The Role of Graphics in Games

[Argh]

Well, I don't like giant chunks of teamcolor. It really detracts from the immersion- IRL, we don't see military stuff that's in giant bright colors, and it really detracts from a unit's main color scheme, imo.

The idea of doing the small-but-bright teamcolor was as a compromise between the people who cannot seem to tell what team their stuff's on, if it's not giant, and then whine about it, and the people, like me, who'd honestly prefer no teamcolors at all, or at most, a teamcolor glow around enemy units.

Seems that any way I go with this, I annoy somebody, so I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing, until somebody has a clearly better idea that is a compromise between these two points of view. I've thought about doing it as AO baking in Blender, and pretend they're "lights"... maybe I should review that option again.

[PicassoCT]

@ARGH:
Best would be a Teamcolour that is optional, meaning overlayed when a Key is hit - just imagine some sweet holographic effects.

Or Teamcoloured Effects - here come the Tanks with the blue Shells, blue targetlasers, the blue-hit-sparks, the blue-shields and so on...

And the Problem of this is - that aesthetics are secondary. Unit Recocgintions is for the first Thing a important GUI-part.
Quite a difficult one, because creators have worked hours/days/weeks on perfecting them, in (Maya/Max/Lightwave-closecombat), and all of the sudden some AA-Fools tell them they can´t recognize them. Usual autodefense reaction is - " you are not an Expert!"

But everybody is a expert at "brand Recognition" which Unitdesign is all about.
Additional there is the Problem, that for recognisable Units, it is helpfull to reuse Clich├â┬®. A small Figure carrying a backpack & a short Stick is always Infantry.
Two wooden Figures of the same colour, one small,massive, cylindrical, the other one high, with a cross on Top, are for Millions instantly recognisable as Chessfigures.

I don´t envy the Artists& Modders who have to find a compromise. ARGHs smaller Teamcolours are not vital for Gameplay, they are just a little steeper learning curve for Beginners..

[Argh]

Or Teamcoloured Effects - here come the Tanks with the blue Shells, blue targetlasers, the blue-hit-sparks, the blue-shields and so on...

There's a limit to how much of that you can do, but yes, I plan on doing some stuff like that, fairly soon.

[BlueTemplar]

IRL, we don't see military stuff that's in giant bright colors

Well, not since 1914...

IMHO using teamcolors to enhance the visibility of the shape from the distance is a really good idea, something in between the whole unit seen close, and seen from far away as a radar blip.
BTW, don't you think that those unit icons on grey background that are currently used in the medium zoom are really hard to see and distinguish between?

One problem is that those team-colored shapes thing might not work good with every color...

[Argh]

BTW, don't you think that those unit icons on grey background that are currently used in the medium zoom are really hard to see and distinguish between?

Those aren't unit icons. They're half-assed LOD code in Spring, and if they were team-colored, they'd look even more awful than they already do.

Turn the setting "Unit Detail" up to 600, you won't see them any more.

[BlueTemplar]

I didn't mean to have them teamcolored, if you're misunderstood me, it's just that we're talking about unit visibility...

[Zpock]

Here's an interesting video on the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJBNSDIOBXo

[Warlord Zsinj]

I know spikedhelmet really hates teamcolour on units, and I understand where he is coming from - especially from a WWII perspective. But I think with a bit of effort, teamcolour can be worked into the design very nicely, especially when you are thinking about it from the outset, rather as a tack on at the end.

I hope, to an extent, I have achieved this in SW:IW textures.

Sometimes it's reasonably obvious where teamcolour needs to be placed. This typically happens with the more military-styled Imperial faction. My favourite way of doing teamcolour is actually on Rebel Alliance units, which is to make it look as if it was 'painted on' perhaps even by the troops themselves, making it look rough and worn, but also characterful.
Some reference shots displaying SW:IW teamcolour:
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/6/ ... een156.jpg
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/4995 ... 056gd4.jpg
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/2170 ... 007fv6.jpg

[Argh]

Link doesn't work, Zpock, too long.

[Warlord Zsinj]

No, it's not zpock's fault. When someone posts, and it gives you the 'someone else has posted while you posted' warning, for some reason it truncates your link. Very annoying.

[Argh]

I've never had it do that, if I enclose the link with [ URL= ] Clicky [/ URL ]

[Warlord Zsinj]

Yeah, that's the way around it - it won't truncate your link if you do that.

[BlueTemplar]

I'm under Mac Os X right now, what are the exact names for icon (UnitDetail, Unit_Detail or Unit Detail?) and "radar" distance, and what are their default values?

