Magic Mouth

[Vink]

The third, ethereal one, most fits my idea of a magic mouth, though I see a problem with the colour of it being almost the same (or really the same?) as the magical aura. It's possible to get the impression that the aura is part of the mouth, and then it looks strange.

[fate]

Hi,

here's the grey one with a lip texture applied:

Grey, with lip texture

magic-mouth-3bc-nat.png (1.23 KiB) Viewed 2355 times

and here another attempt at the ethereal one, with (a) slightly better use of transparency and (b) a more distinct aura:

Ethereal, different aura

magic-mouth-3bc-ethereal3.png (1.33 KiB) Viewed 2355 times

Here again, with some background:

A quick demonstration of the two choices

mmdemo.png (16.73 KiB) Viewed 2354 times

-- fate

[AxlTrozz]

It looks good, but I think the perspective is off, it should be 45 from top

[fate]

AxlTrozz,

that is a good point-- but 45 degrees turns out to be precisely the perspective it is in. See, the mouth is on the ground, facing slightly upwards so that people can hear it.

-- fate

[Jaxad0127]

The ethereal version looks better with a background. An idea is to use transparency for the mouth itself so the background shows through and it looks like the ground is being warped to form the mouth.

[Crush]

With the current shading it looks like it is on a wall (or rather hovering in the air facing in a horizontal direction). When you want it to be on the ground you have to shade it differently.

Put the lightsource below it and it will look like it is on the floor.

[fate]

Crush,

alright, you called my bluff

As far as I am concerned, a `magic mouth' works as long as it doesn't look entirely out of place. My problem is that I'm not sure how to draw a pair of disembodied lips at an angle without it looking silly, and really putting it onto the ground would probably not look very good with light falling into it right from the top. So, any suggestions as to what might work best?

(I am also fine with it if a real artist wants to take over, of course-- I just want a magic mouth to go along with #303

-- fate

[Crush]

The light source on outdoor maps is not exactly from up but from southwest.

[AxlTrozz]

May be if you put a shadow underneath representing 45 degrees, mean slightly on the north east of the mouth, that should do the trick

[peavey]

.

[fate]

Hi,

with a 45 degree shadow, it looks like this:

Magic Mouth (grey) with shadow

mmfinal-shadow.png (1.55 KiB) Viewed 2208 times

Magic Mouth (grey) with shadow, demo

mmfinal-shadow-demo.png (11.85 KiB) Viewed 2204 times

It does look a little like a piece of clip art, unfortunately. Perhaps a particle effect (as suggested by Peavey) could mitigate this, though that would require a client extension (either Crush's changes for NPCs with particle effects or #206).

-- fate

[Shaili (a.k.a. tds)]

I think the shadow should be a little more far from the lips. It will give a floating effect

[Black Don]

I think the shadow should be a little more far from the lips. It will give a floating effect

Agreed

[fate]

Hi,

Good point about the shadow!

The mouth is already rather wide (very close to the 50 pixels permitted for NPCs without restructuring the npcs.png and the associated data) so I had to move it a little
off-centre in order for the shadow to appear what I expect might qualify as `the right place':

mmfinal-2.png (1.64 KiB) Viewed 2141 times

mmfinal-2-demo.png (9.25 KiB) Viewed 2141 times

Thank you for your patience and continued feedback to my feeble efforts

-- fate

[Shaili (a.k.a. tds)]

Fate, what about making a softer shadow? It seems just a very black projection