Regarding Graves Splash Art Change

Zarkkast·Nov 18, 2014·16 votes·5,001 views

First of, this is not about the cigar.

My question is, why is it that when you guys removed the cigar you also made the splash blurry/unfocused?

Older New http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ii7DawT_xMM/VElk0JX6R9I/AAAAAAAAbWY/Dz7ro87G2GU/s1600/Graves_Splash_0.jpg

Newer New http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mp-chg3J1U8/VF0tM76zGgI/AAAAAAAAc3U/fyUMeE9zflU/s1600/Graves_Splash_0.jpg

If you compare the two, it looks like the old one (with the cigar) was a photo taken from a professional camera, then the new one looks like it was taken with a cellphone camera.

Why was this blurry version chosen instead of the high definition one?

7 Comments

RhyséonNov 18, 20147 votes

It might have been unintentional, but I think I actually like the blurrier version more (at least if it's for the square/circle icons). The splash art looks smoother, which makes it look more like some of the older updated splash arts. I'm pretty sure that the smoothness/blurriness would make Graves easier to recognize on his minimap icon.

Example (but kind of off-topic): Rumble is harder to recognize with his new icons because of the lighting/coloring in his splash art. Riot's averted this in the past by having the champion icons look different from the splash arts, like with Jinx/Kha'Zix (because they'd otherwise be harder to recognize with a direct crop).

I'm probably being biased since I'm not entirely familiar with the new splash arts yet, though.

ZarkkastNov 18, 20144 votes

His ingame model NEVER even had a cigar. And yes they gave their reason. Just drop it...

PentaShoNov 18, 20142 votes

The smoke from his cigar helped bring the focus more on his face. The background is more noticeable, which is blurry. The picture isn't out of focus, your perception of it is just different due to the removal of the foreground object.

Duke AnaxNov 19, 20142 votes

The artist that made the cigar edit wasn't very good.

You'll notice the screen has been zoomed by a few pixels. But that means every single pixel would only need to be shifted bya fraction. That's simply impossible with this type of graphics.

There are methods to achive something that is close but it ends up blurry no matter what you do. And the pics being jpg format doesn't help the issue any.