Graphical Preview Of The New AI War Starfields/Nebulae/Planets

[x4000]

Original: http://christophermpark.blogspot.com/2012/07/graphical-preview-of-new-ai-war.html

It's traditional that when we do an expansion for AI War, we also wind up doing a lot of new content for the base game.  At this point we've been doing ongoing sporadic content for the base game for the last 18 months since the 5.0 version.  So the difference is already substantial between 5.0 and what will be 6.0.

However, one of the things I've been really unhappy with since I got a nicer higher-contrast monitor last year has been the nebulae backgrounds in AI War.  Some things that had looked smooth and nice on my old monitor suddenly looked dated and jagged.  So as my big graphical contribution to the 6.0 version of the base game, I've redone all that using the awesome assets from Eldon Harris again.  Plus a bunch of new algorithms to make it all actually work in a pleasing procedural fashion in the game, of course.

You don't have to wait all the way until 6.0 comes out to get this visual upgrade, fortunately -- with the next beta prerelease, 5.045, that will be included!  Also note that this huge upgrade to the visuals doesn't really come with much in the way of performance cost on most GPUs.  It does have some cost on moderate to older GPUs, but as always you can turn the nebulae off if you wish.  But on anything approaching a modern GPU, it pretty much laughs at the workload from this. :)

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Very nice, I can't wait to play with these in the background

[x4000]

Should be tonight or tomorrow!  It's very exciting for me to see it looking so nice -- it's almost like another game to me at least.

[Stx11]

OOOOH PRETTTTTYYYY!!!!!! 

(excellent... now I can use "I was distracted by the beautiful backgrounds" as my excuse for the AIs eating my face  )

[Kahuna]

Cool!
However. In-game it's a bit too bright IMO.

[kuresuti]

Cool!
However. In-game it's a bit too bright IMO.

I kind of agree with this. The new graphics are nice, but a tad too bright in my opinion. I've always imagined AIW having a darker theme to it, humans with little hope against an overwhelming foe. I feel that a colorful approach doesn't really fit with my view of AIW. Still nice stuff

[Kahuna]

I've always imagined AIW having a darker theme to it, humans with little hope against an overwhelming foe. I feel that a colorful approach doesn't really fit with my view of AIW. Still nice stuff

Ye this^^ Also if the background is too bright it can be distracting.

[Mánagarmr]

As long as the backgrounds aren't too much "in your face" I can definitely see them working. But it's a fine line there.

[Mánagarmr]

After having tried them in game, I've made two observations:

1. They're slightly too bright and "stand out" too much.
2. Since they are now so vastly different in shape and coloration, I think they'd benefit from additional parallax layers to increase scene depth.

[x4000]

The ability to make them less bright is coming next version.  doctorfrog had a mantis ticket already.

[Martyn van Buren]

Having been one of the ones who complained about brightness, I wanted to come back and say how pretty the new background are!  They are cool.

[doctorfrog]

Having been one of the ones who complained about brightness, I wanted to come back and say how pretty the new background are!  They are cool.

Agreed! Using the slider I now have a perfect balance between a background that is both subtle and colorful.

[Mánagarmr]

The slider was made of win and really made it possible to make the new backgrounds blend in perfectly. Win!