Jsleezy's Real Fighter Portrait Pack - Preview

[Jsleezy]

This is my first time posting and my first mod (ever). When I first played Xenonauts it seemed like the portraits lacked personality...the cartoony feeling just wasn't doing it for me so I decided to create the Real Fighter Portrait Pack based on the current portraits but using (mostly) MMA fighters pieced together in Photoshop. Not all the portraits are based on the original ones...I decided some races needed a little more diversity on the looks.

The mod probably won't be completed for a little while. I still need to complete around 30 male portraits and all of the female portraits. My goal is to have it completed by the time the full game comes out.

The Real Fighter Portrait Pack will also add more male portrait diversity since as of right now around 50% of the original male portraits repeat themselves.

Here are some screenshots of what you can expect:

Let me know what you guys think.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Jsleezy

[Jsleezy]

Edited July 29, 2013 by Jsleezy

[thothkins]

wow that's an impressive piece of work. Not only in the graphics themselves but in the way you have retained the miserable expressions of all Xenonauts.

[WalrusJones]

Its an interestng idea.

I personally find myself seeing a minor confliction with the art style.

HOOWEVERRRR.

I am not one to talk about art style conflictions.

However, this isn't about art style, its about real dudes looking real miserable in xenonauts, a goal which is very well achieved.

[cspruce]

Its an interestng idea.

I personally find myself seeing a minor confliction with the art style.

HOOWEVERRRR.

I am not one to talk about art style conflictions.

However, this isn't about art style, its about real dudes looking real miserable in xenonauts, a goal which is very well achieved.

I was thinking the exact same thing in regards to the two different art styles that conflict. But don't get me wrong this is interesting, and you've done a really nice job cleaning up the photos for this game. I commend you on your work and I'm sure there is a demographic that will use this mod.

[Jsleezy]

Thanks guys. I knew from the beginning that it wasn't going to match the painterly style they are using but I still wanted to give it a touch of realism to my soldiers. Perhaps when I'm done doing the portraits I could expand into making the uniforms / backgrounds more realistic, but it's not something I'm too worried for now. The portraits themselves actually do blend in pretty well in-game.

The only little thing I'm worried about is the skin tones on some of the Black portraits not matching the hands to which I'm thinking about giving them gloves.

@Cspruce - Thanks, man. I really hope people get to enjoy the game from my point of view once it's done. Also, the other day I saw your Marine Edition mod and it gave me the push I needed to get back on track and get this done...so thanks again.

[Mytheos]

Great work, I dont think it conflicts that much.

Yes its not a perfect match sure, but you arent going to make anything look more realistic and match, but matching isnt the idea, looking more realistic is.

The style though "does" fit rather well for matching something that realistic to something that "cartoony"

I hope the females look as good. Granted you dont want beauty queens in full make up, but asking for something that isnt so hard on the eyes would be nice.

[cspruce]

Thanks guys. I knew from the beginning that it wasn't going to match the painterly style they are using but I still wanted to give it a touch of realism to my soldiers. Perhaps when I'm done doing the portraits I could expand into making the uniforms / backgrounds more realistic, but it's not something I'm too worried for now. The portraits themselves actually do blend in pretty well in-game.

The only little thing I'm worried about is the skin tones on some of the Black portraits not matching the hands to which I'm thinking about giving them gloves.

@Cspruce - Thanks, man. I really hope people get to enjoy the game from my point of view once it's done. Also, the other day I saw your Marine Edition mod and it gave me the push I needed to get back on track and get this done...so thanks again.

I ran into the same issue, you can simply replace the hands with a clear .png file then have them gloved like I did to avoid this issue, very easy 2 minute fix.

[Jsleezy]

@Mytheos Thanks for the encouragement!

We are on the same page. I'm hoping to make them look as natural soldier as possible. Unfortunately, I won't have as many assets to work with on the female portraits which means I will have to get creative and spend more time per portrait. With a little time they should match the male portraits pretty well.

@Cspruce

That's a good idea. I think I will give it a try later when I reach that point. Thanks for the tip. I was thinking about just replacing the hand files but your idea is more practical.

Edited July 26, 2013 by Jsleezy

[Jsleezy]

Full camo or simple?

Edited July 29, 2013 by Jsleezy

[thothkins]

The full camo edges it for me. Very nice. However, both are going to stand out in the Arctic.

[Jean-Luc]

Quite impressive and the two visual styles don't clash as much as one would expect them to.

[Jsleezy]

The full camo edges it for me. Very nice. However, both are going to stand out in the Arctic.

Ah yes, it probably stands out even before I make any changes to it. Full camo it is then

[EchoFourDelta]

The full camo artwork looks badass. Nice work.

[Jsleezy]

The full camo artwork looks badass. Nice work.

