OutpostHD Graphics

[White Claw]

If we wanted to spread the knowledge a little wider, we could maybe consider making a video of such a session.

Possibly, but there are soooo many Blender tutorial videos out there, I'm not sure what I could really add in that regard. But at least at the OP level, we could share some tips and such. I'm sure the simple act of sharing and showing will spawn questions, leading to me learning even more or gaining new insights from other's input.

[White Claw]

After my post from the other night, I thought I'd go back and try out the original palette again. Here are the results for a darker and lighter version, along side the previous one I made.

[Hooman]

Perhaps, but I suspect people here would be more interesting in learning from your specific experience, rather than some rando on the internet.


They all look good, however, the white building looks too friendly. It's too much like NASA or Star Trek. It loses some of the aspect of we're all going to die, and humanity will go extinct. I kind of like the darkness of the extinction theme.

I think I like the darkness of the helipad on the first, and the darkness and more solid color of the garage on the second.

[Vagabond]

Thanks White Claw.

So you went through and picked colors that would contrast nicely between the terrain elements and the buildings, that way the buildings would tend to stand out and look good against the background terrain? I noticed Outpost 2 picked out 3 primary colors for background terrain (I'm guessing for the same reason you are talking about).

When you talk about shading the colors in the palette you picked out, what does that mean? Changing the darkness/lightness of the color in question. Does this mean the same thing as hue?

I think the 3rd of the 3 listed RCCs is my favorite. However, they all look pretty good.

-Brett

[White Claw]

So you went through and picked colors that would contrast nicely between the terrain elements and the buildings, that way the buildings would tend to stand out and look good against the background terrain?
...
When you talk about shading the colors in the palette you picked out, what does that mean? Changing the darkness/lightness of the color in question. Does this mean the same thing as hue?

Yes, mostly. The main terrain that I've been working against is the Mars-like terrain. So that actually presents a little bit of a problem, because one of the other terrains is very gray-blue in color. So the main OP1 color scheme of blues and grays doesn't work well there. The palette was suggested as a way to optimize contrast vs. the terrain. So when I started working terrain tiles, I aimed to stay near the top of the color palette to aid in contrast.

As for the shading, since the pictures are built using 3d models, the modeling program handles shading the colors during the rendering process. The colors are lightened and darkened automatically based on how much light they are receiving (both direct and bounced lighting).

Perhaps, but I suspect people here would be more interesting in learning from your specific experience, rather than some rando on the internet.

Quite possibly. If folks are interested, I'd be happy to try and work something out. Even if it's just an "I'm curious about how it's done."

I also agree about having too light of colors. I think I mentioned somewhere else in another post that it doesn't quite feel gritty enough (living off the land and all).

[JetMech1999]

There's also a middle ground.

I like this one best.  Having the ramps line up with the lines of movement makes more sense.  Possibly upsize it so that the ramps go right to the edge of the tile.  The height looks just about right, maybe just fatten up the ship a bit to take up more tile space.

[JetMech1999]

You'll have to ask Leeor about the technical details of how he's implementing things, but no...there's nothing specifically limiting the lander to one tile on my end. I think it's more of an issue of scale. The rough scale that I've made for the new graphics is that one tile is about 80m x 80m, or about 260ft x 260ft. (It may actually be 100m x 100m, but I don't think I made it quite that big.)

So while I get what you're saying about the sheer volume of things that need to come down, part of the issue is that a multi-tile sized space ship would be incredibly huge. At that point, I think it would make sense and/or be better depicted as several landers coming down, with each lander either "converting into" or "carrying supplies for" each seed building. The other piece that I believe was discussed previously is that the lander makes use of insitu materials to produce the seed structures, and isn't necessarily bringing down all of the material directly.

All that being said, it's still a game and open to some level of creative freedom. However, I am a bit leery of making a space ship that's on the order of 750 ft diameter (assuming 3x3 tiles), as I think it would be an excessively dominant game element compared to everything else.

