0.3 Technology screen and Tech Graphics

Development of artwork, requests, suggestions, samples, or if you have artwork to offer. Primarily for the artists.
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miu
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0.3 Technology screen and Tech Graphics

#1 Post by miu »

discussion goes here.

How we want to show technology graphics? someone suggested smac-like, I havent played it (my shame), anyone with some screenshots for reference? I'm favouring plain but goodlooking 2d-renders over 3d-rotations like in moo2, but do you have any new ideas or suggestions how we could represent technologies. Should we make new graph for every refinement you can research?

About guidelines for our feel, I think we dont have to set any strict rules, just that we aim for realistic look over cartoony/surreal. Technology graphics should look like they belong to their timeline = early techs show more pipes, "part of machine" - details, maybe even futurish-steampunky but polished. More advanced techs go, more streamlined, glowing, trasparent etc they should seem. Same with colors, early techs should have "normal" colors, more advanced will have more surreal feel. Anyway, this is not a major consern, every tech should look something to be proud of, shining, new, and awe-striking. But when doing graphics, take account in which part of tech-tree/ages technology belongs.

Tech-screen UI, drek had suggestion (moment, I'll dig it up), anything else? I will first finish and polish the galaxymap UI, and after it is in good shape star working with this, specially as we dont have much knowledge of techtree yet.
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Geoff the Medio
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#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

When you start a new game of SMAX, you pick a tech to research...
Image

Some of the icons also have similar icons for related "theme" techs, such as the "nano" techs seen here...
Image

I imagine these rather simple two-tone icons is not really what you were thinking of for tech pictures, but they do have a sort of elegance to them... In a way, they look better then just about anything that could be rendered. It may be an issue of picking a "style" of icon that fits in with the rest of the UI, as well... obivously those were intended to fit into SMAC's UI.

I can understand the desire for a more photographic representation as well.

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#3 Post by Tyreth »

I think representative icons like these are fantastic. And given that we will have a large number of theories it may be best to reserve renderings for other things in the game that are a higher priority. Just my thoughts.

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#4 Post by Impaler »

I also like the SMAC style, its clear, understandable and visualy recognizable, the theam elements help the player remember the tec trees lay out as well.

Its also the easiest to modify later as anyone with Paint can get in their and manipulate them. Lastly the colors provide feedback on the area/theory the tec is under.

With our system of Theory/Aplication/Refinement we would likly have a unique icon for each Theory and Aplication and Refinments would be indicated by a "Level XX" pasted onto the Aplication icon or perhaps just the level number in the corner like an exponent.

It should be pointed out that SMAC has a lot of supporting data for each TECH, theirs a wonderfully voiced wav file contianing some of the best quotes to ever apear in a game plus a short and long tech blurb explaining how said tech was achived. The simple icon on its own wont replicate the SMAC experience though its better then the Moo2 system the icon on itsown is only half the picture the supporting media do a lot to bring things to life in SMAC.
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#5 Post by BreadMan »

I also vote for icons. They're clean and easy for people to collaborate on, and its easy to make a lot of them so we can have individual icons for every tech.

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Geoff the Medio
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#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

This is prehaps a bit off topic, but I feel I should also point out that SMAC uses the same style of icons for base facilities and secret projects as well...

Image

SMAC does not use them for much else though... ie. there are no icons for social engineering choices, unit chases, unit weapons / armours, unit special abilities, stock unit types, or factions.


I was also going to suggest considering a vector graphics format for the icons, but now that I think about it, it might be just fine using standard bitmap-like formats, as there's not much fine detail in the icons to worry about getting blurred anyway... (part of their advantage)

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#7 Post by Impaler »

I think using similar BitMap Icons for Buildings would be apropriate as well, tech and buildings are the 2 most heavily modified and expanded area of a 4X game so they should be the most flexible and accessable to the end user.

