Graphics

[Buster's Uncle]

My whole family are artists.  Any specific things that impressed you? 

I caught on all the previously-done how-tos last night.  I'm planning another leaderhead one for today - show a few steps on the early leaderhead I did that made me realize that I really was good, and one that I'm proud of that was, artistically, fun.

[NewAgeOfPower]

Dedication. The amount of time and detail to attention required is very high, and probably frustrating to learn.

Individual pixel-by-pixel editing grinds on my nerves, but is clearly necessary for some work.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yes, all true.  It takes a high frustration threshold (which I absolutely do not have) an extremely pedantic nature (which I do, but happily can usually turn on and off at need) and a dedication to the art/task (and when i feel like creating, I do derive a lot of pleasure from looking upon my works and finding them good.)

...

Folks, I had a high-priority random event trigger early today, and I've been way behind schedule since, so if I don't manage today's tutorial today, I'm sorry, but I tried and no refunds.

[JarlWolf]

Went here on your recommendation.

I do have an image for my faction leader ( I did not create this image, I merely edited it at most.)

Though, I do plan to create my own faction insignia etc. the Crimson Comrades aren't exactly Soviet, which was a more autocratic form of socialism then actual communism. I will be working on such an insignia following the guidelines I read about, and it won't be too complex and 2 dimensional in design.

As for the picture of said leader, here he is.



Vazheli Vatzev, First among the Community of the Crimson Comrades. A leader who I will summarize for you:
Stubborn in his belief of the system, though he is not dogmatic and he is compromising and reasonable to others opinions and suggestions. Acts in a Fatherly, empathetic manner, as he gets to know his fellows. And while he is stern and he keeps objectives focused, he acts rather casual and he believes communities should act in autonomy rather then be constantly directed by a central power. He is effectively decentralist and believes in independence and autonomy, with a sort of communal confederacy enabling cohesion and progress, a way of life and belief in the ideals and overall sense of consensus in that aspect.

While he is a very tolerable man who is resourceful, his stubbornness and his temper can get the better of him, and he is also very blunt. He is an honest man and values the integrity and loyalty of people, and he generally despises people who do betray or break their promises. He can be brash at times in his mannerism, and he has been known to be crude and lack professionalism in diplomacy, though this does not mean that he is arrogant or stupid. In other word's, he can negotiate but he's not exactly one for diplomatic red tape and courtesies, he cuts straight to the point and does not waste time.


I'd like your opinions on the character. In technical issues, my game has encountered a odd glitch where Face Edit has gone black and is therefore rendered unusable, and I did make a old template prior, though I had problems with incorporation. I'll provide the necessary resources and lines the character would say in the needed format.
I'll post more material for anyone who wants to take this project up and assist me. I will in turn repay that kindness by providing a my own time to help produce art for people to use in their factions. (though I won't be able to help format/introduce it, it will just be there as an image you can use or give to someone to help.)

[NewAgeOfPower]

I must say, he does give off the image of a Grizzled Veteran.

I can turn this into a faction Portrait for you immediately, scanlines and all, or you can wait for BU to spice it up and tune the coloring schema.

[JarlWolf]

Possibly, though I need the full on faction template for use in game. For some reason face edit doesn't seem to work and I can't properly see all of it. I reinstalled the game a while ago, and for whatever reason Face Edit is buggy. 

As for answering your question though, sure, I'd like to see how it'd look with the closeups and such, though I will need more extensive work with actually implementing it within a faction file, of which i'd download and implement in game.

[Buster's Uncle]

[ninja'd]I find it empowers people more when I make them do it themselves.  I have had good results with this approach with my mother and tech for many years, which she acknowledges, even though she always wishes I'd just program the VCR for her.

Now someone who just has no interest in the art end, I don't mind hooking up, but for the rest it's teach a man to fish.


Jarl, that's strong leaderhead source material - you want to be very careful to ameliorate the fierceness of the First's face with making it clear how eagalitarian he is in various places in the .txt.  I like your line of thought; one so rarely encounters someone who understands true communist worker brotherhood.  (I've surely led you to think I'm a communist today, when I think communism is foolish - but get the right population together, one that really gets what communism is about under honest leadership that does, too, then you've got a whole 'nother ballgame - you just have to start over on another planet to even begin to make that work. Lenin poisoned the well for everyone who's followed, except Pol Pot, who screwed up even worse.)

Facedit sucks.  Now you have found this for yourself.  Good.

[NewAgeOfPower]

BU will walk you through, now that he's arrived.

I use FacEd to create a TXT, which I have to spend ~10 minutes manually editing. Yeah, its buggy and weird, but sometimes so is SMAC.

[JarlWolf]

I understand. Though, the Crimson Comrades, while equal, it takes a tough man to be able endure the process of leadership, and in the storyline I devised for Vazheli, he had a rough life both in his past, and it got even more rough for him and his comrades. He is fierce because his fellows are fierce. They are a community, but they are a community of rugged men and women. Which makes sense due to the hostile environment and the overall society itself.

As for my own personal ideals, I am a communist, and I have stood by the ideal for many years and have served on it's behalf as best I could, though I am too old to be gallivanting about preaching, supporting or taking action in the name of it these days, and when it comes down to it Communism is more then a socio/economic system, its a whole way of perception and way of life. And one that is hard for many people in the modern world to embrace, which is understandable.

You use gimp to edit the photo's and such, but what sort of files, or templates do I use to insert the actual pictures to the faction?
I did see the transparent purple images and I knew that you had to fit it into boundaries, but im unsure of the whole process as in terms of digital, technological grasp I am under educated.

[NewAgeOfPower]

BU should make a Youtube video on how to edit faction pcx files.

