Author Topic: GFX Mods: AI Defenses  (Read 27687 times)

Offline HitmanN

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #60 on: November 23, 2010, 08:24:00 am »
the red glitter and lighting is cool, but that telescope makes it look a bit like an elephant, or somthing phallic. maybe a radar dish receptor would work better  ;D

We could call it the AI Dumbo!  ;D

No?

Offline HitmanN

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #61 on: November 23, 2010, 09:40:56 am »
Well, how about a less 'Dumbo' version?

Preview:

Offline superking

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #62 on: November 23, 2010, 10:01:20 am »
looks OK now, top work like your other graphics imo  :)

although not sure the purple of the telescope lens works with the red so well

Offline Ozymandiaz

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #63 on: November 23, 2010, 10:12:12 am »
Well, how about a less 'Dumbo' version?

Preview:


Looks pretty good!

Not sure about the purple, but its up top taste ;)
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Offline HitmanN

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #64 on: November 23, 2010, 10:53:43 am »
Just adding some flavor here and there. :)

The Short Range guard post has its blue lens, and the Missile post a has purple-ish dome at the top.

I suppose I could tweak it to be slightly more blue though.

I'll upload the updated version in a moment.

Offline wyvern83

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #65 on: November 23, 2010, 11:29:05 am »
What if you had more than one 'telescope', a cluster of 3 of various lengths angled to our left? (off-centered) That might help with the dumbo-like appearance.

Offline HitmanN

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #66 on: November 23, 2010, 11:36:53 am »
Perhaps. The shortened telescope does help with the Dumbo-ness a lot already, I think. ;) Looks more like a security camera now.

The download has now been updated to v2, and an updated screenshot is shown in the first post too.

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #67 on: November 23, 2010, 11:42:36 am »
I like it, honestly. Nothing "dumbo" about it right now. But to make it more of a "listening post" kinda thing, it really needs a parabolic dish somewhere. It's so damn stereotypical and awesome :D
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Offline Ozymandiaz

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #68 on: November 24, 2010, 06:42:16 am »
I like it, honestly. Nothing "dumbo" about it right now. But to make it more of a "listening post" kinda thing, it really needs a parabolic dish somewhere. It's so damn stereotypical and awesome :D

I agree, I did not think about dumbo at all.

Besides, its not a problem if anything happens to look like something else anyways :)
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Offline zebramatt

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #69 on: November 24, 2010, 07:24:06 am »

Besides, its not a problem if anything happens to look like something else anyways :)

Doesn't that rather depend on what the 'anything' and 'something' are?  ;)

Offline superking

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #70 on: November 25, 2010, 05:57:59 am »
what next? spire gaurdpost?

Offline Ozymandiaz

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #71 on: November 25, 2010, 06:36:05 am »
I like the touch with the icon as well. Not that I disaprove of the new ones as such, but many of the new icons kind of seems the same to me, shape wise. I finally learned to distinguish the AI eye out of the rest, but I can never remember all of them without looking at them and seeing what it is :).
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Offline HitmanN

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #72 on: November 25, 2010, 07:07:53 am »
what next? spire gaurdpost?

Not sure yet. If you mean the Spire Shield Guardpost, then that's not particularly a high priority. It has a pretty distinctive shape, and the FF over it adds some flare to its appearance. I suppose I could add some glow in the center or something.

I might be touching on the Core Guard Posts at some point, though those will mainly get some lights and such. Their overall shapes are pretty unique each.

There's also a few guardians I want to work on.

Overall, it's hard to tell yet. I'll just pick something randomly whenever I have the time to tweak stuff. Right now I have other projects to work on, and LotS to play (finally started a game with it), so new stuff may end up scarce for a short while. Time will tell.  :P

I like the touch with the icon as well. Not that I disaprove of the new ones as such, but many of the new icons kind of seems the same to me, shape wise.

That's one reason why I wanted to change the shapes of the guard posts a bit, to make each have a bit more unique shape. The changes will also be reflected in the icons.

Offline Giegue

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #73 on: November 25, 2010, 07:36:46 pm »
heh, unique? most of them look like tangled masses of gigantic wire.

Offline HitmanN

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Re: GFX Mods: AI Defenses
« Reply #74 on: November 25, 2010, 10:44:14 pm »
Shape and look are two different things, and we're mainly talking about overall shape and the way they appear in icons.

Think of it this way. You have three different ship types, each of them presented with a approximately square icon, each with a minor difference, like one has rounded corners, for instance. They're all certainly unique, but very hard to distinguish from each other at a quick glance, because they're essentially all still squares. It would be much easier to learn and browse them if each icon was more unique, for instance one is a triangle, and one is a circle.

That's essentially one part of this mod project. I cut away and mold the originals in a way that brings out more unusual (compared to originals) overall shapes, primarily for the icons, as the original guard post icons all look very much alike. There are no easily identifiable details in some of them. It's possible to learn them, yes, but if they could be made even easier to learn... no harm by adding extra detail. As an example, the Passive Guard Post mod. Tell me one other icon that has something resembling spread bird/angel wings in it. :P I can't think of any myself. You only need to remember one detail about that icon/post to easily remember and learn it. (Whether it makes sense for a guard post to have metal wings on it is a different matter entirely. ;) )

This all is of course my opinion and something I thought useful to address with these mods. It's not all just about modding the graphics for the guard posts themselves, the icons are important too. Or rather, the icons have muchly dictated the direction I've taken with the graphic modifications for the structures themselves. The more the icon needs distinguishable details, the more I've altered the structure.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2010, 10:49:34 pm by HitmanN »