Dune Wars Art Thread

[Slvynn]

Here's a screenshot of the tech dialog box in WB. It shows a small view of every technology icon. This is a big improvement over the mixture of vanilla and other weird icons we had until 1.5.2. Still, not all of them are distinct/memorable. A number of them are orange, with some blob in the middle.



Would anybody be interested in picking 5-6 of the most orangey ones, and make new ones which would be more distinguishable?

I'll do that now, lets see whats there inside. Btw i just re-watched dune movie. Btw i dont remember and not sure that we have unit like one on which Duke , Paul and Kynes travelled to inspect spice harvesting opperation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmRv1De7Hjs&feature=related

3:22 on this vid.

 

[Deliverator]

unit like one on which Duke , Paul and Kynes travelled to inspect spice harvesting opperation

That's meant to be a Thopter. They ignored Frank Herbert and didn't give them flapping wings. I think the cube shaped thopters from that film look silly.

 

[davidlallen]

@David: For 1.6 can you please clear out the existing hills and peaks folders we have and replace them with the attached?

The hills directory you sent has 16 files with names like hill_N.tga, but the current hills directory has also another 50-odd files with names like hill_N_N.tga. Are you sure I should clean out the whole directory and have 16 files instead of 66?

 

[Slvynn]

That's meant to be a Thopter. They ignored Frank Herbert and didn't give them flapping wings. I think the cube shaped thopters from that film look silly.

We can use it as some kind of suspensor unit (atreides civ specific art?). Early model.


Also, on tech icons: (those i marked to change, with some comments)

Refining Techniques (no reason to be ornage, perhaps some picture of Harkonnen industrial stuff will suffice. Or just picture from Emperror: battle for dune with some refinery.

Mining - Some stones and caves from Freeman caves scenes.

Law of Arrakis, again , Some picture of Freeman Halls, wheh moaddib had Speech to them.

Benevolence. Some home of Atriedes with their architecture.

Desert Survival - Paul running from worm with his mother throught desert to rocks , when camera above them.

 

[davidlallen]

Also, on tech icons: (those i marked to change, with some comments.

Anything which is not orange will be excellent. I will make the 1.6 release about 24 hours from now.

 

[Slvynn]

Posting to say i didnt progressed yet (but thats not too much work, really) with techs, i'll try to fix that before patch during a day, (i just had musa for this greenie), but i will allow to myself to post some unfinished material. Its still need alot of work, buts its already something, and can be shown to koma and our team. Raw WIP, just feeling well posting it.
It also different levels of transparencies in different places, which you can see bc there is no background.

Edit question: Is that center thingy is good? (she is not centered a bit, it will be symmetrical, with empty space inside) We can also utilise it for some puprose.

 

[Deliverator]

Are you sure I should clean out the whole directory and have 16 files instead of 66?

Yes, I've tested this and it works. I am basically fixing a couple of errors in the Planetfall heightmap we are using.

 

[Deliverator]

Law of Arrakis, again , Some picture of Freeman Halls, wheh moaddib had Speech to them.

That sounds very similar to Fanaticism icon which is a shot of that scene taken from the movie. I like Law of Arrakis being some actual written words myself. Your other ideas sound fine.

Anything which is not orange will be excellent.

The number that are actually orange is not that great, but there are a lot that fall in the light cream -> beige -> orange -> brown range. Partly this is understandable for a desert based mod. The issue is more that they are not symbolic and distinctive enough rather than that they are all orange. You could have icons all the colour of the rainbow, but that would still not necessarily do a good job of representing the technology in question. Does it bother you that all the new promotion icons are gold/brown?

 

[davidlallen]

Does it bother you that all the new promotion icons are gold/brown?

The question is not the color, but whether the icons are distinctive when viewed at small size in game. There are 6-8 where they are pure orange with a small dot, or small waves. I cannot tell them apart. Very often I assign myself techs using WB in order to set up some test situation, and I spend endless time moving the mouse over the tech window I showed until the hover help tells me which is which.

 

[Slvynn]

Ok i am at home i'll try to fix tech icons now. Gimme moment for coffe and another idea post.