[Buster's Uncle]

No he shouldn't.

Jarl, do you have GIMP?  If so, open any faction file - one of the Firaxis official ones, maybe.  Have a look at that, and many of your questions will be answered.

If no GIMP, google it - it,s free and easy to find.  I downloaded and installed for my elderly mother Saturday in around 20-25 minutes.



Marx's fundamental failure was that the system he outlined has to have a new kind of human being to work -one who's less selfish- and less bad apples turning up in the human bunch. 

He also failed to recoginize that his revolutionary philsophy/system had the same weakness most revolutionary movements do - there is violence in revolution, and a gang of bloody-handed killers usually end up in charge.  Revolutionaries from the French Revolution, pre communist, but very much of the same spirit, to Lenin and his terrible successors, to Castro, to Pol Pot have all betrayed the potential of what they started by being unable to stop killing once in charge.  It ruins everything.  Lenin ruined everything.

[JarlWolf]

I am downloading Gimp, and will experiment for a bit to get the hang of it.

As for the flaws of communism, that's also part of the ideal. While you do point out that human nature degrades it, and that you place much of the blame upon the extremist factions that have undertaken and corrupted it, the very system itself within the manifesto, within the original works stated that for the system to really undergo change and proceed to a communist state,that a revolution must occur. A revolution within a materialistic society that exploits labour and seeks to profit off of that labour, prime example, capitalism. It also would later become the enemy of Fascism due to its inherited egalitarian natures and measure for equality.

To fully support the ideal though, you must not only be aware of it's inherit flaws, but also be embracing of them. We as a species are flawed. And Communism in it's purest form is simply impossible for us to carry out in current conditions, and hard to undertake in any situation anyways. Its a system that is so unstable in it's transition that achieving it is not only risky, but improbable. But if it is achieved, quite possibly the most benevolent and progressive society can form out of it. And it has happened in even Earth's violent history.


As for the leaders Lenin, Castro and others, they were fully aware they had corrupted socialism to meet their own methods of rule. You must also remember though that the original Manifesto Marx and Engels had laid out did not specify precisely how a revolution was supposed to happen. This was good for future revolutionaries as it allowed flexibility to the local conditions of said revolutionaries. Lenin may have twisted the ideal to his own ends, and indeed he did, but he did ensure that his faction consolidate its power and he did sought to end the political instability plaguing his nation. Later Stalin took control and his regime saw less of a communist state or even socialist to more of a autocracy, where lots of the high officers in the government and army were liquidated for security reasons.

I am not going to speak of my background much or where I come from, nor do I honestly want people knowing of my past life, but let me tell you something. While these men were no where near perfect, and in fact men like Stalin were highly paranoid, superstitious and quite the megalomaniac, they did haul their nations from a considerable degree of backwardness. It's just their methods were brutal.

Castro inherited a nation from the Batista regime, and there was a slew of problems plaguing the nation. I actually respect Castro more then most of the Socialist icon leaders because he took a horrendous situation, where exiled Batista's plotted his overthrow, where he had to take the whole system of infrastructure, education and industry from the ground up and build it, and not only that, but avoid American influence and control upon his nation.

His method's were controversial, but he did indeed take his nation from a horribly, under developed plantation economy to somewhat at least with marginal industry, low to little malnutrition (Cuba is officially the only Latin American nation with no malnutrition, according the reports from the United Nations.) and with free healthcare. Beforehand people were horribly exploited and American business monopolized and crushed opposition within the local economy to keep control of it's market.

Fidel changes all this when he took power, and over the course of the following decades he brought a system from essentially nothing and made considerable advancement. His biggest criteria, that of the Cuban missile crisis and the potential horrors of Nuclear war associated with it, was a forced hand on him in my opinion. He was forced to receive the Soviet Union's military support to keep the United States from continuing to harass and extract the newly formed government out. Of which the American Central Intelligence Agency and it's associates, had done against leaders who were freely elected, let alone who led popular coups, such as in Guatemala, Congo, and Columbia. He showed that he was ready to take rather extreme steps but steps none the less, to secure his nation against  foreign threat, even if it meant polarizing his political allegiances in order to secure that.


That rant over, it seems I had went off topic. I plan to investigate GIMP as suggested, and I think it'll be a vast improvement upon the silly program I have right now.
Thank you for your information. I'll report back to you when I make progress or have further questions.

[Buster's Uncle]

We're on the same page about all the commie stuff.  I hesitated to include Castro on that list, actually, as he was MUCH less of a bloody-minded killer than the others, and never a commited comunist until it was pretty much forced on him.  The US bungled the situation with Cuba  pretty badly, as we have some sick tradition of doing in Latin America, for some reason.  That crap's gotta stop - the spooks are doing the US a lot of harm overthrowing democracies and smearing our national reputation abroad.

I could split the political OT into its own thread in our OTf, Recreation Commons, if you like, but it's not really OT here - it relates to the creative thought behind your faction, and despite the name, this thread is for the entire creative end of modding SMAC(X), not just the art.

[JarlWolf]

I'm fine either way, and from what I encountered so far on this forum is that it's full of rather open minded, intelligent people. AN I've seen the opposite in forums. I don't often speak much on most forums I join, mainly family or the few friends I make gaming on here introduce me to them to keep communication up, but I think I might become a little more involved in this community. It seems to be of better standards then what im used to.

As for reports, so far im liking the program. I think I'll design my own buildings and do most of the broad work in relations to images, though I will need assistance later on for hooking it up precisely with the actual faction.
When I have more material, I will post some shots of my progress so you can see the product, and then give your pointers from there.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay, great to hear - sounds like a good plan.