18-03-2001 03:32									#31
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Hi Fiera:

Glad you are interested in helping out! And thanks for putting up the horde. He looks good, and rather familiar from when I checked out your website .

There is one thing I would like to capture in the horde image if you can, to refine it a bit... At least my feeling is that it should look Undisciplined. Something kind of like an ax in one hand, and a bottle of wine in the other . I Don't mean and seriously, but if you can figure a way with the few number of pixels at your disposal to make him look like he doesn't follow orders well, I think it would be an improvement. That's since it would tie the game effect of undisciplined troops to the image.

If you are interested in signing up for the long haul, as I saw in your post in the Civ 2 creation thread, then I heartily encourage that. I will try and post soon exactly what that entails. I need to put out a "current plans" post for unit graphics anyway.

-Mark

	18-03-2001 04:36									#32
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Welcome to the project, SoulAssassin!

Your unit looks like it would be good for a trooper halfway between horde and phalanx. It looks somewhat disciplined and appears to have decent armor, but it has no shield or helmet or insisgnia that a phalanx trooper would have. It is a good graphic, and we can easily make a place for it in the tech tree and military model.

	18-03-2001 05:28									#33
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Status report on Unit Graphics

Since I'm sure there will be people coming by that are interested in helping to push the project forward, but not wanting to read many pages of forum posts, I thought I would give a unified view of where we are. I have carefully reread pretty much everything on unit graphics, and am making the following pronouncements. These aren't carved in stone. There is still some time for experimentation. But we have already tried out a bunch of things, and we have to put closure on this at some point. I'm stating things now so people have a chance to discuss the pronouncements, do some quick experiments, etc. Here's how I see it:

On the main map:

1. Each Task Force (= army = collection of units) will be represented by a single unit image that best represents the majority of combat power of the task force. Since the single image representing the task force will not give the player can immediate grasp of the combat power of the task force (TF) we will use an indicator placed around the base of the image called a Power Circle.

2. Power Circles (or Rings) are a circle shown in perspective around the base of the TF icon. The power circle has the player's color, and has an area proportional to the total military power of the TF. The maximum power circle radius for any given age will be somewhat less than the size of a tile. There will also be a minimum size for the power circle so that it doesn't look silly . You can see a demonstration of power circles in demo 4, and a somewhat cruder example on the Demo Graphics #1 web page. (The example on the web page has the offsets screwed up, we will get those right!)

3. In addition to the power circles, ownership of the task force will be represented by an alpha channel piece of color that goes on a shield, side, or other appropriate place on a unit depending on whether it represents a man like figure or combat vehicle of some sort.

Other factors:

4. There will be some sort of graphical object that performs the functions that the "TF Box" does in demo 4. The specific purpose is to show all the units in a given TF, allow for several TFs that may happen to be in the same square to be shown, and allow for rearrangement of units between TFs. I think this should show a TF as arrayed for battle if possible for eye candy value, and also show TF and individual unit military power. The exact way that we show this is TBD. In demo 4 I used relatively unobtrusive lines under the TFs and individual units to show power. The line length scaled the same as the diameter of a power circle for consistency.

5. There will be something of order 100 unit icons over the span of history. However, as much as possible we would like to find-tune the looks of the units to culture groups, or even individual cultures. I think the best thing to do in this regard is to stay flexible. We can go an enormous way in playtesting the game with only a single set of icons that span history. Ideally the main set should be done by one or a few artists to maintain thematic consistency. Certainly one artist could do all the human figures, and another all the various combat vehicles without losing unity in presentation. As artists interested in doing units become available, we could broaden out the core unit set to first cover several cultural groupings, or even individual cultures.

6. As mentioned above, we will stick to the GIF89a format for now. Eventually we must switch over to something with alpha channel support. Given modern graphics programs, I don't think migrating the existing graphics from the GIF format to whatever we select will be very difficult. But I don't have much experience in this area, so I could be wrong.


