[Shrink's] Icon Ideas

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Valeriy
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#16 Post by Valeriy »

I think, for Stabilized Hypergrowth it is better to draw raising grey line with vast oscillations, and more visible white line over it, without oscillations. It represents 'Stabilization' more clearly.

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shrinkshooter
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#17 Post by shrinkshooter »

Valeriy wrote:I think, for Stabilized Hypergrowth it is better to draw raising grey line with vast oscillations, and more visible white line over it, without oscillations. It represents 'Stabilization' more clearly.
perhaps, but that isn't the point of the tech. The tech pretty much says "sometimes in economics you have these huge growth spurts, which is good while it lasts but usually the consequences that follow it are dire. This tech makes it so that those 'painful corrections' don't happen anymore or happen very little, and allows hypergrowth the continue pretty much forever."

I have a huge problem with that, which can be seen here. Reading that post, you should understand why I didn't make an infinitely increasing line. Going off of what I suggested for the tech, and since Geoff admitted many things about the tech tree in general are going to need some changes, the icon I have pretty much fills the quotations above, minus the infinite growth part. That's why it looks like it does. The "stabilized" part is the flat line; it is no longer changing, so is stable.
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shrinkshooter
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#18 Post by shrinkshooter »

Idea for colonial economic blueprinting:

Image

And for planetary ring:

Image

Orbital factories (I know this isn't good enough but it's a start :? ):

Image

Finally,
Josh wrote: I think stabilized hyper growth is good. I think if you could put more emphasis on the hyper part of the graph, that would be nice too. You'll have to ask our local image filter, pd.
So, as per Josh's request (at least I think that's what he wanted):

Image
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The Silent One
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#19 Post by The Silent One »

Sorry Shrinkshooter, you're in for some constructive criticism here... :wink:
shrinkshooter wrote:Economic blueprinting:
Image
Put this icon in game and have a look at it. The only thing discernible is the money icon, the lines will vanish when the icon is scaled down.
shrinkshooter wrote:And for planetary ring:
Image
It is unfortunate to reuse the space elevator icon here; I assume you wanted to express that there is some relation between the planetary ring and elevator tech, however, the arrows of the elevator really do not fit the icon for planetary ring. The ring itself looks like rubber and should look more scifi.
shrinkshooter wrote:Orbital factories (I know this isn't good enough but it's a start :? ):
Image
I find the flag as representation for a colony too symbolic, the planet surface looks dull, the composition is uninteresting, there is some production floating in orbit but how are the factories represented?
shrinkshooter wrote:Image
Overall, good job, but isn't the idea of hypergrowth that the arrows keep raising in a controlled manner instead of stopping at a line?

Anyway, don't be discouraged, your help is welcome and soon you'll be a master!
If I provided any images, code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0.

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Tortanick
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#20 Post by Tortanick »

Shrinkshooter already proposed modifying hypergrowth to something closer to his icon. I don't know if there was any decission yet but to my limited economic knowledge it dose make more sense.

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shrinkshooter
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#21 Post by shrinkshooter »

Edit by Geoff: I accidentally messed up this post, and attempted to fix it, but might not have done so entirely accurately.
The Silent One wrote:Sorry Shrinkshooter, you're in for some constructive criticism here... :wink:
By all means, do not feel bad! These things have been sitting here since last saturday, and I'm quite happy that you've decided to weigh in with your opinions.

1) I don't know how to put it in game, or what the ingame dimensions are to scale it down to, but I'm glad you told me this. So should I remake this icon with the same idea, or complete rework it to something else?

2) Yeah, i figured that the ring didn't look right. Planetary ring is actually a bunch of elevators put together in a raing around a planet, and that's why I put it there. So should I remake the ring, or should I scrap the idea of having the elevator icon there? It is relevant if you check out the planetary ring tech.

3) This is the problem pd and I are having the most trouble with. We don't know how to symbolize a colony or colonization. The only thing I can think of is a flag; I suppose I could put an outpost-like structure on the surface of the planet. The icons in orbit are meant to represent orbital factories; this is the icon that shows up for construction (production icons have gears with factory smokestacks). Should I change the planet surface to be without gradient?

