FreeOrion

The concept of "growth" might be more effectively conveyed by a tree that has some foliage on it... That one looks kind of... well... dead.

For growth, perhaps a sickle to represent farming, or a bit of double helix for genetics, or a Rod of Asclepius for medicine (though the latter is perhaps too human-centric... and perhaps even western-centric...?)

Sickles and double helixes are human centric too. Just about any simbol you use is going to be human centric, I think, unless you use a planet or a star or something like that.

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Time flies like the wind, fruit flies like bananas.

Sickles are a tool that could be used by alien races to harvest field-grown crops; their functionality determines their form, more so than a particular socity or species, aside from the necessity of physically being able to use it.

Double helixes are arguably carbon-based-life-centric, but it's not completely unreasonable to propose that there could be aliens with a similarly structured genetic code.

Conversely, the Rod of Asclepius is almost completely a product of western human culture. There's only very tenuous reasons to suggest that alien cultures would use the same symbol to represent the medical profession.

Made a small test on some of my icons ive made so far, purely out of boredom...

Testing colors and whatnot...

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Nice coin Obiwan, I agree with Geoff, that the star should be in the middle.


Also I don't think we should use a sickle for growth, because it can be used as a weapon, and represents cutting plants, ie stopping growth.


The tree is good for growth, though I don't know about the arrow part. Maybe just a simple circle around the tree. And leaves would be good to have.

Tribute to HitchHikers Guide
The simpler edge while looking less realistic will show up better at lower resalutions. so i favor it
Whats realism anyway?

Looking good Mystiqq, Love the red production one.

Could I get a Production icon in Illustrator format like before Mystiqq. It was very helpful when building 3D. Maybe I should wait for others comments but I really like it.

go ahead, i like it very much too.

Sure. Ill post it later today, thou it was experimental stage really...

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Economics, text is alterable.
Phlanium Bobble Beads (spelling probably wrong) is one of the currancies in Hitcher Guide along with the Alterian Doller. What is our money called?

The colours are great... sort of subdued and undersaturated, giving a nice SMAC-like feel.

I don't think that both construction and production should have bits of gears in them though... they're already kind of hard to tell apart, so we should have their icons be as distinct as possible. The construction should probably be a building, or maybe a crane or something relating to making buildings... Having a pickaxe in the production icon might also be good, as a big part of "production" is actually mining...

It might also be good to have the icons be more different in basic shape... most of them are basically round right now. Making construction a boxy building shape, without the gear at the bottom of the current (production?) icon, and making trade something less circular (like my suggested parallel arrows, as opposed to a roundish O-Star or coin outline) would probably help. This is a rather nitpicky minor point though... There might be a reason to want all the icons to be similarly shaped...?

And perhaps learning should blue a light blue colour, so that we can use green for growth? ... Or maybe not, as it doesn't match the resource icons... though I find those rather unintuitively coloured... ah well.

I agree fully with that last post of yours Geoff, make Construction more square (how about a modification of the factory with one of the smokestakes being lowered into place by a crane). Using Green for Growth and Blue for Learning sounds nice as well. I think a Hexagonal molicule with prongs on each point would make a nice Growth Icon, its rather race nutral as most alien races are asumed to be carbon based. It will also provide a destinct shape. Also I sugjest we make Economics Orange in color.

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Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

Not really...

This was the original "production icon". That one was more of test than anything else.



The colors arent a problem, they are easily changed... Those colors i made were more or less random.



Why? If i do that, it looks too much like the "production icon"...



Not sure what that means... the "hexagonal molicule with prongs" part.

The whole point of these icons is to make some sence about the UI and not about the "freeorion" universe. Im not seeing any problems of using human figures or even a micky mouse if it works for the UI/user.

Id like to see these icon stuff things in game, it would be easier to see if they work. I hope there will be some test version to try these out...

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Make production is the gear and wrench, and make construction a building, be it factory or otherwise.


Many organic molecules for 6-carbon ring structures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose


Yes, UI clarity is paramount, but it'd be nice if we can do it without breaking immersion or annoying the player (if they're easily annoyed?) by having the UI be specific to a particular race, that the player may not be playing...


I'll email tzlaine to see what's up. This has been a pretty slow month for programming.

Edit: it would also probably help if you made up a mockup showing exactly how and where to put the icons to replace or augment the text and buttons currently used to pick which category to show.