh. Backgrounds like that help the symbol stand out; it looks much better done.

Unfortunately I think it would be hard to have symbols with 3 items beneath a fourth... Any faction symbol idea that wouldn't be historically incorrect but that only contains one or maybe, at the most, two items and that looks good both stylized and more complex?

[ScionTheWorm]

It's hard not to use red too much....

* Irish - yellow and blue? :)
* Asturia - yellow?
* Normans - blue?
* Norway - red/brown?
* Denmark - white/black?
* Maygars - orange/dark green?
* Bulgars - yellow/brown?
* Byzantines - purple hehe

[ScionTheWorm]

Movie poster style (almost like passion of the christ or some disney thing)



For testing the image against black, as well without axe and with another title. A little glow around it all.

[skeletor]

Forget about the writing, I'm making a new one. Just to put the symbol in context really. Quite happy with the symbol, though we should maybe drop the axe?

Agree on that, I find the dobble headed axe is a bit cartoonish. (It was created for more efective lumbercutting, and little handy in battle.)

My sugestions:

* FACTION - PRIMARY COLOR - SECONDARY COLOR
* Welsh - off-White with small trace of red - Red
* Saxons - wine Red - dark gray, with some yellow
* Scots - Greyish blue - Brown-grey
* Irish - Greyish green - Brown-grey
* Asturia - clear Red - silver
* Normans - Darkblue - off white
* Sweden - grayish light Blue - brown
* Norway - grayish red - brown
* Denmark - lightgray - brown
* Khazar - Brownish orange - Silver
* Maygars - dark pink with a tutch of blue - gold
* Bulgars - brownish - yellow - silver
* Byzantines - deep purple - silver
* Papal states - White - gold, A gold cricifiks
* Holy roman empire - black - gold
* France - blue - silver
* Lotharingia - dark green - gold
* Al Andalus - clear Green - silver
* Abbassids - Black/dark grey - silver and gold

Get the fleur de lis HERE

EDIT:

Dame Scion, i saw your colorsugestion after posting....This is a bit creepy..


That poster looks amasing btw. great!

-Skel-

[Rodion Romanovich]

Made some more:



Three examples of french symbol, one example of Byzantine symbol

[Rodion Romanovich]

Movie poster style (almost like passion of the christ or some disney thing)



For testing the image against black, as well without axe and with another title. A little glow around it all.

! One thought: if you removed the upside down axe at the bottom, perhaps you could add two swords, one of each side of the symbol to at least keep some of the war message in the symbolics?

[skeletor]

Imo the byzantines should have a purple color with gold cross..

I think the french with only one flower looks best, but i wold use a silver one instead..

-Skel-

[ScionTheWorm]

One huscarl-style axe, one viking sword. it will be great!

Thanks, actually didn't think of that.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Imo the byzantines should have a purple color with gold cross..

I'm working on a new byzantine symbol

I think the french with only one flower looks best, but i wold use a silver one instead..

If they have silver, that would make them exactly the same as Sweden in faction colors... M:TW also used yellow/gold so if it's supposed to be a fleur the lis it might be more correct to have it in yellow.

[Rodion Romanovich]

So far we have:

SYMBOLS WHERE WE AGREE:
* Welsh - Off-white with small trace of red - Red
* Scots - Grey-blue - Brown-grey
* Khazar - Brownish orange - Silver
* Byzantines - deep purple - silver
* Papal states - white - gold (crucifix)
* Holy roman empire - black - sharp yellow/gold (former byzantine eagle)
* Lotharingia - dark green - gold
* Al Andalus - clear Green - silver
* Abbassids - Black/dark grey - silver and gold

SYMBOLS WHERE WE DISAGREE:
* Saxons - Red - White with small trace of yellow
* Saxons - wine Red - dark gray, with some yellow

* Irish - yellow and blue? :)
* Irish - Greyish green - Brown-grey

* Asturia - yellow?
* Asturia - clear Red - silver

* Normans - blue?
* Normans - Darkblue - off white

* Sweden - Blue - Grey
* Sweden - grayish light Blue - brown

* Norway - grayish red - brown
* Norway - red/brown?

* Denmark - white/black?
* Denmark - lightgray - brown

* Maygars - dark pink with a tutch of blue - gold
* Maygars - orange/dark green?

* Bulgars - brownish - yellow - silver
* Bulgars - yellow/brown?

* France - blue - silver
* France - blue - gold

* Rebels - grey background - black fist/hayfork? off-white background and brown, black or grey fist/hayfork?