 

[Slvynn]

btw check this vid - i like carryalls there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXD36ljblz0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSwAGfpT9M0&feature=related

Btw ornithopters there can make nice Atriedes UU.

 

[Slvynn]

Ok done tech icons tell me what you think about it

 

[keldath]

Slvynn well done! you work fast!

 

[davidlallen]

At any time you may decide that I am too fussy about icons and stop. But, these seem very dark, and when viewed at 50% they also do not contain much visible detail. The vanilla icons are very easy to distinguish; they contain many different colors and simple shapes, rather than being shrunk-down screenshots.

 

[Slvynn]

Thanks buddy, btw check your pm

 

[Slvynn]

At any time you may decide that I am too fussy about icons and stop. But, these seem very dark, and when viewed at 50% they also do not contain much visible detail.

They have some composition.
At least Air power, and refining technologies are good. They have distinctive composition. Also i am personally ok with improved suspensors, you can see well and its distinct. Serves puprose.

Also i can just make them brighter and add contrast, is that good?
Edit: here is take 2, they are better than ones they replacing. If they not ok issue patch with old ones, i will make better ones later , i am bit tired after job today and dont want to work in hurry.

 

[koma13]

Posting to say i didnt progressed yet (but thats not too much work, really) with techs, i'll try to fix that before patch during a day, (i just had musa for this greenie), but i will allow to myself to post some unfinished material. Its still need alot of work, buts its already something, and can be shown to koma and our team. Raw WIP, just feeling well posting it.
It also different levels of transparencies in different places, which you can see bc there is no background.

Sorry, I was completly occupied with homeworld last few days (i am no good in multitasking)...

Hmm, my concern right now is that it doesn't feels like Dune (Arrakis, desert, dusty...). Maybe we should try creating a dunish looking interface first, and then adding elements of the houses...

 

[Slvynn]

Sorry, I was completly occupied with homeworld last few days (i am no good in multitasking)...

Hmm, my concern right now is that it doesn't feels like Dune (Arrakis, desert, dusty...). Maybe we should try creating a dunish looking interface first, and then adding elements of the houses...

I think i love more not-dunish ui. All is dunish. Terrain is dunish. Icons. Tech icons. All.
I think civ specific ui should go with Homeworld theme of certain civ. Strictly. Each UI should represent art style of certain civ, and their look , material ,forms ,and preffered atmosphere and color. (which they bring from their HW, and amplify, maximise their differencies and distinction). Only dunish native are Freeman. Why the hells Corrino ui should look dunish. They sit in their gold thingies and all they want is spice.

(If its not clear, its Only Ordos, Draconis theme , others use different color, and different objects))

 

[davidlallen]

I have redone the "thumper" effect a couple of times and currently it doesn't do anything at all. The current proposal is that a unit with the thumper promotion should act as a lightning rod: it should attract the worm more strongly than anything else, and when the worm attacks it should immediately go away instead of doing any damage.

Thinking about how this would look, I wonder if it is possible to trigger a special animation for this. Starting as a wormsign, is it possible to make an animation which looks like the worm is diving? I am not sure how to trigger an animation from python, but does it seem worth investigating? This would be more "fun" than having the wormsign simply vanish silently, and also a little more "realistic" than triggering the attack animation and having the worm "lose".

 

[Deliverator]

@Slvynn: I think the Ordos HUD work-in-progress looks good. Quality work. Of course, you can't really judge how successful it is into you see it in game, but this can be a good test case.

With regards to koma's comment, to me Dunish means the whole universe of Dune, not just Arrakis. That is what we should be trying to capture. I think with the HUDs colours other than dunes and desert are important since as has been pointed out before the desert terrain is largely monochromatic.

One point, I think using green for the Ordos makes perfect sense, but I don't think all the factions need to follow their team colour in the game. For example, having a Fremen one made of rock with inscriptions, etc would be cool, and something dark and black with only hints of red for the Harkonnen. Basically I want to avoid having all the HUDs just following the team colours since we don't particularly want to change those.

We need to get your 2D skills on to texturing some units at some point soon...