Color Theory and Game Textures

[Yves]

I also agree that it's hard to spot some objects in 0 A.D. sometimes. On the example image with the modified terrain texture, the improvement in that regard is clearly visible. However, I also agree with others that the modified texture looks less realistic and quite boring. How would you achieve more clearly visible units and objects without loosing visual quality? Can you show that in an example?

I'm not an artist and it's a pity that none of our artists (team members) has been able to comment yet (they are away more or less at the moment).

[Giotto]

Kicking_bird: I like it. I can see where your coming from, though I would still say some textures look fine. The desert,duct,rock,sand ones are generally very nice in contrast but I would agree that the grass needs a change. Like you guys say it needs work. Be warned of making the textures too noiseless though it can result in cartoonish looks.

[Stan`]

I can help but I need you opinions

[historic_bruno]

Terrain materials do work, here's an example modded pure "white" texture with normal and specular mapping added (to make the effect obvious):

Without more details, I don't know what you were trying that failed. You need fancy graphics options enabled to see it and the terrain in question needs to reference an appropriate material and define textures. Here's the modified terrain XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <terrain> <textures><texture name="baseTex" file="types/whiteness.dds"/>  <texture name="normTex" file="types/alpine_cliff_a_norm.png"/><texture name="specTex" file="types/alpine_cliff_a_spec.png"/></textures><material>terrain_norm_spec.xml</material> </terrain>

[Micket]

The textures aren't the way they are today because everyone thinks they are the best thing ever, they are this way because noone has made a nicer texture yet.

I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm certainly an amatuer. A lot of the textures come from photos and such. The highlights aren't painted, they just happened to be in the reference material, and gets copied over to the diffuse map. A matter of people not being to put in industry quality work (for free, on evenings and weekends).

Also, you posted your first topic just a few days ago. People haven't ignored what you've said, there just haven't been time to reply.

Honestly, I don't know what to say, because I already agree with all your critique. I'm not very good at texturing though, so I can't do much about that situation.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Hey Licking_bird! How about you take my advice in your other thread and actually make some textures and a mod folder to show people what can be achieve? If you don't do that, then you just sound like a jerk. I sound like a jerk a lot but at least I am active in trying to mod the game and give alternative. What have you done excep make asss of yourself?

This here is very bad example if you want people follow your lead. The texture you made is atrocious and bland like Stalin's living room carpet. At least the texture you criticisze has character. This game is not The Sims. The problem in the game's texture is too much contrast. Yours is blur like snot.

Edited March 11, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Stan`]

Can everybody chill out ? Making this a flame war is not going to help, at worst we will make a good artist, might is opinions be a bit too clear, leave. And that's not what we want.

@wow I bet licking_bird is a typo ?

So lets make it constructive. Please.

I submitted four textures.

Let's take everybody advice into account (not flat, no big noise, not too light) and make something good.

Edited March 11, 2015 by stanislas69

[Lion.Kanzen]

Great Stan , make the things is the best to help this project not only say what is wrong, obviusly unless you can't do it.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I am chill as cucumber. Licking_bird just need to back up words (complain about art) with action (do something to improve situation).

Much of capability still not utilized. I made this by just messing around in Atlas maps editor (and adjusted some terrain texture and XML). As you see the new unit models will do nice to help visualization. Edit terrain textures and make use of engine to potential. Stan, your textures are too blurry. Here, I think would be good for LOD system, when zoom out swap to lower res, less detail texture to remove noise. When zoom in you see high detail, high contrast. I know game use mipmaps but for terrains they seem to add noise or aren't very good.

Edited March 11, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Here is quick mod I make tonight.

http://www.filedropper.com/terrestrium

It include 5 edited alpine grass texture and new XMLs and a couple of material. Include also is map for that screenshot. Mod is called Terrestrium in mod select.

