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.
its where all the arguments stem from, some things look different to others but similar to me so its all subjective