Colony WIP

[pd]

the problem with the mountains is, that they are totaly out of scale... way to small(and near).

maybe you should also lower the eye line(horizon) to get a wider view... something like this:


this way you get more the feeling of a planet instead of only 1 town.

just my 2 cents

[utilae]

No, I actaully like the mountains and your idea of flattening the terrain I don't like.

[pd]

i don't flatten it, i use realistc scales.

[guiguibaah]

Why not have both? (Mountains for terran, flat for desert and ocean, mix for tundra, etc?)

Like that pic pd - is it going to be included?

[pd]

no, it's just a test render i did ages ago. it simple shows a lower horizon, not more.

[nightwalker]

obi when are u going to submit ur updated planetry pix? about ur pic: its very nice keep it up and would some domes in the pic give it a futureistic look as well as give it a "farming on a large scale" look? just a thought.

[Obiwan]

Miu's idea was to keep some as a surprise for v.2. Which I thought was a nice idea. Ive enjoyed the criticisms and suggestions here in this thread, so ill post some more as I finish them in future.

pd - Ill try a lowering the POV and see what it looks like. Im working on the hills (though I must say where i was living down south they really did look like that.)

The reason that POV was initually chosen was to isolate the sky from the view. So they wouldnt clash with the many planetary picts.

nightwalker - Im working on the idea of Terran world - open air farming. Hostile environ enclosed Agri-dome farming.

To let you know how Im thinking about things

4x4s - i figure man isnt going to uninvent the wheel. Ground transport will always be a viable and efficient (hydrogen powered?) Think of a day with buffeting winds in the city with flying vehicles everywhere. Its fun scifi so of course there'll be flying cars etc. I just figure that along with the new stuff, old methods will always be used cause they're easy simple, practical and sometimes just enjoyable.

eg- although we've developed cars and jet planes, we still use bicycles.
- we have hovercraft and hydrofoyle boats but youll still find rowing boats and sailing skiffs.

Point of view of whats cool and exceptable will also change depending on where people live and what they do. A provincial Agri world or developing colony, Or a megapolis type world (Cuarasent in SW)
Theyd have different preferance for what they'd use, different habits,viewpoints.
Like how city people and country folk often laugh at each other today.

Its all fun scifi, so hopfully we make it so theres room for all.

[Sandlapper]

Obiwan wrote:

Im working on the hills (though I must say where i was living down south they really did look like that.

Yeah, the western mountain range in Maui is like that, with sugar cane and pineapple fields being flat beside them, although the mountain peaks were more jagged.

[nightwalker]

but that was the idea u told me bout when i was over ur place
Edit: i was refferrering other worlds not terrain

[Lyx]

hmm, i was thinking for a while why i didn't like the look of the original image that much - why it looks a bit too "photorealistic" with the city pasted in. After a while, i think i know whats the cause: the mountains.

I guess part of the reason is the low saturation and high brightness.... which make them look more like a photo than an image. But i guess thats not all or maybe even not the real reason. Hmm, not sure. But its the mountains which to me don't feel to fit in the picture or your other great freeorion-artwork.

- Lyx

[The Silent One]

I would like to suggest a different approach for the colony view. In my opinion, the distance view that MoO2 (and Fatal Universe) is nothing new and boring if it isn't showing buildings that you've actually built.
Since FO will be using pre-rendered pictures, it might look more interesting if the colony buildings were shown from close, like this:

Code: Select all

xxxxxxxxxxxxx   xxxxxxxxxxxxx
x-^^-------^x   xBB---------x
xoo-----oo--x   xBB------BBBx
x-oo----oo--x   xBB--BBB-BBBx
x-ooooooo---x   xBB--BBB-BBBx
x-----------x   xBB--BBB-BBBx
xxxxxxxxxxxxx   xxxxxxxxxxxxx

(far view)      (close view)

The left picture is supposed to be a far shot, with the 'o's being several colony buildings. '^'s are mountains, '-' is empty terrain. This is how Obi's current picture looks, which I like, but imo could be improved.

The right picture is to demonstrate my suggestion: the three 'B' - columns are individual buildings from a close distance (terrain in the background). In this approach, it is not the count of buildings but their size and appearance that show the colony's development status. I'm not an artist, but I expect it'll look better. Anyway, just my two cents.

[guiguibaah]

The problem with superimposing stuff (like in Moo2 and that other game that is pretty good... can't remmebr the name - final universe?) is that the lighting and pallette styles aren't the same from building to background. And the better the images are, the more they are discernable. This was easier back in the days of 320 x 200 16 colour graphics, but now as the standard of quality gets higher, the facility to pick out the differences increases.

[Daveybaby]

You just need to be cleverer with your implementation - e.g. use alpha channel blending for your foreground objects to reduce aliasing effects.

It *is* much more work though, and it *is* harder to get it looking right, but its totally feasible.

[Obiwan]

Remember though that when you render your factory the lighting must be the same as your background scene. That means you must have same sun position, color shadow type, and atmospherics for all worlds. No matter if they are swamp, inferno, terran etc.
Maybe some sort of filter for the color. but Im unable to see the way around the other problems.

I like the way guigibaah explained it. It would be fasinating if there was a way.

[Daveybaby]

Hmmmm.... true.