[AI] Necropolis HD study

Status wording from 0.12.0; the current patch version is stated above:

The town uses necropolis-layered-hd 0.3.0; creature animations use necropolis-creature-animations 0.12.0. These version numbers belong to separate mods. This account reflects the installation checked on September 9, 2026.

The town uses necropolis-layered-hd 0.3.0; creature animations use necropolis-creature-animations 0.11.1. These version numbers belong to separate mods. This account reflects the installation checked on September 9, 2026.

2026-09-09 tool migration: Development continues in h3-art-pipeline. The old tools/creature-art/ and tools/town-art/ paths correspond to creature-art/ and town-art/ in the new repository. Historical paths and PR links remain in this article. Migration and reproduction details.

Next stage: Skeleton Warrior, Zombie, and the remaining Necropolis roster now have a separate progress post with all upgrade animation previews.

Small-panel update: the accepted pass reduces fine rubble and soil mottling so masonry, rock planes and ground cracks remain distinct at 200×260. The current showcase and shadow comparison also includes walking-dead centering. Both creature articles now use this background. The master remains 1100×1430; see the current image and edit prompt.

The user clarified that the sharpness concern referred to our composite, rather than confirming a runtime loading problem. The installed creature package is now 0.7.0, retaining both panel sizes at 1x through 4x without engine changes.

Creature showcase update: the Necropolis ruin backdrop now has a detailed replacement for both its 100×130 and 100×120 panels. A built-in image_gen edit kept the original environment layout; a second edit strengthened masonry, rock planes and ground definition after feedback. The comparison uses actual 2x output.

These are offline composites with the game’s crop and saved body/shadow layers, not screenshots. Both generated masters are 1100×1430. The second prompt requested more pixels, but the tool returned the same dimensions; the visible change comes from the revised detail and edges. The final master, first prompt and refinement prompt are available.

The installed creature mod is now 0.5.0, with eight background PNGs covering both panel sizes at 1x through 4x. The short panel crops ten logical pixels from the bottom of the shared master. Logical dimensions and creature crop positions stay fixed; existing animation files, registration and precomputed effects are preserved. Final asset validation still reports zero errors or warnings. These shared resources affect every Necropolis creature showcase. Restart VCMI to load them; no engine or faction configuration changes are involved.

After the creature animations, the next art study covers the Necropolis town panorama and adventure-map exterior. Enlarging the original assets leaves stone, roof and graveyard details soft. Astra wrote the extraction tool; the built-in image_gen tool edited the original references for a higher-resolution comparison.

Latest: the remaining 41 town layers now have generated static interior detail, and the local mod is updated to 0.3.0. The third comparison switches versions while keeping the same buildings and effects selected.

The original/HD comparison page lets you switch views and open the full images. These are visual studies, not installed game assets.

Town panorama

The original backdrop is 800×374. The faction config adds 42 structure and effect definitions, including upgrade stages. The reference tool composes 23 selected upgraded layers at their configured coordinates. This is an assembled asset reference, not a screenshot of a particular save.

The generated image is 1832×858. It retains the broad layout, dark palette, rocky setting and foreground graveyard while adding masonry, window and roof detail. The requested dimensions were not returned exactly, and building outlines and positions still need registration against the original layers.

A flattened panorama cannot serve as the game’s town background: unbuilt structures must disappear, upgrades change appearances, and interaction areas and draw order must remain valid. Integration needs separate background, building and effect assets.

Adventure-map castle

The original village, fortified castle and capitol each use a 192×192 canvas. This pass starts with the fortified exterior.

The draft is 1254×1254, but its background is not transparent. Inspection shows an RGB image with checkerboard pixels. A background-removal edit still returned no alpha channel. The draft is useful for reviewing detail; it is not ready to install as a sprite.

VCMI already loads DATA2X/3X/4X and SPRITES2X/3X/4X assets. Proper alpha, exact pixel dimensions, original anchoring and player-color behavior are still needed, along with the town layers. Click areas and map footprints have not been changed.