BTW, new for byzantines:


Just a test symbol I made for rebels:

[skeletor]

Nice..

I think that it wold be cool to have religious rebel factionmarks. Preferably peagans.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Nice..

I think that it wold be cool to have religious rebel factionmarks. Preferably peagans.

Ok, but what do you suggest for the main rebel symbol? It's the one that will be used in the menu, and that will be used in the diplomacy screen, and one top of the screen when you end the turn and it goes through all factions. Basically, it appears everywhere where it's the rebels in general rather than a specific rebel faction. Is a fist a good idea, or is a hayfork better? The fist I made might be in a too different style compared to the others, but it shouldn't be impossible to fix a stylized type of fist if wanted.

[ScionTheWorm]

Okay I think this is far away from what you guys are thinking on, but I thought something like this would be a nice "finish" for the faction icons. It's more steely than stony as you see, which I think sets the right mood and accociations. So I'll take my chances and post it.


Bysanthine, saxons and irish.
Nb: this is really not supposed to be finnished, just to give the example.
hmm Maybe it should be brighter...

New movie poster-style with weapons behind


Edit: oh some pixeldust around the axe there, will be removed of course.

First attempt on forum sig (hehe maybe waaay to flashy, but have to advertise for this thing, don't we?)

[GoreBag]

I think the two metallized shields need more of a rust or tarnished look, but beyond that, I love both ideas for images.

[Ranika]

I think yellow and blue or red should be used for the Irish; they're properly associated colors for the time period. I'd use yellow for the field, and blue for the objects depicted. If possible, the Scots and Irish symbols should be on a wood or leathery looking texture (just look painted on).

[ScionTheWorm]

I think yellow and blue or red should be used for the Irish; they're properly associated colors for the time period. I'd use yellow for the field, and blue for the objects depicted. If possible, the Scots and Irish symbols should be on a wood or leathery looking texture (just look painted on).

I think wooden would work. The irish I now posted above is a shield which I didn't think about after I was done; as the other ones are just sort of plates. I think it looks good though, but was finished before I noticed your colorsuggestion (other way around blue/yellow).

[Ranika]

With the harp like that, that's fine. I think it looks good; has a weather beaten look, which fits with the harsh weather and terrain of the British Isles. However, I'd remove the metal boss in the center, so you can see the whole design. The design is slightly late period (it was present before, but not in any official usage, since there was no actual high king, though a lot claimed the title). The high king who claimed the throne and could actually be arguably seen as the king of all Ireland (though he never did solidify rule of Leinster, and died before he could set up a permanent government, though Mael almost did that before his death) was a member of the kingdom of the Eoghanaghta (Munstermen, though some southern tribes of Connacht felt related to the Eoghanaghta and fought for them as allies from time to time), and specifically a Dal Caissian tribesman (Brian Boroime). His symbol was a spear over three serpents (this banner would be worn on the back; Gaelic standard bearers wore their flags in a harness, worn over the back). The symbol of the Eoghanachta was a yellow harp on a red field with a silvery triune symbol on the left, right, and upper side.

[skeletor]

Oooops, I just fell in love with some pixels looking like metal plates . That filtering is awsome.

Have you tested them in the interface, i wold love to see them in there...

I'm taking the liberty to post your forumsig. in the sig. thread.. Think it looks awsome too, and it works great at the forum.

[I have resized the sig, and hosted it as .jpg. It was 308 kb, now it's 36 kb, and fits in the forum. Cool with the background-color]


-Skel-

[Rodion Romanovich]

Bysanthine, saxons and irish.
Nb: this is really not supposed to be finnished, just to give the example.
hmm Maybe it should be brighter...

I think it's great as it is, but for practical reasons it could perhaps be a little brighter so that the faction colors are more easily distinguishable. But only a litte...

New movie poster-style with weapons behind

First attempt on forum sig (hehe maybe waaay to flashy, but have to advertise for this thing, don't we?)

I think it should be the size that skeletor made it, only he has to export it again due to forum rules... See the signature picture thread...

