Fwurg

[Mercury]

To use in the Race Builder, I am creating some icons for the Racial Characteristics. I made a sample icon for Crystal Oriented and I'm curious about opinions of this style of icon. The idea is to use the same DNA strand and place different icons on that to give the racial icons a very uniform but still recognisable style and distinguish them from other icons.

Here's a sample:

[Brend]

a) It's too large. We currently have three sizes of imagery: 300x300, 48x48 and 16x16. We do this is to allow uniform styling, and to have reasonable expectations when writing tools and such. So please try to fit it within 48x48.

b) I would put the DNA strand in front of the icon. Something like this maybe:


On second thought, this does not seem to improve the composition. I'm not sure about it yet. I'll think on it some more.

Behind might work, if the resource icon is a little smaller. The DNA strand should be used as a background theme though, I agree. This gives the icons a clear theme.

[Elmer]

I think the blue triangle is slightly to big in my opinion, else I think it is a great idea to make a uniform icon for racial characteristisc, and colors for the different kinds.

For other charcteristics like cyborg, the triangle can be replaced for something else

[Brend]

Retroactive agreement with Elmer

I'll try and come up with a more genetic-themed background over the next week -- is there an extreme hurry?

[Elmer]

I have done some quick photoshopping and here are my suggestions:
For chrystals orientet, information orientet and metals oriented, you get the idea

note: The backgrounds of these images are black, not colourless, but that is no problem I guess.

[Brend]

Personally I wouldn't color the background DNA strand. If we leave it the same color in every racial characteristic image, it will give a more uniform look. In these examples the primary colour seems to dominant, which ends up reducing the contrast between the triangle and the DNA strand.

Maybe if we take a larger DNA strand, so we have a more filled background combined with a triangle (of 3/5ths the size of the whole image) in the bottom-right corner?

Another point to consider: we have a set of characteristics not directly coupled to a material or product: High Fecundity, Aquatic, Force Sensitive, Cyborg, Virtual, etc. Some of these could be done with base icons as well: High Fecundity = ; but I can't even begin to think up something for Force Sensitive, Cyborg or Virtual.

Virtual might be done with a 'digitization' of the DNA strand background maybe?

As an aside: it might be nice if the icon has some recognizability when scaled down to 16x16.

[Mercury]

I made the icon at 64x64 because I need that size for the race builder - I'll make the new version 300x300 like the images for climates and races. A 16x16 version doesn't seem very useful to me as I don't see these being used that way, though I'm open to suggestions for a use?

I like the colour suggestion Elmer made, though Brend raises a valid point about colour dominance. I'd rather place the icon in the center though as it is the crucial component (rather than the DNA strand which will be common in all entries).

[Mercury]

I've made icons for all current racial characteristics. They are all 300x300 and you can see them together in the Race Builder and on the Racial Characteristics page.

Btw, we might need a template for these.

[Brend]

I like the theme, and I especially like the cyborg, aquatic, tiny and virtual images. Natural flight is a bit unclear in my opinion.

Why are the six materials and the specials so ugly? I remember sending over the SVG file containing the (by definition) scalable icons... these icons seem to be made with paint They don't look well at either 300x300 (pixelated borders, very 'thin') or 64x64 (maybe that's just my browsers screwing up the scaling though)...

[Mercury]

Unfortunately, the svg version wasn't feasible at the 300x300 scale - it just looked very odd and peculiar - so I redrew them. For some that was easier than for others (Nomadic was especially problematic) but in general I'm not unhappy with the outcome. If you have an alternative option, I can send you the original DNA strand to work with?

[Stuiter]

The wings in the bachground are not so clear.
You could bring them in front or side, so you can see it better.

[Chriz]

Why are you redrawing the images while you have some roleplaying posts that are waiting for your attention There are still some refugees that are currently in limbo.
Did you use paint or something? I can see from the pixels...

[Brend]

It would've been nice to check with others before you embark on something that's a lot of effort -- one of our players (i.e. Elmer) is a proficient graphics designer and artist; I'm reasonably sure that he would've enjoyed working with you on this.

Unfortunately, the svg version wasn't feasible at the 300x300 scale - it just looked very odd and peculiar - so I redrew them.

You know that you can edit the SVG file, right? This would have given you a good base for pimping up the icons, without having to completely redraw them by hand...

By the way, what was 'odd and peculair' about them? I agree that they become a bit massive, but you can easily counteract that by adding some borders like you did in your redraws.

If you have an alternative option, I can send you the original DNA strand to work with?

