Graphical Quibbles...

[Pfeffersack]

Thanks!
Yeah, the Consciousness flag would be useful as well. I'll add that faction after all.

Given that I understand right (not only Aki Zeta as University faction leader, instead a complete new faction), that's quite a change from the previous plans - one that I view positive in the way that it adds another player for sure. However, I'm really curious how that faction should work and which unique boni/abilities it should get, as the science and cloning themes are already used for factions. Also - how will the bases look like?

 

[Maniac]

I'm really curious how that faction should work and which unique boni/abilities it should get, as the science and cloning themes are already used for factions.

Good question. If you have any ideas, tell me. No anarchy seems like a nice benefit, for starters.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Thanks!
Yeah, the Consciousness flag would be useful as well. I'll add that faction after all.

See attached file.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Maniac]

Thanks! What player colours are those?

 

[Lord Tirian]

Thanks! What player colours are those?

The main colour is from the cyborg1.pcx (worked very well straight out of the original file), the entry for the civ4colorvals.xml is:

<ColorVal>
<Type>COLOR_PLAYER_CYBORGS</Type>
<fRed>0.17</fRed>
<fGreen>0.5</fGreen>
<fBlue>0.41</fBlue>
<fAlpha>1.00</fAlpha>
</ColorVal>

The Player colours (civ4playercolors.xml) are the COLOR_PLAYER_CYBORGS for primary and COLOR_PLAYER_BLACK for the secondary (text colour is the same as the primary colour).

Cheers, LT.

 

[Pickly]

Good question. If you have any ideas, tell me. No anarchy seems like a nice benefit, for starters.

Following the "efficiency" theme, a reduction to city maintenance seems a possibility (theme wise, gameplay wise I'm not as sure of this, but hopefully it will give some ideas).

Also for efficiency, perhaps they build some basic buildings faster (backstory wise, this would represent organizational ability, or something along those lines). This at least seems that it would follow original Civ 4 code (since the abilities are there.), though gameplay wise may still be iffy.

Following the "rationality" theme, perhaps religions should interact differently (rather than effecting happiness, for example, religions would effect science, or just increase their usual effects, though again I am not sure gameplay wise how this would work, or how difficult to code it would be.) The idea would be that cybernetic citizens don't get irrational joy from religions, but rather use the religions as a source of information.

(At the very least, hopefully these provide some ideas)

 

[GeoModder]

Perhaps of use in Planetfall, if a bit retextured?

Thermal plant.

It's animated.

 

[Lord Tirian]

From the Feedback thread:

Sure if you're interested. I'd prefer it not to look like casting a fireball or so though. If this is possible, something like the unit touching her temples with her hands, and then a wavefront animation would look less silly as a visual representation. Of course I guess to be really 'realistic', there should be no representation of psi energy at all.

Done! You can find the thread in the unit graphics forum, I think I included everything you need (model comes as shader and non-shader version).

Model-wise, it's based on seZereth's Elohim Adept (sans the book and little bag), I felt it was a good fit for a Psion (and to make it somewhat distinct from the acolyte, they're similar, but should look exactly the same). I tried to keep the whole animation more subtle (sounds as well) and I'm fairly happy with the look (especially with the wavefront).

I didn't attach a flickering empath glow to it, because I think the glow effect is something that should be reserved for great people in general and I don't want to make it look to "magic-y" - instead, I made the wave front blue as a nod to the blue glow of the empath button.

As always, I can still make changes etc.

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

As always, I can still make changes etc.

You can? How about a male version? And/or a breather masked one for factions like the Hive or Morgans?

 

[Lord Tirian]

You can? How about a male version? And/or a breather masked one for factions like the Hive or Morgans?

I wouldn't call a sex change a "small" change! It's more like making/finding a new model and adopting the animation - a static object like a breather should be easier - but I'm not sure whether that's really needed. From what I gathered, the Psion would probably end up firmly entrenched in the Centauri tech part, meaning a breatherless model would be most fitting - plus the choice of model is a homage to the Empath anyway.

But since I'm already playing around with animations, I had the idea of modifying the locust model - it doesn't really look swarm-like enough for my taste. I've attached a screenshot of two things I've tried (same model, different textures, not sure what's better). It's actually a particle effect, so the models are animated to move like a cloud of insects.

Finally, I noticed that I never made a button for the metabolic boost promo - I've corrected that now.

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

Since locusts are supposedly rather small lifeforms, the bottom one seems the best choice.

However, the top one on ground level could be useful as mindworms with a more slithering/crawling animation.

 

[The_Coyote]

using particles effects for the alien lifeforms - never thought about this as option to create the units but the result at the pic looks really great and thousend times better than my try (even if i would prefer - in opposite to geo - the first one). Did you created a new particel effect from scratch or altered an existing one?

 

[Lord Tirian]

using particles effects for the alien lifeforms - never thought about this as option to create the units but the result at the pic looks really great and thousend times better than my try (even if i would prefer - in opposite to geo - the first one). Did you created a new particel effect from scratch or altered an existing one?

The particle effect is from FfH2's mistform creature - it's just a fog/smoke effect, but it had rotating texture bits, so I took that particular effect, tweaked the visibility and lifetime of the particles and put it into a simple nif (just a main node with four child nodes, each with a copy of the particle effect - four effects is a bit on the heavier side compared to vanilla Civ4 units, though FfH2 models do use more occasionally... but I can't get it to look good with a single effect). Animating that was pretty easy.

The harder bit is the texture... I think the second picture looks more like an insect swarm, but it fades into the background too easily - it's a bit hard to see. The first one looks less like an insect swarm, but stands out much, much more (almost a bit too much, since the middle is pretty opaque).

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

I think the second picture looks more like an insect swarm, but it fades into the background too easily - it's a bit hard to see.

Would increasing the scale (in xml) solve the visibility issue?

 

[Pfeffersack]

Like The_Coyote, I would prefer the first one. Looks more like insects, the second is just a cloud of dots...might be more realistic scale wise, but doesn't look so nice IMO.

 

[Maniac]

I also prefer the first one.

 

[Lord Tirian]

I also prefer the first one.

Quick question: Do you like the Psion unit (or rather, the Psi wave that's part of the attack animation)? I'm using its psi-wave (with a red colour) as part of the Locust attack - if you dislike it, I can remove before I upload it.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Quick question: Do you like the Psion unit (or rather, the Psi wave that's part of the attack animation)? I'm using its psi-wave (with a red colour) as part of the Locust attack - if you dislike it, I can remove before I upload it.

Cheers, LT.

Eh, I decided to simply release it with both animations, you can find it here - since an insect swarm may be useful for other people as well (especially without the animations).

Personally, I'd keep the wave graphics for Planetfall and I'd then go through the other native units later (especially the fungal tower and the sealurk - I learned a bit since I created/animated them) and add it to all of them - just to make all psi-units use the wave consistently. Then, if you see a wave, you'd just go "ah, Psi combat!", similar to the way SMAC had extra Psi-combat effects.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Maniac]

Thanks! Included in the patch. Which won't be for today for the record. Have to add to deficient Firaxian code re starting location generation on predesigned maps.

 

[Maniac]

Might you be interested in redoing the buttons for the SMAX factions? The CyCon currently doesn't have one at all, and some other like the Angel and Pirate one show some weird white pixels at the sides. Here are possible source files: