Production & Commercial

[White Claw]

Here's the first draft of the above ground factory.

I might need to shrink this down a bit. I think, per scale, it's pretty huge.

[leeor_net]

Digging the new factory!

[Hooman]

I kind of like that's it's a bit bigger than other structures. It feels like a factory should be big.

[White Claw]

After sleeping on it, I agree. Looking at the scale as compared to the construction vehicles, I think it makes sense. There needs to be enough space for all the machines and workers to stamp out the parts and assemble a bulldozer.

[leeor_net]

Or truck or whatever else.

Plus the assembly line and production equipment needs to be able to be stored in different areas to allow for reconfiguring for different products.

What you have is very industrial looking, I really do love it.

[White Claw]

Here's the underground commercial facility (seemed semi-fitting under production). I liked both of these versions, so I included them here for feedback. I think I like the "B" version slightly better, but they both came out nicely.

[Hooman]

Ohh, another game of spot the difference! 

The tubes and lights on them, and the window supports such as the angle on the big one and the width of the small ones. The dimples on the circle part of the roof also look more defined, though I can't tell if that's a structural difference, or just a difference in the lighting.

That's a fun looking structure.

[White Claw]

...the big one and the width of the small ones.

They're actually the same size. There are two illusions at play: 1) I included an extra set of windows; & 2) it's orthographic projection, which causes the ones further back causing them to appear larger relative to the foreground ones.

The dimples on the circle part of the roof also look more defined, though I can't tell if that's a structural difference, or just a difference in the lighting.

No structural difference. However, the building itself moved slightly. So the geometry lines up slightly differently with the graphic's pixels.

[leeor_net]

Oooh, we're getting down to sub-pixel rendering now.

Definitely liking the second one better. I like the extra windows and that tube thingy in the back. More storage area, more whatever area. Wow I can't articulate anything lately, I must be really tired. -_-

Anyway, def digging the new look.

[White Claw]

First draft of the underground factory. This one includes toned down terrain shadows, as was discussed for the underground park.

[JetMech1999]

I've really got to get rid of my desire to see clean-sheet designs.  Overall, it looks pretty good.  I like the lights/windows in the towers.  One question, why do nearly all of the UG structures have the "button" on top of the cylindrical components?  And no offense, but it kind of looks like it has weeds growing on top of it.

[White Claw]

I've really got to get rid of my desire to see clean-sheet designs.

I'm not creative enough to make this many buildings from a clean-sheet design. If someone's able to offer up some concept art, I'm all ears (or eyes, or whatever...).

One question, why do nearly all of the UG structures have the "button" on top of the cylindrical components?

The only two buildings that have this sort of button are the commercial and factory. Many have some sort of shape at the top of the dome, so maybe that's what you mean? Many of the underground buildings are rounded or domes, which tend to look fairly plain if they don't have something on the top center (such as the science lab, which has a fairly blank center on the dome).

And no offense, but it kind of looks like it has weeds growing on top of it.

No offence taken, but I'm not entirely sure what you mean...?

[White Claw]

Okay...Here's the UG factory without any color adjustment, and more white-ish windows. I've also included what I would consider the "existing" yellow windows (with unsaturated colors). If that makes any sense...

[leeor_net]

The so-called button things are present on the original structures from OUTPOST. They make sense in a couple of senses -- they help to provide additional detail so things aren't so mundane and structurally I could see these as similar to building 'tie rods' for lack of a better term (I'm not an architect...  ).

Like in the attached image, you have the center point where all of the structural struts come together. The 'button' acts as a sort of 'cap' to provide a pleasant aesthetic finish and could even house some sort of machine room type of deal (though in this case probably something like regulatory computers).

Basically, it works for me.

[White Claw]

In one of the pictures Leeor posted, I noticed the commercial building looked out of scale compared to everything else. After some discussion with Leeor, here are some adjustments. (Along with the previous for comparison.)

[JetMech1999]

White Claw, in UG factory 01A, the intensity of the green with the brown is where I get the "weed" impression.  I noticed on your next versions, the coloration is toned down and looks really good.  Both lighting types look good to me.  It's possible the whiter color might seem stark in comparison with the yellow lighting effects.  And in regard to my comments about clean-sheet designs, I'm just voicing my irrational need to see everything new.  I think what you're putting out is great.  The surface factory is fantastic as are the redesigns of the existing buildings.  The Park is amazing, too.

Leeor, I get what you're saying about the dome structures.  Supports have to meet somewhere, right?  I have to remember that there is also a certain design type when you start looking at extra-terrestrial constructs.  Low atmospheric pressures, increased ionizing radiation, and other hazards kind of dictate how things will look.  Makes sense to make the structures address some of those items.

[Goof]

Great work on these amazing structures.

For the colors, as a factory they need some pipes to get hot/cold water, pressurized air, Coolant, electricity, ...
A good way to know what is in each "pipeline", is to sort them by color.
Like in some actual data-centers

(a Google one for air conditioning)


(A Online one near Paris for electric purpose)
Color is used externally and internally to indicate witch generator line is connected to the equipments inside.

[leeor_net]

Goof! You live!

I like the idea of color coding feeder/return lines like that. It makes a lot of sense. I think the only potential issue is that this sort of color coding would be done on the interior of the structure. Externally is a hostile environment -- they probably wouldn't care what the color is, it would use a corrosion/thermal resistant coating. One of the research topics I proposed was plasma spray technique to improve environmental resistance and reduce maintenance upkeep (a little in-depth me thinks for this topic but it's effectively related).

My biggest concern is related to visuals -- basically providing a good aesthetic look as well as reasonably good contrast to have details 'pop' while also preventing 'muddling' of colors where everything sort of starts to look samey.

White Claw and I talked about it a bit on IRC in terms of exterior lighting colors and having different related 'industries' have similar exterior color coding. E.g., health is blue, research is white, energy is red, etc. I think the idea was to have industrial/production be green. Perhaps a lighter green would alleviate some of this? Brighter color with less saturation perhaps?

[Hooman]

Hmm, interesting concerning the colors. Seems like a simple an effective way of keeping track of things. And those colors look very much like Google. They've built their logo into their data centers.

[leeor_net]

To continue my thought on the color saturation, the image linked to above -- the blue circled green tones is what we're currently at versus the red green tones which is what I'm suggesting -- slightly cooler with a bit less saturation and higher brightness.

[White Claw]

Fellas...I 100% agree about the overly-green issue. The crux of the matter was that I was trying to saturate the colors some to make all the structures pop a bit more (originally started due to the park). I really missed the mark on that one, and the feedback is taken. Where I mainly failed is that I was trying to unify all of the colors. However, in the case of the park, the internals are organic. The (hopefully) obvious difference being that all the other buildings are non-organic (aside from the agridome, which needs a second pass). So, in retrospect, it makes more sense for me to create a new material instead of trying to shoehorn the non-organic colors to fit the park's color scheme.

To one of Leeor's comments, the coloration he's referring to was for the lighting (not general coloration). There's a general lighting scheme that I was aiming for as part of the overall design, though my intent was for it to be relatively subtle.