Prerelease:Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven
This page details prerelease information and/or media for Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven.
Contents
Concept Art
Sketches
From the game's manual and "Prima's official strategy guide".
Sketch of Druidess by April Lee[1], also can be found in MM6's manual. "The Druidess. Here is a sketch I did of the Druidess. All the animators were allowed to design and model the characters they worked on. This sketch, along with others, was also used for marketing and promotion."
Early New Sorpigal sketch from 3DO website.[2]
Cover Art and Main Menu by Larry Elmore[3]
Preview by Gamespot[4]
Promo from the 3DO Website[5]
Mock-ups
Goblinwatch | Prerelease |
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Release | Almost unchanged city of White Cap |
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Interior Backgrounds[6]
Release | Promo from 3DO website | Without Lord |
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By Louis Henderson.
Release | Promo from 3DO website |
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Promo screenshot has a bit darker ceiling and shelves behind the innkeeper. Also one battle is more shiny than final.
Release | Promo from 3DO website |
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Release | Promo from 3DO website | From H2 Trailer |
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Release | Promo from 3DO website |
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Only candlelight on this prerelease screenshot is brighter.
Release | Promo from 3DO website |
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A bit different shadows here and there.
Release | Promo from 3DO website |
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Falagar close-up from intro.
Other Screenshots
Early Cinematics[6][7]
Release | Prerelease |
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Original resolution of background was 1280x960.
Release | Prerelease |
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Tavern in Mist. Original resolution of background was 1280x960.
Release | Prerelease |
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Early Elemental Guild.
Release | Prerelease |
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Castle Darkmoore alternative background by Steve Wasaff[8]. "Just a little animation I put together of a Lich shooting a lightning bolt. The Lich and the drawbridge scene where separate elements I did for MM6. The ivy was painted on the wall texture using the nozzels in Painter 5.0."
Release | Prerelease |
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Release | Prerelease |
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Release | Prerelease |
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By Louis Henderson.
Release | Prerelease |
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Release | Promo | H2 Trailer |
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Release | Prerelease |
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Release | Prerelease |
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Release | Trailer from H2 |
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Release | Trailer from H2 |
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Release | Trailer from H2 |
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Release | Trailer from H2 |
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Early, unused textures of a library from Ubisoft Pics (1997) Asset Disc[9]
The first iteration of New Sorpigal. Less bright ground, interesting trees. Found in April Lee's portfolio. "The Dwarf. Here he is in a screen-shot. Looks like he’s taken care of one of Tracy Iwata’s minotaurs! I also did the Sorcerer, and other characters."[1]
Unused items from Ubisoft Pics (1997) Asset Disc[9]
Early and Unused Cinematics from H2 trailer
Models
Phelan Sykes[7]
"Graphics in Might and Magic VI were created in 3D Studio MAX release 1.0 and Alias PowerAnimator and utilized a full 24-bit palette re-sampled to an individual 8-bit palette per graphic at compile time."
Models from an old Phelan Sykes portfolio.
Monsters by Tracy Iwata[12]
According to Tracy Iwata this was model created for M&M6, however this dragon is more similar to a dragon model from M&M7.
Monsters by Steve Wasaff[8]
Monsters by April Lee[1]
"The Druidess. Here she is in 3D. OK—so hard-linking the cloak was obviously not an option. I used ClothReyes—which was totally overkill, since we were still doing sprite animations with limited frame-counts. But it beat putting in endless bones…! I think the hood and hair was hard-linked, so her head movement was a bit limited."
"The Archer. I animated this character for Heroes 2, now I got to design and model and texture and animate her for New World Computing’s first 3D game. All the artists learned 3Dstudio-Max for this game and this was the first character I made. I used the Jane model that came with Max as a starting point for the Archer. We had Character Studio and Physique, but I cheated and usually just hard-linked my segmented model to the biped. Physique tended to oddly distort my model more than the deformation was worth!"
