Graphics

[Buster's Uncle]

A thought that just struck me, pertinent to what I said about collaborating in the Miscellaneous tutorial - I estimate that I did my 100th faction graphic a long time ago.  I don't keep count, and don't have things organized enough to make counting very practical, but it was at 57 factions almost three years ago, last time I updated my Custom Factions Page, when I'd been doing it about nine months.

I don't remember doing a single custom faction since before then that wasn't somehow collaborative.  Collaborations really aren't for everyone, but it's the only way I ever do it anymore - that's how much more rewarding I find it.



An article is in the works for today, and things look like getting it done won't be a problem.  Bear with me.

[Rainbow Lizard]

So, I'm working on my next faction, a guild of psychics aptly named the Guild of Psychics. I need to find some psychic-y building's to get inspiration from, so I'm thinking one of the mage's guilds from Oblivion, but I cannot find a good viewpoint for one.

[Buster's Uncle]

Have you got the Network Node factions?  They're posted in a file in Downloads - that collection has a strong representation of psychic/magic factions.  You might find something worth lifting there, but it's a lot of factions to look through.

I TOLD sisko you would go on to make more.

[Buster's Uncle]

It's frustrating - I've had just enough forum activity and random events triggering all week to keep me from building up a head of steam on the tutorial in progress.  I did manage the get a good bit written since action on the boards calmed around suppertime, but I hit a point where I needed to go find a years-old thread to refresh my memory, and that's burned over an hour so far.  And now I'm getting sleepy fast.  Folks, I really am staying on this, but having a terrible week for getting anything that takes extended conentration done.

Soon with the next article, I promise.  I've got another three to go after the next before I feel like I've covered everything at least once.

[Kilkakon]

Haha @ Rainbow Lizard, we've both made psychic factions now. Good luck on yours! Perhaps something pyramidy might work out.

@BU Just a quick question, not a request for tutorial, but you know how you cleaned up some of the NN faction graphics, the pyramids being an obvious example, but a few others as well? Did you ever make a tutorial for that? One of the factions I would like to use from NN is one of those vectorised ones.

[Buster's Uncle]

You know a lot more about vectorised than I do.  I wish I could get you to write up what you know about how they generated the bases and wonderful diplomacy landscapes.  It might be enough to set someone on the right track to doing it themselves, and maybe even teaching us how.  This thread isn't meant to be the BU show.


I've used elements from a few NN factions, but never really cleaned one up - the bases tend to be a bit too pastel in the colors and a little too high-contrast.  In the how-to where I was working with the Vangard base, I did it wrong (and said so).  I should have LOWERED the contrast, and also raised the color saturation/darkened to do something about the pastel.

Wracking my brain to remember an awful lot of factions ago, the second I worked on was the Cannibis League, where Gaian graphics had Shaggy subtituted as leader and a pot leaf logo.  I customized the bases, turning them greener and adding some bits pinched off a battle ogre to make them into giant Gaian-base bongs.  I thought it was funny.  I tweaked the logos, and did some serious punching up of the leaderhead.  That's really it for cleaning up someone else's graphic that I remember - I also put custom bases in a few where the artist had done all but, and used Hive bases or something.

[Buster's Uncle]

-You do need to keep the sun-low-on-the-right rule in mind.  Those pyramids we both independantly reworked while we were learning needed reworking mostly because of lighting issues.  Also, again, too pastel-colored.

[Kilkakon]

Yeah that's what I meant, how to fix their colouring, not how to make them in the first place.

...bongs. XD

[Buster's Uncle]

Hey, I don't smoke the mary-hootchie, and don't even approve of smoking it, but that was a funny faction in the first place, and hippies make bongs out of everything.  The Gaian bases needed customizing, it was my second faction graphic ever, and base-bongs are hilarious.   


Tell us what you can surmise about how they made the bases anyway. 

[Kilkakon]

I'm actually not 100% sure. The landscapes were definitely done seperately to the sprite bases.

The vectors are a combination of rather basic geometric shapes, but I can't say I've ever done a base like that. I do it by hand, usually pixel by pixel.

[Buster's Uncle]

[Graphics]  My First Faction Graphic, or How I Got Started

Think I'll put that on the list for next tutorial.

[Buster's Uncle]

...Now I'm having trouble getting going on the article even when it's quiet.  My momentum has been broken...

[Buster's Uncle]

...And I peed away my chance today.  Now there's people to talk to hanging around, and I'm not gonna make it again today.  Not happy with myself...

(I note that talking to people is my whole goal/motivation/reward for being here - and also my duty now, as someone in charge.)

[Rainbow Lizard]

So, do you think it's a good idea to work on two factions at a time?

[Buster's Uncle]

I don't know why you shouldn't. 

I do think you should show/tell us more...