FreeOrion

Some environment thumbnail sketches in a storyboard fashion, thinking about how the Trith turned their planet into a radiated piece of rock.

Weeeee, nuclear weapons!

I just noticed; a lot of races keep using the same planet types over and over. Lots of terran and inferno races, but not many barren or radiated races from what I see. Maybe something is wrong with the EP's?

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Photo-dump.

Musings

Well, the Trith end up with a radiated planet once it is "cleaned". This might not be very noticeable in the last thumbnail. However, I'm going to turn them into full-blown environment paintings and am taking suggestions how a radiated planet might look...

Barren and radiated are harder to imagine something "living" in.

We go have a few barren/radiated ones. Most are 'spacers' or artificial

Radiated planet could be easily imagined looking at game Fallout.

I'd put it as far more alien than that... (remember its between inferno and Barren on the EP wheel... the Fallout world still had an oxygen atmosphere... I'd call it Terran with a 'special')

Exploring cloth... I wanted to hint at the religous nature of the Trith with the middle one, but don't really like it.
I went without real direction with the one on the right. I'm undecided wether I'm onto something there or if it's just crap.
I'll have a fresh look at it next morning.

I'd say that we could use a few more "energy" beings -- which obviously would do better in radiated worlds, as radiation /is/ energy; it would thus be the equivalent of a gaian world for /pure/ energy beings. (or even just-mostly-energy critters).

We can make the radiated worlds differ by having them be akin to barren worlds, but with heavy ionization effects. Aurora borealis that covers both the poles on a constant basis like the polar ice caps do... throw in some constant lightning visuals... in the combat screen, where you have a closer view, have some magnetic fountain/sprays and perhaps even electromagnetic equivalent to a solar arc from time to time.

The Trith could possibly be a good candidate for it. Especially if you had the flavortext on their matter-energy conversion be something to do with their psychic abilities: All Trith are born with the innate ability to manipulate stochastic resonance within their own beings. This would allow them to freely convert their frames from energy to matter states without requiring massive amounts of energy /to cause this conversion/. You could exemplify this by giving their frames a much more 'hollow' state; perhaps they only bother to solidify their exteriors, and as cracks in the exterior form, the energy appears to 'bleed through'.

That would in fact be a fascinating race to look at. Especially if you play up the Shadow-like look about their faces with something a bit -- perhaps -- more arachnid about them.

As to the dressing... I would suggest that you go with, instead, something a bit more pronounced at the shoulders, while exposing the chest, and keep the loincloth-like look w/ the legs left open? This would obviously be sleeveless. It's something that would accentuate how these guys are all arms-legs-and-neck.

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Function. Verify. Cultivate. Invent.

Excellent input IConrad, thanks!

I can't draw a lick to save my life, but I've been known to have a certain aesthetic sense.

I'm glad the input is well-received.

If you want to emphasize the religious undertones of the Trith, one thing that might succeed in that is some sort of inclusion of something akin to buddhist scripture-wrappings; or just simple runic linings along the cloth. Funny hats never hurt, either. Most religions seem to have funny hats.

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Function. Verify. Cultivate. Invent.

Insignia eh, how about something to represent the Trith inside something to represent nothing to show their ideal: Trith and nothing else.

Also are the Trith religious? I thought the Eaxaw were our religious nuts while the Trith want to kill everyone for purely practical reasons.

energy beings

The face needs to be more solid; or else the orifices and eyes need to be different colors -- it's hard to read a blank slate for expressions. That could, however, work to our favor in their diplomacy; green for "like", blue (cyan as opposed to the cerulean here) for ambivalence, and red for aggression/hatred. I'm thinking of the diplomacy screens. Have it ripple through them.

The "solid crust" idea I'd had would look like the solidifying rock on the surface of a magma tunnel, fyi.

I have no idea how hard that would be to do digitally, but would be... rather interesting take on energy beings.

Awesome stuff!

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Function. Verify. Cultivate. Invent.

There are other ways than colours to show emotions, for example when they get mad they things could start exploding around them, and of course there's always body language.

Pic looks great PD, especially the whirls next to the fingers

How about something similar to doctor manhatten/silver surfer but with muti coloured moving cloud textures on the skin.