Weapons by Rebecca Christel (R.F. Riel)[13]
Interiors details
Artists put a lot of effort to make every detail looks gorgeous - models of darts used in one of interiors.
Closer look on brains in magical shop.
Textures
Texturing heroes by Rebecca Christel (R.F. Riel)[13]
Unused Places Backgrounds
Castle background by Steve Jasper[14]. "Elfin Castle. Created in 3DS Max for 3DO/New World Computing. Used in Might and Magic 6."
Unused background by Louis Henderson used as a part of loading screen eventually.[6]
Unused Lord Newton's castle background cinematic by Louis Henderson.[6]
UI Concept Art by Phelan Sykes
Other
David Mullich's photo used as a Preston Steel image.
Promo Poster.
Advertisement used in a back of "New Sorpigal Training Grounds" cinematic. Dragon model was also used for Ros the Dragon known from the game's intro.
Release | From HoMM3 beta screenshot |
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Some of the earliest HoMM3 screenshots contains a minimap (here zoomed in), that looks like a map of early Castle Ironfist, however it differs from the final version. In vanilla it can't be zoomed out to this extent, it shows green dots of friendly NPCs inside strange arena on the southwest, it doesn't contain buildings sections, so the Castle Ironfist hill looks preety empty, however there are the same roads as in final release. There are also blue and red dots behind the boundaries of playing zone and a few hills on Northwest missing. A small path of water on the North is not present.
Videos
Unused Intro (1997) |
Promo screenshot from the trailer. Slightly changed when compared with this unused intro and in HoMM2 - for a victory screen and a dragon enslaved by Archibald in his campaign. |
Music from Unused Intro |
Trailer from HoMM2 PoL/SW (prerendered backgrounds) |
This trailer was bundled with Heroes of Might and Magic 2 SW and PoL and can be played if clicked on the door in the Main Menu. |
Trailer from HoMM2 Gold (prerendered backgrounds) |
Gold Edition of Heroes of Might and Magic 2 contains a few other renders. |
Gameplay trailer |
Gameplay trailer of very early version from 1997. [15] |
Release intro (early) |
Early intro or trailer version. Differences:
|
Showreel of scenes from the game by Phelan Sykes |
Prerendered scenes from Might and Magic games. Showing environments from the games from different angles. |
Links
Magazines
- https://archive.org/stream/CGStrategyPlus_assorted/CG-StrategyPlus-81#page/n25/ — First look by CG Strategy Plus
- https://archive.org/details/Computer_Gaming_World_Issue_148/page/n47/mode/2up — First look by Computer Gaming World
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 April Lee Portfolio, M&M6 page - aprillee.tripod.com, May 14th, 2004
- ↑ Might and Magic VI official website - 3do.com, Oct. 9th, 1997
- ↑ https://larryelmore.com/store/MAM6/might-and-magic-6
- ↑ GameSpot's Preview of Might and Magic VI - gamespot.com, Apr. 23th, 1998
- ↑ Might and Magic VI official website - 3do.com, Aug. 17th, 2000
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 http://web.archive.org/web/20041118011053/http://www.complementarycolor.com/lh_game_art_environmental.htm
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Phelan Sykes Portfolio, M&M6 page - phelansykes.com, Jun. 10th, 2004
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Steve Wasaff Portfolio, M&M6 page - home.earthlink.net, Jul. 18th, 2004
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Ubisoft Pics (1997) Asset Disc
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 https://pp.userapi.com/c618327/v618327815/1874e/tXAaQ7RII98.jpg
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 http://siberian-studio.ru/loc_piratruz.php?game=MightMagic6TheMandateofHeaven
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20141117172754/http://oldpage.150m.com/mmpage.htm
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Rebecca Christel Portfolio - www.illustratz.com, Jan. 22th, 2004
- ↑ Steve Jasper on DeviantArt - www.deviantart.com/hound-of-war
- ↑ Gameplay trailer - Gen4 CD 104 - November 1997