1. Historical:
Time span: AOS is between 1300BC -1600AD. Unit look must be within era of AoS time period, so maximum around late 16th century - the changes following the spread of accurate musket - are out of AoS scope.
Keep theme: Units shouldn't stray too much from the game concept, so no sci-fi or fantasy stuff for regular units.
Appearance: most important is approaching to historical correctness (especially on weapon shapes and sizes, the clothing less "strict")
with a remark: if there is a "legend" like unit like Achilleus, William Wallace, Jeanne D'Arc they can have almost "magical" apperance if they have that in their legend - so the historical strictness can soften there.
2. Distiguishabillity:
second is distinguishability (so no 2 different type of units should look same or too similar - this one is subjective though)
(so eg. b2189 examples were good about same looking drakonian archers -> i made them more different, also the taxiarchos vs spartan hoplite were too similar so -> we made a cape for taxiarchos and strong difference on teamcoloring)
3. No forced rulings on appearance based on in-game features:
Do not fill the unit art with non-historical things, or can-be-historical but "rule" based forced things rulings (eg: "all leaders must use white horses" or any other "rule" that any skin designer might figure out)
with exceptions we can collect here:
- LEADERS:should be "nicer" or more "special" than other units in pack: eg. by using capes, flags, Golden armors, anything. Not meaning that other units can not have these also!, the key is (at least) within a skinpack the leader should be nicer/more special than non leader units.
4. Technical requirements:
- Image names: Please do not change image names - those posted on the forum should have exactly the same name as images in game assets.
- Image width/height:
- For normal units (1 tile on base): ALWAYS use 32x64px! (even if it is not that tall visually)
- On bigger cases (96px or 128px) cases try keep the original size
- Image width must remain unchanged. 32px must be 32px. Height needs to be 64px/96px or 128px. - Unit sprite: Units should follow their original with
- unit size (so a swordman is still same tall eg. not a giant swordsman)
- same/similar equipment (so a swordsman is still holding a sword (not a bow or throwing axe))
- same equipment size (if the bow was 31 pixel long on old image than on the new unit it also should be about 31 pixel length)
-- EXCEPTIONS:
--- Spears: must be between 24px - 42px (vertical case)
--- Pikes: must be minimum 52px or above (vertical case)
- similar general outlook, so e.g. if it is a supportive unit looking somewhat richer/fancier, than your regular soldier - keep that - Unit facing: The units default facing should be to right (engine flips it on attack), so instead of total front facing stances, try using little (can be very little) right facing ones.
- Pack name, rarity: Name the pack it should be put into, even if it's new one and propose rarity, e.g.:
Rarity: Common
Skin Pack Name: Endru skins. - Player coloring: Units must have proper team colors - pixels with colors R:255, B:255, as those are colored to distinguish to which player unit belongs.