Creating LoD-Like Skill Icons Tips and Tricks

[Lurix]

A while ago I've seen a few mods (like Kingdom of Tenai and EasternSun..) having very nice new Skill Icons which still keep the nasty looking Diablo 2 style.

I'm also looking forward to create some, but I need to know if there's something special when creating them, like any tips or tricks to make it really look like it's done by Blizzard, you know

Thanks in advance

[MarcoNecroX]

Problem with d2 skill icons is that their main feature is "messy".
Basically you need to try to purposedly bug the pic and make it blurry.


What I would do is try to settle a layer setting that would emulate the style,
and the only things left would be to draw it. Of course this method, and specially
in newer programs like photoshop and such can never compare to manually
drawing pixel by pixel...

I just opened photoshop and trying to mess around. Here I just created the main
attack skill (hence the ugly arrow drawing) and applied layer effects to it:



Then we can for example keep these layer settings and draw something different:



Like I said, I'm not even close to good at image editing, but not sure how "realistic"
you want them to look. If you use photoshop as well, I can send you a savefile
that contains a layer with these settings

Cheers!

[Lurix]

Yes, I use PS, too. Would be nice to have those files.
Anyway I got my own way for creating those, but having more variations is never bad..

[MarcoNecroX]

http://www13.zippyshare.com/v/99054345/file.html

Ofc, not flawless, but maybe you can get something useful out of it

[Aught]

very useful, thanks x1000

[Aught]

sup, i'm rly sorry for resurrecting this, but i lost those file on link and the author too, if somebody has it on your hdd, pls, upload it anywhere, it would be very helpful thanks