One thing I would NOT do is enforce the Mono-Cromatic rules that SMAC forces onto all these Icons, I have tried to Modify these files in SMAC and have found that SMAC only reads "transparent" and "not transparent" off the bitmap and then makes all the "not transparent" one of 4 predefined colors based on the Catagory the tec or facility is under. Thus its impossible to show a tech/building Icon as anything other then one of the four chossen colors. The benifit is ofcorse that you cant incorrectly mismatch catagory and color when making the bitmap this way, you have to get into the Alpha.txt and set the coresponding tecnology to a new catagory. Ofcorse Firaxis itself managed to assign many tecs to ludicrously silly catagories, for example AIR POWER the most miliarily powerfull tec in the game was NOT in the concour group. :shock:

We should either display the Icon adsactly as it was made OR let the user define and set up their own color options so they can set comands to "make all Tec Icons of Type X Color X". The Former will place all the burdon on the Mod maker to make things sensible after any modification but would require less coding. The Later is obviously the reverse.
Last edited by Impaler on Thu Sep 09, 2004 10:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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utilae
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#8 Post by utilae »

Yes, this SMAC method of using icons is cool.

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pd
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#9 Post by pd »

i prefer using rendered(what else ;) or real time rendered tech graphics, only because it looks better. note that it's the aim of the graphics team not to make a excel like game(like stars!) - instead, make it beautifull.

basicly we could use a combination of icons and pics. in sitrep or an overview(i would like to see a tree diagram similar to ascendancy) we could use icons but in detailed tech descriptions nicely rendered pics are much better in my opinion.
Its also the easiest to modify later as anyone with Paint can get in their and manipulate them. Lastly the colors provide feedback on the area/theory the tec is under.
if you are going to modify the pics later, you are free to replace them with icons of course. so this isn't an issue.
And given that we will have a large number of theories it may be best to reserve renderings for other things in the game that are a higher priority.
i guess, we won't have a fully developed tech tree in v0.3, right? techs will be added while the game is developing. so that most of the renderings can be done along the way.

besides this we shouldn't not do something because it might be hard to do ;)

just my 2 cents

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#10 Post by muxec »

SMAX SUX

Civ3-like techview tree would fit the best. But monochrome SMAC - style icons (smaller than smac) would fit OK.

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#11 Post by Daveybaby »

I havent been following the tech system discussions very closely, but maybe you could use SMAC style icons for theoretical techs (since they tend to be more abstract concepts than physical objects) and use renders for applied techs, since they are things you build.

e.g.
the 'quantum mechanics' tech gets an icon
the 'quantum disruptor gun' tech gets a render
the 'quantum shield' gets a render
etc.

This assumes that you have a distinction between theoretical and applied tech in FO, which may not be the case (like i said, i havent been following closely).
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#12 Post by muxec »

Daveybaby wrote:I havent been following the tech system discussions very closely, but maybe you could use SMAC style icons for theoretical techs (since they tend to be more abstract concepts than physical objects) and use renders for applied techs, since they are things you build.

e.g.
the 'quantum mechanics' tech gets an icon
the 'quantum disruptor gun' tech gets a render
the 'quantum shield' gets a render
etc.

This assumes that you have a distinction between theoretical and applied tech in FO, which may not be the case (like i said, i havent been following closely).
Nice idea.

But Smacis Octo-rectangular screen sucks

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#13 Post by Tyreth »

Daveybaby wrote:I havent been following the tech system discussions very closely, but maybe you could use SMAC style icons for theoretical techs (since they tend to be more abstract concepts than physical objects) and use renders for applied techs, since they are things you build.
That's more along the lines of what I was thinking also.

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Zanzibar
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#14 Post by Zanzibar »

I like the idea of using SMAC icons for the sitrep, and renders for the detail screen. The renders can either be static (in the case of pre-rendered), or real-time (in the case of animated). Also with the detail screen you could have text describing EXACTLY what the tech does, and some SMAC-like blurb audio file for the total immersion effect. Just my $.02 worth.
Image

Image

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#15 Post by Aquitaine »

FWIW, I think the SMAC icons are easy to understand and highly effective from a UI point of view, but I hated the entire color scheme they used.

on reflection that's not worth much. but there it is anyway. :)
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