Graphics

[Buster's Uncle]

Gentlemen, I finished Bases23 last night - I'm pacing out the releases in case I get in a mood again and stop working, and more, because of BE coming out in nine days.  I want to have plenty of SMACX goodies to catch the interest of the BE-heads in the next few months.

So I'm thinking this:

We're way past 100 bases to play with, and we really ought to put together at least one other Downloads file apiece of leaderheads, logos and diplomacy landscapes.  -Maybe go all out on the leaderheads and make them completely ready to go - processed into paintings, scanlines and all.  Newbs are SO bad at leaderheads at first.

It would be cool to get collections of all the elements together, ready for someone with nothing but elementary copy/paste skills -and at least a little good taste/visual storytelling ability- to pick and choose and patch together their own faction graphics.  Just spitballing an idea.

It would lower the initial challenge of starting out; the control panel of any high-end graphics editor is challenge enough at first.  The end result for us would be more custom factions to play with and more modders to talk shop with.  They'll come around with questions soon enough.

SO --- I'll get around to this in maybe a year, maybe two, if it's all left for me to do by myself - I got a million bases to go, for one thing.  But if everyone will contribute some stuff - I could finish up the glasses girl I was working with recently, and cool diplomacy landscape sources are easy to come by-  we could easily have enough to consolidate into a Downloads file or two -which sisko and I could use to promote this forum, BTW- in less than a month.

Are you game or are you lame?  Talk to me.  Post stuff.  Let's see what we can slap together as a group.

Any interest at all, anyone?  Non-artists can pitch in, too, with some googling and posting images that look to have potential w/ alterations made.  You'll find that diplomacy landscape fodder is especially easy to find - and painter and/or photographer sites are good places to find leaderhead source material.

I spent a lot of time and effort teaching every art modder here but Kilkakon most everything they know, so artists, consider yourself duly guilt-tripped into helping...

[gwillybj]

Apple's New Headquarters:



http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/apples-new-headquarters

[gwillybj]

Siemens Headquarters to be the First LEED Platinum Office Building in the Middle East



http://inhabitat.com/siemens-headquarters-to-be-the-first-leed-platinum-office-building-in-the-middle-east/

[Flux]

One thing I want to see is more diplomacy landscapes and potential leaderheads. Logos aren't too hard to make and bases we already have a vast selection of- so people shouldn't have a problem on that front. But finding leaderheads that are SMAC/X lore friendly is somewhat of a challenge- I somewhat lucked out with mine and even though I didn't add scanlines (which I can still do if I want, I know how to easily) I feel they are fairly cohesive with original factions.

The best leaderhead I've found is actually for my Red Unit, from a game made a few years back called Supreme Commander. Although not original, it does work to find leaderheads ripped straight from other games. And if you get it from a game not alot of people played, nobody really seems to notice.
Of course, there is shame in this. It seems photo-leaderhead is the best way to get original and good looking leaderheads. But this is something not many have mastered, and before I came here I couldn't do anything like that, so I'm still in the dark.
Most bases are taken from other games, or pictures/drawing that are from the right perspective. I would imagine drawing one from scratch would be possible, but I wont do that unless I feel it is completely neccesary. Even if you lack the ability to search google or edit images at all, we have a bunch of base packs from BUncle already anyway.
If you need a landscape, type in "sci-fi painting" and you get some decent ones from that. A picture of Coruscant from Star Wars or anything to that effect works marvelously. When it comes to writing, as long as you have some talent it shouldn't be that difficult, although I don't. And I've gotten help on my better factions.
So it seems the hardest part likely is the leaderhead, although normally I just take an interesting picture and build a lore around that. The Red Unit leaderhead was a cyborg-girl with implants and red glowing vein-like things running from it.
That seems to be all the parts of faction-making. Don't judge this, as it's rather late and I'm barely thinking about what I write. Thats just my random gibberish on making factions.

[JarlWolf]

Your input is interesting, don't downplay it. And quite frankly I've done similar things as well; or find obscure characters from other fictions or games... Richard Warrick is an unused Starcraft 2 Battlecruiser picture, my picture/ Vazheli Vatzev was a rather ambigious artist, I forget the name of, Sepsu is Nappa done realistically from Dragon Ball Z, Portia was a random image search, and Mraxis is a picture of a dwarf of some sorts.

Mind, bases, even leaderheads, and often symbols have been made from scratch before. I believe Dio actually accomplished this for his alternative takes on original factions (which I suggest you try, its quite interesting in how it changes the factions up.)

[Kilkakon]

Yeah I made my faction logos also.

[Buster's Uncle]

I've manufactured a few bases and logos from scratch, and at least made a lot of leaderheads and a few diplomacy landscapes from photos.

Tonight, I made this:



Into this:

[Geo]

Do we have ourselfes  a new talent here?

[Buster's Uncle]

Naw, I been doing this for years.

I created a template for putting them in, and I processed the last lady I was working on, and dropped her in, too.

Six to go...

[Buster's Uncle]

Apple's New Headquarters:



http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/apples-new-headquarters

Siemens Headquarters to be the First LEED Platinum Office Building in the Middle East



http://inhabitat.com/siemens-headquarters-to-be-the-first-leed-platinum-office-building-in-the-middle-east/

Do we have ourselfes  a new talent here?

BTW, if you were following my conversation with Kil, that's supposed to be Lindly, of course - but she's whoever whomever ends up using her in a faction says, of course.


Folks, it was pledge week at my classical music station last week - find me some painted headshots that are easy to leaderhead up, so I don't have to bore you with begging and guilt-tripping.  Stuff from other games, like Flux said, or whatever.  Science fictiony painted headshots.  I'll credit contributors, naturally.

I was on this 5 1/2 hours past my bedtime last night, and my head is splitting today.  Won't you please help?

[Buster's Uncle]

Your handle could be in here, immortalized among future modders...

[Buster's Uncle]

?

[Buster's Uncle]

Click to embiggen.  I had to reduce the quality of the .gif to get it small enough to to load, but this is the gist.

[Buster's Uncle]

Is anyone gonna get in on this action?

[JarlWolf]

I really like some of these... im almost tempted to take these on and make a faction out of them, but im putting all my resources towards the AAR at present.