I've been doing all kinds of crazy things with regards to Heroes of Might and Magic III. I've actually downloaded a bunch of alternate hero portraits, and figured out how to change them in the data files. I've also figured out how to create my own, if I were so inclined, but I don't think that I will. I like the packs that I've found, and at most, I have to change the image format to a 256 color PCX file, which I can do pretty easily in GIMP; I don't have to resize, I don't have to manually draw in the 1-pixel border, or anything else that while also probably not terribly difficult, is a bit intimidating. Besides, I'd have to find alternatives somewhere that I like better, which is also a time-consuming, tedious and ultimately pretty thankless task.
So I have a number of collections of alternative proposed Hero portraits. Let me review the collections that I have. Most of them come from the VCMI community. I've also downloaded that, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish, and I'm not convinced that I want to make the jump to replacing my regular HOMM engine with the VCMI one instead. Even though there are a number of specific adds that it has that I quite like.
Originals: While I tend to think that the originals do, as one of the collectors below noted in the description of his collection, look kind of rushed sometimes, and strange and cartoony other times, I do have a certain nostalgia for them, and often if the art direction isn't terrible and the quality isn't terrible, I actually still prefer the originals in some cases. Even when I don't necessarily prefer the originals, I often prefer variants that clean up or smooth over the originals while still maintaining the look and feel of the original... just better executed. Not only are the originals an important point of reference, but in most cases, they are also a contender; there will be many portraits that I don't change.
ensricks: Ensrick's collection, or ensricks as the filename says, is a collection of AI generated improvements to the originals. I actually quite like this one; I think it's the single best pack of alternates. However, some of the clean-ups are arguably not as dynamic or characterful, some of the men look like they belong on the cover of a romance novel; too smoothed over and effeminate, and occasionally when he really didn't like the original and tried to replace it with something else, I don't think he made the best possible choice (this was especially true for the elemental characters from Conflux, but not exclusively.)
Stable Diffusion: I first saw this presented as "original portraits remastered" and that's a good description of how most of them work. I like this one because it keeps very close to the look of the original portrait, which most of the time I think is a good thing, but usually does a better job of executing them. However, there are sometimes AI artifacts, like weird colors that don't belong, strange extrusions of ... something, or stuff like that. Still; they are very often contenders too.
Stable Diffusion 2: A second set of stable diffusion generated portraits. In general, many of these came out as lower quality and cartoony, so while there are some winners there, in general the two above are usually better. This collection is also incomplete; only about half a dozen town's worth of heroes were ever added to it.
dtnmang: The first of the more radical departures. The collector found art online that matched the idea, but not necessarily the image of the original hero portrait. While they're all quite good, most of the time, I don't think such radical departures are necessary. However, given how radical the departure is, some of these images could be repurposed to other heroes where I never liked the original art direction at all.
Pack 01: Similar to dtnmang's in concept, yet also missing a few key heroes (the campaign specials in particular.)
Pack 02: Same as above. Not that the images are the same, or even similar, but the collector's intentions are clearly the same.
StrikerX: Same as above. I suspect many (all?) these are AI generated as well, but not using the original image as a prompt.
Vallex: Same as above. These all seem to have a similar style to them, which is cool, and which is also different than the normal HOMM style, so I suspect that they may not be as well integrated if you're only using a few of them, unless you're very careful with your selection.
Wild Cards: A strange incomplete collection that replaces maybe a third of the heroes or so. Many of them don't seem to be as high quality, and many are clearly cribbed from other games or fantasy art (I recognized a few Blizzard pieces in there, for instance.) Not sure how many (if any) of these I would use, but I have it, so I'll show them if they have a replacement for the hero I'm reviewing.
Here's the first of the Heroes I'm reviewing; Orrin the Knight. Because Castle is the default first choice when starting a game with a random faction, and Orrin is the default first choice of a starting character, it seems appropriate to review what I have for him before anyone else.
While he doesn't blow me a away, Orrin is a classic, and his original was always well conceived and pretty well executed. And since none of the alternatives blow me away as clearly superior to the original, I'm more focused on those that look like the original, but hopefully offer some small improvement. I think all of the AI generated alternatives are pretty good. Of the bunch, I think ensricks is the best one, although the second Stable Diffusion is interesting because it is still recognizable, but he appears to have been "recast" with a different actor that's just a bit more different than the first two alternatives. Although you can see the overall lower quality and level of detail to the image overall. That's typical for that collection, sadly.
Nobody else is a contender for replacement here. dtnmang's option is "just a guy", Pack 01's is too dark and muddy looking, Pack 02's is—what is that, a black bodybuilder from an 80s action movie? How does that even fit? StrikerX and Vallex have good enough options (although in the Vallex case, I think white backgrounds, even if they don't show very much, don't look good in this game) and Wild Cards is a great image... of somebody else. Maybe some rangery character that I don't like the original look of, like Kyrre or something, even.
WINNER: ensricks alternative will go in the game.
So anyway, that's my process and thinking. I'll probably get around (eventually) to replacing (or at least evaluating for replacement) all of the characters in the game, which will be a time-consuming yet enjoyable project—and something to keep me busy while I'm taking a short break from my AI vs AI testing for the next few days. That is; I'll do the evaluation and selection over that time. I won't actually make any changes, except maybe in the VCMI alternative, until after the AI vs AI testing is complete. At that time, I'll also switch to my alternative game soundtrack. It will make a nice freshening of the look and feel of the game, without changing anything drastic. And frankly, even for portraits that I update, I'll probably stick to pretty familiar alternatives so I can recognize who's who at a glance when I see them in the tavern or the thieves' guild or out "in the wild" while playing. When I do my (eventual) actual play videos, I'll have the updated portraits and soundtrack ready and installed.
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