Give the oldshool BG 1 artwork some love!

Akuro

Believe it or not, in my opinion the BG 2 artists messed almost everything up compared to the BG 1 style - and I don`t understand why!

As you read this provocative statement you may either say to yourself "Is this guy mad?" or you may probably think "Damn right man, I feel you!". By all means, I`ll give you some examples why I feel this way:

1. The Fireball animation - Do I really need to explain this? Yeah, I thought so

2. The Flaming Swords - Same as above. "Hey looki, a Flaming Sword! Huh? Where are the flames after all?"

3. Those shields - oh my god! Anyway, thanks to Erephine for dealing with that "problem"!

4. What about those helmets? Oh man, those Flaming Fist pot-helmets were so awesome! I killed the guard on the road to Beregost (or was it Nashkell?) just to get his helmet! Oh, and the soldiers from Amn in Nashkell - I loved those evil-looking, winged helmets (which were also worn by the Battle Horrors).
But what happened to them in BG 2? Some clunky, weird looking, horned helmets. (Okay, the model with the panache on the helmet looked badass, though). This led me to the habit of only using ion stones and shedding crocodile tears while remembering the "good ol' Bg 1 times"...

5. The clumsy 2-handed weapon "thrusting" animation in BG2. I always felt like "Damn, my warrior almost fell over his own sword again, is he drunk?!"

6. The paperdolls...

7. The UI - Oh, that stone-themed UI looked so harmonious and well-themed!

8. The avatars - in BG 2 females chars looked way too much big imo, back in BG 1 they were way more "fragile and feminine"

But - I have confidence and hope that the devs will do their best in order to restore this familiar, old "BG 1" feeling and I'm really curious about your upcoming UI!
Guys: I think it`s a great idea to incorporate Erephine's work. I hope you remember the great BG 1 artwork from time to time and will give it some love, whenever possible!

Akuro

g314

I hear you. The avatars disappointed me the most, and not just for the mirroring effect. For example, unarmored warriors and rogues look exactly the same and some magic effects look kind of cheesy in my opinion (Entangle and magic armors are too exaggerated for my tastes). Unfortunately, we can't go back to BG1 avatars because the game would crash when dual-wielding your character. They can't even make new avatars from scratch because of the massive amount of time required to make them. AFAIK, Erephine is doing a wonderful work with the paperdolls, maybe also on some other effects (I'm not sure), so this shouldn't be a problem, but I highly doubt avatars will look like their respective paperdolls, so helmets and shields should stay.

I believe part of the attraction to BG2 was because many people started from BG2 first and tried BG1 at a later moment. What really puzzles me is that some didn't even play BG1 at all!

I think it was Dan Walker who did most of the art in BG1 (according to the manual). Unfortunately, he passed away when BioWare were working on SoA, so most of the graphical 'magic' that sucked me in BG1 was kind of lost. I'm still using the original BG stony GUI mod on Trilogy, and got rid of the 'washed-out' aspect of the old portraits in the BG2 engine to replicate this 'magic' as much as I can.

Just for comparison (BG1 vs BG2):

vs

Moomintroll

I can't say agree with everything you've said, but as I love almost everything else it seems pointless point out any niggles.

Anduin

I must admit... I loved the old BG1 stone look. I think changing the UI is not that hard. The paperdolls and the other stuff is difficult. There is a mod that allows you to replace most of the spell effects with ones from Ice Wind Dale... However I am not sure they are as good as the BG1s

O_Bruce

For starters I recommend to do any kind of research before requesting. Had you did that, you would known that One Pixel Production mod is going to be implemented into game.

Since I've been playing with in my last session of BG2 I know that 1PP covers points about paperdolls, flaming swords and shields. These issues should be pretty much solved by now.

Now, about the rest.

- Fireball in BG1 was just ugly. Since source art is lost, it is impossible to improve it's graphic while retaining it's original style. Sorry, that fact can't be changed.

- Helmets weren't in 1PP so I doubt it would be covered. I recommend to embrace it at it is. Think of default BG2 common helmets look is more practical in comparison to default in BG1 - horns are just made to make losing helm durning battle a lot easier.

- Avatars animation are impossible to change due to lost of source art.

- UI. Had you really been doing any research, you would knew about new UI coming weeks ago.

Note that this can be still alfa version of it.

And one thing. Difference between BG1 portraits and BG2. Look at the Edwin above. BG1-style is less detailed and has some unrealisticaly dark areas, probably to cover artist's mistakes. I think I'm not mistaken, since being miserable artist I know some way to cover imperfections. Please, stop fanboying and open your mind a little.

Akuro

@ZelgadisGW
Be so kind and do not accuse us of not being informed, I`ve done my research and I know that:

- Erephine's work is being incorporated in the upcoming BGEE and yes - I know that 1PP also covers the Flaming Swords and paperdolls (and I'm glad about this).
My thread shall serve as a) a little encouragement for the devs to use as much BG 1-themed graphics as possible and b) to bring back some good old memories.

- the devs are gonna change the UI. Same as above, I really approve their approach towards a stone-themed look

- that animations can't be changed without vast effort. Nevertheless that really makes me sad.

And one last thing:
Imo no one here is a "fanboy" because he likes the old BG 1 portraits or paperdolls or whatever more - I'd say it's just all about the love for the pure, original BG1 content and style some people prefer over the one brought by BG 2.

O_Bruce

@Akuro Your post looked as if you weren't well-informed after all.

It's not like animations couldn't be changed without vast effort. It's that they would have been animated from scratch and morever, new animations could not fit the game at all. I don't think that efforts towards new animation would be worthy the time spend. To be more blunt, I think had that happened, effort would be totally in vain.

About portraits, to me it sounded as people are complaining over everything being better in BG1, which is not always the case. And I believe that person who loves something without single thought of criticizm deserves to be called "fanboy". That is all.

Sorry, If I sound rude. I prefer being genuine over being polite.

Akuro

ZelgadisGW said:

[...]Sorry, If I sound rude. I prefer being genuine over being polite.

Sounds reasonable - no big deal That's why I love this place!
I `d write more here, but I gotta go to work. Have a good day!

AndreaColombo

I have no problem being called a "BG1 fanboy"; I know I am. Just saying

Ward

@ZelgadisGW I agree, people should read for answers before making redundant topics, but the fact is they don't and I don't see any requirement to be 'genuine' about it. You maintain the default level of helpfulness and courtesy no matter what, it doesn't matter if OP didn't do his homework.

As for the BG1 graphics, I'm no fan of 1PP being put in the unit. Mostly because it ruins the helmets and I don't want coloured staves and flaming swords.

AndreaColombo

@Ward - flaming swords were in vanilla BG1 too, so they're kinda supposed to be there. Colorable quarterstaffs are part of 1PP but their integration in BG:EE was never confirmed, so there's still hope