Thanks! I will upload a full size PNG for the Buzzard and Wolf armor very soon so you can download it into your game and start using it.

[Jsleezy]

---------Update---------

So after some discussion with another forum user (4Aces) I've decided to look more into the quality of the portraits. I've added some effects that should slightly reduce the pixelation of my soldier faces and it should also help it blend in with the game a tiny more. Here is an example:

4Aces also brought up a point about some of the portraits being hard coded. Does anyone know how that is going to work?

As it stands right now I'm able to overwrite any portrait...and it seems to be working in-game. Would I just encounter the hard-coded portraits by chance or is it something that I would have to push manually in the options menu?

Disclaimer: I mean no disrespect to anyone who has paid for their portrait...this is simply just a mod for my enjoyment.

[jupilerke1967]

Hi,

nice work, but maybe there is a way to implement different camo options like jackal desert camo suit jackal forrest camo suit and jackal urban camo suit?

[Jsleezy]

Hi,

nice work, but maybe there is a way to implement different camo options like jackal desert camo suit jackal forrest camo suit and jackal urban camo suit?

Thank you. I will be posting the download for the Wolf and Buzzard suits later tonight.

I wouldn't mind making the armors using different camo patterns / colors so people can use them for different occasions if there was somebody open to coding new armors into the game. I'm not a programer and don't really know much about scripting.

[4Aces]

Just in case anyone misunderstands, the "quality of the portraits" is that the originals were actually a little too detailed to blend with the rest of the art in the game. I was not saying these were bad.

The new versions are great looking!

I will look for that file right now, and post here when I find it.

EDIT: Gameconfig.xml

<customSoldierCreationChance value="5" comment="This is the chance that a custom soldier will be bought instead of a normal one." />

This is my line from the file, and so value="5" may not be what you have in yours, as I am pretty sure that I increased mine to get more varied faces.

After looking into the soldierimages/faces folder, with a fully decompressed game, I think what other people are talking about as being hard-coded, was just archived (in the PFP files). I thought they were actually hard-coded into the game (which means non-editable), but if these file names are accurate, then these are the custom portraits. That leaves 25 non-custom portraits for you to work with, and you can probably just extend their script call to add in more (if you can find it, that is).

Edited July 31, 2013 by 4Aces

[Jsleezy]

Just in case anyone misunderstands, the "quality of the portraits" is that the originals were actually a little too detailed to blend with the rest of the art in the game. I was not saying these were bad.

The new versions are great looking!

I will look for that file right now, and post here when I find it.

EDIT: Gameconfig.xml

<customSoldierCreationChance value="5" comment="This is the chance that a custom soldier will be bought instead of a normal one." />

This is my line from the file, and so value="5" may not be what you have in yours, as I am pretty sure that I increased mine to get more varied faces.

After looking into the soldierimages/faces folder, with a fully decompressed game, I think what other people are talking about as being hard-coded, was just archived (in the PFP files). I thought they were actually hard-coded into the game (which means non-editable), but if these file names are accurate, then these are the custom portraits. That leaves 25 non-custom portraits for you to work with, and you can probably just extend their script call to add in more (if you can find it, that is).

4aces, did you get that to actually work? I've changed mine to 99 and even 100 and it doesn't even look like it makes a difference. Sometimes I'll get lucky and 1 of 12 will be a custom portrait...that's in like 1 out of 5 new games. The only way I can get custom portraits to actually show is by pushing in soldier numbers in the options menu. I'm beginning to think it's broken. I've made 111 portraits and the game only uses 20% of them

[Jsleezy]

Nevermind! I found a workaround after a few hours of messing around. Basically under soldiernames.xml I added a new ethnicity called "cust" <Ethnicity name="cust" count="75" />

Then I went to a specific nation and added a count for the "cust" ethnicity so that it looks like this:

<Nation name="American" chance="15">

<Ethnicity name="nor" chance="1" />

<Ethnicity name="med" chance="1" />

<Ethnicity name="afri" chance="1" />

<Ethnicity name="cust" chance="5" />

This way I can get a lot of diversity on the portraits!

[EchoFourDelta]

Any idea when this pack will be released?

[Jsleezy]

Any idea when this pack will be released?

I'm shooting for the end of this weekend. All the male portraits are currently done but there are some that I'd like to re-do and some missing ones that I need to create. This thing is taking me for ever but I'm pretty proud of how they are all turning out. Currently it takes me between 30 minutes to an hour per portrait and there are currently 111 portraits. There are a few that are missing (probably a mistake by the artist) so it shows invisible characters.

[billion]

i think you should place all faces on black background! due to in game it is black. and i think current faces will be looked not nice. eyes and edges of faces are dark and will be cosumed by surrounding black background. please try and show with black background.

[billion]

same thing about full camo. please place it on real game background