i might not be an experienced 3D artist,but i do pack lots of hours on dota1 and 2.
Now,there is another thing with wards,u gotta keep in mind the frenquency of usage by certain heroes.
Even though wards are reserved for supps,carries still do get them in pubs,since motto there is 'every man for himself'.Thats why u can make wards for pudge,nevermore,invoker,tinker,etc etc.They dont normally buy them nor they ever would,but it can be seen in pub games every once in a while.
Still,there are some heroes highly unlikely to get them.
Lanaya(templar assasin) is perhaps the No.1 hero in terms of lack of ward using.
Reason is quite simple,his ult enables him to effectivly get vision on rune spots,thus eliminating greater need for wards.Combine that with meld spell,refraction and a common blink build,it eleminated the full need of wards,for rune-ing and for map awarness.
tl;dr version:
Lanaya doesnt do warding.Ever ever
Making wards for her could be a bad move,since no matter how awesome the ward looks,it wont sell,because its not used.
Which is why I don't understand everyone's obsession with making wards unique to one hero. For support heroes and the like I can understand, because if a player likes that hero and wants something that matches that hero it works.
If I can add, wards are not hero bound, they are account bound, you can't have a ward set for each hero. In my opinion wards should be treated in the same way couriers are being treated, unique designs that suit the job the item has to do. You don't see any hero themed couriers available, exuding the mini-pudge, which is related to DOTA 1, and Vidotto's awesome penquin/owl Mirana courier which he needs to finish asap so I can buy a hundred of them. The reason behind that being, you can use the same courier for every hero.
I would love to see more wards being designed that suit multiple heroes, or just simply suiting the job of a ward.
Don't get me wrong, I love the wards that are being designed that are themed with a hero in mind. But I feel there is so much ground we can break if we just stepped outside the box.
Which is why I don't understand everyone's obsession with making wards unique to one hero. For support heroes and the like I can understand, because if a player likes that hero and wants something that matches that hero it works.
If I can add, wards are not hero bound, they are account bound, you can't have a ward set for each hero. In my opinion wards should be treated in the same way couriers are being treated, unique designs that suit the job the item has to do. You don't see any hero themed couriers available, exuding the mini-pudge, which is related to DOTA 1, and Vidotto's awesome penquin/owl Mirana courier which he needs to finish asap so I can buy a hundred of them. The reason behind that being, you can use the same courier for every hero.
I would love to see more wards being designed that suit multiple heroes, or just simply suiting the job of a ward.
Don't get me wrong, I love the wards that are being designed that are themed with a hero in mind. But I feel there is so much ground we can break if we just stepped outside the box.
i think its a progressive way of thinking and soon will change, valve launched some hero themed wards and people got used to that way of thinking
its like the cosmetic itens that people used the recreate some of the dota 2 icons or dota 1 icons. that is changing and now people are making more original concepts
btw Helenek, thanks for the support on the courier =]]] i want to see your new wards on the workshop soon
i think its a progressive way of thinking and soon will change, valve launched some hero themed wards and people got used to that way of thinking
its like the cosmetic itens that people used the recreate some of the dota 2 icons or dota 1 icons. that is changing and now people are making more original concepts
btw Helenek, thanks for the support on the courier =]]] i want to see your new wards on the workshop soon
Soon! I have so much stuff to animate, I keep jumping around, Ill do this, then that, then this. I think I'm going to wind up releasing them at the same time just because I keep jumping back and forth. Thankfully all the rigging is out of the way!
A quick shot of what I've been working on. I'm mostly finished with the arm piece, I think I need to give the fur a bit more contrast, and I haven't decided if I want to put a pattern on the blue part of the fabric. It has a diffuse and normal map applied to it, I haven't worked on the other maps for it yet.
The other pieces are just blocked out models, I still need to do the normal maps for them and work on the diffuse maps, lots of work to do still
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Which is why I don't understand everyone's obsession with making wards unique to one hero. For support heroes and the like I can understand, because if a player likes that hero and wants something that matches that hero it works.
If I can add, wards are not hero bound, they are account bound, you can't have a ward set for each hero. In my opinion wards should be treated in the same way couriers are being treated, unique designs that suit the job the item has to do. You don't see any hero themed couriers available, exuding the mini-pudge, which is related to DOTA 1, and Vidotto's awesome penquin/owl Mirana courier which he needs to finish asap so I can buy a hundred of them. The reason behind that being, you can use the same courier for every hero.
