Art Goals -- Release 28

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Alpha 27 is near and it's time to start thinking about the art goals we'd like to hit for Release 28, which is a release we hope will make a big splash. 

 

Finish the Cimbri faction (early Germans)

• New Market model
• Make the building models looked more "lived in" with props such as vines, etc.
• Commission an artist to create portraits for the Heroes, roughly in line with the portraits of other heroes already in the game.
• A new Wonder model.
• What else?

Create Ramming animations for Ramming Ships

• Essentially just need to "reverse" the walking animation for a few cycles, then go forward again. 
• Can this be done programmicly or will it actually require new dae animations?
• There are several Ramming Ship models in-game.
• Add a "dust" or "debris" particle upon collision?

Terrains & Biomes

• Fill out the "Italy" terrains more
• Fill out the "Steppe" terrains more
• China biome?
• Need to replace the chief hunting source on Steppe maps (horses) and expand our Asian animal list a bit
  • Saiga
  • Mongolian Gazelle
  • Goitered Gazelle
  • Wild Ass / Onager
  • Bactrian Camel
  • Yak
  • Przewalski's Horse

Persian Wonder

• Apadana of Darius

 

Perhaps a few more "Wonders of the World" to go in conjunction with a new "Capture the Wonder" game mode?

• Re-top Athena Parthenos model from DE to reduce number of triangles by half for inclusion in the game.

 

Battering Ram models

• Chinese
• Kushites
• Carthaginians

 

Add garrison flags to all Ship models

 

Hero Portraits

• Find someone to remake all our hero portraits at a higher and consistent quality?

 

More Statues, Shrines, Artifacts, Eyecandy

• Would like to introduce the concept of Cultural Artifacts to skirmish maps in main game.
• More Shrines, at least one for each civ in the game.
  • Greeks and Persians are already covered.
• Statues and other similar eyecandy objects for all the cultures in the game, not just Greeks and Romans, although more Greco-Roman stuff would be nice too.

 

 

[Grautvornix]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone thanks a lot for this comprehensive list!

If I may add, there should be a way that penalizes farms productivity if placed in a desert environment (biome). This would be a similar map handicap like other sparse resources (few trees, not much stone etc.)

Does that exist at all? (at least i did not notice in the past releases). This is particularly striking if you want to grow rice in the desert (I know it is a game and gameplay has to be well balanced against too much realism).

On the contrary I would like to propose availability of a "fertility aura" around oasis in such new maps if generated in the future, selectable by the map author. Do you believe this could be a feature for future map making? Such aura could also be connected to all water bodies as far as the map designer is using it.

For this to work, this type of aura certainly needs to be recognised by the game.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

@wowgetoffyourcellphone thanks a lot for this comprehensive list!

If I may add, there should be a way that penalizes farms productivity if placed in a desert environment (biome). This would be a similar map handicap like other sparse resources (few trees, not much stone etc.)

Does that exist at all? (at least i did not notice in the past releases). This is particularly striking if you want to grow rice in the desert (I know it is a game and gameplay has to be well balanced against too much realism).

On the contrary I would like to propose availability of a "fertility aura" around oasis in such new maps if generated in the future, selectable by the map author. Do you believe this could be a feature for future map making? Such aura could also be connected to all water bodies as far as the map designer is using it.

For this to work, this type of aura certainly needs to be recognised by the game.

Need a way to illustrate this to the player. This should be an art-based thread, so how would you do it visually for the player?

[Grautvornix]

You are right - apologies for misplacing the proposal in the wrong thread! An also, before we add the visualization of such aura we need to implement the feature in the game mechanics.

Just a few more words on the visualization concept: Obviously, this cannot be an "aura marker" like for the temple or towers as the terrain is not a selectable unit. For me it would appear most intuitive if I place the fields in a greener area in the desert, e.g. around an oasis, and not onto pure sand or rock area (same for paved areas around CC and roads of course - or is there a penalty already?).

I am aware that we do have already the prepared farmland terrain feature (looking great and inviting to build a farm) on non-desert maps. On desert maps, this might look strange if an oasis would be surrounded by prepared farmland with trees on it. Could we possibly visualize good farmland by slightly darker sand with a bit of green? I mean basically, the area surrounding the oasis itself should be suitable up to a certain distance.

In addition we would then also need kind of a tooltip for such things (could be part of the tips & tricks page by @Vanthaand @ShadowOfHassen.

[Radiotraining]

I think the best way would be to "teach" the player about the different areas as a general feature in the game. So when you placea new farm you'll have different shades of green depending on the area and how much 'productive' it would be: a bright green for good areas (maybe green biomes or near a farmstead) and a desaturated value the farther you go. At that point, is already clear that a desaturated green when you build means: "not much productive" 

[zozio32]

52 minutes ago, Radiotraining said:

I think the best way would be to "teach" the player about the different areas as a general feature in the game. So when you placea new farm you'll have different shades of green depending on the area and how much 'productive' it would be: a bright green for good areas (maybe green biomes or near a farmstead) and a desaturated value the farther you go. At that point, is already clear that a desaturated green when you build means: "not much productive" 

that's should be a nice way to do it.   However, it should come with the possibility to test the area before. I explain myself:  if we have that feature, in some biomes, it may guide where to expand your civ.  So the game needs to tell you which terrain is better. With the color system you're describing, that will work on terrain within your borders, but not out as you cannot build on them (it will be greyed out).   So we just need to visualisation of the field color to be possible out of one border, so we could "test" the terrain

[Grautvornix]

Right and it certainly will follow a different colouring scheme in desert/mountain/snow biomes...

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I'd do it by either lighting up the terrain with an overlay when you have a field selected to place or light up the field itself (like how it turns red if you have an obstruction in the way). Lighting up the terrain might be more useful, but break immersion more than lighting up the field itself, so I'd opt for lighting up the Field preview as you wave it around. Red overlay for obstructed (as is currently), hi viz yellow on unproductive land, and bright green overlay for productive land. To have gradations is to add unnecessary complexity, IMHO, as this is still a RTS game where players have a limited amount of APM in their brain banks. Different, of course, with a city builder or a turn based game. 

 

As far as the art listed in the top post, if some of you would like to open the individual task threads (if they don't have one already), that would be very helpful, then I can use the OP as a meta post and link to all of the task threads. Don't worry about "getting it right," as a moderator and I edit your post if need-be. 

Once we have nice task threads with information and references, etc. I can open Issue tickets on Gitea.  

[Obskiuras]

About the Cimbri faction: what specifications do you have for the design of the new market? I want to start right now.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@Obskiuras Currently, it looks very similar to the siege workshop, and I think its a bit too large.

The A-frame style is good, so it could be reduced to one roofed structure with stalls, wagons etc around it.

This was my idea:

@wowgetoffyourcellphone came up with this mock-up:

Experiment with some if you have time, im sure there's plenty of approaches that would look nice.

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

@Obskiuras