Edited March 11, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Giotto]

As far as I can tell the right balance is getting the texture to look similar all around but also needs to have minut differences. Sorry about the crappy explanation I'll try to give an example. As a texture you don't want it to have strong colors in one area and not in another as when placed in mass on a map creates zigzags and unnatural patterns. However the texture shouldn't look like randomly coloured static. This makes it too artificial and doesn't add to the verisimilitude of the game (thought I'd chuck that word in somewhere for kicks). Somehow grass at the moment I feel fails in both aspects. It looks like rough sandpaper/static that has been coloured in yet also looks unnatural in large quantitys. BTW guys, as Stan said its much more productive if we don't argue, so try offer constructive criticism. I think we can all agree something should be changed.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Giotto

[Giotto]

Oh and Stan I think your textures are good but still feel a little too full, im not a prof artist though. I quite like that texture above wowgetoffyourcellphone. Putting how the texture looks in relation to other textures and the previous texture would help a lot. I realise what I'm saying prob sounds completely stupid to you artists out there XD

Edited March 11, 2015 by Giotto

[Kicking_Bird]

Okay so what do you think of those A ) B ) C ) D )

A, B and D are good, the rest you don't need, just reduce the saturation a little bit and they will be as good as age of mythologies terrain.

Indeed I have no idea what you are trying to say with this post except perhaps "this game is ugly and you guys suck" which I am quite certain is not constructive.

Finally:

"You are a programmer and I am quite certain you did not read the post at all."

This will be your one and only warning: please refrain from further comments of that kind.

What the hell is this supposed to mean? You are threatening me? For what and with what. I have no problem in leaving, in fact I have much more important things to do, I'm here on my own darn time

I tried to point out a flaw that no one has noticed in 10 years and make the game better - which is something you all want. If something has gone under the radar for so long there is nothing wrong with being a little aggressive and assertive about it. It's regular work ethics. It works as it seems and you are all beginning to realize what I'm talking about. And that wasn't an offensive comment, you are a programmer and programmers usually are paid and work in code and don't usually have an artistic mind or conscious about graphics or design choices. I don't know why you giving me threats lmao.

I actually find that terribly hard on the eyes (not to mention ugly) ^

^ This right here is proof, you called AOEO ugly... its not ugly. Nothing is ugly about it. Its all very, very pleasant. What it does have, is way to much character in units units buildings and UI. Its over-characterized.

0ad in contrast has almost no character, and little consideration for unit and building silhouettes because if you make a game based solely on history it will be somewhat boring, like history is. And you cant recreate epic battles of history like TW series does just yet.

Terrain materials do work, here's an example modded pure "white" texture with normal and specular mapping added (to make the effect obvious):

You are never supposed to use "pure white" in game, which explains why a lot of you textures are over exposed and had color grading in them. You are supposed to use grey or a toned down white. AOE3 has lighting helpers.

Also notice how SNOW looks like SNOW. The stone and sand textures in 0ad look like snow, if you remove the texture because the values are the exact same as snow just with different hues.

The textures aren't the way they are today because everyone thinks they are the best thing ever, they are this way because no one has made a nicer texture yet.

I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm certainly an amatuer. A lot of the textures come from photos and such. The highlights aren't painted, they just happened to be in the reference material, and gets copied over to the diffuse map. A matter of people not being to put in industry quality work (for free, on evenings and weekends).

Also, you posted your first topic just a few days ago. People haven't ignored what you've said, there just haven't been time to reply.

Honestly, I don't know what to say, because I already agree with all your critique. I'm not very good at texturing though, so I can't do much about that situation.

I'll start creating new textures over the weekend, my break just ended and I have class in 3 hours and lots of @#$% to get done.

Hey Licking_bird! How about you take my advice in your other thread and actually make some textures and a mod folder to show people what can be achieve? If you don't do that, then you just sound like a jerk. I sound like a jerk a lot but at least I am active in trying to mod the game and give alternative. What have you done excep make asss of yourself?

This here is very bad example if you want people follow your lead. The texture you made is atrocious and bland like Stalin's living room carpet. At least the texture you criticisze has character. This game is not The Sims. The problem in the game's texture is too much contrast. Yours is blur like snot.

Like snot? This was an example that I made in 2 minutes to show you people what NOISE is. And I haven't called anyone names yet. You are far more edgy than me. And I never told anyone directly, TAKE MY ADVICE! I've been showing examples to help them understand.

Can everybody chill out ? Making this a flame war is not going to help, at worst we will make a good artist, might is opinions be a bit too clear, leave. And that's not what we want.

I submitted four textures.

Let's take everybody advice into account (not flat, no big noise, not too light) and make something good.

Yes Stan those textures look great as a I said above you only need A, B and D, half the current texture library needs to be deleted along with the temp_ textures and the other half replaced with new ones. You need a maximum of 2-3 different hues per texture, your library has like 35 different grass textures including the temporary ones, pain in the @#$% to navigate and find which ones to actually work with.

Stan, your textures are too blurry.