The complete prompts retain the composition, size and transparency requirements. PR #10 adds the reference extractor, layer inventory and integration notes.

Layered integration and a clearer second pass

The layer inspector now renders independent buildings over an empty background. It offers basic/upgraded presets, individual visibility controls and effect playback. It deliberately allows incompatible upgrades to overlap and is not a simulation of construction rules. Equal-z ordering is illustrative.

The exporter covers all 42 town definitions and 100 town frames, plus the 3 adventure-map frames. Animated shipyard, boat, blacksmith, darkness, necromancy and grail resources retain their original frame counts. The graphical mod replaces resource names in data2x and sprites2x; the engine continues to choose built upgrade stages and use its original area masks and depth ordering.

Built-in image_gen refined the empty landscape and castle interior, allowing slightly cleaner painted stonework, roof tiles and rock strata. A solid magenta castle backdrop was removed locally, then the new interior was blended into the original silhouette. Original pixels remain near uncertain edges. The background is 1600×748. Other buildings and map variants currently use conservative 2x resampling and mild sharpening. They do not have newly generated detail, and matching their materials to the castle remains further work.

Update, 2026-09-09: All41remaining town layers subsequently received generated detail; see the section below and third layer inspector. Adventure-map variants still use conservative resampling. As of September 9, h3-environment-hd 0.1.0 supplies redrawn 2×/3×/4× bodies and smooth ownership flags.

All 103 frames were reopened after export and checked for exact integer canvas size and original nearest-scaled alpha. Map shadows and owner overlays are stored separately. The earlier checkerboard castle draft is excluded.

The local necropolis-layered-hd mod is installed and enabled, with HD textures turned on. VCMI reported Loading mod: OK (necropolis-layered-hd) and finished loading game content. This verifies startup resource discovery, not town-screen construction, upgrade or click behavior. Window capture was unavailable in this environment, and the client also printed text-encoding warnings. Only 2x assets are supplied; native 1x resources remain available.

PR #10 contains the full exporter, registered castle processing, mod assembly and interactive inspector. Astra wrote the tooling; the prompt record distinguishes generated art from local image processing.

Detail across the remaining buildings

The second pass enlarged most buildings without generating new detail. This pass edits each of the remaining 41 layers individually: five mage-guild stages, four hall stages, fortifications, all seven dwelling types and their upgrades, service buildings, bone pit and cemetery additions. Together with the existing castle, all 42 town layers now have generated detail in their static regions.

Built-in image_gen handled the artwork; Astra wrote reference preparation, registration and checking tools. Each original was padded onto a square magenta canvas. Generated subject bounds were fitted back to the original, and the new texture was blended inside the original alpha. Masonry, slate, doors and windows are clearer, with some changes to internal ornament and materials. Source pixels remain near uncertain edges. Preserving alpha does not imply exact agreement of internal architectural geometry.

The building comparison sheet shows six examples. The interactive inspector can switch the previous/current base images without changing selected buildings or animated overlays.

Town animations draw frame zero as a base beneath later partial frames. We protect the union of those overlay regions, with a small additional margin, from texture changes in the base. Water, smoke, flame and glow therefore retain the previous base pixels as well as their animation. All 58 overlay frames are byte-identical to version 0.2, and every frame retains its dimensions and alpha. An independent pixel audit used NumPy installed in the project’s virtual environment and confirmed visible texture changes in every newly refined layer.

The local mod is now 0.3.0, with the installed 0.2 copy backed up. Browser checks verified empty/basic/upgraded counts of 0/21/23, exact pixel agreement between the empty canvas and the separate background, and a changing image when switching building versions. These checks do not add native construction, upgrade or click-test coverage. Adventure-map variants remain the second-pass assets. This described the town 0.3.0 delivery; the subsequent environment mod replaces them.

PR #10 adds per-building reference preparation and static-interior registration. The 41 prompts and pixel-audit results accompany the gallery.