OK, we have already discussed these things a lot previously, but we have some new blood in the group who may have opinions in these areas. If anyone has Really Big issues with what I've said, please mention them as soon as possible. If you agree with the plan, and think it's basically decent, please also let me know about that .

	19-03-2001 04:51									#36
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My third post in a row, I'm sorry!

But I've been working on the Horde unit and I think I've already got something in the right direction.

Here's the link again: www.geocities.com/fiera_com/hordes.html

I hope this is closer to your expectations, but of course I can still modify it if you want.

	19-03-2001 06:07									#37
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Three-in-a-row is no problem here! Any way that gets the work done is OK.

I think its closer! I think he now looks undisciplined but not that threatening... I am artistically challenged, but my idea is maybe give him (2nd one) a shield, and it'll make him look undisciplined and yet more menacing.

	19-03-2001 08:08									#38
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I think he looks less threatening now because of the axe, one doesn't really know if he's a warrior or a woodcutter...

So maybe a better choice would be featuring him with another weapon: maybe a big and amazing hammer, or a thick club...

I say this 'cause I'm not sure whether the shield would look good for ths unit, I may give it a try anyway if you don't like the idea of changing the weapon...

	19-03-2001 18:10									#39
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Hey Fiera, sounds reasonable. I don't mean to bother you endlessly about the one figure... your idea sounds good. Perhaps you can put together a post pointing to your buildings page on your web site, and we can get people's ideas about what kind of buildings / city graphics you might be able to put together? See ya' -Mark

	20-03-2001 07:00									#41
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Well, in that case, there's more fun in store for you! At least I personally like #2 best so far. I'd like to see it with the shield if you're still taking requests

You are right that the buildings should go in a different thread. The one on map graphics is about 10 threads down from the top since I just bumped it up. That's the right place for buildings.

	20-03-2001 09:06									#43
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Perhaps it would look undisciplined and fierce if it was brandishing the axe or hammer in a two-handed grip. I like the unit in the top left of the "Edad Antigua" block on the website.

	20-03-2001 09:56									#45
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Here I am again!

I mad the axe shorter now, and I've included a long, gaulic type shield. I don't know is this exactly what you had thought of... Perhaps it looks a little confusing...

See it here: www.geocities.com/fiera_com/hordes.html
[This message has been edited by Fiera (edited March 19, 2001).]

	20-03-2001 21:51									#46
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I think the new guy is good, if you could only increase the contrast of the shield somehow. You're right that it just blends in too much... Perhaps put a border around it, or 'studs' on it to make it clear where the shield ends and the guy begins. Or give the guy some metal chest armor? As usual you have the hard part of figuring how to do it

	21-03-2001 03:16									#47
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Well, I think that making the shield border a little bit darker may be enough...

However, I didn't like very much the unit opse, so I tried a different one too, with the shield on the ground. That way the guy looks less disciplines, very much like he's resting, but still look like a warrior and not like a peasant.

Well, you see it here for yourself: www.geocities.com/fiera_com/hordes.html

	21-03-2001 03:23									#48
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Yeah! I think the last one is quite good. Lets see what the others who may stop by think.

"He, he, we already have a little Task Force... " LOL

	21-03-2001 07:57									#49
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[This message has been edited by Lord God Jinnai (edited March 20, 2001).]

	21-03-2001 08:02									#50
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Personally if you take #2, but replace the axe with the hammer from your top row, to me that would look best, but not as a horde pic. To me, every time i see him, i think of the "Jolly Green Giant" from the comerical...

IMO if you want to make a fierce undisciplined loooking tile, make the person brandishing a weapon in one hand, perhaps a shield in the other or in a first ready to punch, add blue paint and have him with just a loin cloth.

	21-03-2001 08:47									#51
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I have an idea: Why don't we use all of them?

We can have the computer select one of the images at random whenever a unit is created. They all look like the same unit, but there is some variety. I think that would be a good way to spice up the graphics, at least for the demo.

	21-03-2001 21:34									#53
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I like #7...maybe add some blue paint or something...many acient cultures painted themselves in battle because of religious reasons, usually because it would bring them power, defense, victory, etc.

