Mass Revision [League of Legends: Arena]

Version 1.2 of my League of Legends: Arena has been released with all available champions from previous version revised and added 1 passive for each of them (although some are temporary, but still quite useful as a placeholder passive). Mimicking the actual game, all champions now are also have seperated 2d potraits with their own artworks instead. New version also including 2 new champions: Alistar, the Minotaur and Mordekaiser, the Master of Metal joins the arena! Full changelogs listed in-game menu.

Champion Spotlight

Alistar Preview

Alistar, the Minotaur
As the mightiest warrior to ever emerge from the Minotaur tribes of the Great Barrier, Alistar defended his tribe from Valoran's many dangers; that is, until the coming of the Noxian army. Alistar was lured from his village by the machinations of Keiran Darkwill, General Boram Darkwill's youngest son, and commander of the Noxian expeditionary force. When Alistar returned, he found his village burning and his family slain. Bellowing with rage, he charged an entire regiment of Noxus's elite, slaughtering them by the hundreds. Only the intervention of some of Noxus's most skilled summoners checked Alistar's rage. Brought in chains to Noxus, Alistar spent the intervening years as a gladiator in the Fleshing, pitted in endless battle for the entertainment of Noxus' wealthy leaders.

Alistar's once noble soul slowly became twisted, and he would have been driven to insanity if not for Ayelia, a young servant girl who befriended him and eventually arranged for his escape. Suddenly free, Alistar joined the newly formed League of Legends to fight as a champion, hoping to one day exact his final vengeance upon Noxus and find the girl who had renewed his hope.

Mordekaiser Preview

Mordekaiser, the Master of Metal
Mordekaiser is a being of pure, living agony on a mysterious dread quest. It is said that he was the first of the undead, existing before the Shadow Isles were a whispered threat. His true name and past lost to history, Mordekaiser is feared for his grim manipulation of pain –both his own, and that of others. Anguish fuels and sustains him, serving as his last connection to life, as well as his most effective weapon. In his enigmatic hunt, he's proven no one is safe, for even the most courageous souls have surrendered their secrets in his grasp.

Entombed in ancient armor, the Master of Metal is said to be the first of the unliving, a revenant who existed even before the Shadow Isles were wrought. His twisted soul thrives on his own suffering, as well as the anguish he inflicts upon others.

Download Version 1.2
(Latest Version Released on February 6th, 2015)

Special Edition Version is currently on the making, as I previously stated that what interest me in making this kind of moba adaptation project is because I wanted to include their alternate skins, and multiplayer limited size pretty much on the way, therefore this version is created. There will be some new heroes and features which couldn't be include in multiplayer version as well! These are the currently added champion skin sets for upcoming Special Edition Version:

Current Garen Sets in Special Edition Version

Current Katarina Sets in Special Edition Version

Current Vladimir Sets in Special Edition Version

Current Mordekaiser Sets in Special Edition Version

Current Ahri Sets in Special Edition Version

Dota 2: Heroes Clash

First of all, I'd like to say: Happy New Year 2015! *put a new year new me quote stuff here*
On this first month of the year, I'd like to introduce another of my fanmade total conversion project, Dota 2: Heroes Clash. It is a fast-paced, fanmade Battle Arena themed map featured with heroes from popular Dota 2 franchise.

Due to 8 MB multiplayer size limitation, I plan to create a separated version of this project in the future: Multiplayer Version and Full Version, Full Version will have more contents, heroes and especially alternate costume sets which player can choose. Having characters various alternate costume has been my personal excitement for developing this kind of moba adaptation project, therefore full version is created for non-multiplayer size purpose. Along with my League of Legends: Arena, I plan to develop both of these project until I could include at least around 30-40 available characters.

Sven available costume sets

With this Dota 2 conversion release, there is a chance that I plan to complete, the previously unfinished version from my Dota 2: Open Role Playing Game which abandoned since like around 2 years ago.

Rylai and Lina

Features Preview
"There is already HQ Dota 2 conversion called war dota or something, what making this different?" This isn't a total .mpq project but a single, playable map for wc3. Therefore the size wouldn't be reach hundred MB or even GB and due to the genre is being a battle arena, all levelable passive abilities from the original Dota concept will be revised into active version, but that doesn't mean all heroes doen't have passive at all, each heroes have their own unlevelable passive.

Killing Spree, Dominating, Wicked Sick, and so on! One of the iconic feature from Dota is a kill chain notification, therefore I include this feature here as well along with it's own announcer voice clip. There is also more than 60 items with it's own icon from the original Dota 2 to costumize your hero and made them stronger along the way. The iconic creeps, Roshan the Immortal is also featured in the game as both the game powerful boss, as well as secret playable character you can unlock.

