Facilities

[Suicide Junkie]

From a tangential comment in Artists, Shipset designers, and other creative types, please read
This looked like it could use a thread of its own

quote:

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By Baron Munchausen:
I'd like to know why there is so much race/shipset creating and hardly any new components or facilities. There are all sorts of images we could use.
A decent 'armored bulkhead' image is the first component that comes to mind for me. An internal reinforcement, as used in several popular mods, should look different than an external armor plate. Organic and crystalline armor flavors should be included in the project. Also, just larger/heavier looking Versions of the existing armor for 'capital ship' Versions of armor. Missiles with funky looking warheads for various special weapon types are another obvious component that no one seems to have made. Plague armed missiles anyone? Or neutron bomb tipped missiles? Any number of new styles in beam weapons are possible. There is a very clear sameness about the weapons in the default set. There are many other ways to depict a beam weapon.

Quite a few of the facilities images are re-used even in the default configuration of the game. Where are the new images? Surely the people who enjoy making all these ship sets so much can make some facilities? We could use 'specialty' faciltities to go with the racial techs, for example. Shiny, multi-faceted buildings for crystalline techs... Textured, multi-lobed and rounded buildings for organic techs... and just lots more distinctively different 'ordinary' buildings to relieve the re-usage of the default set.

Does someone have to offer money to get these made, too?

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One of the neat things about the facility part of your comment is that it will be extremely easy to implement. Make an exact duplicate of any facility (changing only the picture), place it right after the original in facilities.txt, and require the racial trait. Show only latest and upgrades will both jump to the cool racial buildings. I suppose you could alter the cost to build of the the buildings too, with Organic buildings using organics instead of minerals.

EDIT: fixed quote

[ 18 December 2001: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]

[tesco samoa]

Great Idea. I hope this thread goes somewhere.

Perhaps it should be mentioned in the BAB5 thread.

[Phoenix-D]

I can try, but given that Bryce and DOGA are my only modeling options, this may be a little.. interesting..

Phoenix-D

[Val]

I thought DoGa was pretty decent for buildings. I wound up making the WPs for my shipset look like bunkers and towers, so I don't see why we couldn't use it for other facilities.

Where can I get Bryce?

[Phoenix-D]

Look around (I got mine.. at a student discount.. from CDW). You can download the 30 day trial from Corel's web site.

Phoenix-D

[Andrés]

I think this is a great idea.
So far most mods are restricted to the standard set of pics. Some make very good use of it taking advantage of the pictures that are not used by standard techs. And in some cases, those pictures are quite appropriate and shouldn't be changed.
(Did you see the stargate facility and the trek-transporter component among those. I wonder how hard can it be to make the hard code changes to make a long range cargo transfer and maybe a long range boarding abilities for them?)

To answer Baron Munchausen's question:
Creators of most of the popular mods are not good artists and are unable to make the pics by themselves.
In the case of a shipset, an artist knows all pics needed. Note that until we came up with the neo-standard all shipsets were made with only the standard ship sizes.
Analysing mods to find which pics are needed, making the pictures and assigning each a new and different number (most wouldn't dare to change any of the original pics) and changing that big pics that include all minis and modding the data files to use the new pics and then submitting that to the author of the mod would be too much for an artist.

But you're right, there're a lot of artists out there making shipsets that should be able and willing to make new comps etc.
And the only thing that needs to be done is to coordinate their efforts with modders.

Making all pictures for all mods may be a lot. But something good is that unlike with a shipset, all comp pics don't need to share the same style. Different artists may be able to contribute even if with only 1 or 2 pics each.

The idea of making different looking Versions of the standard components is good, but that's another mod. Anyone willing to make it or incorpore it to his/her mod? I'm sure that if someone is willing to edit the data files and coordinate, artists will soon join and make the needed pics.


IMHO there's no point in creating a unique set of pictures that includes all extra pictures used by all mods. Even if some of the pictures can be shared between mods.


So IMHO the logical steps to add a new set of pics to a mod are these:

1- The modder or anyone interested starts by requestig the pictures; to do that Posts a list of all components, facilities, etc. that need new pics, including a description and maybe an idea of how it should look.
The modder can also request pictures for items not yet included in the mods.
I suggest using the mod's thread or a new thread, it can get confusing if pics needed by different mods were all posted here.

2- Then artists can pick one by one the pictures and when made post them there.
This can be made fast if many artists cooperate and are carefule enought to avoid making the same picture twice while leaving another unmade.
If two or more pictures should be alike, for example ship and fighter Versions of the same weapon, they should be made by the same artist to give it consistency.
Of course that you don't need to wait for all pics to proceed with steps 3 and 4.

3- The modder or one of the artists renames the pics assiging pic numbers for each comp/fac and updates the big picture/s with all minis. Remember that height of those pictures can be increased by 36 pixels to add extra rows in the bottom if needed.

4- The modder includes the new set of pictures in the mod, updates the data files as necessary and Posts the new Version of the mod!