EE version 0.173 Final (no more stuffs)

[TradeMark]

Dont blame the buildpic sizes, the buildpics just sucks ass!

Just fix the damn buildpics.

Seeing them as 96x96 shouldnt show anything more than in 60x60 resolution, or is there some hidden pixels which determines what unit is what? :D


And oh god:
"You have to replace the ctrlpanel.txt in your main spring folder, and the one in the lua folder (be sure to make backups)."

Like im changing my ctrpanel every time when i play E&E? Nope.

Btw, that file does not exist (says UF).

[smoth]

That doesn't help at all. Just keep walking man.

[Forboding Angel]

Of course details get lost between 60 pixels and 96 pixels.

Fucking idiot.


What I have been working on tonight using varius widgets and my control panel thingy etc.

[Fanger]

Trademark I will have you know that Wasp spent several days working on makeing those build pics as well as the week or so before then me and him spent trying to hash out a style. I find it highly rude and offensive that you are going to sit there and tell me that they "suck ass". I personally think wasp did a good job on them and it is a irritating and tedious task to do.

[tombom]

TA styled backgrounds are out because they are both inconsistent and they tell nothing to the player.

So how does a shot of the unit at a random angle, just like the TA ones, except on a red/green background do anything more? I don't know why you're so dead set against the idea. Most games with similar looking units use different backgrounds to help differentiation.

I dunno really I'm sure I'll get used to the current buildpics after a few games I'm just debating.

[Forboding Angel]

omg omg omg It even looks good in BA!!!

[smoth]

The reason that it is bad in TA is that the TA build pictures were thrown together using whatever background the artist was using at the time. There is no theme or common design to the places chosen. That is part of the reason why.

even though I have said this before I will go over it again.

The human eye can only process so much detail so quickly which is why some things are perceived to be TOO busy. The TA build pics do just that. There are often a lot of things happening in the background that distract from the unit. In fact, that is part of the reason they used them. They knew the units were ugly and not able to sell themselves so they needed something pretty to sell them. Hence the garish backgrounds that were probably randomly done by several different people at the last minute.

As far as the random angles this was the CASE for TA build pictures as well. It as done so the pictures showed off whatever "good" angle that the unit had. If there was any form or similar directional orientation it was most likely part of a batch render process.

The other games that you talk about have less unit variety then TA has. So I think the ONLY fair comparison would be TA Kingdoms. Which went even further with it unit pictures and NO it didn't really help. Then again, kingdoms had less units per side also. Although I am comparing it to TA+CC.

So, then past the visual clutter, random angles and misrepresentation that TA games had. What makes them functional. Nothing. Hell, stacraft,warcraft used heads and each side had MAYBE 40 units. that is a high approximation. Generals uses glamours but it also only has a few units so again easy to tell apart.

We take a look at another factor that adds to the frustration of the situation TA units were also without any theme or unified form. Because they were awkward little squares and blobs of quads they could be in many different shapes and forms. Which mean that the units looked drastically different and often made no sense.

So yeah. The ta style build pictures failed hard.

EE tries to make sense. However, I am not sure as to your motive right now. You offer no serious solution and barrage everyone else. I was trying to work with you but you snapped once again. If you do not like them give fang suggestions. he is working on it but your post earlier was not even constructive.

[TradeMark]

Trademark I will have you know that Wasp spent several days working on makeing those build pics as well as the week or so before then me and him spent trying to hash out a style. I find it highly rude and offensive that you are going to sit there and tell me that they "suck ass". I personally think wasp did a good job on them and it is a irritating and tedious task to do.

The graphical design of buildpics are good, but the units looks same, so i aint saying his work sucks, but the units are bad, because they look too same.

And you must know that people dont care how much work have you done to something, only the output matters.

So if you make game, and people whines about how it sucks, you cant say "i spent 10 years on it! respect me!".

Understand? Time doesnt matter, it doesnt make things better.

--

Why this sounds like you dudes are trying to say im wrong, and those buildpics doesnt look same at all?

And smoth, wtf are you talking about, this is game, not realistic warfare.
We dont care is it making sense that every unit looks different, we just want to play a game. If that is the reason that units looks almost same, and most of them just have so small difference like 2 more pipes on the roof, which DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

If you wanna make realistic, just make one plant which builds everything. And one unit which is some sort of superunit which shoots any sort of bullets, THAT could be realistic war at the year of XXXX where you can build with just metal and energy ^^

And WTF

Of course details get lost between 60 pixels and 96 pixels.

We are not looking details, you idiot! :D We need buildpics which i dont even need to look at to know which unit it is. Why are the traffic signs so simple? because you dont have time to think what does that picture mean.

And smoth, can you say which unit of OTA you cant see difference to some another unit?

[smoth]

Trademark, look yes, you as a player care only about the final product. We would be stupid to not understand that. I am going to presume that a lot of your apparent belligerence is because of an existing language barrier.



Ok, I'll break this down also.

A mod maker has a goal but limited time. People like fang and myself are BOTH college students with college studies. We have limited time and work hard on our respective projects with our little remaining free time. My school is more important then pleasing you and fang would say the same.

We are not your personal servant. MODERS do what we please, it is our project. We work on it at our pace towards a goal that only WE know. You DO NOT know our final goal. The thing is that we have a certain goal we are trying to reach. Interfering with the pursuit of said goal is damaging to our productivity. This project has a scope and design that you do not see all of. When said goals are REACHED many things may make MORE sense.

See you are a player, getting a mod maker's work for FREE! You get spring for free. Yes, I know you wrote the unit stats thing, I think it is nice and you'll note that when you point out the issues we resolve them as quickly as possible. So do not think we ignore you. Although, you do it right when a mod is released and steal our thunder which does grate our nerves.

If fang wasn't still on the build pics, NI might be halfway done, yet the whole time fang is working on build pictures, on each iteration people have time to speak out. It is nice to oblige a request but no moder is required to. Has fang consider what you said and taken action? yes he has, does he have to show you immediately? NO! You players DO NOT PAY US.

Now fang has arrived at a point that he was happy with the build pictures. At this point people say "wait, I suddenly think they look bad." You see, the problem is that the build pictures are not going to suddenly get better. You can complain and offer no solution, this does not help at all. However, no matter what we try YOU are not happy especially after we say your initial solution will not work out. You tell us, make you, the player happy. What is our motivation? You actively spite us, you offer only a handful of suggestions, are rigid about those few suggestions and get AGGITATED WHEN WE reject them.

So key points here:

• We are not your personal army
  Have some respect
  Give us time to work on it
  Understand that YOUR way is not the only one
  You might be slowing us down so be considerate with your requests
  This is OUR time working on it NOT YOUR TIME.
  BE PATIENT!
  We are not your personal army

so if you expect ANY MODER to roll over and grant your every demand immediately, you can get lost. We have a direction we are going, we might slow down a bit to try and change direction slightly to help make the mod better for you. Which fang is doing. However you have NO patience.

Guess what? Just because you DO NOT see immediate action things are going on and changes are being made.

a simple request to see how he has progressed would be more helpful as you could check as he goes and offer feedback along the way. However, you instead do not give him the chance to even start. He is not going to stop his real life for you.

as far as ta units I get confused by based on their build pictures:
Arm:
Kbots: hammer and jethro,
Vehicle: bulltdog and triton
BUildings: vehilcle plant and adv kbotlab
Core:
Vehicles: instagator and raider, croc reaper and goliath
aircraft: rapier, vamp and hurricane
Screw it, that is enough... ample dude, and this was LOOKING at them side by side here

[TradeMark]

Yeah i know, you have your lives etc.

Lets not make this personal fight again... I just say how the things are, and you peeps react like: "that is full bullshit which makes no sense". Or is my english really that bad?

Yes, I know you wrote the unit stats thing, I think it is nice and you'll note that when you point out the issues we resolve them as quickly as possible. So do not think we ignore you.

Yes, i made it for free, i spent hours with it. And if someone is whining that it sucks, then i just change it. I aint gonna say: "no, i made it myself, i do whatever i want, you dont need to use it, so stfu!".

Though changing some code aint so big job than remodelling some unit, BUT we didnt talk about models, we talked about unitpics, and that is not the hardest job, but it still takes lots of time.

So when you next time make the unitpics, you should make first few examples of the new unitpics, and then ask people if those pics are good. DONT make 300 pics first, and then ask and cry why they sucks.

Although, you do it right when a mod is released and steal our thunder which does grate our nerves.

I aint gonna wait week or two, or then im too late because you peeps always say: "why didnt you say it before, now it takes more time to fix it".
I really hate to hear that its bad thing to report bugs, as you said that it "steals your thunder".
Just dont take it that hard, notice the bug reports, fix them at next release, those errors what ive reported doesnt even take much time to fix.

And i want to point out that im not disrespecting anyone here.
I just care about the output, and if the output is bad, i will let you know my thoughts about it.

[smoth]

Yeah i know, you have your lives etc.

Lets not make this personal fight again... I just say how the things are, and you peeps react like: "that is full bullshit which makes no sense". Or is my english really that bad?

You say how things are in your opinion but you state them as absolute fact. The way you say things makes it seem as though you believe you are the only correct person. You also say things that come across as harsh or condescending, I'll try and help where I can.

Yes, i made it for free, i spent hours with it. And if someone is whining that it sucks, then i just change it. I aint gonna say: "no, i made it myself, i do whatever i want, you dont need to use it, so stfu!".

although I think it is pretty good.

Though changing some code aint so big job than remodelling some unit, BUT we didnt talk about models, we talked about unitpics, and that is not the hardest job, but it still takes lots of time.

So when you next time make the unitpics, you should make first few examples of the new unitpics, and then ask people if those pics are good. DONT make 300 pics first, and then ask and cry why they sucks.

I agree, asking more people in the future would be better. Fang showed them to several people who asked and we all thought they were great. If you ask him I am sure he will show you.

English tip here, using "cry why they sucks." in that context is insulting, instead, use "are upset when we do not like them" instead.

I aint gonna wait week or two, or then im too late because you peeps always say: "why didnt you say it before, now it takes more time to fix it".
I really hate to hear that its bad thing to report bugs, as you said that it "steals your thunder".
Just dont take it that hard, notice the bug reports, fix them at next release, those errors what ive reported doesnt even take much time to fix.

And i want to point out that im not disrespecting anyone here.
I just care about the output, and if the output is bad, i will let you know my thoughts about it.

No we do not take it as disrespect, I know I am personally happy to see someone cared. It is just better to pm us about it, making a flaw publicly known like that can kill a release or make an obscure exploit obvious to all.

[Egarwaen]

The human eye can only process so much detail so quickly which is why some things are perceived to be TOO busy. The TA build pics do just that.

Wrong. That stuff is irrelevant. The TA buildpics are iconic and distinguishable, the two things that are important for an icon.

Look, icons don't have to be consistent or have some subtle meaning attached to them. The point of an icon is to give some hint as to the unit's function and, more importantly, to enable the unit to be built again. Once I've built it in a couple of games, played around with it, and know what it does and what it's for, I should be able to quickly find the icon and build it again.

The TA icons are really good for this, in part because the units are so distinguishable. They have a lot of easily memorable features - the "inconsistent" or "busy" differences in orientation, background, and composition help make them memorable. The EE icons are really bad for it. Even in Forb's shot, I see:

- A bunch of square things with one or two smokestacks. Now, I can break some of these down because I've played the game before, but the two power generators (at least, that's what I assume the "single smokestack" buildings are) and block of smoke-belchers in the upper half are not distinguishable from each other.

- A couple of things that float, one of which belches smoke and is probably related to one of the other kinds of things that belch smoke.

- A bunch of things with guns. These are pretty good, actually, and should be distinguishable once I've built them.

- Two factories, one for aircraft, one for tanks. Good, but I remember that getting confusing once the L2 and L3 factories started popping up in menus.

- Two icons sitting off in never-land on their own. Avoid "orphans" like this, try to organize things into complete blocks when possible.

Compare this to the TA shot, where there's very little in common between different icons. I haven't touched the game in half a year, and I still know what every single one does.

So no, it's not just the size. Now, here's my suggestion for fixing this:

- For unit buildpics, please take AF's advice. Weapons fire in buildpics is the perfect way to distinguish these, since EE units have a small selection of weapons with unique appearances that are "unified" across levels. Once I work out that a picture's a L1 Cannon Tank, I can easily pick out the L2 and L3 Cannon Tanks. I can also easily see when a force is running low on cannon tanks and quickly find the corresponding buildpic to bulk them up again. Do the same for turrets.

- For factories, take advantage of the fact that units at different levels look very distinct. (At least for ground units) Have a small pic of the factory itself and a slightly bigger (enough to be distinguishable) pic of the units it produces. That way, I can quickly go "Little spider mech = L1 factory", "chicken walker = L2 factory", "chicken walker OF DOOM = L3 factory".

- For resource buildings, you're either going to have to adjust the appearance or add some icons. Icons here aren't bad - again, they don't have to have "immediately obvious" meaning, they just have to allow you to distinguish between energy/metal production/storage at the different tiers and quickly find a building again. A lightning bolt/girder followed by a tier number for producers should do just fine here. Users should quickly discover that "lightning" means "energy" and that bigger numbers mean "more". I'm not sure how to distinguish between production and storage; differences in structure appearance combined with the icons might be enough here.

- Stranger structures should simply be distinguishable. The radar, recon pole, and wall in Forb's screenshot are good examples of this.

I'm not demanding you do this or anything. I am offering advice for changes that would make it easier for me to pick up the game again, based on my own experience with and reading on game design, HCI, etc.

[Guessmyname]

Surely the default GUI should be the one in the mod's file. The user should still be able to change it, yes, but the default...

[Pxtl]

I think that all this arguing about buildpics is solving the wrong problems. The units look the same, and the buildpics are just pictures of the units. Now, Fang argues that it's okay if the units look the same, since they're meant to be used in mix.... but my point is that it's still useful to be able to tell. Yes, my little swarm should include rocket, ECM and Plasma bots... but the plasma bots had damn well better be out front.

I'd focus on making units more distinguishable... suck up the slight negative impact it'd have on appearance and add more visual cues. Write the level of the hub ON THE HUB. Add weapon-specific colour to the weapons (it works for UT).

The point is that yes, hacking the buildpics will solve some of your distinction worries... but if you changed the units to look more different, then you'd be able to have your cake and eat it too (simple screenshot buildpics that are informative about the unit).

And yes, it would be a sacrifice, since it wouldn't look as good... and unfortunately, since EE is 3DO based, it would be a ton of work. But I still think it'd be the best solution.

[smoth]

Compare this to the TA shot, where there's very little in common between different icons. I haven't touched the game in half a year, and I still know what every single one does.

The TA SHOT IS NOT using TA buildpictures. So no.. you are wrong.

I was talking about TA build pictures, not TA:S buildpictures because as far as I know, they may vary from mod to mod

[smoth]

I'd focus on making units more distinguishable... suck up the slight negative impact it'd have on appearance and add more visual cues. Write the level of the hub ON THE HUB. Add weapon-specific colour to the weapons (it works for UT).

The problem is not all of us have that problem. I do not have a problem distinguishing the units. Even so, these are possibly not the final models, for all you know fang might be working on a re-texture or two but none of your post helps.

And yes, it would be a sacrifice, since it wouldn't look as good... and unfortunately, since EE is 3DO based, it would be a ton of work. But I still think it'd be the best solution.

Or does fang plan on, S3oing them some time... you just don't know. I offered to even do color coded turrets and textures for him but nope. Anyway, Fang might S3O his units one day. However, I would probably jot all these change suggestions down for later.

This is why fang and I get ticked. Players are like, it doesn't work, CHANGE IT! I don't know how, but YOU go figure that out. This of course leaves us with NO real input. Now, many of you have given input in the past and NONE OF US have alzheimer's so we remember it.

Although, we actually have had many discussions on what to do with the units, a final decision was never made. I mean seriously, I even offered to do it for him. At this point My thoughts are we will have to give fang suggestions and time.

At the moment he is moving in one direction, getting something done. People bitch about no NI but then complain and tell him redo this and redo that with some more magic water that makes it all better while reading their minds. Let him work as he goes. He was working on NI before the last crapsplosion that happened. However, he might be working on some stuff that will help with all of this. Since it is not done though, he is just working on it in private.

Why not show it to everyone RIGHT NOW? Because there are SO damn many trolls here who would come to post in this thread JUST to fuck with him or be condescending. Not saying you guys are trolls, you guys also know where he posts his works in progress. It is probably good to talk to him about it there.

Fang and myself BOTH like to surprise people with a release. Some things are worked on tested in private and then debut on release. Otherwise the release is stale.

[Zoombie]

Speaking of build pics...how do you extract them from the mod so they can be put in the Wiki?

Cause I've just finished the URC level 1 Air and Land lists with corrisponding TOF fluff. I'm gonna work on some more after I make a sandwitch.

[bamb]

It is a very interesting question and a hard problem to design so many units and factories and have them look distinctive but still have a consistent theme and some semblance of realism and functionality.

I played some EE way back, and the units were in consistent theme but it was hard to disginguish some of them. When I went back to AA, the graphical design was a mess (because it is a mess in TA) but at least it was easy to tell the units apart. When I was originally starting to play AA (9 year gap from a small brush with TA), it was difficult to find the right icons in the build pics. For example the windmill pic was bad and it looked like a radar or LLT.


I remember way back attending a lecture by a guy at Remedy who had designed a lot of Max Payne. He discussed this difference between not only iconic and realistic pictures but also abstract and real pictures. A smiley is iconic, while modern art can be very far from the original and still not be iconic, but instead abstract. Tetris is abstract, the items don't represent anything in the real world.
So it is a two dimensional problem and not just one. He then showed early pictures of Max Payne, where the protagonist had big muscles and everything was kinda cheesy and overdone. You didn't notice it at first, but when he said, it was obvious. Then they did an explicit decision to move towards realism. For various reasons. It paid off in the end and the game was a hit. I don't know how much work they scrapped.

I don't know where EE lies currently or what is the goal. But these are interesting questions to mull. How much realism and how much cartoony iconic representation? What is the aim? What is it like to play? Does the medium make this or that possible?

If we want to discuss the visual design of the mods of spring a little, I think this could serve as a rough start:
-Kernel Panic would be abstract. The units don't mean anything, you have to learn them. But it's possible since there are so few of them. Nanoblobs is pretty abstract too.
-AA/BA/TA variants is halfway between realistic and iconic. Every unit has distinctive features, some are even ridiculous.
-EE, I'm not sure where it stands. Probably more realistic than AA. The sides and different tech levels have clear iconic style distinctions though.
-the WW2 mods and others are being very realistic in visual design of course.

[smoth]

Yeah, I am sure if fang ends up S3o-ing units we will get glowmaps which will help A LOT with unit differentiation. Of course, I still liked some kind of extra ques like red fuel tanks on the flamer mechs.

[Fanger]

Trademark, I dont care what your personal thoughts about time and effort are, but I personally DO NOT like having someone use such harsh language about something I know someone put a lot of time and effort into. There is something alot of people do not use on the internet and it is called: Tact..

Tact: is a careful consideration of the feelings and values of another so as to create harmonious relationships with a reduced potential for conflict or offense. Tact is considered a virtue.

YOU may think the buildpics look like total ass, craptasitc shit.. THAT DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE TO SAY THAT IN YOUR POST. Considering how the other person feels about his or her work and posting critique that will not TOTALLY HUMILIATE THEM is tactful and honestly still gets the message across.

Instead of saying the buildpics "sucks ass" you could say that the buildpics do not help distinguish the units well enough.. or some other more specific.

I also dont want to hear a whole bunch of practice what you preach bullshit, I know sometimes IM not tactful, and sometimes people have lapses, BUT in general on the internet there is a complete lack of tact displayed by everyone and generally it PISSES ME OFF.

That said: I DO NOT HAVE A DAMN CLUE HOW TO FURTHER DIFFERENTIATE THE MODELS FOR THE LVL 1 URC UNITS.. These have to be THE ONLY ONES you people are having trouble with, as the GD tanks are nearly all different at lvl 1, and the lvl 2 units are larger so I cant see them being hard to identify. In all honesty I will tell you guys bluntly Almost all of the URC lvl 1 units use a different turret, the ONLY 2 that share one are the plasma and rocket, so I would like to know how I can further differentate them, and I do not mean random strange suggestions I want some action, I will send the wings file to anyone who wants to fiddle with it, or I would appreciate some sort of VISUAL input..