In-Game Preview 001

In-Game Preview 002

In-Game Preview 003

In-Game Preview 004

Download Version 1.5
Latest version 1.5 released on August, 5th 2015 featuring Mogul Khan, the Axe. Including gameplay, bugs and typos fix, as well as some heroes rebalance. Full changelog listed in-game.

Download Now

Latest Release Date: August 5th, 2015

Current Map Size: 6,4 MB

Upcoming Champions [League of Legends: Arena]

With variety of fixes and visual enchantment, alpha version from my recent project - League of Legends: Arena is over, and moving on into beta state. However since the project is still a long go and I haven't fully animate some of the champions yet, I decided to made a sneak peek post on the blog which I didn't do anymore since my Fairy Tail: Battle of Magic project last time. So here is it, starting from the champions list - from the current available into some of those whose currently on my list to be included in future releases:

Currently Available: Katarina, Garen and Miss Fortune

Currently Available: Sona, Master Yi and Ezreal

Currently Available: Vladimir, Janna and Nasus

Upcoming Releases: Zyra, Nautilus and Graves

Upcoming Releases: Ashe, Leona and Ahri

Boss Mode
Boss mode will be implemented in future release as well, currently I have one between two champions on mind that has to be decided as a Boss: Hecarim, the Shadow of War or Nautilus, the Titan of the Depths.

Boss Mode illust with Nautilus as the boss

Achieving Low Size On A High Visualized Map

People often asked, how do I achieve such low size projects while most of the materials I'm using are normally a highpoly products. So I decided to made a short tutorial out of it, hopefully can be helpful for certain people who needed it, especially those who care much about size.

These points I'm mentioning are what I often do and based off from personal map making experience in order to achieving low sized, yet visually high quality looking maps:

1. Models
No doubt that model can enchant your map looks into something different and eye pleasing. But too much polycount ain't necessary for wc3. Therefore Polycount Reduction is needed to do, this is a polycount reduction example on a mesh that I did:

Blackhand from Warlords of Draenor - Before: 4,57 mb | After: 298 kb
(Model mesh size only, not including texture size)

Notice the difference? Polycount Reduction meant removing unecessary parts of the mesh in order to obtain lower size. This can be done in Mdlvis or Milkshape.

Short Note: In milkshape you can do reduction for various kind of model files other than .mdx. In my personal opinion, Milkshape is also a base modelling tool to build your modelling fundamental before move on into professional modelling tools like 3ds max or Maya.

The next part we'll talk about Animations, normally WoW models had plenty of animations which is not needed as every single of keyframes here are counted as kb.

1. Try to remove every single of animations that you not needed on the model and see the size difference. Especially on a model that you use as an NPC or Vendor role, leaving only stand animation on them is pretty much a good idea.

2. If you create the animations on your own, create only animations that you needed, beside lower the size, it's also way more time efficiency.

Last but not least, remove unnecessary keyframes on each animations, normally WoW animated models had hundered of keyframes on a single animation, remove them until 8-10 keyframes. Make sure you remove a correct keyframe or else the animations would be messed up.

From that Polycount Reduction and Keyframes Reduction method above I'm able to made the model on the pic down from 4,57 mb into 298 kb.

Blackhand in-game, comparison between
30% and 100% texture quality

2. Texture

For custom texture usage only, skip this part if you using in-game textures. Reduce your texture quality under 40% using BLP Lab.

If  you using custom seperated model potrait, you can just reduce yours into 20% instead, as with wc3 normal camera distance, texture quality is not really that noticable, unless it's for huge sized doodads decorations.

As for texture resolution, 256 pixels-below is the best choice, never went higher than that for your size efficiency. Changing a texture resolution can be done in Photoshop or BLP Lab.

And for ground tile textures, I usually have them in 60% of their quality so their looks ain't broken as a ground.

3. Icon
Normally it's 5 kb below for BTN, and 4 kb below for DISBTN. If your icon size is more than that, you did the conversion wrong. I'm using Photoshop most of the times before converting all of my icons, and then using Button Manager for converting them into .blp file.

Sound Cut, because every single second
taking quite alot of kbs

4. Sound
Sounds sometimes made the map rather more alive, right usage of BGM often can made the map vibe more intensive especially on battle arena themed one. I often cut any unecessary part of the sound/music which I'm using with Adobe Audition, after that compress them into 64 kbps, lower than that only causing a broken sound. I personally use Xilisoft Video Converter or Switch Sound File Converter for compressing the sound kbps.

For BGM, you can cut certain repeatable part from the music to cut down the size instead of using them in full length.

Those are vital parts I often do in order to obtaining a lower size, other than that you guys probably already know what to do. Doing the model part (polycount reduction and keyframes reduction) would be the more time-taking out of 4 points above. Creating from scratch or editing the materials used would need even more time.

But the visual and size result? I can guarantee it's worth it rather than have oversized kbs on something that can be achieved waaay more smaller! Except if you don't care at all about the size, of course.