Low-res Resource Icons

[Junuxx]

Hey fanatics,

I was looking for a way to represent different resources in my Atlas Map Generator and I think I came up with a useful concept to represent them symbolically with a few pixels. Maybe YAME and MapView can use this approach as well?

The idea was to use a single letter whenever possible, and 2 when the letter is used more than once in the resource's category. This, together with color coding for categories differentiates every resource. Some redundance is in on purpose.

It's more about the concept, color coding and partitioning than the actual looks. For Atlas I will probably end up using just the subcategory colors, while MapView can maybe use some pretty shaded, semitransparent icons based on this.

Anyway, do you think this is useful? Identifiable?

Junuxx

 

[miles]

Hi Junuxx

Great idea but quite difficult to implement in YAME . I do not even see the possibility to include your one/two character terminology as this would need serious reprogramming of the parsing algorithm. Too bad...

YAME is just a humble attempt to create a workaround for the less than perfect Worldbuilder. It has its benefits but is seriously limited by the underlying Excel framework. In the long run I expect other projects like your Atlas Project or Map View to outrun YAME as an external editor.

To answer your final question: Yep, I think it's useful. Identifiable also, but only after some acquaintance with it.

 

[Junuxx]

Made the concept a little bit more serious. Changed from a badly drawn paint picture to a somewhat more sophisticated Photoshop image. I changed the symbol for Silk from Si to Sk so it won't be mistaken for Silver. Also changed icon dimensions from 25x25 to 32x32, which should make for easier upscaling.

 

[Gr3yHound]

the idea is kinda good...i´m still struggling with the transparency so i m still in a state where i can´t tell you if this is looking good or informative.

My idea was using the symbols of civ since they are what you already know and recognize. It´s probably just a matter of displaying to make sure it looks good and the user is able to keep a good overview.
i´ll post a screenshot once i had my first success on blending ressouces over the terrain.

thx for your thoughts and all the efford (and all the fish) and sharing them.

and since i use textures anyway it will be no big thing to replace them with custom ones if someone isn´t happy with the ones i´ll supply with MapView.