I would love to see more wards being designed that suit multiple heroes, or just simply suiting the job of a ward.
Don't get me wrong, I love the wards that are being designed that are themed with a hero in mind. But I feel there is so much ground we can break if we just stepped outside the box.
Someone commented on my ward "who is this supposed to be for?" It also hasn't been very popular. Some people really fail to think outside the box.
It always makes me glad Valve is in charge and not the community. The community only sees things on a basic design level with lack of regard for execution.
That's half why I'm not really sure where I'm going with the ward. I really love TA, and I play her a lot, and you're right, I've never bought wards. That doesn't mean she shouldn't have some styled for her though. But perhaps you're right. Oh well, was an errant concept anyway.
That's half why I'm not really sure where I'm going with the ward. I really love TA, and I play her a lot, and you're right, I've never bought wards. That doesn't mean she shouldn't have some styled for her though. But perhaps you're right. Oh well, was an errant concept anyway.
Its up to you.I stated my opinion on that one from viewpoint of an average games.
U can still do it if U want to,if u love her that much.
But,money wise,like @eastblue said,trap customisation would be a better choice,it would sell more
I didn't know that wards are account bounded.Damn.
It just looks like a stupid move by Valve,hero bounded wards would get much more money,because once some1 would buy wards for 1,2 heroes,he would quickly turn onto 'collector mode" and started acquiring wards for all heroes.
maybe they'll switch later to it?
Great idea on the voice lines, on the POST ones, make sure you dont get too high of a spike (I listened on shitty headphones so that may be the cause...)
I'm practically done with the Sculpt of my set...maybe i'll add few more details here and there...
If you wanna check the making of it, or follow me live when i work on this, visit My Twitch Channel
In the last video i've covered how to break and detail the cloth parts.
absolutely amazing~
just one thing i think about is these set with skull or something else will not fit china. i mean maybe these set will not sell in china client. i think of that when my nec set out.
Started out on a ward model just to learn about the 3D to game process. The problem is that I am getting stomped by the import tool in DOTA and cant figure out what is going wrong.
Model is done in 3ds max exported to smd and fbx. Both export file types receive the same error. Modell is UV-mapped, collapsed, editable poly attached then skinned to bones.
On my quest for skirting-up overly manly heroes of Dota 2, it's time for some juggernaut styling. I hope this fits with his samurai-sh theme, here's the concept so far:
On my quest for skirting-up overly manly heroes of Dota 2, it's time for some juggernaut styling. I hope this fits with his samurai-sh theme, here's the concept so far:
The concept is fantastic, it fits him so well in my opinion! GO GO! I want to see more!
some work on the shoulder,
I Know it's looking a bit fighter instead of mage, I'll add some
mage patterns to the leather parts, I'm thinking in something
like nyx helm
absolutely amazing~
just one thing i think about is these set with skull or something else will not fit china. i mean maybe these set will not sell in china client. i think of that when my nec set out.
Yo KPAX, thanks for the comment!
Could you explain me a little better the China thing though? i didn't quite get the reason why...do they have something like a "mature content filter"?
China has issues with depiction of blood and death in media (skulls and the like), it's cultural and legislated. Read up on how Blizzard had to tweak WoW for the Chinese market.
Yo KPAX, thanks for the comment!
Could you explain me a little better the China thing though? i didn't quite get the reason why...do they have something like a "mature content filter"?
References to death are almost illegal there, I think. Skulls, zombies, and stuff like that are a big no no.
Valve will have to censor entire heroes though.
References to death are almost illegal there, I think. Skulls, zombies, and stuff like that are a big no no.
Valve will have to censor entire heroes though.
Skeleton King is going to be so sad. I really have no idea how Valve intends to pull that off.
Just in general, I think it's a bit of an exagerated law... but we all know that China is not known for freedom of opinion i guess.
So just out of curiosity, is Left 4 Dead totally banned there? Darksiders 1 & 2?
If you think of it a good 40/50% of games have something related to death, and i would say a good 90% involve a gameplay where you have to kill someone...
While I'm hazy on the specifics - acts of violence and killing are not taboo in and of themselves. I suspect it's the cultural 'respect of the dead' coming into play only once you've already made the corpse. I have no idea if Darksiders is banned over there (besides, we all know the Chinese' penchant for bootleg markets, so I'm sure the games do get through) - albeit I imagine a hilariously ludicrous amount of work would go into de-skullifying those games. Left 4 Dead, if it's available, is probably just heavily sanitized, like in Germany/Australia.
The DOTA 2 client just recently had a lot of icon fixes that presumably are to do with localisation issues in China and any other countries with these regulations. You can see in an older Cyborgmatt the new icon changes;
There's blood and violance enough in movies and other media.. Why can;t it be in games, just keep a strict age control! Well it probably be a never ending discussion..
So some other news: I just finished my Slark set, for anyone that is interested plz vote or leave a comment! Thx in advance, also tell your friends, family, etc
Does anyone know any good tutorials explaining the skinning and exporting process for 3DS Max when making items? I've seen the one for Pudge's weapon, but I was hoping for one a bit more specialized towards items. I searched the internet and couldn't find what I was looking for.
Just in general, I think it's a bit of an exagerated law... but we all know that China is not known for freedom of opinion i guess.
So just out of curiosity, is Left 4 Dead totally banned there? Darksiders 1 & 2?
If you think of it a good 40/50% of games have something related to death, and i would say a good 90% involve a gameplay where you have to kill someone...
Don't know about those games, but my understanding is that it wasn't violence they were worried about as much as removing "symbols of death" or things that would make people "think about death." They have a precedent of if they have a problem, they simply ban that problem from being portrayed in the media so their people won't think about it (that's their theory anyway). They have a suicide problem, so in their eyes the "best" way to deal with that is to simply ban every reference or symbol that reminds people of death, if people don't see any reference to death than they can't come up with the idea of committing suicide on their own right guys? -_-;;
For WoW they literally had to remove every single skeleton from the game, and cover up the bones sticking out of the undead. But the fighting and killing is perfectly fine.
It's more backwards than the whole naked boob is somehow worse than a head exploding in the states =/.
Hi guys, just starting out on making DOTA 2 stuff, my first item is a weapon for Centaur. I still have to get it textured, but I wouldn't mind some critique on the base model before I go into the rest of the process.
Just in the middle of making a full Riki set in the likes of a Shinobi / Ninja / Jade Assassin.
Still deciding on a name but would love feedback - all the low-res geo is done and some high res is also done but to get the ball and comments rolling here are some concept pics i did.
I figure the one thing riki needs and doesnt have right now is well.. a ninja outfit... hes like the true ninja of dota and well he doesnt have one..
I really don't like the bush from this close, but in game it works well. Still plenty of work left, but I wanted to share the idle animation. I need to fix the timing and make it snap a bit more but its getting there. I have a whole list of notes haha. It's pretty long for an idle as well, 250 frames (24fps), but since valve doesn't have any frame count restriction, I figured why not.
Fantastic Bro !! I will buy it for sure !! I love the animation and the subtleness of it.
If you are looking for design tips (im a matte painter/concept artist for about 9 years) the only thing I would change is the uniform colors and design.
Dota2 is still quite colorful and has a very unique in its style.
The unformness of the belt and pockets dont work for me. The pink on the character is great with the yellow however the khaki could be split up to add some subtle interest.
I hope you dont mind I love your animation.. check out this draw over
its yours for free if you like it.
Hope i could help.
Bro Id love your help on how to skin my mesh to bones for dota2... only if you have time.
Fantastic Bro !! I will buy it for sure !! I love the animation and the subtleness of it.
If you are looking for design tips (im a matte painter/concept artist for about 9 years) the only thing I would change is the uniform colors and design.
Dota2 is still quite colorful and has a very unique in its style.
The unformness of the belt and pockets dont work for me. The pink on the character is great with the yellow however the khaki could be split up to add some subtle interest.
I hope you dont mind I love your animation.. check out this draw over
its yours for free if you like it.
Hope i could help.
Bro Id love your help on how to skin my mesh to bones for dota2... only if you have time.
Peace
Oh man! I really like that! I'm gonna run that by AndyK to get his opinions on that, Im sure he will love it. There will also be another color map for the sentry ward version of him which replaces all the yellow with blue.
Add me on steam and send me a message anytime, I'm willing to help on just about anything. :P
Someone.... help me.... can't stop making concepts. :P Possible crystal maiden staff designs. Which one do I model?
