I wouldn't have thought it would be hard to recolour the BG2EE icons to match the IWD style, but getting the hand drawn look in higher resolution would mean redrawing them all from scratch.
I don't see why they couldn't redraw them. Yeah, it requires a lot of work, but it's not like we're talking about thousands of spells. This falls under the category of "Enhancements", IMO.
It's a small team, there are other enhancements that would require far fewer man-hours.
I don't really care which set of icon style they use, as long as they pick one type and stick with it. A mixture of BG/IWD spell icons looks VERY ugly, which I know because I'm currently using the IWDification mod to make druids less sucky in BG2:EE. I very nearly uninstalled it just because of how it looks.
I'm aware BG/BG2/ToB ALREADY have somewhat differing styles (which actually does bug me a little when they clash), but the difference is nothing when compared to IWD.
I know having to edit/remake those spell icons will be a hassle, but the game will look hideous if they don't, or at the very least unprofessional. It certainly won't look very 'enhanced'.
I don't really care which set of icon style they use, as long as they pick one type and stick with it. A mixture of BG/IWD spell icons looks VERY ugly, which I know because I'm currently using the IWDification mod to make druids less sucky in BG2:EE. I very nearly uninstalled it just because of how it looks.
Sorry for off-topic, but @rorikon I actually tried to install that mode three days ago and I couldn't do it. How can you install iwdification on bg2ee?
I did my BG2:EE install over a month ago and can't remember exactly what I did. Don't recall having to do anything difficult to get it working though, just normal mod installation.
Maybe you had a problem with the order you installed them in (assuming you had other mods)? Looking at my weidu.log I installed Big Picture first (just core components and Ascension), Unfinished Business, Iwdification and then BG2 Tweaks, in that order. I'm not really an expert on these things though, sorry I couldn't be much more help
I don't really care which set of icon style they use, as long as they pick one type and stick with it. A mixture of BG/IWD spell icons looks VERY ugly, which I know because I'm currently using the IWDification mod to make druids less sucky in BG2:EE. I very nearly uninstalled it just because of how it looks.
Sorry for off-topic, but @rorikon I actually tried to install that mode three days ago and I couldn't do it. How can you install iwdification on bg2ee?
You may need to download the latest version of Weidu and use it.
I wouldn't have thought it would be hard to recolour the BG2EE icons to match the IWD style, but getting the hand drawn look in higher resolution would mean redrawing them all from scratch.
I don't see why they couldn't redraw them. Yeah, it requires a lot of work, but it's not like we're talking about thousands of spells. This falls under the category of "Enhancements", IMO.
It's a small team, there are other enhancements that would require far fewer man-hours.
It's a simple job to practically get the right color on MS Paint, then use the fill command.
Imagine you need the right damage type for trolls, but in IWDEE you don't get Orange and Lime because it's really helpful to lose that useful information.
I wouldn't have thought it would be hard to recolour the BG2EE icons to match the IWD style, but getting the hand drawn look in higher resolution would mean redrawing them all from scratch.
I don't see why they couldn't redraw them. Yeah, it requires a lot of work, but it's not like we're talking about thousands of spells. This falls under the category of "Enhancements", IMO.
It's a small team, there are other enhancements that would require far fewer man-hours.
It's a simple job to practically get the right color on MS Paint, then use the fill command.
That's what said. The colours are easy, but recreating the hand drawn look of the original IWD icons at the new resolution requires a good many hours work from a talented artist.
Lets say 20 minutes per icon, 8 hours per day, around 240 spells. 10 days, or 2 weeks solid. Cost, around $2000, or 100 units sold.
If one thing has aged poorly with both BG and IWD it's the spell icons. They didn't look particularly good back then and now they're simply terrible. Low-res, hardly legible. With IWD2 Black Isle did a terrific job to re-draw all these icons and introduce many new ones. Perhaps Obsidian still has a higher resolution version of these? I'm not sure they could be adopted anyway as there are probably some spells and abilities that wouldn't have matching icons. But it would definitely be a much-needed enhancement to provide new, high-resolution, clear and vivid icons, perhaps in the style of IWD2.
Comments
I'm aware BG/BG2/ToB ALREADY have somewhat differing styles (which actually does bug me a little when they clash), but the difference is nothing when compared to IWD.
I know having to edit/remake those spell icons will be a hassle, but the game will look hideous if they don't, or at the very least unprofessional. It certainly won't look very 'enhanced'.
Maybe you had a problem with the order you installed them in (assuming you had other mods)? Looking at my weidu.log I installed Big Picture first (just core components and Ascension), Unfinished Business, Iwdification and then BG2 Tweaks, in that order. I'm not really an expert on these things though, sorry I couldn't be much more help
Imagine you need the right damage type for trolls, but in IWDEE you don't get Orange and Lime because it's really helpful to lose that useful information.
Heck, I should be able to do it (over a decade of drawing almost daily must be worth something).
Lets say 20 minutes per icon, 8 hours per day, around 240 spells. 10 days, or 2 weeks solid. Cost, around $2000, or 100 units sold.