It's a aesthetics judgement call obviously... I find that an overly busy icon just looks... well... busy. And I'm also not really sure why tzlaine asked for 128x128 icons; I can't imagine where we'd use an icon that big in the actual interface... And even if we do, most of the time, the icon will be scaled down significantly... so looking good at 32x32 or 16x16 is probly the most important... at which size, lots of tiny details probably won't show up. Since large clearly defined shapes will look at least semi-good at any scaling, that's partly why I prefer them to lots of busy details.
True. Personally the picture looses some interest if theres no details at all, especially if the picture used is relatively big. At the moment im making these icons in away that the details dont play a huge role in the picture, you can remove them from the smaller images and they still look like the "original".
At least i think im doing that...
Maybe try a more tech-ish representation for knowledge... like a lightbulb shape?
Lightbulb thing sounds boring IMO, but it might work. Sounds easy to make so i might give it a try...
New ideas, at least new for me, are always welcome.
The representation can be stylized... Civ games use a little lightbulb icon to represent research points and tech progress, even if you're in the bronze age. Lightning bolts of inspiration or thought bubbles might also work. Maybe a lightbulb in a thought bubble?
Interesting, thou i liked the lightbulb only idea better...
One thing you could do is just have the brain, and not the humanoid head around it. While other forms of life wouldn't necessarily have human-shaped brains, it's at least not quite so obviously human-centric...
I thought about this too. Problem for me is, how to make it not look like a just a "blob" on the screen.
Its idea, but i need to think about it a little. If the head is removed, there has to be something else to replace it. Otherwise, like i mentioned, it just looks like a "blob".
And some of the techs in the Learning category, or at least the suggested techs, are specifically about moving beyond simple biological brains... so a brain icon might be a bit odd.
I dont think thats the correct way to look at it. The icon is suppose to represent the "learning", if the techs in that category dont fit to the learning then theres something wrong in the tech placement.
I might be wrong and just talking out of my ass but im pretty confident about this one.
For Economics, maybe a grid background with an an angled line moving form bottom left towards top right with an arrow point, with a few dips and jumps, looking a bit like a stock history graph...
Nice... i gonna try and work something out from that, at least ive got something to start with.
If you want a major change or complete overhaul though, you're probly out of luck, as tzlaine has already implemented the screen. Cosmetic additions (some of which I've already suggested and/or had implemented) are more likely to be acted upon though.
No, nothing major. I like how it is at the moment, its just very small suggestion that i think should be feasable to implement and could give some (more) work for the gfx people.
Thou i think i posted it in the wrong forum...
Nice, thanks. Im gonna check out if theres any info that i can understand.