As to what rich says, i think we should have 2-4 of each unit randomly generated...maybe 1 male and 1 female (for matricarcial type societies).

	22-03-2001 05:41									#54
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I like #6 and #7 about equally.

"2-4 of each randomly generated" I thought the idea was have units distinguished by culture type? I don't think we can have both 4 culture types and four different randomly-chosen figures for each, that would be like 1600 units total if we only have four basic cultural types. We need to define exactly what we want, and what's practical...

BTW Fiera, can you check in the Map Graphics thread? I left you a simple question of some importance, and I don't think you ever saw it...

Great Job!

	22-03-2001 17:14									#57
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All: (Cross-post from Map Graphics Tread Please continue this discussion there for the time being, unless you are talking only about ramifications for units )

Richard made a good suggestion, about using the base Civ2 iso graphics resolution (64x32) for Clash. And Fiera thinks its a good idea too. Please let us know what You think. (We will probably go ahead and put out demo 5 at the old resolution in any case, because I don't want to swich horses in mid-stream...) Some good points about the idea, and further discussion is below.

I agree that we could use 64x32 as the base resolution for Clash. We were looking into things like representing TF composition on the main map, which is one of the things that lead us to the larger tileset we've had up to now as the default. But although that idea would look cool, for a strategic game it really seems overkill in retrospect.

The change would potentially give us access to a vast amount of art that we could use either as placeholders, or for the real thing. I think many artists would be willing to give us permission to use their work. Mixing and matching units of different styles could certainly become an issue. Fiera, what do you think about that? It still seems on balance worth it.

So what do other people think?

	22-03-2001 23:59									#58
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Hi Fiera, you can keep playing .

Like I said, I'm not inclined to switch default resolution till after demo 5 anyway. And we should also wait for at a minimum a few more opinions from team members before making the change.

I think it would be useful for us, if its not too much work for you, to put up against each other the 120-scale units next to similar 64-pixel ones so we can compare what we're losing if we change the default size.

Thanks in Advance!

-Mark

	23-03-2001 01:31									#59
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An idea for the units:

I really liked the way that the building information was displayed in Tiberian Sun. Each building, when selected, had an isometric box drawn around it that resembled a 3-D cube. Information was displayed on the sides of this cube, so it was easily possible to display three or more power bars in an easy to read fashion. I think that something like this would be more vaersatile than a power circle, and result in less clutter on the map. It also requires a smaller tile size

I'll e-mail an example to Fiera and Mark for them to consider.
[This message has been edited by Richard Bruns (edited March 22, 2001).]

	23-03-2001 02:19									#60
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This is the text of the e-mail I sent to Fiera and Mark.

quote: Note that the colors in the picture and the ones I discuss are not meant to be final; a better graphic designer would undoubtedly choose a color scheme that looks better. Key: The orange line at the top right is the amount of movement points remaining. The red line at the bottom left is an indication of the base unit power. This would be changed by an advance in technology. The green line on the left side is the current strength/health of the unit. This changes due to battle, disease, etc. Note that the unit's current power can be quickly estimated graphically. The red and green lines form the sides of a rectangle. The area of that box is the power of the unit; the thing that was previously modeled by the power circle. The brown square that forms the base of the red and green lines is an 'epoch' marker. Brown represents stone age, bronze would represent the next age, an iron square the next, etc. The purpose of these is to enable us to show wildly differing power bars, for example hordes versus musketeers. The epoch marker multiplies the red bar by some number. For example, a brown box with a full power bar might be the same strength as a bronze box with a bar 1/4 of the maximum length. A silver box (industrial age) with a full bar would similarly be the same power as a gold box (modern age) with a bar that extends 1/4 of the way across the box. In this way, we can put the power of everything from a warrior horde to a modern army on the same scale, even though the power difference is enormous. A unit with a gold box and full bar would be 4,096 times as powerful as a unit with a brown box and a bar that covers 1/4 of the box. And if that isn't enough we can add more colors of epoch box. So what do you think?