Dude, you have parallax on... distorted parallax makes everything "blurry".

You should never use parallax for grass. Unless you want that "blur". Parallax is for brick, stone, water effects etc. Parallax only extrudes the texture visually in the Y axis, that "grass" you modded up looks like a hairy gorillas back when you entered its territory the grass is shooting directly up.

There needs to be 3D grass on top of the grass texture. Never parallax terrain dude... You could parallax a stoney path texture or a rocky cliff with proper heightmaps and normals but it doesn't work for surfaces like grass that have infinite height ranges were each blade of grass points in a different direction with a curve. And keep in mind you're only noticing these things because I pointed them out, so don't make snap judgements like with this parallaxed grass. You need grass meshes on top of the flat texture along with small small 3d stones and other decorations.

Since we have tiny insignificant, skinny units creating a light terrain will much better help them pop out and be distinguishable.

And as i've said for the 3rd time now, I'm working on the Persian wonder and terrain textures to bundle them with this weekend. So everyone please calm their @#$% and get back to what you were doing.

I made this post so that people wouldn't make the same mistakes in the future.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Kicking_Bird

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Hi stan. I take your first texture and sharpen a little in photoshop and adjust contrast a little. I then apply the normal map and spec map of the mediterranean grasses already in game to give a little extra detail and depthh. There is some lines in the texture and some things do not tile correct but I fix some of those (not all) and it looks good. I think it make a good tropic terrain base?:

Kicking_bird, grass in my screenshot is not blurry, what the hell are you looking at?

And I never told anyone directly, TAKE MY ADVICE! I've been showing examples to help them understand.

Thankfully you are backpedalling. You see error of uyour approach.

You also speak as if no nbody knows any of this or has noticed that the game's art is not up to standard. Everybody who works on the game or mods the game knows this. As other have said, and you ignore:

1. There have been dozens of different artist working on game over many years. All with different skill level and effort.

2. Important part right now is game feature and fixing bugs and lag.

We ask you what you are willing to do to change the scattershot nature of the game's art? Are you to be the tutorial man?

As to your examples. WE KNOW HOW SPEC MAPS WORK. Things have been PAINTED IN in many cases because some of the game art is 8 years old... If YOU are willing to go back and remake a lot of the art then you will be hailed hero.

Edited March 11, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Giotto]

Just to lighten the mood:

In case anyone is interested here is a game which I think is incredible in its use of simplistic poly models and textures. For whatever reason it just works. http://www.beforegame.net

Note: It hasn't been released yet.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Giotto

[Giotto]

Wowgetoffyourcellphone: just because programming needs doing doesn't mean that other improvements cannot be made at the same time. If you don't know how to program but do know how to make good art then it seems a no-brainer to wait for a while.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Giotto

[Kicking_Bird]

What happened to these terrains.................

There needs to be 3D grass on top of the grass texture. You need grass meshes on top of the flat texture along with small small 3d stones and other decorations.

These terrains are perfect from 2008/2009, what happened to them and this project?

Edited March 11, 2015 by Kicking_Bird

[Giotto]

Wow, the grass looks great in those pics. Not sure about the houses though. I like the feeling of the buildings and trees as they are in the game now, but the grass could use that change. In my opinion those look too much like aoe. 0ad should retain its style but upgrade its textures.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Giotto

[niektb]

The grass in the first two images is made using 3D grass actors. Nice to see but a pain in the @#$% performance-wise.

Edited March 11, 2015 by niektb

[Kicking_Bird]

Kicking_bird, grass in my screenshot is not blurry, what the hell are you looking at?

Thankfully you are backpedalling. You see error of uyour approach.

You also speak as if no nbody knows any of this or has noticed that the game's art is not up to standard. Everybody who works on the game or mods the game knows this. As other have said, and you ignore:

1. There have been dozens of different artist working on game over many years. All with different skill level and effort.

2. Important part right now is game feature and fixing bugs and lag.

We ask you what you are willing to do to change the scattershot nature of the game's art? Are you to be the tutorial man?

You said Stans textures are blurry, I don't know what you're saying dude.

What is a scattershot, it sounds like you are trying to type screenshot and going all old English on me. And I said for the fourth time now, I'll be back on the weekend with new textures and the persian wonder wip. Stan told me you need a wonder so thats what im working on. I have class now so keep it cool on here, bye.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Kicking_Bird

[Lion.Kanzen]

0ad in contrast has almost no character, and little consideration for unit and building silhouettes because if you make a game based solely on history it will be somewhat boring, like history is. And you cant recreate epic battles of history like TW series does just yet.

