Graphics "To Do" list

[yellowdaddy]

This thread is for graphics people and coders to keep track of what graphics have been done.

NB:
THIS IS NOT A DISCUSSION THREAD, IT'S PURELY FOR LISTS OF WHAT GRAPHICS NEED DOING, AND WHETHER THEY HAVE BEEN COMPLETED.

(how about a "sticky"?)

please leave this thread free of pearls of wisdom, empassioned rants, and any off-topic posts, we all do it now and then, but let's try and "channel" it.

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As of the end of March 2004:

There are some new ancient ship units
The test Trireme has 8 directions.

I've done a few ideas of what settlement areas could look like. I'll develop them further.

I'm thinking about doing some new terrain overlays which can overlap a bit. And some river and coast ones. This will take time, and may not be finished 'til the summer as I know no matter how empty my shedule looks, someone's bound to fill it up for me.

I did a little save and load icon pair for Gary, I dunno if their what's wanted, but it's something.

I'd like to know what other grphics exist.

please post them here.

[Mark_Everson]

I'm sorry, I haven't had a chance yet to look over your graphics carefully and comment. All I can say is too much RL and Mea Culpa. . .

In response to your asking me in the Graphical Interfaces thread for a decision on what should be done next -- I am deferring to the coders (Laurent and Gary) and anyone who takes on designing scenarios (Martin if he gets back into it.) It is unfortunate that the coders are not able to give you feedback right now. I am not sufficiently sure of making the right decisions on graphics, and would hate to make a bad call that wasted your hard work.

I will bug the coders to give you feedback and requests for what they need, and participate in discussing their requests. If we can't get action in another week or so, I'll immerse myself further and see if I can't propose a good set of graphics to go for.

[Gary Thomas]

Rivers.

We need rivers that run along the edges of the tiles. They will be displayed as an overlay. Bridges would also be nice.

A variety of villages, towns and cities would also add to the visual appeal of the map.

Another possibility is forested hills - this is a challenge, since you need to see both the trees and the hills.

In general, any better terrain would be pleasant, and extremely easy to implement.

Java runs off RGB, so there are no limitations at that end. However, the tile graphics are gifs, so limited to an arbitrary 256 maximum colour palette, but the palette can be a different one for each tile. Also, it is quite important that the actual image be a diamond shape with the rest transparent. Because the tiles are drawn from the top down, each should overlap the one above it by a pixel or two, to avoid the background showing. The best method is to have a look at the existing grassland tile and see what its characteristics are. Of course, hills, mountains and buildings will project higher, covering parts of the tile above.

Rivers will be a bit different, covering parts of two tiles (or four at the corners). They will not work the way the coastal overlays do. Too bloody complicated. However, we will need estuaries, and maybe deltas.

From one of the other proliferating graphics threads.

Cheers

[LDiCesare]

Here are a few things that could require graphics. Check screenshots in this thread (there's also a mockup a bit before in the same thread):
I need icons/images to represent:
-Generic ruler,
-What all the power blocks in the civ except the ruler want,
-Warfare powerblock (the military),
-Ethics powerblock (the Church),
-Capital powerblock (the rich),
-Human powerblock (the people),
-Bureaucracy powerblock.
All these could evolve with tech (to allow for things like adding glasses to the bureaucrat after optics have reached a certain level, or changing helmet kind or sowrds to rifles etc.).
I picked faces because I thought of them as advisors, but icons like crossed swords would be okay too. The icons shown in the screenshot are jpg 95x90 pixels, but as long as they all have the same size and don't eat all the screen, it doesn't matter too much. Something smaller could be better.

[yellowdaddy]

whoops! This is not supposed to be a discussion thread!

[LDiCesare]

I'm not particularly fond of the faces myself, but they do the job if you think of them as 'advisors'. As such, putting hats on a bureaucratof 3000BC doesn't fit at all. Having various faces instead of stereotypes is nice to have, and could be done if someone drew them. However, advisors in civ are always the same, so you get white advisors when you're a zulu, and noone complained too much, so I think I can make do with a single set.
I tried first to use crossed swords for the military, but then what would I put for the rest? There are images of gold and a scroll under 2 heads (capital and bureaucracy), but they aren't very explicit either. Clergy in particular (could this be a good replacement of the ethics name?) is painful to represent.
Anyone who feels like drawing icons for these buttons is welcome. (One of the images even has placeholder in the name.)

[yellowdaddy]

i remember subitting a screen with faces for icons, and i distinctly remember being told that faces for icons weren't really desireable.

I think the stereotypes are there for a reason - so everyone can work out immediately what is what, regardless of their language.

Anyway, I've found a load of old gfx, which have got some good ideas which would be applicable, but I'm in the midst of a computer crisis, so it make take a month before I can show them.