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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 9:05 pm 
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Eleazar wrote:
You might need to use lighter colors or a light rim for these to be noticed against a mostly black background.

Having looked at them ingame, I agree. I'll lighten up the darker areas.
But they seem discernible; however, the player will have to learn their meaning (they're not self-explanatory).

Image

If there are no objections about the style of the icons, I'll do the rest of them sometime soon.

[Edit] Oh, and one more thing: the distance of the special icons to the planet should always be the same. Right now, the distance between special icon and planet varies depending on the planet's size. It would be better if the position of the icons was determined with regard to planet size.


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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 10:16 pm 
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I'd like to see some with the light-coloured rim that eleazar suggested... I find the icons don't jump out against the back starfield very well.


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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 11:08 pm 
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The Silent One wrote:
If there are no objections about the style of the icons, I'll do the rest of them sometime soon.

Go for it.

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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 6:18 am 
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These icons look like a moon... maybe you should consider not making them round.

Quote:
But they seem discernible; however, the player will have to learn their meaning (they're not self-explanatory).

I agree to that... after some turns the player will have learned the meaning, especially because they have tooltips. I would not worry to much about icons beeing intuitive.


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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 4:43 pm 
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I have completed a set of planetary special icons (16x16):

Image

From left to right: Homeworld, Starvation, Techtonic Instability, Tidal Lock, Solid Core, Axial Tilt, Slow Rotation, Natural Tunnels, Ancient Ruins, Excentric Orbit, Minerals. They all have a 1px bright outline of their own colour that make them visible against a dark background.
Criticism/suggestions?

[Edit] I've increased the size of axial tilt and slow rotation. (The image above doesn't show the new icons.)


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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 5:42 pm 
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Axial tilt might look better with a full circle and a (tilted) line biscecting in... like a globe with a bar through the line between poles.

What is eccentric orbit supposed to be? It looks like a toppled over water tower, or a space probe (sputnik-esque).

In general, I like the style. I wonder how they'd look with a bit more (but subtle) 3D / depth shading or gradients, similar to the homeworld icon or ancient ruins, though I realize there's not many pixels to work with.


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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:45 pm 
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Where did you get your inspiration for the ancient ruins special? Is it somesort of a hindu/buddish temple thing from Far East/India? Now I am not saying it is a bad icon, but could some sort of an Egyptian or South American pyramid icon perhaps been more self-explanatory? On the other hand maybe those pyramid icons and pictures are over used, and your icon most certainly has a kind of an alien touch.

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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:49 pm 
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Those look really great, although the eccentric orbit one is really confusing to me. I thought it was a spaceship at first. That's the only one I think needs work.


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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:40 pm 
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Here are more 3D-ish icons:

Image

(tidal lock, techtonic instability, eccentric orbit, natural tunnels, solid core, slow rotation, starvation, minerals, homeworld, ancients, axial tilt )

Geoff the Medio wrote:
Axial tilt might look better with a full circle and a (tilted) line biscecting in... like a globe with a bar through the line between poles.
Good suggestion, see above.

Geoff the Medio wrote:
What is eccentric orbit supposed to be? It looks like a toppled over water tower, or a space probe (sputnik-esque).
Never mind... (it was supposed to be a planet on an orbit); I hope the new version is more obvious.

MikkoM wrote:
Where did you get your inspiration for the ancient ruins special?
Actually, I was thinking of an Elven tower... A pyramid would also be nice, I'll give that a try soon (you're thinking of Stargate, aren't you? :) )

[Edit]The icons are all a little colour-heavy, some desaturation may be good; like this:
Image


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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 11:36 pm 
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The Silent One wrote:
MikkoM wrote:
Where did you get your inspiration for the ancient ruins special?
Actually, I was thinking of an Elven tower... A pyramid would also be nice, I'll give that a try soon (you're thinking of Stargate, aren't you? :) )


Well, actually I was just boring and thought about actual ruins or historical sights here on Earth. :( Although I used to watch Stargate as well. :wink:

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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:25 am 
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The Silent One wrote:
Here are more 3D-ish icons:

[Edit]The icons are all a little colour-heavy, some desaturation may be good; like this:
Image


I would strongly recommend avoiding making the icons look like real objects (which you have). These should remain obviously symbols, and not look like little things orbiting the planet.

I think the de-saturated ones work better.
I'm all for adding these in as soon as you provide the transparent files, and fine-tuning the concept/execution later.

I've added a new folder for these, as explained in the commit message.

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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:57 am 
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The brighter red and green originals did seem a bit too saturated, but the newer versions seem to overcompensate, and the yellows too dull, IMO.

eleazar's commit message wrote:
created a folder for Silent's special icons. Yes there's already a folder, but 'special' icons should properly go inside the 'icons' folder.

Why is the new location preferred?

The old icons folder is just left over from before there were enough icons to warrant having separate directories for them, as far as I know. Are you assuming or assigning a special significance to the "icons" directory?

Quote:
I'm assuming there will need to be a bit of programing to accomidate more icons, so the folder can be switched to here.

Just specify the icon path relative to the art directory the same way as is done for techs (or buildings):

graphic = "tech_icons/Algorithmic_Elegance.png"
graphic = "building_icons/Whatever.png"
graphic = "icons/specials_tiny/WhateverElse.png"

are all valid (assuming those files exist). You can even mix and match by putting a tech icon on a special, for instance.


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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 5:17 am 
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Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar's commit message wrote:
created a folder for Silent's special icons. Yes there's already a folder, but 'special' icons should properly go inside the 'icons' folder.

Why is the new location preferred?

Answered[url=http://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=27529 here.[/url]

Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:
I'm assuming there will need to be a bit of programing to accomidate more icons, so the folder can be switched to here.

Just specify the icon path relative to the art directory the same way as is done for techs (or buildings):

graphic = "tech_icons/Algorithmic_Elegance.png"
graphic = "building_icons/Whatever.png"
graphic = "icons/specials_tiny/WhateverElse.png"

are all valid (assuming those files exist). You can even mix and match by putting a tech icon on a special, for instance.

OK, so the universal use of "special_icons/Generic_Special.png" is only a default?

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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 5:54 am 
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eleazar wrote:
OK, so the universal use of "special_icons/Generic_Special.png" is only a default?
Yes, it's used when no graphic is specified, which is presently just about always in specials.txt and planet_specials.txt

Similarly, "building_icons/Generic_Building.png" is used for iconless buildings.

Techs get their category icon if they have no defined icon.


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 Post subject: Re: planet special icons
PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:06 am 
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The special icons (non-desaturated) can be found here: http://rapidshare.com/files/42640749/sp ... s.zip.html
I've provided the unsaturated icons since there is no consensus about how saturated they should be,
but if you want to use my settings for desaturation, it's -50.


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