[ScionTheWorm]

I'm going to have two jobs this summer, so I won't be able to work that much as I have done until now. Therefore I would request if I could work on the faction symbols and the user inteface (icons and all that stuff) for a little while, rather than producing units. Of course I would like very much if noone touched the scots, saxons and irish until I get to work again

- As I understood you liked the symbols-style (?), so I can make the rest. Thats a lot of fun actually. I'm using everything legio have made, but rearranging it a little.
- User interface: roman style -> dark age style and so on.. will be fun.
- Forum-graphics: when finished with faction symbols and stuff I can make a header for each faction for presenting it. Just a thought.
- New sprites for campaignmap. Don't know how this works, but somebody should do this too. New diplomats, assassins etc. Should be done when the faction-themes are done (symbols, etc.)

[skeletor]

Too bad... If you had been spitting out unit's as fast as you have done now, we wold probably been able to release before summer ends ..

On the style of the faction symbols, i like it very mutch, and wold love to see that style on the other ones. U might allso come up with some uniqe styles for some factions to make them look native (hint, hint)

I think the same thing goes for the user-interface. If possible, the viking factions could have their menu-bar ornamented with woodcarvings from vikingships, the Brit's have tribal patterns aso. (Atleast bether then the "wood and stone" in Chivaleric... But i trust yo'll do that anyway)

Maybe I'll leave all the British/scot/Irish alone, and when i finish some more "commun" modells, i'll send them to you for skinning..

I have looked at some of the campaignmap unit's, and they'r mutch like the regular unit's (3d .cas files)

-Skel-

[Rodion Romanovich]

I'm going to have two jobs this summer, so I won't be able to work that much as I have done until now. Therefore I would request if I could work on the faction symbols and the user inteface (icons and all that stuff) for a little while, rather than producing units. Of course I would like very much if noone touched the scots, saxons and irish until I get to work again

- As I understood you liked the symbols-style (?), so I can make the rest. Thats a lot of fun actually. I'm using everything legio have made until now, but rearranging it a little.
- User interface: roman style -> dark age style and so on.. will be fun.
- Forum-graphics: when finished with faction symbols and stuff I can make a header for each faction for presenting it. Just a thought.
- New sprites for campaignmap. Don't know how this works, but somebody should do this too. New diplomats, assassins etc. Should be done when the faction-themes are done (symbols, etc.)

Ok, that sounds good. Once again I offer to send you the template I've been using when making the symbols if you want to be able to easier apply separate filters/effects/stuff on the frame and the inner parts. Tell me if you want it. Also remember to keep the symbols simple so they look good even when resized to the smaller sizes. The smallest symbols are so small it would be ridiculous to adapt the larger ones so they look good even with the smallest size, but at least the medium size used in the game should have to look good and distinguishable from other symbols IMO (the medium size occurs most often in-game, whereas the large one is only displayed on loading screens and the smallest is only shown beside player names in the multiplayer and custom battle screen).

- New sprites for campaignmap. Don't know how this works, but somebody should do this too. New diplomats, assassins etc. Should be done when the faction-themes are done (symbols, etc.)

Perhaps also fix the graphics for the campaign map terrain. If we use more dark-looking symbols etc. we should probably remove some of that cartoony look on the campaign map.

Also, for the menu background, we need to make a movie file to replace the roman one. I haven't looked into it much but I'm not sure I have any program that can create a movie of the correct file type. If we want we can replace the movie by an own movie with only ONE frame to get an image instead of a movie, but I think we could otherwise have a movie created from some in-game fighting scenes with some filtering. The movie is supposed to be in 1024*768 resolution.

[ScionTheWorm]

On the style of the faction symbols, i like it very mutch, and wold love to see that style on the other ones. U might allso come up with some uniqe styles for some factions to make them look native (hint, hint)

Yes the posted ones is not perfect yet, and unique styles shouldn't be a problem. I will make examples and post them as usual, so you can come with feedback for improvements. My ultimate motto is "no hard feelings" whatever you might think about it

I think the same thing goes for the user-interface. If possible, the viking factions could have their menu-bar ornamented with woodcarvings from vikingships, the Brit's have tribal patterns aso. (Atleast bether then the "wood and stone" in Chivaleric... But i trust yo'll do that anyway)

I never had very high thoughts about the chivaleric "wood and stone", looks a little nineties too me . I think it's going to be nice-looking, will make unique to cultures as you describe. (maybe more neutral icons though, like the "reqruit"-icon; not unique to each culture, but more netural. But if that's unacceptable I guess I'll do that too). This will be a proccess too, got to have feedback.

Maybe I'll leave all the British/scot/Irish alone, and when i finish some more "commun" modells, i'll send them to you for skinning..