I disagree with you, the strong point about 0A.D (and need be always)its be historical correct, we don't add art only because look fine, cool or funny. Example is total War series have great mistakes even Rome 2 Total War was criticized to be Anacronist to include DLC can like Daughters of Mars and Beast of War, incluiding Cultist of Sobek, Gladiatresses etc. Rime

Total War Rome was average game, with good marketing and good reviews by casual gamers.

the history isn't boring, see all media about history, those heroes from history.[off topic]

My point here we aren't make this game for casual gamers or for people who think the history is boring.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Lion.Kanzen

[niektb]

Here is quick mod I make tonight.

http://www.filedropper.com/terrestrium

It include 5 edited alpine grass texture and new XMLs and a couple of material. Include also is map for that screenshot. Mod is called Terrestrium in mod select.

I checked them out and they look nice from standard camera view (in my opinion) and the same goes for the color but they blend horribly with (actually not at all). Not because of the colors but you would see quads and lines when painting across them with other textures.

[Giotto]

There's not many ways you can go historically wrong with grass though lol

[wraitii]

I tried to point out a flaw that no one has noticed in 10 years and make the game better - which is something you all want. If something has gone under the radar for so long there is nothing wrong with being a little aggressive and assertive about it. It's regular work ethics. It works as it seems and you are all beginning to realize what I'm talking about. And that wasn't an offensive comment, you are a programmer and programmers usually are paid and work in code and don't usually have an artistic mind or conscious about graphics or design choices. I don't know why you giving me threats lmao.

Except for the part where this is not a work environment but a public forum and work ethics have no place here.

And that was an offensive comment. That was an offensive comment because it assumed that as a programmer I don't know @#$% about art, design, and things like that, and you didn't even have the guts to say it straight. You were even assuming I was only a programmer, which I'm really not. Now what you said there ^ is honest, literal, and likely true in general. I have no quarrel with that. Let's be straightforward.

Also if you think no-one has noticed that our terrains were burned out or too bright, that our textures were sometimes ugly and hard to read, you're delusional. We just never got around to fix it. I personally think someone ought to redo all ground textures and make them coherent between biomes, but it's a huge task.

^ This right here is proof, you called AOEO ugly... its not ugly. Nothing is ugly about it. Its all very, very pleasant. What it does have, is way to much character in units units buildings and UI. Its over-characterized.

0ad in contrast has almost no character, and little consideration for unit and building silhouettes because if you make a game based solely on history it will be somewhat boring, like history is. And you cant recreate epic battles of history like TW series does just yet.

That's what we aim for. And I'm not saying AOEO has a bad art direction or is incoherent or anything. It's great in that aspect. It's just that they chose the worst possible direction, in my opinion, and taking context into account everything is ugly about it. It's an extreme example of something very very bad done very very well. And well, the market agreed.

And about those older terrains: dunno what happened, but if they're no longer here, it's probably because we lost the right to use them.

I agree that the parallax grass doesn't really look good though. It was a proof of concept, but it's quite meh.

[Stan`]

Hi stan. I take your first texture and sharpen a little in photoshop and adjust contrast a little. I then apply the normal map and spec map of the mediterranean grasses already in game to give a little extra detail and depthh. There is some lines in the texture and some things do not tile correct but I fix some of those (not all) and it looks good. I think it make a good tropic terrain base?:

Kicking_bird, grass in my screenshot is not blurry, what the hell are you looking at?

Thankfully you are backpedalling. You see error of uyour approach.

You also speak as if no nbody knows any of this or has noticed that the game's art is not up to standard. Everybody who works on the game or mods the game knows this. As other have said, and you ignore:

1. There have been dozens of different artist working on game over many years. All with different skill level and effort.

2. Important part right now is game feature and fixing bugs and lag.

We ask you what you are willing to do to change the scattershot nature of the game's art? Are you to be the tutorial man?

As to your examples. WE KNOW HOW SPEC MAPS WORK. Things have been PAINTED IN in many cases because some of the game art is 8 years old... If YOU are willing to go back and remake a lot of the art then you will be hailed hero.

Oh I missed the whole page, Nice work on those textures, How did you make the previous one though I am really curious. That could I will continue making other grass textures Sorry for missing your post. Actually texture are blurry cause I cropped kicking_bird one (got smthg like 476*531)