Alpha Centauri original tech tree poster, scanned

[ZombiVoziKombi]

Hello everyone! Been lurking at CivFanatics on and off for over 20 years, didn't post too much.

Lately I've been revisiting SMAC, and the GOG version doesn't have the tech tree poster among the downloads. The one I got with the original copy of the game is by now either lost or on a different continent. Searching the web I found a PDF reproduction of the SMACX poster in vector graphics, but I wanted the SMAC one, and all I came across were scans and photos that weren't clear enough to be legible.

Anyway, I went and got the poster on eBay, scanned & edited it so I can use an electronic copy. I managed to get it down to a 7.5 MiB JPEG and a sligtly smaller PDF. I only have a small scanner so I ended up capturing the 16 folds separately, and it took some fiddling to fit them together & iron out the kinks. It'd be ideal to do this with a better scanner and a poster fresh out of the box, but the result is quite nice as it is. Unlike other versions you can find online, it's usable.

Please let me know if there's a copyright issue with posting the file. I'm guessing there shouldn't be, since afaik it's impossible to officially buy the game with the poster.

Happy Civving & Smaccing!

 

[Agent Miles]

Thanks!

 

[ZombiVoziKombi]

Thanks!

You're welcome! Just uploaded a cleaner version.

 

[Agent Miles]

Got it. Thanks again.

 

[ZombiVoziKombi]

Ok, so with the excitement about the 25th anniversary, and the AC2 forums hopefully coming back online soon ...

It'd be ideal to do this with a better scanner and a poster fresh out of the box

... I'm gonna do this. I got a copy of SMAC-X in near-mint condition (open box, the prices for sealed copies are thru the roof), and just ordered a comparable SMAC box. Now looking for large-size scanning services close to me. Which you'd think wouldn't be hard to find where I live, but it's harder and weirder than I expected.

 

[nulltype]

Thanks for the scan @ZombiVoziKombi! Would anyone be interested in a vectorized version of the tech tree part of the poster (not the background or whatever, just all the boxes and arrows)?

 

[The_J]

Thanks for the scan @ZombiVoziKombi! Would anyone be interested in a vectorized version of the tech tree part of the poster (not the background or whatever, just all the boxes and arrows)?

Yes, there would be some interest

 

[ZombiVoziKombi]

... I'm gonna do this. I got a copy of SMAC-X in near-mint condition (open box, the prices for sealed copies are thru the roof), and just ordered a comparable SMAC box. Now looking for large-size scanning services close to me. Which you'd think wouldn't be hard to find where I live, but it's harder and weirder than I expected.

Since this thread is again among the recents just a quick update... I actually did have the original game posters professionally scanned, but the paper folds are considerably more visible than in my own amateur work. I don't know how their tech works, I'm guessing the scanner that can fit the whole poster is limited in how much pressure it can apply on top of the paper.

The upshot is, the professionally scanned image is sadly less useful than what I stitched up at home.

So if I'll produce these, I need to again scan & fit the pieces myself, using a flattop scanner with a larger surface than my tiny Letter/A4. The largest I can reasonably hope for is Ledger/A3, and I know where to find services that have them... but life took over & I didn't yet get around to scanning yet.

Regarding vector versions - YES it'd be great to have one for SMAC.

EDIT: Here are some SMAC & SMAC-X tech trees I found online:

• jez9999 posted two vector versions of the SMAC-X tech tree on Apolyton, attached below. I don't recall where I downloaded them from, I doubt it was from the original links.
  • Here's an image rendering of the same tree.
  • camotan made a tidy horizontal SMAC-X tree that looks like it's derived from this vector version.
• comradecrimson posted a scan of the SMAC-X tech tree poster of comparable quality to the SMAC one I did above.
• hijarian put together a horizontal SMAC tech tree from in-game screenshots. I really like the concept, tho evidently not enough to pay $0.25 for the full resolution
• Nethog's tech trees for both games and many others are available through the Wayback machine (the PDF link works) & pack a ton of information.

 

[nulltype]

Here's the vectorized version of the tech tree part of the poster (no background, etc). I have fixed a few minor inconsistencies, but may have added a few in the process of converting this poster by hand. Thanks @ZombiVoziKombi for the high quality scan!

Sources:
* Scan of original tech tree poster: @ZombiVoziKombi (this thread)
* Vector icons from pinakographos
* Vector EA logo

I think one could reconstruct most of the original poster, though I couldn't find the original background or a vectorized version of the old Firaxis logo.

If someone wanted to construct a variant of the original poster:
* Faction raster images
* Faction icons (these might be vector if you have a copy of photoshop, but I do not) from Kadeton

 

[nulltype]

I added the raster images and some automatically converted faction vectors, here's the final version (still no background, includes source .fig file, apologies for file size)

 

[ZombiVoziKombi]

Thank you, these are A-MA-ZING.

The bottom part of the backgound looks a lot like the opening frames of the Living Refinery video, see below. I couldn't find an exact match (then again I didn't exactly search frame by frame) ... but I'm ready to bet that somewhere, on some hard drive, there are versions of both the poster backgrounds and the project videos in much better shape than the ones we can extract from what we have access to.