Have the graphics been redone recently?

[Martyn van Buren]

I hadn't played for a while til last night, and on loaded I noticed that a lot of the graphics --- the starfields in particular --- are a lot prettier than I remember them.  Have there been some changes?  They're cool, if so.  If not, I guess I'm just remarking that they're quite good and I'd never noticed

[x4000]

No changes to that since... I guess around October 2010.

Next time we're working on an expansion for AI War, something I really want to do is update the graphics for the starfields to look even better, though.  On darker monitors I agree that they look really nice.  But on my newer very-high-contrast monitor, I'm suddenly seeing flaws that I never used to see.

[TechSY730]

And you mentioned you would like to port the UI to the library you are using for AVWW, so the UI isn't quite so brittle?
That would allow for some nicer effects. For example, I know that you mentioned changing font size is a pain in the AIW UI, but the new library that AVWW uses makes doing that a much more sane process.

[x4000]

Yes, quite so.  The main thing that we would lose in the new system, possibly, is the ability to do scrolling textareas.  Though, actually, now that I think about it we can handle that now, too.

I also want to convert a bunch of stuff on the AIW front to using sprite dictionaries and some of the other newer pipeline stuff that I came up with for AVWW.

The tricky thing is, this is probably several weeks' worth of work at best, and maybe a month at worst.  During which time I'd not be able to do any AIW releases, because the codebase would be so incredibly messed up for a while.  I could be wrong, it might turn out to go faster than that, but that's the only thing that gives me hesitance.  AVWW has more graphics load than AIW does, and so to some extent I almost wonder if the AIW GUI is "good enough" and I should instead be focused on just getting straight to the actual gameplay for AIW. 

It would suck to say "okay, now we're working on AIW heavily again, see you in a month when the visuals are slightly different but generally work the same!"  So maybe there's some sort of middle ground there that I can reach, I don't know.  It's certainly attractive to have all the games on the same codebase when it comes to graphical stuff, not that I plan to backport this to Tidalis (which is doing just fine without it).

There's also some new Unity GUI waiting in the wings at some point coming up "soon," so I've kind of been wondering what will happen with that.

[TechSY730]

Yes, quite so.  The main thing that we would lose in the new system, possibly, is the ability to do scrolling textareas.  Though, actually, now that I think about it we can handle that now, too.

I also want to convert a bunch of stuff on the AIW front to using sprite dictionaries and some of the other newer pipeline stuff that I came up with for AVWW.

The tricky thing is, this is probably several weeks' worth of work at best, and maybe a month at worst.  During which time I'd not be able to do any AIW releases, because the codebase would be so incredibly messed up for a while.  I could be wrong, it might turn out to go faster than that, but that's the only thing that gives me hesitance.  AVWW has more graphics load than AIW does, and so to some extent I almost wonder if the AIW GUI is "good enough" and I should instead be focused on just getting straight to the actual gameplay for AIW. 

It would suck to say "okay, now we're working on AIW heavily again, see you in a month when the visuals are slightly different but generally work the same!"  So maybe there's some sort of middle ground there that I can reach, I don't know.  It's certainly attractive to have all the games on the same codebase when it comes to graphical stuff, not that I plan to backport this to Tidalis (which is doing just fine without it).

I would be fine with that.
It would be like the last SlimDX to the first Unity versions.
Once you get a version that almost everyone is happy with and no major balance issues or major bugs, keep that version for a few months, and then later come out with something better behind the scenes, even if those behind the scenes changes aren't very visible to the end user.

The key is to have a good version to "freeze" on while the back end was done.
One of the reasons why the lack of updates between 3.189 (the last SlimDX verison) and 3.700 (the first Unity version) was not giving much grief to people is because 3.189 was a very solid version (given the mechanics of the time) No massive annoyances, no major balance issues, no progress hindering bugs, etc.

If a similarly solid version of AI war could be released, I wouldn't mind "freezing" on it for a few weeks.

EDIT: Yikes, just fell for that bad habit of mine of saying basically the same thing twice, just with different wording and levels of detail, sorry. 

[HellishFiend]

EDIT: Yikes, just fell for that bad habit of mine of saying basically the same thing twice, just with wording and levels of detail, sorry. 

You do that too? I do that all the time in person and over the phone. I usually dont catch myself until after I do it too. So aggravating! 

[keith.lamothe]

EDIT: Yikes, just fell for that bad habit of mine of saying basically the same thing twice, just with wording and levels of detail, sorry. 

You do that too? I do that all the time in person and over the phone. I usually dont catch myself until after I do it too. So aggravating! 

Chris and I do that all the time, unless we're specifically trying to keep time expenditure to a minimum.  Some people call it communicating

[orzelek]

Communicating can be a very difficult thing...
Ever tried to talk about technical details in English with Japanese engineers (who knows English ofc..)?

[HellishFiend]

EDIT: Yikes, just fell for that bad habit of mine of saying basically the same thing twice, just with wording and levels of detail, sorry. 

You do that too? I do that all the time in person and over the phone. I usually dont catch myself until after I do it too. So aggravating! 

Chris and I do that all the time, unless we're specifically trying to keep time expenditure to a minimum.  Some people call it communicating

I tend to worry that the recipient will feel that I'm more interested in convincing them of my opinion rather than caring what their take on the issue might be.   

[BobTheJanitor]

EDIT: Yikes, just fell for that bad habit of mine of saying basically the same thing twice, just with wording and levels of detail, sorry. 

You do that too? I do that all the time in person and over the phone. I usually dont catch myself until after I do it too. So aggravating! 

Ye gods, I do this all the time. I thought it was a bad habit stemming from my day job in support where I often have to repeat and reword things two or three times before it sinks in.

[x4000]

I think everyone here knows I do that.

It comes from my desire for clarity and complete transfer of the ideas in my head, and/or a desire to put forth all possible facts in support of an argument.  Lately I'm getting better about not going so over the top with that via forums or other written forms, and actually in person I've really gotten weary of trying to press points in that way. 

It never works out the way I hope, so in person I've cultivated more of a listening stance and when the other person says something outlandishly stupid I don't try to convince them otherwise unless it's actually of importance; and usually in social situations it is not.  In certain company that has led me to being very quiet, because there's not a lot I could say that wouldn't start an argument.