It seems you have some layered file somewhere -- however, it's probably in a format I can't use. If you could send me the base strand (that's used in the specials) and the six coloured versions (those are used with the raw materials) I could pimp up the icons and try to improve upon your work?

[Elmer]

They are made with a pixel program, photoshop or paint.
I can tell by the pixels and using a lot of paint in my time.

The wings are bad, to much detail. Try to make more basic wings. A simple white with some black outlines.
for example:



The force sensitive does not match the other characteristics, because of the slim lightsaber. I suggest some aura stuff around it, I will make one this weekend.
The cyborg is also nicely invented, but it can me a little bit more obvious. I will see what I can do to that.

And I agree with the rest: You don't have to do everything yourself, you can delegate stuff to people who likes to do it, we have a forum for that

BTW: The nomadic is really easy, It is a miracle to me how that was a hard one.

[Mercury]

Besides the refugees, I don't think I'm behind on posts, and those need time to be transported anyway. Also, I felt like doing icons ^_^ I'll get to those posts soon enough

The triangles / pentagons were drawn in Gimp 2.6 using Google image search, magical selection features and the mystical powers of floodfill. I probably should have added an anti-alias filter.

If anyone else is interested in doing icons, we have a lot that need doing, the ones that come to mind being:

* The Saber Builder is completely without icons
* We need icons for the different world types (protectorate, minor, inner, core) for the faction builder
* We also need an icon for augmentation zones, the three types of trade capacity (holonet, mtcf and open market), and we could use icons for oceans, habitable and natural life.

So Elmer or Brend or anyone who wants to look at them, I'd be most grateful!

The Racial Characteristics were the ones that most badly needed to get finished, as it made the whole Race Builder seem peculiar. I've included the original 300x300 layer and the full strand at that size below and I'll leave you all to it.

The coloured versions were made by messing with the hue slider - no other advanced tricks were used and it wasn't done to any degree of expertise except "hmm, seems about right"

The wings I agree on btw - they seemed nice, but they don't quite fit in.

[Mercury]

Addendum: we need to fix the css for file attachment from white to black o_O

[Brend]

Besides the refugees, I don't think I'm behind on posts, and those need time to be transported anyway.

There is more to it than that, I assume? People that wish to dedicate resources to this should presumably do it before the refugees have all arrived, otherwise it will be too late... And since we don't know how many resources we should devote to this on our turn reports; we can't make them yet.

There is also the issue of 'how much are there'? I know that this is explicitily hidden from us due to the fact that we IC don't know it yet; but I can tell you that if you tell us too late, we'll have no option other than letting the refugees die in space because we can't pay the PGC for housing them on time -- and that will be an OOC fail, not an IC one.

Blergh -- off-topic. Sorry. Will make some icons now

[Mercury]

Oh don't you worry ^_^ I have a cunning plan!

[Brend]

I've tried my hand at one of the icons, and uploaded it to the wiki for comments. (Yes, the old one is backed up safely, so I can restore it.)

16x16 (too small to make it out):


48x48 (will be used on page):


64x64 (for in builders):


300x300 (actual size) + old one for comparison (I've tried to stick to the sizing, is Mercury had the right idea there):


What do you think? I think it scales well, so if we use 300x300 sources, we have high quality 48x48 and 64x64 images. (If people like it, I can apply the same styling to all icons in short time.)

@Mercury: Could you look into using the URL for the 64x64 version I posted in the builders? Currently the builders have the 300x300 version, and let the browser scale them down -- since browser suck at this, it's ugly as hell. If you use the URL I use here, the wiki does the scaling and antialiasing, and caches the results as well: this saves bandwidth, and makes the builders look noticably nicer!

It shouldn't be too difficult, it's basically just append ?w=64 to the URL of the image you currently use.

[Stuiter]

They look nice and clean and clear.

[Elmer]

better, way better

also, I will see what I can do for the stuff whith no icons

[Mercury]

Why does the 64x64 version have a light gray border while the 300x300 has a dark one? o_O

I added ?w=64 to the races in the Character Builder and to the Racial Characteristics in the Race Builder - looks like it works!

[Brend]

Why does the 64x64 version have a light gray border while the 300x300 has a dark one? o_O

That's the magic of caching... I uploaded three versions in quick succession, and the wiki doesn't like me for it.

[Brend]

I've also added the following:





<del>I'm not entirely happy with the six materials, maybe someone else has an idea on how to improve them?</del> Happy now.

[Stuiter]

I think the problem for the materials lies with a lack of contrast.
It is all the same color.
Maybe you could change the color of the string or the edge.