Posts from [MOD] LEGACY CLASSIC 1.0 Quality improvement of the standard interface for HoMM V 3.1 90% Auto-translated

Exactly 20 years ago — May 19, 2006 — the official premiere of the legendary Heroes of Might and Magic V took place in the CIS.
You can have different opinions about this installment, but it's worth admitting that these are still the same old Heroes and probably the best 3D entry in the series, as well as the most alive part of the forum.
The game went through a real production hell and a real battle with the publisher Ubisoft, and despite everything, it is a powerful hit of nostalgia and the era of 2000s gaming.

In honor of this big anniversary in our Russian-speaking community, I created what I consider to be an important event for the game.
I single-handedly took on an extremely large task: to completely refresh the quality of the game's original interface without globally changing its structure — that is, to improve quality while preserving the UI concept.
The project was given the name Legacy Classic.

Legacy — this is the fact of heritage; players kept the game alive with mods, created a ton of content, and deserve to see one more mod, a truly necessary mod.

Classic — this is the vector of preserving the spirit of classic style and the original's design.

Since the amount of work for one person is simply colossal, the modification will be released in stages, in the form of large patches.
Nival's archives have plenty of everything — chaos, unnecessary files, errors, and connections of one element to multiple places, etc.

And today, on the anniversary day in the CIS, I am glad to present you information about the first patch.

Large-scale upscale:
Almost the entire main UI has been upscaled to new sizes, with the same style as in 2006.
Some small elements have been redrawn or redone from scratch, some have been replaced with new ones that visually match the designers' solution.
Buttons, backgrounds, and rendering elements have been updated for all sections in all modes (including campaigns) and options, except for connecting to Ubisoft servers for obvious reasons.

Hero and town portraits, various icons. Some have received a new but design-appropriate look, because they looked bad when enlarged.

It's important to understand that much depended on how the images were originally drawn.
Also, a small group of old visual glitches has been fixed.
Several community materials have been used, as well as my own visual solutions.
New, absolutely canonical faction crests above buildings.
Launcher backgrounds at startup and loading screens on maps outside scenarios have been created from scratch.

Now you can choose the vibe of your favorite faction, drop it into the mod folder, and you'll have a launcher background and polished loading screens on the standard branded gray background, as is customary in the game, with the faction you like. The concept art of the factions' top-tier creatures from Nival was used as a base, with some fitting details corrected/added.

Recommendation: Preferred race picture at game launch (LEGACY CLASSIC 1.0) + Animated preferred race menu + Loading screen with the T7 creature of the preferred race (LEGACY CLASSIC 2.0)

Game experience: for owners of old resolutions, the experience will still feel new. The interface will look sharper in any case, like a neater and fresher version of the original interface.

For owners of 2K monitors and above, this will be a new gaming experience with more noticeable quality that pleases the eye. After all, it will simply become more readable.

Some elements may receive visual updates just to demonstrate more depth on the texture. For example, menu scrolls.

Optimization: When increasing texture scales, of course you have to account for the engine and the game's age, so as not to turn the game into a slideshow or significantly increase latency.

Most elements received 2x and 4x increases, according to the logic of the elements. In some cases, I allowed myself to increase smaller objects by 6x if they were overly small icons.

 Acknowledgments:

Mооnst@r for help and information at the beginning of the journey and for the materials of the UpdatedInterfaceTextures mod (interaction menu scrolls are currently in the project)

His explanation allowed me to start working on the project, where by absorbing the material I was able to do a lot of work later on.

Vindafler for the materials of the Icons Resolution Overhaul mod, which improves the quality of creature icons. This method uses only the game's resources and helped apply a similar solution in a number of cases. There's no point in doing this with mini-mods.

SIDE BY SIDE COMPARISON IN SCREENSHOTS:

https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=6f4470ba-6a55-11f1-ba1b-0e6f42328d7d
https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=65c0ad00-6a56-11f1-ba1b-0e6f42328d7d
https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=d345ef98-6a56-11f1-ba1b-0e6f42328d7d
https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=0c76980c-6a58-11f1-ba1b-0e6f42328d7d
https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=aedf97a0-6a59-11f1-ba1b-0e6f42328d7d
https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=7a0231ea-6a5a-11f1-ba1b-0e6f42328d7d
https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=352479f6-6a5b-11f1-ba1b-0e6f42328d7d
https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=798d0022-6a5b-11f1-ba1b-0e6f42328d7d
https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=20500f3a-6a5c-11f1-ba1b-0e6f42328d7d
https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=d1b286a6-8f3a-11f1-ba1b-0e6f42328d7d

⚙️Technical comments 23.08:
1. Plans to release the version solo in the summer were overestimated; the main part planned for 1.0 is ready. I sketched out a plan for patch 2.0.
Release readiness 90%
2. The mod will be shipped together with the Campaign Remake — I didn't touch the mod itself, but there is UI there that I changed, and this way it will be easier.
3. Mod requirements — Tribes of the East 3.1 and the absence of other global graphic mods specifically in the interface category that affect menus, tables, and buttons.
If these are new elements — the skill wheel, race tables, detailed hero descriptions — that's fine.



Loading screen with a T7 creature of your choice:
Due to the patch binding, maps open with the screen corresponding to the DLC on which the map was released. For example, "Iron Throne" always opens with the Arkat dragon screen, knight maps — with the Griffin image, etc. To bring everything to a single screen and start using this feature, it is necessary to transfer, open, and re-save in the editor all maps created on the H5/Hammers of Fate patches. Only after that will the screen of the latest patch — Tribes of the East — be displayed and the feature will work. This change will likely be in mod version 2.0

Stability:
Kingdom mode / global hiring from a number of castles (not to be confused with single hiring in a castle) — FPS drop with an increase in the number of castles (noticeable after 4)
This is related to the increased quality of icons. The game finds it very hard to render everyone; the more castles and settlements are available, the greater the FPS drop.
Changes to the approach to Tribes of the East icons (128 appeared specifically in this expansion) don't change the situation much.
Given the context, these drops are tolerable; leaving that section instantly restores the FPS.
Otherwise, everything is stable and optimized where possible, though this is certainly not the end of optimization.

Hello everyone!

Thanks for the comments and well wishes.

I've added screenshots for you to see.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to release the first patch by the end of the month. It is quite large and will cover all the main things that players need.

Question for those who know the structure: how can I remove the darkening of the background in some scenes? (opening settings during combat/viewing hero data when selecting in duel mode/mission results)

I would like to get rid of it in these places because the textures are already reasonably optimized + mip maps have not been set up, but there is an FPS drop. Even though these are practically static scenes, this isn't good.

Yes, thanks, this generally works, although it's not always possible to pinpoint the background—it feels like it's linked differently somehow. In any case, I found out that the issue isn't actually with the backgrounds, but rather that the interface has gained new weight overall, and it's clear how the game reacts to this. I'll optimize where possible; generally, the FPS drop remains only in the kingdom menu during the summon/hire and hero call-up mode (does anyone even use the kingdom?) and in the arena hero view menu. In other areas, I've restored it.