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The Look of Spell Icons and Scrolls in IWD:EE

MelicampMelicamp Member Posts: 243
in Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
I know this has probably been brought up 500 times, and I'm not posting to complain but I'm just curious as to why -- Why are the spells in Icewind Dale EE (both scrolls and icons) so lousy looking in comparrison to the original game? Was this just something with the new interface which could not be avoided? I'm looking at the old game side by side with the new and its just bad. I'm just curious as to what went behind that is all.

Comments

  • HaHaCharadeHaHaCharade Member Posts: 1,644
    edited March 2015
    While it's a bit of a shame that some of the artistic license and design of the original game's interface was lost, it is what it is.
  • ZeckulZeckul Member Posts: 1,036
    Because they're the same low-res artwork that looked OK at 800x600 but is terrible at 1920x1080; and because they're using the BG2 icon set rather than the IWD icons (as far as I can tell).

    During BG:EE development I moaned that icons should be redrawn because it didn't make sense to reuse such low-res artwork in a high-definition game, but I guess they've never got around to actually doing that.
  • ZeckulZeckul Member Posts: 1,036
    edited March 2015
    It's pretty smart what they did for item icons though. In the vanilla games, there are two graphics for each item: one low-res for when the item is in an inventory slot, and one slightly higher-res when you pick it up and it replaces your mouse cursor. In the EE engine they just always use the higher-res icon. But then some items didn't have one, so there's some inconsistency in item sizes now. But it's better than nothing.

    For spell icons the situation is really dire. They're stretched with aliasing artifacts making them almost undistinguishable, and the Wizard and Cleric spell book UI is about as uninformative as it could be. It's just every tiny, low-contrast, pixelated icon aligned next to each other, lost in a sea of empty space, not even outlined or boxed or any attempt at visual hinting, with no organization or description whatsoever. The information content is practically 0. All the information is buried in contextual menus that consist of a wall of text. All you can do is try to remember what icon matches what wall of text. It's absolutely terrible design. I don't really mind because I've been playing this for over a decade, but I pity new players.
  • CuvCuv Member, Developer Posts: 2,535
    Over a hundred IWD icons were redrawn to match the BG2EE style - if you can't tell which ones they are, then I guess I did my job well :)
  • ZeckulZeckul Member Posts: 1,036
    edited March 2015
    Ah, I was wondering what you did for the IWD icons that had no equivalent in the BG2 icon set. That makes sense. So you adapted them for style consistency but they're still at their original resolution?
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