Time for some art...

Ace07 · Post by **Ace07** » 29 May 2005, 00:06

As you can see, I desperately need art. At this point, I need the following more than anything else:

- Connection and Disconnection icons
- Ping icons (red, yellow, green)
- Sync icon (indicating synced to the battleroom host)
- Modify spring settings and modify lobby settings icons
- Host battleroom icon

All of the icons are 24x24, so keep that in mind when making them. Also, if you could give me a high res version, that would be great!

We also need a ranking system (including icons to go with it), but that isn't as important right now. Hopefully we can get a consistent theme out of this....try to use the current logo as inspiration.

http://taspring.clan-sy.com/screenshots/logos/24.jpg

(Also note that this is what it will look like in Windows. Try to make it so that stuff doesn't look weird in other themes though. Remember that Linux offers a very wide variety of themes for its users. If you create a an image that could clash with a very common color (black or grey), make sure you create two images that work with both.)

NOTE: You can use transparency if you wish. Give me a PNG if you choose to use transparency.

aTTacK · Post by **aTTacK** » 29 May 2005, 00:09

i think the "this" link @ [...] looks like in windows [...] is wrong.. is it ?

[edit] ok its fixed sry

Ace07 · Post by **Ace07** » 29 May 2005, 00:10

Ya, I changed it...but apparently not fast enough!

Dragon45 · Post by **Dragon45** » 29 May 2005, 08:20

Might help an actual graphics artist with time on their hands get started, i suppose:

- Connection and Disconnection icons -> Make this a little graphic of two electrical cords, connection as them connected, disconnected as them seperated

- Ping icons (red, yellow, green) -> The obvious: Traffic light

- Sync icon (indicating synced to the battleroom host) -> an empty S for unsynced, green-filled S for synced

- Modify spring settings and modify lobby settings icons -> buttons with text "Spring Options" and "Lobby Options" on them, respectively.

- Host battleroom icon -> A little house.

-I am now short $0.02 -

Neuralize · Post by **Neuralize** » 29 May 2005, 12:26

I'm on it.

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 30 May 2005, 00:16

I made a 3D version of the Spring logo in blender, It's not very special just some NURBS so it's easy to change/improve.

Source file: http://www.timblokdijk.nl/spring/logo/blenderlogo.blend
I release this under the GPL version 2 or later.

Sorry no icons today..

Neuralize · Post by **Neuralize** » 30 May 2005, 03:14

These are PNG with transparency, which will look a little weird in IE, but quite dandy in Firefox or other nice browsers not derived from barrels of slurp.

Sync

Good ping

Meh ping

omgwtf ping

Right direction? Wrong direction?

Ace07 · Post by **Ace07** » 30 May 2005, 04:52

They are so simple! I like them very much.

IMHO, you should have versions that don't change the number of orbs for ping. Just have one huge green, yellow, and red orb. If you don't agree, maybe we can incorporate both and allow people to change it? In either case, the ping icons have the right look.

Either way, I like the sync and the connect/disconnect icons. The connect and disconnect ones are grey/black sensitive though. If you can figure out how to work trasparency into them, that would probably be better.

@Tim: If someone textured that to look like metal...it could look really cool. 3D logos are neat. =)

Neuralize · Post by **Neuralize** » 30 May 2005, 04:58

It's not visable against this grey, but the disconnect/connect have a white stroke around them, making them more defined/visable.

Feedback is always most excellent, as it gives me a little more info into what you want. I'll also see what I can do about getting early versions of the other icons done.

Ace07 · Post by **Ace07** » 30 May 2005, 05:55

So far, I like them. Those new ones look exactly how I wanted them. The style is pretty neat!

The sync icon could use some work somehow....something about it just doesn't click with the rest. But it's really hard to put my finger on what it is....

Dragon45 · Post by **Dragon45** » 30 May 2005, 06:27

why not just output a number for ping like TA does? numbers can change ovre time, and im guessing the threshold for changing the color orb used will vary as connections change.

Ace07 · Post by **Ace07** » 30 May 2005, 06:47

Dragon45 wrote:why not just output a number for ping like TA does? numbers can change ovre time, and im guessing the threshold for changing the color orb used will vary as connections change.

You can save people time by showing an icon instead. If you mouse over the icon, the actual ping shows up in a tooltip. You could do it that way, but its ugly....

Ace07 · Post by **Ace07** » 30 May 2005, 07:35

Currently it doesn't look too good in grey. But it doesn't seem that is because of the pictures you sent. I don't think the program has a true 8-bit alpha channel built in. It looks like it turns pixels on or off more or less.

Maybe try to mess with them so that they look better with a 2-bit alpha channel? I thought that this had true PNG support, but I guess I was wrong.

The sync icon looks pretty good actually. It looks the best in a black environment because its such a simple design as it is.

Neuralize · Post by **Neuralize** » 30 May 2005, 08:59

Noooooooooo pixels. Aaaaaaah

I'll see what I can do. Meh. You should uh, look into having those channels added

Or, I can do stuff pixel by pixel and weep a lot.

Could you plug these in and post a screen, so I can get an idea of what looks happy, or not happy. Thankya.

Burgundavia · Post by **Burgundavia** » 30 May 2005, 15:46

Another thing to consider is shape. Look at the gossip icons. Each different state has a shape, which makes scanning easy.

Also, the users own state is represented by the same icons, which makes it very usable. BTW Gossip is considered one of the most usable IM clients around, but only supports Jabber, and thus isn't that useful.

http://developer.imendio.com/wiki/Image ... p-chat.png

The reason they are a different shape, is the you avoid counting (which is good), one icon for one line, and red/green colour blindness.

Thoughts?

Corey

aTTacK · Post by **aTTacK** » 30 May 2005, 17:12

i liked the small ones
but i dont like the new big ones.. plz stay at the small ones

the sync icon is nice

Ace07 · Post by **Ace07** » 30 May 2005, 17:58

That is what those new images look like. The reason that I can't make full 8-bit alpha support, is because Windows doesn't support it at all. That is the reason why you only get 2-bit alpha support. (FYI, Linux supports 8-bit alpha

)

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 30 May 2005, 18:43

i like the small ones better than the big ones

Ace07 · Post by **Ace07** » 30 May 2005, 18:46

The big ones need to be slightly smaller, then it wouldn't be so bad. The small ones are too small in my opinion (plus they don't line up very well because there is more than one orb in different cases).

What we need to focus on is not having that black ring around the orbs. It seems to wreak havoc with the different colors and themes.

Neuralize: I like the new colors of the red orb. That particular red is so much cooler. Before it kind of gave it a MacOSX look. Maybe try to make them all look like that?

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 30 May 2005, 21:55

ace, not to overly complicate matters... but could you give us the choice over what color we want?

Spring RTS Engine

Time for some art...

Time for some art...