Biomes Reimagined (Terrain Graphics)

[Lord Tirian]

After this discussion here, I noticed that the dislike of some biomes really is down to their sometimes muddy and indistinct graphics, something that that led Cousken to create the Visually Distinct Biomes mods. On the other hand, lots of people really like Primordial "out of the box" because it has strong contrasts and succeeds at conveying its theme.

After some thinking and a few experiments, I started to tinker with the colour schemes and textures of the original biomes, trying to achieve nice distinct themes and colours like Primoridal has but make them as readable as Cousken's mods without sacrificing the themes (e.g. his version of arid is a lot more playable and looks rather nice, but the grassland feels too fertile and too nice to me).

Here is my first WIP for the arid biome (warning, big-ish pictures):

Spoiler Arid WIP :

The themes and "atmosphere" I want to evoke with this are that of a dry, ancient and dusty world - with the deserts evoking Arrakis, Tatooine and a little bit Mars, the plains evoking Mars or Arizona and the grassland evoking hot and dry African steppes.

Opinions and suggestions? Should I continue?

 

[Azem.Ocram]

That looks really good! It is visually distinct but fits the theme perfectly!

 

[Draffin]

+1 from me. I really like it.

I have a bit of a pet hate for what appears to be some sort of colour gradient over the different biomes that makes them look green/blue/red whatever. I know it's supposed to be for atmospheric effect but it just makes everything look vague and washed out.

What you've done looks really nice and clear. You could potentially yellow the grassland up a bit more to give it a more dry feel perhaps?

 

[Lord Tirian]

What you've done looks really nice and clear. You could potentially yellow the grassland up a bit more to give it a more dry feel perhaps?

Already did that (also note the tundras in north).

Spoiler Revision :

At the moment, I'm playing around with the water colour. Not quite sure where to go with that at the moment, trying out a couple of options (and trying to get a better feel for how the system works), here's an idea I had for the oceans and rivers (also shows what I currently have for mountains):

Spoiler Oceans & Rivers :

I quite like the strong vibrant contrast of the blue and it works well as complementary colour to the yellow-reddish hues of the land... but it might break the theme.

 

[Draffin]

Oh man, it looks so much clearer. I really like it.

The contrast is good too, breaks up the lines a bit, the green on the floodplains keeps a nice accent as well

Are you just painting these over/colour correction in Photoshop?

 

[Azem.Ocram]

I think the rivers should look muddier and the water a tad bit greener.

 

[Ryika]

Really ugly water:

Spoiler :

(/edit: Hm. I actually like it now!)

...or...

Miasmic Water:

Spoiler :

 

[Lord Tirian]

Are you just painting these over/colour correction in Photoshop?

It's a mix. It's mainly colour correction, but I'm also blending in other textures for some (grassland).

(/edit: Hm. I actually like it now!)

I kinda like the green, especially because the colour scheme ties into the miasma... on the other hand, I really like how blue-teal is really reminiscent of desert coasts. So at the moment, I'm trying to get the coasts green-ish/teal while keeping the oceans blue.

 

[Draffin]

Are these changes easy to make in the editor?

 

[Lord Tirian]

Are these changes easy to make in the editor?

Hard to tell, I've been modding terrain textures since Civ4 days, so I might not be the best judge. It is, however, time-consuming. With every change, you need to restart Civ:BE, check how it looks, maybe even test a few maps... and then tweak it again.

In other news, I just released the mod, please use this thread for further discussions!

 

[Draffin]

Yeah nice, if you ever get the time a little tutorial written up on how you do it would be amazing.

 

[H6g4505]

I came here from Workshop just to say the changes to the textures, while not major, are really nice and make the game look a lot better.
Can't wait to see more.