Prerelease 1.013D (Several significant graphics upgrades!)

[x4000]

The Latest prerelease is now out: http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1013D.zip

That version is an upgrade from version 1.012, so you have to already have 1.012 (or greater) installed. Just unzip it into your game folder (usually C:\Program Files\Arcen Games\AI War\ unless you specified something else). Please make sure that your unzip process keeps the folder structure from the zip file, rather than just unpacking all of the files into the base target directory.

What's new since 1.013C:
(Cumulative release notes since 1.012 are attached at the bottom)

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-Star backgrounds for the game are now procedurally generated.  This makes them look much better, and especially vastly better on any resolution other than 1024x768.  They also use much less RAM than before.  Still more visual upgrades to come with this in the future.

-The various ship-to-ship lines are now drawn wiht a much more impressive visual style using additive blending.  This also lets the game render half as many component lines for each compound line, which increases the overall draw efficiency.

CHANGES FROM PAST PRERELEASES
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-Even better new explosions by eRe4s3r!

-Shots that prematurely explode were being drawn as the full explosion, but now they are drawn as the half explosion.

[Fiskbit]

Wow, that is nice. The new backgrounds are really brilliant at times; well done. Definitely looking a lot better.

[Revenantus]

Impressive! The ship-to-ship lines now look especially good. Well, I'm off to oggle the new graphics for a couple of hours...

[eRe4s3r]

Lo, well i have to say the nebula and fuzzy ship lines are way too bright now
But i wouldn't be me if i wouldn't be changing stuff...  

so i changed linefuzzy.png to be 5x5 px (to get a clean gradient going) and also toned down all the nebulas like the 0.png to something where the brightest point is at most 40,40,40 in rgb values - anything more than 128,128,128 (grey) is something one has to avoid with additive but for backgrounds that value needs to be halved - otherwise effects are nearly invisible

The end result is lowered brightness of the nebulas (i noticed this because my home sector on my favourite fleet test grounds is nearly completely bright green, and i haaaate green ,p) (Unless its hairs)

lowered brightness.jpg shows how i modified it
And pack.rar has the files i changed (linefuzzy and all the nebulas)

Notice how bright the BG still is with just 40,40,40 rgb value as brightest point in the nebula files

Just to see what i changed
This is how my fleet test grounds looked before my edits


Edit: Well maybe my edited fuzzy lines are now a tad too dark ,p

[CautiousChaos]

Wow!  Like what you're doing with the art upgrades.  The star background are particularly impressive and much more atmospheric (er, well...) than ever before.  Liking the 'splosions as well...

-cc

[x4000]

Glad the new art is a hit! 

I think you are right, eRe4s3r, the nebulas were more than a bit too bright.  I've made some updates for the next version that resolve that, and which also give better definition to the clouds in the background.  Alpha transparency really does wonders when blended with additive transparency, so I've used that approach rather than just darkening the originals.  I think you'll like the result (it no longer produces the really strange over-neon backgrounds, which was a personal goal of mine).

For the 5x5 sprite, I don't want any non-powers-of-two sprites in the game simply because some older graphics cards don't like that.  Also, for the time being I think I disagree that those lines are too bright.  We'll see, I may adjust that with time, but for now I like the look for that because it looks very special-effects-ish, which I think is very appealing.

Also, did you notice the changes to the explosions?  Obviously I used your new versions, but I also fixed the offsetting issue you were having (by making the application actually expect 126x138 images instead of 64x64), and there are 1/2 as many components to each explosion in a 2x as large spread.  So that gives a lot more interesting of effects in general there, I think.  Just like you were suggesting, works like a charm, and actually reduces system requirements, which is hilarious.

[eRe4s3r]

Yes i noticed, the explosions look really nice now They wouldn't be any better with a fully fledged  particle engine

I see your point with the fuzzy lines though the thing is, when the ai attacks with a lot of high tier munition ships (like 400 of em) .... yeah since they interlink with shields and stuff around defenses i can no longer see the buildings ;/ (i mean the ai has a lot of units next to their buildings and the lines overglow them)

My changed sprite is too dark to see engineers though..

Mhhh.. but i have a suggestion for that (other topic ;p) dropping to bed so rather post it here

- Instead of drawing lines to boosted ships one could have a underneath mark that is sort of like the "unit is shielded" one just.. uh.. different, and if its just a simple effect, multiple ammo ships would no longer cause nuclear Armageddon - also it would be less distraction in large battles. It could be a ring like effect that fits together with shielded so that shield + boost are also easy to see...

Well just an idea (originally wanted to post in suggestion but too sleepy ;/ )

[x4000]

More changes:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,596.msg3476.html#msg3476

I didn't go with your way of changing the background gas, but I did make some changes so that overall they are not quite so bright.  In general they look a lot better now, methinks.

For the suggestion to not do the lines from munitions boosters to their targets, I understand the intent but I think that omits some visual info that has strategic relevance.  I will, however, tone down their lines in an upcoming release:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/board,11.0.html