Thanks for the sizing information.  Given the tile sizes, I have to agree with you that multiple tiles would make that lander enormous.  I really like the idea of separate landers being converted into the seed facilities.



EDIT (leeor_net): fixed quot tag

[leeor_net]

New screenshots:

New structures look awesome! Loving the SEED structures (they operate as a temporary low efficiency power station, factory and smelter when first starting the game). Robot Command is also in there and the University looks pretty good too.

Would love to see some animations for these -- e.g., Robot Command just has that spinny thing on top and most of the other structures just have little spinny things. BUT, that's something that can be done later.

[Hooman]

I'm really really liking how the graphics are shaping up. That's quite beautiful looking.

[Goof]

Great work for these updates, even if the arrows seems odd for me.
(The separation between the body and the head of the arrow make me confused)

As all others tubes are pretty much finished, I've tried to do a sketch for the surface and underground lift.

I thought that we need 3 tunnels as :
 - A service tunnel for Air/water/Power,
 - A Big lift for building materials/engines/...
 - A small lift for the casuals trip underground/surface for the workers and supplies.

I came to that kind of design as it's approximately how the "Channel Tunnel" between France and Uk is made.
 1 small Service tunnel for emergency/maintenance
 2 big ones for trains (one each way)
And it seems safer than a single one



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel

[leeor_net]

Makes a lot of sense to me, actually. How else are those big ass robots (digger, dozer, etc.) going to get from the surface down?

I like the general idea as well. Has a sort of 'lobby area' which works well for colonists that are waiting for lifts.

[Goof]

On surface level maybe one part with a big fan for thermal exchange and pipes/cables for Air/power.
Maybe for the "smaller" lift a series of 4 or 5 squared shapes ones instead of one tube.
I'll try to update the design for the lift part.

I'm quite bad in 3D software, so I use OpenScad to build this design, as it's more simple for me to define the 3d object/scene with "code".

[leeor_net]

It's actually a good way to rapidly prototype potential visuals.

I like the idea of the turbo fan but it opens the question what would it be used for? Original thought is ventilation but on a planet with little or no atmosphere it wouldn't be venting anything. You mentioned the thermal exchange but that begs the question of what about Venus or Mercury like planets that are extremely hot?

Even if it doesn't make complete sense from an engineering standpoint it would be a very easy way to add some visual variety to the structure (e.g., the turbofan spinning would provide some very much needed movement).

I'm noticing with the new visuals and lack of animations with them the visuals are starting to look a little boring.

We could probably solve that by having some spinny bits that can be overlaid on top of any structure that could use them. Like a dish, flashing lights, that spinny bar thing from the original robot command, etc.

[Goof]

It's actually a good way to rapidly prototype potential visuals.

I agree on that.

I've tried to make the lifts cages a bit more open to gain a way to view things go up/down

[JetMech1999]

I like the three-tube concept, with the lifts on the outer two.  Possibly showing lifts moving up and down within the cages, so it's not just one big platform lift, but more like a high-rise with multiple elevators.  They're all running at different positions to show people constantly moving around.  Like you guys, I'm a little stumped about the fan.  On a planet with little or no atmosphere, the fan would still be understandable.  It's a means to dissipate excess heat.  You could also go with some form of radiators.  On hot planets, it would still make sense because you're removing the heat from the colony, not the planet.  Even on a hot planet this would still work.  Not as efficiently, but it would work.  As long as you output temperature is less than the surrounding area, you will get a cooling effect.  It's planets that have extremely high atmospheric pressure AND high temperatures that you lose.

[leeor_net]

I'm surprised I haven't responded to this yet.

I really like the idea of the cages. And I'll state again it doesn't have to make perfect sense from an engineering stand point, it just needs to be visually interesting and identifiable and I think you've achieved that.

Would like to see this refined so we can replace the original graphics for the mine shaft/air shaft.