FreeOrion

I'm calm pd... And I completely agree he didn't want to insult anyone; as I said, been there before myself. It did give me a little I wanted to say and so I said it, but as far as I'm concerned at least that's the end of it. :)

For the record I haven't actually read this thread closely enough to form an opinion yet, but I *can* say I didn't like the stars in 0.3 much, heh.


I think he's referring to the stuff being hashed out by a more limited group of ppl over email atm... I was vaguely aware that was going on but haven't paid as much attention as I probably should've. Oh well hehe.

@Eleazar: I'm actually a fan personally of the "benevolent dictator" approach to game design where one person at the top makes *all* the major decisions, e.g. Wil Wright, Sid Meier, Hideo Kojima, Brad McQuaid... so I don't really mind closed forums from time to time here. But that's just me.

I'm not offended, and do suck at art.

However...

Since you looked it up on wikipedia, I thought your original post was asking about what a real neutron star would look like (which presumably would be inspiration for the in-game art). After my post addressed that, I did mention a preference for blue neutrons and greenish black holes, which is a graphics issue and a preference. However, while I'm well aware I'm no artist, I don't see how that would disqualify anyone from commenting, in reply to an asked question, on the specific issue of what colour to make neutron stars on the map...

In general though, there's a grey area between art and UI design that lack of art skills alone should not disqualify someone from commenting on. UI needs to be both functional and pretty, and occasionally artists don't seem to adequately consider the functional side when making interface art.


Some of my apparent art-criticisms do have a functional basis, such as the mouseover indicator discussion. My reticle suggestions weren't meant to be serious art / reticle designs, but were just meant to illustrate the concept of a selection indicator that didn't depend on changing the star halo. It was an interface design post and solicitation of art (for real / good reticle designs), and not really an art post itself.

Regarding the concern for signal to noise ratio in graphics related posts due to volume of unqualified comments, that is a valid concern, though not one which I think is really a problem right now for FO...

I believe different organizational approaches work for different types of games, and with different personalities. My comment could have been clearer— all i meant by, "I don't like the closed forum solution..." is that i don't like invisible art forums for FOSS projects. Furthermore i don't think an art forum with limited posting rights is good for this project at this time.

I've hacked together some new black holes:

They need some work to show up better on the galaxy map, but i think they are nicer than what's gone before. At least there's a bit more black to them.

I'll answer Geoff's questions when i get a chance, a quick answer would be worse than nothing.

I was playing around with the stars rendering code, and I accidentally produced something perhaps interesting...

That's cool, Would be even nicer if the position and size of the second star could vary. From this screenshot it's also very obvious, that the stars shouldn't be shown at less than 100% brightness - They look way to dull.

What do you mean by perhaps interesting? - The color mixing?

Ok, here's a few zoom levels from in-game, with yellow stars replaced with eleazar's discs, and one layer of halo on all non-blackhole--non-neutron stars, with the halo always twice the size of the disc.


The double-width halos made things look a little to closely packed, so I made all the stars half the size they used to be. Compare:


Also seen is the system selection indicator in action.

I may not have much time for FO in the near future. I wanted to upload my current WIPs. Real life is ever unpredictable.
If i don't return before, please send me a PM when one of the ideas i've provided test images for have been implemented.

Here, are some enhancements of the current stars. The color is normalized, (no more "orange" stars that look red) and the opacity is raised to 100% in all the centers. Brief testing indicates these may be easier to select.

Here, is a set of stars that show roughly how size and brightness can correspond to real star types while still retaining the stars usability. It's a proof-of-concept, not a polished product.

eleazar's multisize stars with yellow halo...

Perhaps not a great combination, though the stars themselves look good. Also, I think halos probably need to be different for each different-sized disc, or else the difference is partly obscured.
edit: without halo

Right. Those have a "built-in" halo suitable for testing with the current FO binary. Stand by for separate multi-sized stars and halos....

A suggestion for later: perhaps the blue stars could be a bit deeper blue? Consult this. Also, having blue be bluer would make them more distinct from white...

You're right, the current examples aren't blue enough. The blue-ness should come through with a bigger blue halo. I was running out of room for the halo with the above example.
Try these instead.

Link not working!!! [edit]Link working!!![/edit]

Also, if you have 5 minutes, could you throw together an indicator to show which system is moused over? I don't want to use the same thing as is used for showing what system is selected, because then you won't be able to see when you've moused over the selected system... I'd make something myself, but I have no software to produce a png with transparency...

Edit: Reedit: Are blackholes going to need halos? If ever possibly yes, could you provide a blank / fully transparent halo image for them, so I can have all star types have associated halo images, so that I don't have to hard-code special cases or deal with the possibility of missing images?

My mistake. Link fixed.
I made a halo for the neutrons. I'm not happy with the black holes, but i'm not quite sure what the answer is. Allowing a 256x256 graphic for the black holes is a more likely solution than adding a Halo. Currently it's squashed to 128x128

Edit: the patented 5-min mouseover selector:

The blackholeN.png images I have now are 64x64... and there were none in the newest file.