EDIT: Since everything was made from the same base layers I decided I needed to make some adjustments so that the designs stand out more from each other.
Fantastic Bro !! I will buy it for sure !! I love the animation and the subtleness of it.
If you are looking for design tips (im a matte painter/concept artist for about 9 years) the only thing I would change is the uniform colors and design.
Dota2 is still quite colorful and has a very unique in its style.
The unformness of the belt and pockets dont work for me. The pink on the character is great with the yellow however the khaki could be split up to add some subtle interest.
I hope you dont mind I love your animation.. check out this draw over
its yours for free if you like it.
Hope i could help.
Bro Id love your help on how to skin my mesh to bones for dota2... only if you have time.
Peace
Absolutely love the design tips! Except the one for the scope, not really feeling the triangular things. looks to much tribal, or something.
Also keep in mind that the colours etc, will come out diffrent ingame because dota 2 has a lot more complex lighting so the nomal maps don't really come out in the animation. (Which by the way are looking great Helenek!)
The belt looks awesome, but will cause a few problems, the tricount is allready at it max, and if you want to add it by normal map it will deform a lot because of the skinning. Also the texture size is really low for wards, right now almost all the parts that can be mirrored are using overlapping UV's, it will cost a lot of UV space to add the belt on the body. Maybe it could work on the preview version.. looks to good though not to try
Someone.... help me.... can't stop making concepts. :P Possible crystal maiden staff designs. Which one do I model?
EDIT: Since everything was made from the same base layers I decided I needed to make some adjustments so that the designs stand out more from each other.
I think circular gems would be good for a change, my favorites are no.3, 10 and 11
I really don't like the bush from this close, but in game it works well. Still plenty of work left, but I wanted to share the idle animation. I need to fix the timing and make it snap a bit more but its getting there. I have a whole list of notes haha. It's pretty long for an idle as well, 250 frames (24fps), but since valve doesn't have any frame count restriction, I figured why not.
Cheers!
Looks awesome! But I'd be careful about the part of the animation where the spyglass dips down. Valve is really big on things being immediately discernible in a fraction of a second, if it takes longer than a fifth of a second to realize "oh that's a ward" the first time someone sees it they probably won't use it. I'd make sure the eye is always prominent and visible while it's animating... my 2 cents.
Someone.... help me.... can't stop making concepts. :P Possible crystal maiden staff designs. Which one do I model?
EDIT: Since everything was made from the same base layers I decided I needed to make some adjustments so that the designs stand out more from each other.
All I could think of while looking at this image was "you must construct additional pylons" XD. Something about the designs feels very protoss-ie to me.
I think I like #9 the best. It's the cleanest looking of the crystal ones, and I don't feel like the perfect sphere on many of the others fits crystal maiden.
Looks awesome! But I'd be careful about the part of the animation where the spyglass dips down. Valve is really big on things being immediately discernible in a fraction of a second, if it takes longer than a fifth of a second to realize "oh that's a ward" the first time someone sees it they probably won't use it. I'd make sure the eye is always prominent and visible while it's animating... my 2 cents.
All I could think of while looking at this image was "you must construct additional pylons" XD. Something about the designs feels very protoss-ie to me.
I think I like #9 the best. It's the cleanest looking of the crystal ones, and I don't feel like the perfect sphere on many of the others fits crystal maiden.
I've kept that in mind and have been making tweaks in the animations.
Replies
Which is why I don't understand everyone's obsession with making wards unique to one hero. For support heroes and the like I can understand, because if a player likes that hero and wants something that matches that hero it works.
If I can add, wards are not hero bound, they are account bound, you can't have a ward set for each hero. In my opinion wards should be treated in the same way couriers are being treated, unique designs that suit the job the item has to do. You don't see any hero themed couriers available, exuding the mini-pudge, which is related to DOTA 1, and Vidotto's awesome penquin/owl Mirana courier which he needs to finish asap so I can buy a hundred of them. The reason behind that being, you can use the same courier for every hero.
I would love to see more wards being designed that suit multiple heroes, or just simply suiting the job of a ward.
