Re: Pictures
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Besides being a waste of the programmer's time, animations are a waste of the PLAYER'S time -- and disk space. I play 4X games to think about strategy, not see cute little movies repeated over and over and over and... ad nauseum. And even with a 40 Gb disk I prefer my data space be used for code that does something rather than a zillion little movies that are only interesting once and then become a waste. I'll watch the 'diplomatic animations' in MOO 3 exactly once, then turn them off. Maybe I can then get away with deleting them? Some very small touches, like animated features moving on the faces of stars and planets in the information screen image, would probably enhance the game. More than that is not for 4X games.

[ September 27, 2002, 21:11: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Pictures
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah, after a few times no one wants to watch those animations. I had some colonizaton game for my old PC, made by Sierra, was it called Outpost? At any rate, I had a better PC than the game said it needed. (I did get the copy from the CompUSA bargin bin after all) But it would still hang on some animations. Sheesh.

Now a friend dredged up a copy of Star Control 2, and the gas giants swirl around. So I said cool. Then Uranus seemd to look odd, it was swirling with the correct axial tilt! That was an impressive surprise.

[ September 27, 2002, 21:22: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

Re: Pictures
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">In an interview before the release of SE4, Aaron Hall said that he wanted the planets to be moving. I don't know if he meant a position change from turn to turn or if he meant real time. At any rate, it proved to be too difficult to code for someting that was also too processor intensive. We'll see.

[ September 29, 2002, 13:29: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

Re: Pictures
 

I hyope it will be entirelly 3D, that would very cool. Maybe even forces a breakthrough in turnbases startegy. Maybe the masses will come to like these sort of games. That can be both good and bad.
Good: More publicity, more willingness from publishers to publish these sort of games.
Bad: A too big community, no more cool forums like this one.

Re: Pictures
 

I wouldn't mind little rotating animated bitmaps for planets...but that would add a lot more MBs for pics.

In SE:V, I would like to see a 3D galaxy with 2D systems and orbiting planets. It wouldn't have to necessarily be a coordinate system, you could have each planet move one-square around the star per month - that would be an easy way to work it in - since each planet is at a specified "ring" distance anyway (look at systemtypes.txt). I'm thinking it could still be done for SE:IV now!

Re: Pictures
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Really ? ... I mean seriously, have you exausted all options with SE4? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Sometimes, I get a little bored with playing the AI but, the game isn't dull for me yet.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, of course not good man! But I'm just curious what they're going to make it look like. I want more of the same. Yeah, bring it on! hehe

Re: Pictures
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It has to be 48 by 48 pixels in size. To change it, go to My profile. Then go to Veiw/Update profile. Then scroll down till you see "Avatar Image" on the left side. Then click the blue link that says "Select a different Avatar Image". you can pick either the ones that are shown. (a few pages of them) or put your own on there. To do that just fill in the URL that you're using to host your image. If you don't have server space just upload to the Shrapnel server and pull from there. That should do it.

Re: Pictures
 

Wow, wait for me! I don't know how to uload it to the Shrapnel server. Please explain how I do that.

Re: Pictures
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmmm. Good question. I can't seem to find the upload page either. Maybe someone else here will show you.

Re: Pictures
 

Surely hope so, I can't wait to put my first (home made) avatar in my profile.