[Zpock]

I know spikedhelmet really hates teamcolour on units, and I understand where he is coming from - especially from a WWII perspective. But I think with a bit of effort, teamcolour can be worked into the design very nicely, especially when you are thinking about it from the outset, rather as a tack on at the end.

I hope, to an extent, I have achieved this in SW:IW textures.

Sometimes it's reasonably obvious where teamcolour needs to be placed. This typically happens with the more military-styled Imperial faction. My favourite way of doing teamcolour is actually on Rebel Alliance units, which is to make it look as if it was 'painted on' perhaps even by the troops themselves, making it look rough and worn, but also characterful.
Some reference shots displaying SW:IW teamcolour:
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/6/ ... een156.jpg
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/4995 ... 056gd4.jpg
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/2170 ... 007fv6.jpg

Yes, I also don't like teamcolor that's very obviously a unwillingly tacked on little square saying "imagine I'm not here". It's awkward what to do on WW2/modern military units, since their so recognizable, but really on madeup scifi stuff it's possible to make it work with the rest of the model. Also the player can choose a color that isn't bright red, pink or neon blue if he doesn't want to...

Link fixed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJBNSDIOBXo

[smoth]

it is still too drabbed out for me. That blue on those models is a full blue, meaning that if I did a lite blue it would look off. However, people ignore my screams about it. At least it isn't a solid band and has textural information to it :).

[KDR_11k]

Of course TC doesn't fit on realistic textures but realistic textures don't fit into an RTS. Real military vehicles are designed to be hard to see or tell apart, especially from above. In an RTS you WANT the player to see what is what, not hide it from him!

[Warlord Zsinj]

But in modern combat, a general looking down from a ULAV or orbiting satellite still has to identify his units somehow, even if they are painted via camouflage so as not to be easily identified by the enemy.

... Which is why they use GPS icons and overlays, just like we do in Spring...

[Argh]

@BlueTemplar: Icons are all generated by the mod file Gamedata/IconTypes.TDF, the values are all there, radar is a Unit-specific property, "radardistance". It's not a universal thing you just tweak for everything.

@KDR: While I am the last guy on Earth who's going to defend realism at the expense of gameplay, I think that this is a situation where really you're talking about one factor of gameplay detracting from another one- the way teamcolor is implemented in Spring, it's not a positive-sum experience. Hence my frustration with this topic.

@Zpock: I watched your link, it's completely irrelevant. A game where you cannot change your teamcolors, and they got to use a 32-bit palette, is a different animal entirely. If anything, it highlights my frustrations with the way that teamcolor works in Spring. If we had a system like DoW, where people could paint in various colors and create (and save) combos that they personally thought were pleasing, that'd be one thing. But, instead, we have blunt choices.

Now, as to visibility...

Our choices are;

1. No lighting, use lots of teamcolor everywhere. Typical OTA solution, and it works, but it detracts from immersion in a major way, imo. IRL, we don't splash lots of bright colors on military stuff. I can't stand it, it's completely artificial. You can't win any points with me, by insisting that it's what players want, either, players just want to know what side their stuff is on, and this is like swatting a fly with a tank, imo.

2. Use lighting, use lots of teamcolor everywhere. This would be the CnC solution. Works even better than 1, looks even less immersive, and destroys the specificity of your art.

I hate the TRON-like look, it's very specific, not at all like what I want to see in P.U.R.E.

3. No lighting, use sparse teamcolor. Doesn't work, it's practically invisible at range.

4. Use lighting, use sparse teamcolor. Works- with any lighter colors, reds, yellows, pinks, oranges, etc. More immersive, but doesn't work with darker colors very well.

5. Use no teamcolor. Nobody likes that.

6. Try something else.

I'm pretty much heading towards no. 6. I think 1 and 2 are "solutions", but only in the sense of, "we couldn't come up with anything clever, so we just did that".

I did something else with NanoBlobs, where I had "icons" that depicted teamcolor. These were awkward because they rotated with the models, so I had to keep them spherical. I tried that at first, with P.U.R.E. stuff, it didn't work, it was too distracting.

Maybe I should use a small, teamcolored marker next to the healthbar (although that would probably conflict with the Healthbar Widget). I'll try the AO solution here in a bit, that might be the most pleasant, although it comes with additional workflow, and immersion will break whenever the "light" doesn't move with the source, so locations would have to be picked very, very carefully.

[Peet]

No team colour on the unit + teamcolour platter widget = solution.

[Argh]

Does the teamcolor platter widget no longer clip?