After seing this I'll have nightmares about gastro-intestinal Hedgehogs...






...forever...





Well, thanks I guess

That theme could really have benefited from Inkscape. Pretty clearly was done exclusively in a raster tool like GIMP.

WRT Hedgewars style guide, have you seen the forum thread on it?

I've seen the thread and I tried to stick to the rules, like bold outlines, shading, etc. It is visible in my theme, but I'm not sure if it's done enough. And for the Inkscape, I know it adds a bit of interpolation, so the edges are softer than in raster tools, but wouldn't it be enough to just apply a slight, 1-pixel blur to each image? The effect could be similar.

It isn't just that.
Hedgewars uses vector style art.
It makes for smooth curves everywhere. Inkscape is vector, GIMP is raster. They just look different. You can do vector-style art in GIMP using paths, but it really isn't designed for it.

If someone more capable like sheepluva doesn't feel inclined to do a side-by-side, I could try showing what I mean on a chunk of the theme but. Yeah, smooth vector-style art, border lines on most objects, usually fairly thick (Desert deviates a little), and, sure, antialiasing. Blurring is not really the same as antialiasing though.

You can do these in a vector tool using paths, and judicious use of select for edging. The AA would be tricky. Downscaling a larger image does something similar but tends to look more fuzzy.

Vector tool is just a better choice for vector art. Also, makes doing the art easier! As a bonus, if you include the SVGs, makes doing updates or remixes easier for others in the future.

If you want the theme packaged as-is on DLC, feel free to pack it up like the other HWPs and I'll add it on. Give it a version so it can be revisioned.

Some example SVGs that are currently in the repo.

http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Cave/Crystal01.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Cave/CrystalSpray01.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Cave/Stalactite.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Christmas/Ball.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Christmas/CandyCane.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Christmas/Snowman.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Christmas/Tree.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Desert/cactus.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Desert/cobra.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Desert/cowskull.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Desert/rock1.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Desert/sand.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Fruit/Orange.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Fruit/Watermelon.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Nature/mushroom.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Nature/snail.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Olympics/Column01.svg
http://hedgewars.googlecode.com/hg/share/hedgewars/Data/Themes/Olympics/Statue.svg

Tried Inkscaping today and here's the result:

The new image has much clearer shape, but outlines went a bit thinner and there's less shading (it was pretty invisible effect anyway). Is it Hedgewars-ish enough? I think it would just need bolder outlines if anything.

I like it. (disclaimer not an artist)
Adding edging to the .. legs? .. could maybe help, yeah.

WRT shading.
Tiy was always very opposed to "flat" objects. Can still have shading, but just some darkening of colour on the underside or on one side for shadow.
You can see it on the prior SVGs.

Hey, nice work KoBeWi! Very original, too.
I like the post-inkscape version, too.
The music you've chosen goes quite nicely with the theme.

I finally got to actually play on it. Nice

The theme has it's own interesting charm and the music is indeed fitting.

Btw though: I noticed that due to lack of color contrast (and only slight sharpness differences) between background/decoration and landscape elements things can just visually "merge" and confuse - especially in peripheral vision.

Updated the theme!
I remade most of objects with Inkscape, so they look a bit better/smoother now. I'm not sure however about the veins (that purple, thick lines) - I just applied a GIMP's smoothing effect, failed to remake them in Inkscape. Same did for clouds - they look good enough I think. And I remade the skeleton in GIMP (it's edited hedgehog sprite). I included all SVGs with the theme.

I'm aiming for this one to be Hedgewars' official theme if possible. I know it requires a bit more work, but I'll try to polish it as necessary.

Hey, thank you for this contribution.

I already like this theme a lot and a lot of the things are already great. I am very happy that you also designed the theme with sudden death in mind.
Although I like the “clouds”, they seem to slow down my machine slightly. :/
That’s not your fault, maybe this performance issue should better be tackled in Hedgewars itself.

The theme is good but not perfect yet. But it is close to perfection.

The girders looks still too pixelated to me and clearly must be vectorized.
The background also needs work, especially the “veins”, it looks very much like as if a bad interpolation has happend to the image.

WRT clouds, he's drawing 1000 of 'em. Our graphics code could stand to be a bit more efficient. A theme to compare this to might be City.

If we ever get the gles2 stuff done, we'll batch our draws, which should help a bit...

Reduce Quality does have the option to disable clouds if your system has trouble with them.

Sorry for late answer. I wanted to fix this theme a bit, but I'm not sure how. The girder is a bit too tangled to vectorize. It's a mixed-depth set of thick tri-colored lines. It's hard to make in in Insckape and don't lose the shape. And for background: I have an original XCF file before vein pixelation, but don't know how exactly should it look. Care to contribute to this theme? It's only two images.

This is looks kinda weird... at least its my opinion.