We'll take this later, it's not that important too me. I just love skinning those guys

I have looked at some of the campaignmap unit's, and they'r mutch like the regular unit's (3d .cas files)

Okay. Maybe this is more work than I first thought hehe... that will be for later anyway.

Ok, that sounds good. Once again I offer to send you the template I've been using when making the symbols if you want to be able to easier apply separate filters/effects/stuff on the frame and the inner parts. Tell me if you want it.

If I'm going for this style, It's a lot of different templates, and I cut out your faction symbols and place them into mine.

Also remember to keep the symbols simple so they look good even when resized to the smaller sizes. The smallest symbols are so small it would be ridiculous to adapt the larger ones so they look good even with the smallest size, but at least the medium size used in the game should have to look good and distinguishable from other symbols IMO (the medium size occurs most often in-game, whereas the large one is only displayed on loading screens and the smallest is only shown beside player names in the multiplayer and custom battle screen).

Okay I see. So there is three images; large, medium and small? It will be taken care off, just have to look into it. Layers rocks!

Medium sized is the most important... good to know.

Perhaps also fix the graphics for the campaign map terrain. If we use more dark-looking symbols etc. we should probably remove some of that cartoony look on the campaign map.

Okay. I'll look into this in some weeks, if not anyone does it before me. Would be cool to uncartoonize them, giving our mod a completely special feeling.

Also, for the menu background, we need to make a movie file to replace the roman one. I haven't looked into it much but I'm not sure I have any program that can create a movie of the correct file type. If we want we can replace the movie by an own movie with only ONE frame to get an image instead of a movie, but I think we could otherwise have a movie created from some in-game fighting scenes with some filtering. The movie is supposed to be in 1024*768 resolution.

Okay, I would really love to do this hehe... but in my opinion we should use some screenshots... maybe a unit or a person in the unit made in shadows or something. would be some work to make this a movie, but would be great however. but for this, we should make some loading screens, and have some units finished we could use.

[skeletor]

Perhaps also fix the graphics for the campaign map terrain. If we use more dark-looking symbols etc. we should probably remove some of that cartoony look on the campaign map.

I have some friends working in themovie/tv business, so i guess they could help us editing/cutting/converting to the right format ect. I'll get back to that when we decide what to have. But, i didn't really like qality of the the RTR battlemovie.. If we could do bether, it wold be great.

-Skel-

[ScionTheWorm]

I have some friends working in themovie/tv business, so i guess they could help us editing/cutting/converting to the right format ect. I'll get back to that when we decide what to have. But, i didn't really like qality of the the RTR battlemovie.. If we could do bether, it wold be great.

-Skel-

No, no battlemovie, that would just a bad version of playing the game yourself... I think more of a vanilla style movie with vague animations, we'll have to edit frame by frame.

I don't know exactly which format it supports, but if for instance mpg, that would just be making the movieframes (jpg etc) and using a tool called mpgencode. Lots of freeware commandline tools for doing that. I think the movie(s) should be a repeat-thing (not a 3 min movie), like the ones in vanilla.

[ScionTheWorm]

Stumbled over this norse symbol, thought it could look cool as a viking faction symbol. Just an option to the longboat which I haven't managed to look cool yet.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Stumbled over this norse symbol, thought it could look cool as a viking faction symbol. Just an option to the longboat which I haven't managed to look cool yet.

Perhaps you shouldn't work from my longboat. Perhaps I should make a new one first for you to start from? I just made that longboat by hand just to see how it would look. It probably needs some patterns, a sail this time, and so on.

I think Norway should have a longboat unless it's completely impossible. But the symbol you posted could be used for Rus. I don't think we have any appropriate symbol for Rus yet.

[ScionTheWorm]

I first tried out yours, didn't work. Tried a boat from the front, didn't work that well either. But anyway, saxons got steel, irish got wood... what will vikings have?

Edit: I agree, will do the longboat (from front I think). Theme/background?

[Rodion Romanovich]

I first tried out yours, didn't work. Tried a boat from the front, didn't work that well either. But anyway, saxons got steel, irish got wood... what will vikings have?

Edit: I agree, will do the longboat (from front I think). Theme/background?

Actually, how about water as background? Or maybe make the symbol look like metal but with drops of water on it? Could be an interesting theme for all vikings, as they all attacked over the sea

[GoreBag]

I first tried out yours, didn't work. Tried a boat from the front, didn't work that well either. But anyway, saxons got steel, irish got wood... what will vikings have?

Beer? No, I think water is a good idea.