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HQ Item Icons (work in progress)

AdulAdul Member Posts: 2,002
edited March 2018 in BG:EE Mods
I'm starting a mod project for BG:EE and BG2:EE that aims to improve how the game displays items in the inventory (and stores), and also aims to stay as true to the vanilla BG experience as possible.

In the original game, the inventory showed two different images for each inventory item: the default icon that appeared when an item was in an inventory slot, and the selected icon that replaced the mouse cursor when the player picked up the item:



The default icon had no shadow, and it was either an image of the whole item, or in the case of some items like large weapons, a detailed close-up of a part of the item.

The selected icon had a drop shadow effect, and it was always an image of the whole item. In the case of large items, the selected icon was also larger than the default one, and it often exceeded the dimensions of an inventory slot.

Since the 2.0 patch, the EEs have switched to a system where the inventory only shows one image for each item, the same one for both the default and selected states:



Since the game is now typically played at a much higher resolution than vanilla was, the original icon images appear very small in comparison. EE 2.0+ only shows the 'selected' icons, which are often less detailed than the 'default' ones. The lack of variety negatively impacts flavor.

This mod aims to replicate the vanilla experience, in that it will restore variety to icons for their default and selected states. It will also feature larger icons that are created from the original icons with the help of an image upscaler tool:





I currently plan to increase the scale of most of the default icons to 400%, since these get downscaled by the game to fit into the inventory slots, anyway, so the more detail, the better. In the case of small item icons that aren't supposed to fill out the whole inventory slot, I plan to upscale them to 200% instead.

Selected item icons will be upscaled to 200%, as on most modern resolutions at that scale the images should resemble the size that the original icons would have taken up on screen in the original game.

The result is hopefully that the game more closely resembles the vanilla experience:





Perhaps not quite a feature right out of the gate, but I also plan to eventually make two separate icon styles for items that have different icons in BG1 and BG2. As far as I can tell, the EEs primarily use the BG2 icons, while my mod will use BG1 icons by default, but would eventually offer a choice between the two styles for all the relevant items.

I don't know how much time I will be able to dedicate to this project consistently, and there's no lack of icons to convert, so this may be a long haul thing. I'll probably see if I can release some partial versions when I get to certain milestones.

Comments and suggestions are appreciated, and if you want to help out, please let me know. And also let me know if you have a better idea for a name than "HQ Item Icons". I'm terrible at naming things.

Tagging @Kilivitz and @AndreaColombo :smile:
AedanAndreaColombolefreutMateoFrozenKilivitzFlashburnArunsunAciferStummvonBordwehrBaptor

Comments

  • AndreaColomboAndreaColombo Member Posts: 5,524
    Great work! Subbing the thread and following closely ;)

    By the way, BG:EE (and I believe SoD) are supposed to be using BG icons, whereas BGII:EE should be using BGII icons. Should you run into any items in BG:EE/SoD that are clearly using a BGII icon, please send them my way as I'll need to patch them in my (well, ours now) mod.
    Adul
  • AdulAdul Member Posts: 2,002
    edited March 2018

    Great work! Subbing the thread and following closely ;)

    By the way, BG:EE (and I believe SoD) are supposed to be using BG icons, whereas BGII:EE should be using BGII icons. Should you run into any items in BG:EE/SoD that are clearly using a BGII icon, please send them my way as I'll need to patch them in my (well, ours now) mod.

    Thanks! I haven't done much yet, but the first item I checked, HALB01, clearly uses the BG2 icon in BG1:EE instead of the BG1 one. Makes me think the same might be the case for a lot of the weapons in the game.
  • byrne20byrne20 Member Posts: 503
    This is a really cool idea and I wish you every success in your goal :smile:
    AdulAciferStummvonBordwehr
  • SelevanSelevan Member Posts: 7
    Hello. Any chance of you finishing it?

    I was really dissapointed to find out that the EE icons were all only the "large" frames, regardless of picking them up from inventory spot or not. I really loved that in classic bg so i started looking if theres any mod for that.

    Sadly, apparentely this is the only attempt on fixing that and it looks like you gave up on it. I'd love to help, if you (or anyone else) would like to continue work..
  • AndreaColomboAndreaColombo Member Posts: 5,524
    I tried to do something similar, but simply enlarging the icons doesn't really look good. We'd need to use a proper upscaler, better if an A.I. based one, but the only one I know is Waifu and it doesn't do bulk conversions.

    If there's a good upscaler that does conversions in bulk, I can pass the icons through it and restore the original BG behavior (except for Beamdog icons; those will take extra tinkering.)
  • SelevanSelevan Member Posts: 7
    I was thinking of copying images from vanilla bg1 2, but it took me several minutes to just copy one item, too much of a work.

    Ill try to look for an upscaler tho, i really dont like the only big icons
  • SelevanSelevan Member Posts: 7
    Damn it, even cursor was dissapearing when picking up Item on classic bg, same goes for quick description, it was kind of unrolling in a cool manner when pressing tab while hovering mouse over an item or anything actually. The EE description scroll' has both ugly texture and ugly font. Not to mention the awful font while holding tab.. The ee version is so bad, shame im forced to use it.
  • AndreaColomboAndreaColombo Member Posts: 5,524
    edited July 2021
    Why would you be forced to use the EEs? Only reason I can think of is playing a mod that is not available for the classics.

    I’m plaything through modded classics now and it’s pretty great. Indeed, it’s the most fun I’ve had with these games since—well, ever.

    The EEs have their strengths. If they were the only version I could play, I too would be disappointed. However the classics are still there for me to enjoy, which enables me to enjoy the EEs as well on the side.
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