Anyway, this theme is missing Sudden Death music, unless you took the "Sudden Death" litterally. See what i did there?

Sudden Death music is just a recent addition and pretty all themes don't have one. Actually, I requested this feature for my other theme.

BTW, why do you have link to your account in signature if your nick is linked to this page?

BEHOLD! The new girder!

This little bastard took me few hours to make and I tried to keep the old shape as much as possible (I like to consider some things "perfect"). The amount of detail is impressive, at least when you zoom in the SVG. Well, looks better than the original and tomorrow I may try to fix the sky :/

Thats amazing!

also, are you going to do anything on Crystal theme?

While im here and i dont wanna do a doublepost, you may like this sound effect for Sudden Death music

http://opengameart.org/content/heartbeat-sounds

im just looking at the download as well, there are missing SDSplash and SDDroplet graphics for that sd pitch black water, not quite sure why its black tho. Also, it would be good to include the new girder if possible.

Oh yeah, SDDroplet and SDSplash, thanks for reminding. The black water has some "rotten" feel that I though would work for Sudden Death.

I will include the new girder along with some changes when I redo the sky. I also altered mudball to look a bit like meatball and fleshed out (hehe) the girder tool. It's just recolor, but does it look better?

As for Crystal theme, it's my first theme and it still uses old theme format. I have updated version already finished, but I'm thinking about making some more changes and vectorizing its graphics.

After painful session with Inkscape, I managed to convert old Sky into SVG. It's not perfectly the same and I did lazy shading for the lines (duplicate -> make thicker and darker). There's like one hundred of these lines, so well... I also had to make it darker to not blend with terrain. And since I got no feedback for girder tool, I left the new one.

I separated the theme into two packages - original one and "official" one. The original doesn't contain SVGs and has it's own music. The "official" is prepared to be officially bundled with Hedgewars (that's what I was aiming), so I had to delete the music (it was from Lufia BTW) and choose one from defaults. So for official one, I chose Olympics, I think it's best from what HW currently has [EDIT: Actually maybe hell would be better]. If you want to play the theme - choose HWP file (the official is zip). Unless something is still wrong, the theme may be considered finished (though not closed of course).

I think it would be really neat to see this theme in the DLC section. I would say it doesn't fit 100% into the Hedgewars art style, but I quite like that actually. Another theme which is in the DLC, "PeacefulNight", doesn't fit the art style at all, but personally I think it really works, especially with the music that it has. To me it has a surreal feeling to it of some sort, which I guess the theme is going for (at least judging by the name).
I might be alone in how I see this, and thats why I think adding it to DLC is a nice midway -- keeping all of the official Hedgewars themes strictly to the art style of the game but making it easy enough for those who want to, to try something "different".

There was also once a really cool "digital" theme floating around the forum, which even made it into the dev build for a while... I think that would be a prime candidate for DLC too!

Very nice theme
Ever played The Binding of Isaac?
I can't help thinking about these Womb levels of this game when I see your job!

Nope, I didn't. It's mostly inspired by Inside the Behemoth area in Lufia: Ruins of Lore (the one music is from).

Great! Finally you have made the final touches to the theme. Those were very needed! The background is now much more pleasant to look at and the girder is now much better. The red placable girder is a nice extra touch.

There are just two minor things: Music and water opacity.

First the music choice. Olympics.ogg is really wrong here. Out of the default tracks, I think the (default) music which fits to the theme most is EarthRise.ogg. The theme is a bit dark but still neutral enough to don't suggest a particular theme. All other tracks don't fit well. IMO.
For Sudden Death I suggest hell.ogg for lack of a better option (the alternative would be silence).
I also noticed the “water” is unusually transparent, which does not feel right here. I have tweaked the opacity valuess until I was happy.

Suggested changes to theme.cfg:

water-opacity = 127
sd-water-opacity = 192
music = EarthRise.ogg
sd-music = hell.ogg

Please test for yourself before you apply these changes.

KoBeWi, in Inkscape you can select lines and then choose round line endings/caps (also joins/corners) in the "Stroke style" tab of the "Fill & Stroke" docking window (Shift+Ctrl+F).

Maybe that's what you want for the blood vessels visible on the "Sky" - just pointing this out in case you didn't know/try it already.

PS: Also I agree with CheezeMonkey with regards to (possibly main-)DLC inclusion making more sense due to nature of the theme/its style.

Actually, I didn't even think about it. Thanks for suggestion

Now the theme has become very likable, now that all issues have been dealt with. You have done a great job with this theme. Thank you very much for your hard work here.

Sheepluva said in chat that this theme is too “gory” for Hedgewars, so no matter what the quality is, it has no chance.

Anyways: Now the theme is good enough that I explicitly want this to have in DLC!

Necro time!

Along with topic, the link is revived too. Also, added new rubber and chunk. Also also, sudden death background is darker.