Don't get me wrong, I love the wards that are being designed that are themed with a hero in mind. But I feel there is so much ground we can break if we just stepped outside the box.
i think its a progressive way of thinking and soon will change, valve launched some hero themed wards and people got used to that way of thinking
its like the cosmetic itens that people used the recreate some of the dota 2 icons or dota 1 icons. that is changing and now people are making more original concepts
btw Helenek, thanks for the support on the courier =]]] i want to see your new wards on the workshop soon
Soon! I have so much stuff to animate, I keep jumping around, Ill do this, then that, then this. I think I'm going to wind up releasing them at the same time just because I keep jumping back and forth. Thankfully all the rigging is out of the way!
link to workshop:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=123498243&searchtext=
A quick shot of what I've been working on. I'm mostly finished with the arm piece, I think I need to give the fur a bit more contrast, and I haven't decided if I want to put a pattern on the blue part of the fabric. It has a diffuse and normal map applied to it, I haven't worked on the other maps for it yet.
The other pieces are just blocked out models, I still need to do the normal maps for them and work on the diffuse maps, lots of work to do still
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Someone commented on my ward "who is this supposed to be for?" It also hasn't been very popular. Some people really fail to think outside the box.
It always makes me glad Valve is in charge and not the community. The community only sees things on a basic design level with lack of regard for execution.
U can still do it if U want to,if u love her that much.
But,money wise,like @eastblue said,trap customisation would be a better choice,it would sell more
I didn't know that wards are account bounded.Damn.
It just looks like a stupid move by Valve,hero bounded wards would get much more money,because once some1 would buy wards for 1,2 heroes,he would quickly turn onto 'collector mode" and started acquiring wards for all heroes.
maybe they'll switch later to it?
Hello,
I'm working with Helenek with our "Goblin Courier"
And we've decided to give it a voice to enhance the courier, as you well know the default courier has wheezing audio and such.
So, I recorded some test lines to test the character and try my hand at voice acting.
RAW: (No Post Processing)
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/13751332/GOBLIN%20SAMPLE.wav
POST: (with an attempt on Valves echoing effect I've noticed with other heroes.)
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/13751332/GOBLIN%20SAMPLE_V3.wav
Note: This is a sample piece I did and is to be re-recorded with the proper persona and emotion.
Let me know what you think about this sample, because I shouldn't be the judge of my own voice.
Great idea on the voice lines, on the POST ones, make sure you dont get too high of a spike (I listened on shitty headphones so that may be the cause...)
absolutely amazing~
just one thing i think about is these set with skull or something else will not fit china. i mean maybe these set will not sell in china client. i think of that when my nec set out.
Started out on a ward model just to learn about the 3D to game process. The problem is that I am getting stomped by the import tool in DOTA and cant figure out what is going wrong.
Model is done in 3ds max exported to smd and fbx. Both export file types receive the same error. Modell is UV-mapped, collapsed, editable poly attached then skinned to bones.
nodes
0 "cm_ward_root" -1
1 "cm_ward_target" 0
2 "cm_ward_eyeBD" 0
3 "cm_ward_eyeR" 0
4 "cm_ward_eyeF" 0
5 "cm_ward_eyeL" 0
6 "cm_ward_eyeBT" 0
7 "Rock" -1
Files are in the map structure specified by Valve although I´m not sure if this is necessary with the new upload tool.
File naming:
Folder
ward_name.FBX or smd
Subfolder
ward_name_death
ward_name_idle
ward_name_idle_alt
ward_name_spawn
Folder
ward_name_color (.tga)
ward_name_sentry_color
ward_name_mask1
ward_name_mask2
ward_name_normal
Error from DOTA looks like this:
So what am I doing wrong?
The concept is fantastic, it fits him so well in my opinion! GO GO! I want to see more!
I Know it's looking a bit fighter instead of mage, I'll add some
mage patterns to the leather parts, I'm thinking in something
like nyx helm
Yo KPAX, thanks for the comment!
Could you explain me a little better the China thing though? i didn't quite get the reason why...do they have something like a "mature content filter"?
References to death are almost illegal there, I think. Skulls, zombies, and stuff like that are a big no no.
Valve will have to censor entire heroes though.
heres a concept for a mirana mount im creating for the contest!
Skeleton King is going to be so sad. I really have no idea how Valve intends to pull that off.
So just out of curiosity, is Left 4 Dead totally banned there? Darksiders 1 & 2?
