GRAPHICS: Call to Artists!

[OnePresent]

Maybe this needs its own topic, but I thought it would be good to get the ball rolling here. What are our potential graphic needs?

There's the All-in-one city screen that's been posted somewhere, that would be great to have.

Also the much discussed interface that changes with the ages, very cool.

Will we need an super-strength mod loading/mod combination screen?

E is working on tilesets.

Have other ideas been mentioned? It would be smart to start thinking about some of the graphic needs ahead of time.

[The Big Mc]

we need new civ diplomacy parchments

Also at the moment I am working on underwater and some new units.

[Maquiladora]

Maybe there should be another sprite request thread (if there ever was one), with the scripting in PSP8 i think its quite possible to convert a civ3 FLC in under a month now.

[The Big Mc]

try a day

[Maquiladora]

I was being sarcastic but ok could you have the Jaguar Warrior converted by 11:06 tomorrow?

[The Big Mc]

that’s a full day to do it in. and seen as i don't have accesses to the flc file or a free day I can't help but the hard part will be making the script.

[Maquiladora]

Yeah i was trying to do it last night, exporting the frames and batch renaming them, i renamed about 60 frames in the wrong order

I also noticed some of the flc animation frames are larger dimensions than others, like death is usuallt the largest picture. That will be tricky but obviously its possible to do by script. Also the flc are smaller, but if you remove the background+shadow first, then resize the unit and the seperate shadow image seperately (without distortion or merging of pixels) it should be simple.

[OnePresent]

Originally posted by The Big Mc
we need new civ diplomacy parchments

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying when all the additional options are added this graphic will need work, or does it need work in its present incarnation?

From the lack of responses I assume the above list covers things well enough for now. I'd like to start playing around in finalizing the graphics for the unified city dialog box. (Who did the original?) Is the programming for this going to be a huge undertaking and something well down the road, or is the general consensus the sooner the better?

Who's in charge here?

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by OnePresent
From the lack of responses I assume the above list covers things well enough for now. I'd like to start playing around in finalizing the graphics for the unified city dialog box. (Who did the original?) Is the programming for this going to be a huge undertaking and something well down the road, or is the general consensus the sooner the better?

I would say that it is a huge undertaking, and the sooner the better too .

I think, however, that the existence of the graphics would spur the programmers into action (it worked with me and your last graphic )

Who's in charge here?

In theory, that would be either Keygen, Locutus or maybe MarkG/DanQ depending on what you're asking for the person in charge of. In practice, I think anarchy is the most significant ruling influence...

[The Big Mc]

at the moment in the vanilla game actoivision made parchments to represent who the diplomacy proposal was from. It is 2d art. I don't know if anybody has made a collection of new ones for moders to use.

I was wondering if you were interested as it is your field of interest.

[OnePresent]

Originally posted by The Big Mc
at the moment in the vanilla game actoivision made parchments to represent who the diplomacy proposal was from. It is 2d art. I don't know if anybody has made a collection of new ones for moders to use.

I was wondering if you were interested as it is your field of interest.

Not a perfect fit. But if things get held up with no one stepping up, I would be willing to give it a try. I'm always concerned about volunteering because paying jobs can come in and occupy all my time. I have some time tonight to start thinking about the city screen.

At first glance I see why the city screen is tabbed. 800x600 is too small of a space to fit all the information at one time. I really hate to have design dictate most anything, but just to float an idea, what if the minimum screen res became 1024x768? Heck, that may even be too tight.

[OnePresent]

Here is the roughest of rough sketches. 800 by 600 baby. This is ONLY to get an idea if everything can fit on one screen this size. Some things are squeezed and will need to be fixed. Lots of other things need to be done... This sketch is just to generate initial feedback.

However this layout doesn't have room for the view of the city the original idea had (artist unkown). I really wanted that feature. Any ideas? Is a tab possible with that view? Or a center city on screen button with a "windowshade" type feature where the dialog boxes scrolls up into its title bar.

I think I'll go play some CTPII and wait for comments. And you folks on the other side of the world, how could you be sleeping now?

[Ekmek]

I like seeing a lot more info. I know you git some great talent so I dont want to cramp your style, what are you thinking for the next stage?

I kind of like Civ3's open main screen, I almost wish that when you open screen there would be no back ground, just key info read able. The other thing could real radical, Like a blown up city view where you could see all the units and buildings there and you click on what you want to build. Just some random dreams, but I figure that may require programming too.

[OnePresent]

Originally posted by E
I like seeing a lot more info. I know you git some great talent so I dont want to cramp your style, what are you thinking for the next stage?

I like more info too, especially a city view. I'd also like the buy box to be much deeper. I don't like to have to scroll to purchase units. Both of these require more screen real estate which I don't see us getting unless folks like the idea of dumping 800x600 resolution. (Though that's probably not a good idea, lots of old machines out there.) Next stage is more input from the real CTPII players out there. Then I can tighten this sketch.

Originally posted by E
I kind of like Civ3's open main screen, I almost wish that when you open screen there would be no back ground, just key info read able. The other thing could real radical, Like a blown up city view where you could see all the units and buildings there and you click on what you want to build. Just some random dreams, but I figure that may require programming too.

I dumped Civ3 from my computer shortly after purchase so I can't see what you are referring too. I can keep the eye candy down on this screen, and with this layout some will have to be deleted. But if there's extra room, why not put it in. Not sure I know what you exactly mean with a "blown up city view." Seeing graphics in the buy box instead of text?

Thanks for the feedback.

[Locutus]

Well, I don't know about dropping 800x600 (that will have to be discussed elsewhere), but regardless, I can see a few ways of improving the efficiency of the space available.

For one thing, the detailed views of the inventory and build queue tab are pretty much identical (with the icon, the description, sell/rush buy button), they can be merged (showing the item the player last selected, or the item currently under construction by default). Then, if you make the lists for the inventory and build queues slightly smaller, you can fit those two and the happiness and pollution lists all underneath each other. That will overlap the units section, but for those you could simply use smaller icons. Also, if you move the mayor section elsewhere, the large empty space next to the city view and growth/happiness bars can be put to some use. All of these things combined should leave some room for a map view.

Very rough photoshop job to show what I mean: