non-cavedog graphics

[Gurkha]

obviously, these will need to be made at some point if we wish to move away from copyright infringement.
So, I figured I'd make a start with a metal patch for map usage. Does it look ok? (it will need resizing for game usage, obviously)



-Gurkha

[Delta]

Looks a bit too much like someone spilled mercury, or T1000 from terminator. Looks a bit to pretty.
Needs to be more cracked, rugged.
It needs to look a bit more like this...


if we are going to keep the metalpatches, (I prefer the larger metal areas personally).

(Gurkas image, only edited.)

[Gurkha]

I'm gonna do broken-up ones, but TA itself has some solid patches

edit:

tada (ok, not quite the same style, mostly because the first file has been hanging around for about a month and since then I've forgotten what to do :-[ )
No silly comments about this one please (no you're not the first person to spot a resemblance to anything)

edit2:
they're actually quite easy to make (i'm not sure how this one ended up as a png since it seems to strip a lot of the colour out.
I had forgotten about TAMEC (my only real contact with it being 'file I need to make map X work'). Is it released under a GPL compatable license?

[Delta]

Much better, especially the texture.
But the "roundness" makes it look a bit artificial imo.
And how big textures are we talking about here? Small metalpatches like in OTA or some combination of the old and new system with bigger metal patches/areas?

[AF]

*points at tamec hpi and the numerous non-cavedog features present there*

[Buggi]

Keep the patches either 32x32 or 64x64 and they'll be compatible with the next version of the map generator (the one I created).

-Buggi

[PauloMorfeo]

... Does it look ok? ...

I liked all the ones you presented. Each with a slightly diferent style but, in my quick eyes, very good looking when compared to the standards we are seeing right now in TA::Spring.

[GrOuNd_ZeRo]

I suggest a similar but new system:

Larger patches that can be all sorts of ores:

Copper, least metal
Silver, Medium
Gold, High
Platinum, Very High.

This is just an example, this will be quite different from OTA so it's not a direct copy, but still pretty close.

I also support ideas of replacing current OTA textures with new, albeit similar textures.

[[K.B.] Napalm Cobra]

Looks nice.

GrOuNd_ZeRo: I prefer to build my tanks out of more solid metals, a gold tank would be nice to look at, but ultimately pointless.

[WeaZ]

I like them

[Gurkha]

are you volunteering to try and draw malachite in photoshop?

hmmm, how about copper -> iron -> titanium -> tungsten
hardnesses 3, 4, 6, 7.5, respectively, and they all look slightly different
great, now all I have to do is figure out how to draw them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten.

Instructions (for what I do at present):
1) get some greyscale clouds
2) select a funny shape in the middle and layer via cut
3) hide the outer bit
4) motion blur what remains in whatever way mkaes a nice pattern
5) Select the shape in the middle (cutting off the semitransparent bits from the blur) and layer via cut again
6) use edge detect, emboss, glowing edges and accented edges filters until you get something metal looking.

Now we just need to modify it to get different colour metals.

-Gurkha

[GrOuNd_ZeRo]

With nano-technology, you can completely disassemble the structure of gold and turn it into a usable metal for armor, I do believe gold is denser compared to copper and silver thus would produce more resources or credits, depending on the mod.

Mining gold doesn't mean you build your units out of gold, that's kinda narrow minded, no offense.

TA is atleast 5000 years in the future, the technology in that game are quite primitive for what it should be at in such a distant future.

Tanks still drive on threads, some vehicles still use wheels, aircraft have limited manauverability, they have to use gallatic gates while in 5000 years you'd expect a race to have mastered a way to transport nearly instantly to anywhere they wish to go.

The heavier the metal, the more resources respectively.

[Gurkha]

I 'spose it does explain where all the energy goes...
Nah, I'm still not liking it, even if you split the atoms apart AFAIK you can't put them back in a stronger formation, that's what makes some metals harder than others. Atoms with heavier nuclei might be better. Heavier nuclei = more baryons. If you say that everything is made from steel (or tungsten, or whatever) the heavier the nuclei of whatever resources you dig up, the more iron & carbon atoms you can make to create the units with - when you fiss them to get the individual baryons you get out the energy that you need to put them back together in different nuclei.
Hooray for me, I just explained how TA's fictional nanotechnology works!

[Gnomre]

Remember, in the TA manual it is said that the armor on all of the TA units is designed to act like one giant atom, rather than trillions of unique ones

[Hyalin]

Kinda like the GP hulls from the Niven books?

[Min3mat]

i am loving the different metal/tick is going to be translated into a different colour metal, i still want some maps with the cool flooded desert style patches but this sounds very promising!

[Gurkha]

ok, here's a copper patch:

and resized to 64x64:


making it look copper-coloured was the easy one [/img]

[Gurkha]

some new ideas:
1) big metal pieces which get put 'under' a map's texture then a shape is cleared from the texture revealing the metal underneath (like seeing a treasure chest under some sand) meaning that metal maps can then be interpreted by a map editor to remove more ground texture (revealing metal) as the density of metal in the area increases.

2) rather than rocks (or as well as) have crystals for reclamation, such a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutile. Anyc chance of someone making a 'crystal' reclamation characteristic which gives the metal as it's gathered (removing sections from the .3do as it's gathered) rather than the 'all or nothing' system currently in TA?

-Gurkha

[Torrasque]

some new ideas:
1) big metal pieces which get put 'under' a map's texture then a shape is cleared from the texture revealing the metal underneath (like seeing a treasure chest under some sand) meaning that metal maps can then be interpreted by a map editor to remove more ground texture (revealing metal) as the density of metal in the area increases.

Can't you already make this using photoshop, the texture of the ground, one texture with the same size of metal, and making an alpha mask with the metalmap in greyscale?

2) rather than rocks (or as well as) have crystals for reclamation, such a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutile. Anyc chance of someone making a 'crystal' reclamation characteristic which gives the metal as it's gathered (removing sections from the .3do as it's gathered) rather than the 'all or nothing' system currently in TA?

I would like too see that too, instead of making field of rock.

Oh, and your metal patch look cool.

[RightField]

I'm sorry to offend you but those look pretty cheap. Try drawing them instead of just using some cheap ps filter, and if you're gonna use a filter, be a bit more creative than that. Combine effects, use layers, etc etc.