If you think of it a good 40/50% of games have something related to death, and i would say a good 90% involve a gameplay where you have to kill someone...
http://www.cyborgmatt.com/2013/01/dota-2-16th-january/#alternative-hero-ability-icons
Noticeably it's skulls and red blood that are removed from all of them.
So some other news: I just finished my Slark set, for anyone that is interested plz vote or leave a comment! Thx in advance, also tell your friends, family, etc
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=123738472
Chens going to need a genderswap first
Don't know about those games, but my understanding is that it wasn't violence they were worried about as much as removing "symbols of death" or things that would make people "think about death." They have a precedent of if they have a problem, they simply ban that problem from being portrayed in the media so their people won't think about it (that's their theory anyway). They have a suicide problem, so in their eyes the "best" way to deal with that is to simply ban every reference or symbol that reminds people of death, if people don't see any reference to death than they can't come up with the idea of committing suicide on their own right guys? -_-;;
For WoW they literally had to remove every single skeleton from the game, and cover up the bones sticking out of the undead. But the fighting and killing is perfectly fine.
It's more backwards than the whole naked boob is somehow worse than a head exploding in the states =/.
Just in the middle of making a full Riki set in the likes of a Shinobi / Ninja / Jade Assassin.
Still deciding on a name but would love feedback - all the low-res geo is done and some high res is also done but to get the ball and comments rolling here are some concept pics i did.
I figure the one thing riki needs and doesnt have right now is well.. a ninja outfit... hes like the true ninja of dota and well he doesnt have one..
Enjoy and let me know what you think
That may be so, but from what I heard it isn't and they only started doing it relatively recently, and for the most part only in games.
I could be wrong though.
Nice riki set deadl3ss, keep up the good work! I feel like the shadows should be much stronger in the final version but I like the overall design
I really don't like the bush from this close, but in game it works well. Still plenty of work left, but I wanted to share the idle animation. I need to fix the timing and make it snap a bit more but its getting there. I have a whole list of notes haha. It's pretty long for an idle as well, 250 frames (24fps), but since valve doesn't have any frame count restriction, I figured why not.
Cheers!
If you are looking for design tips (im a matte painter/concept artist for about 9 years) the only thing I would change is the uniform colors and design.
Dota2 is still quite colorful and has a very unique in its style.
The unformness of the belt and pockets dont work for me. The pink on the character is great with the yellow however the khaki could be split up to add some subtle interest.
I hope you dont mind I love your animation.. check out this draw over
its yours for free if you like it.
Hope i could help.
Bro Id love your help on how to skin my mesh to bones for dota2... only if you have time.
Peace
Oh man! I really like that! I'm gonna run that by AndyK to get his opinions on that, Im sure he will love it. There will also be another color map for the sentry ward version of him which replaces all the yellow with blue.
Add me on steam and send me a message anytime, I'm willing to help on just about anything. :P
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Helenek/
EDIT: Since everything was made from the same base layers I decided I needed to make some adjustments so that the designs stand out more from each other.
UPDATE:
and.... one more :P
Workshop item url
Motenai looking great! It seems like some of the details might be a bit too small to read well ingame but I'm looking forward to more
Absolutely love the design tips!
Also keep in mind that the colours etc, will come out diffrent ingame because dota 2 has a lot more complex lighting so the nomal maps don't really come out in the animation. (Which by the way are looking great Helenek!)
The belt looks awesome, but will cause a few problems, the tricount is allready at it max, and if you want to add it by normal map it will deform a lot because of the skinning. Also the texture size is really low for wards, right now almost all the parts that can be mirrored are using overlapping UV's, it will cost a lot of UV space to add the belt on the body. Maybe it could work on the preview version.. looks to good though not to try
I think circular gems would be good for a change, my favorites are no.3, 10 and 11
Looks awesome! But I'd be careful about the part of the animation where the spyglass dips down. Valve is really big on things being immediately discernible in a fraction of a second, if it takes longer than a fifth of a second to realize "oh that's a ward" the first time someone sees it they probably won't use it. I'd make sure the eye is always prominent and visible while it's animating... my 2 cents.
All I could think of while looking at this image was "you must construct additional pylons" XD. Something about the designs feels very protoss-ie to me.
I think I like #9 the best. It's the cleanest looking of the crystal ones, and I don't feel like the perfect sphere on many of the others fits crystal maiden.
I've kept that in mind and have been making tweaks in the animations.