4) As for this one, Tortanick is correct. I've mentioned this several times to people who have looked at the icon, but it bears repeating so that people know why i made it the way I did.
shrinkshooter wrote:
Valeriy wrote:I think, for Stabilized Hypergrowth it is better to draw raising grey line with vast oscillations, and more visible white line over it, without oscillations. It represents 'Stabilization' more clearly.
perhaps, but that isn't the point of the tech. The tech pretty much says "sometimes in economics you have these huge growth spurts, which is good while it lasts but usually the consequences that follow it are dire. This tech makes it so that those 'painful corrections' don't happen anymore or happen very little, and allows hypergrowth the continue pretty much forever."

I have a huge problem with that, which can be seen here. Reading that post, you should understand why I didn't make an infinitely increasing line. Going off of what I suggested for the tech, and since Geoff admitted many things about the tech tree in general are going to need some changes, the icon I have pretty much fills the quotations above, minus the infinite growth part. That's why it looks like it does. The "stabilized" part is the flat line; it is no longer changing, so is stable.
==edit==

The quote was a little mixed up, but i fixed it.
Last edited by shrinkshooter on Fri Apr 25, 2008 12:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#22 Post by Geoff the Medio »

shrinkshooter wrote:I don't know how to put [icons] in game...
The easiest way to see what an icon looks like in-game is to replace an existing icon file with the new one. Otherwise, put the icon file in the same directory (a subdirectory in /FreeOrion/default/data/art/icons ) as existing icons, and add the icon to the tech or building in techs.txt or buildings.txt using the format used for the other techs or buildings.

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pd
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#23 Post by pd »

A flag as a symbol for a colony works very well for icons like these. It just didn't work for the ship part icons.
I agree with most of what Silent said and I'm sorry for not commenting earlier on this. I've been very busy lately, but I'll get up to speed now again.

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shrinkshooter
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#24 Post by shrinkshooter »

Thanks Geoff. :)
pd wrote:A flag as a symbol for a colony works very well for icons like these. It just didn't work for the ship part icons.
I agree with most of what Silent said and I'm sorry for not commenting earlier on this. I've been very busy lately, but I'll get up to speed now again.
No worries. I knew from your and Josh's absense that you were either too busy or wanted a break, both of which are totally fine. Although it's nice to keep things going, we don't have a deadline, so it's not a big deal. So, as I said before, I know the orbital factories is not good enough, but what should I do to make it better? I was thinking the flag was too big, or maybe just move it down to the middle of the planet. I was also thinking maybe get rid of the gradient on the planet, but that would make for a very plain icon, dry and boring, just mainly black and white with a gray flag. I suppose I could accent it with stars...
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Tortanick
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#25 Post by Tortanick »

Why not try modifying orbital construction or orbital farming (same thing really) so they use the icon from basic auto factories?

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shrinkshooter
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#26 Post by shrinkshooter »

Tried fixing the blueprint pic; you can see the lines ingame now:
Image

Also did this for self-grav structures. Put this one in game to see what it was like and looked pretty cool. Could also be used for artificial heavenly bodies instead.
Image
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Redcap
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#27 Post by Redcap »

Wow! I think that both are extremely great ;)

I don't know about the first icon, I like it; but I think self gravitating structures are perfect! Good job!

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pd
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#28 Post by pd »

I've introduced some tonal variation to add visual interest.
ImageImage

How about using some circular lines for the blueprinting icon? It's quite stiff right know. Or how about using some symbolism? You could add a compass for example.

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shrinkshooter
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#29 Post by shrinkshooter »

The blueprinting does look rather uninteresting. I'll see if I can do something with the compass idea, although I figured an actual blueprint-looking thing with the economy icon was symbolic enough.

I'm also fine with your tweaks above. If you find either of those to be satisfactory for commitment, I am okay with it.

An idea for galactic infrastructure:
Image
Why did I choose this for the icon? According to Merriam-Webster, infrastructure is "the resources (as people, buildings, or equipment) required for an activity." So I made an icon illustrating the resources required and used for galactic activity (growth and learning are not what one thinks of in terms of resources required for industrialized activity, those are moreso actions or states).

Also for planetary ring:
Image
I didn't want to make yet another stupid planet with a ring around it, like all the orbital techs have. I chose this because a planetary ring is a ring of space elevators around a planet. The ring itself could be shaded better or I could try placing several space elevator icons in the picture to illustrate that there are more than one.
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Re: [Shrink's] Icon Ideas

#30 Post by pd »

I like where those a going. I'll commit the selfgrav thing today.

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