[MOD] StelliFer Labs: Armor Item Graphics

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SiaFu
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I've been working on a small ship/station/mission quest/item add-on and making some graphics for it, hence StelliFer Labs. Now I'm thinking of releasing the graphics separately.

After using scores of Sung armor plates and encountering Dvalin I've had the idea to differentiate some special armor types in the item list (I use abandoned stations for stash so I do a lot of quick scrolling - it'd be easier if Home and End worked in the Loot/Jettison screens).

Long ago I'd photo-edited the solar armor. Then I wanted the alien +notforsale armor types and I got carried away.
Luckily the Transcendence artwork was released and after some fiddling with Truespace I was able to use some of the original textures (and get creative with the rest) to render several types of armor segments:

So here are:
Plasteel/Blast, Orthosteel, solar/powered, Duralloy;
Urak, Dwarg, Sung, Meteorsteel;
Tharsis, Photo-organic/Stealth; Quadrocarbide; ithalium;
Iocrym; Omsk/Hexphase
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(Side note: the original armor item texture is Titanium).

I've concentrated on the ones I used most, leaving some low-level ones like XMS and Tevlar unchanged. Reactive/Ceramic/Ceralloy can stay Titanium teracotta coloured, IMO.

Open for discussion:
Now, since the original armor item model 'teeth' don't seem to fit left and right for neatly stacking plates, should the uniquely usable Sung scale armor type get a new hex/circle shape (according to its texture) or would it be confusing for the player?
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digdug
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those are beautiful armors :D

Great job SiaFu
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Atarlost
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I'd group plasteel with titanium and reactive with blast plate, simply because they're more similar. I think ceralloy is a special type as well, possibly to be grouped with hexphase since it's got a similar resistance profile. That's just organization though. You didn't mention depleted uranium or transuranic, which I'd group with ithalium, again for the similar resistance profiles, unless you want to extract the texture from the ranx ships.

The other thing I'd consider, which would be extra work, is to make similar retextures of the barricade for the special heavy armors like worldship, transuranic, p1300, massive tharsis, and holochroal. Those are either really heavy or special even within their group and heavier than the lighter barricades.
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The problem is that barricates can be sed and thus it might be a bit confusing.
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stealthx
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Wow these are really cool! :D
But the circle hex looks a bit like polka dots don't you think?
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SiaFu
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Atarlost wrote:I'd group plasteel with titanium and reactive with blast plate, simply because they're more similar.
Plasteel actually has a named texture in TranscendenceArt. And the description of Blast plate states it's a special version of plasteel (and the pirate plating is light-grey). It's also the first profitable tinkered ore armor so I'd differentiate it from the asteroid-dirt cheap titaniums.

I was guided with material types and descriptions instead of armor bonuses,
which in-game also come from coatings so i gave origin priority over performance (except special traits).
Duralloy (slightly tweaked to stand out), Urak, Dwarg, Sung (aka polka dot :-) ), Meteorsteel and Iocrym use original named textures, color corrected according to ship graphics.
Stealth, Tharsis and solar/powered were my tweaks, even though heliotrope ships aren't blue (I used an actual solar panel photo). I used the volcano world texture for ithalium (it being a volcanic ore alloy) and the ringer collective metal structure for 4/6/8-carbide. Omsk/Hexphase were taken from the Makayev factory model together with the bump map which I also applied to the darkplasteel texture and used it for Orthosteel.
Atarlost wrote:You didn't mention depleted uranium or transuranic, which I'd group with ithalium, again for the similar resistance profiles, unless you want to extract the texture from the ranx ships.
Ranx are a bit too dark. Good idea with the ithalium - i'll use the texture as a base, but I'd rather group them with XMH and neutronium since they all have some special material-based repair/stability trait.

The ceramic/ceralloy type will have its own icon then. I have no problem with creating more armor icons. I just didn't want to create so many it'd get all confusing again. And I'm leaving some slots for new armor types to come from StelliFer.

Regarding massive armor and Wolfy's comment, I'd go with a new chunkier 3D model but keep the same texture. I don't know if it's worth it just for the Worldship (same color as meteorsteel), P1300 and massive tharsis (the only too heavy armor types). Then I'd also have to do the Dvalin armor differently - so we'd have 4 uniques (plus Dragon armor which should stay Sung-compatible). And by the time they all appear in game they're not that interesting versus octocarbide and Iocrym armor.
Catoptric and holochroal both reflect so I think they should stay regular Dwarg-coloured.

So that leaves: Tevlar (carbon fiber in plasteel - stealth?), Gusoku (ultra-ceralloy like Dvalin?), Diamond lattice (sparkly?), carbide carapace (special- not like the ringer 4/6/8). Maybe add those emitters to the Omsk armor and separate it from Hexphase? I also forgot Luminous which have their own greenish/copper themed ships.

And do dark matter and hierosteel armor types come into regular play at all?
If I skin them too, this'll become a complete Transcendence armor graphics mod.

P.S.
stealthx wrote:But the circle hex looks a bit like polka dots don't you think?
It's the original Sung scalearmor texture. I'll make the new model hexagonal and center the decal.
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SiaFu
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Updated image, using the dockscreen background so you can see what they look like without the green selection highlight. Original titanium added for reference:

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(1): plasteel/blast | ceramic/ceralloy/Dvalin | photo-org/solar | Duralloy/Powered ;
(2): Urak | Dwarg | Sung (useable!) | Meteorsteel ;
(3): Tharsis | stealth/Tevlar | Diamond/carb.carapace | Ithalium ;
(4): Luminous | Transuranic/Depleted U/Neutron | Orthosteel/Gusoku | Omsk/Hexphase ;
(5): 4/6/8carbide | (ORIGINAL) Ti | -empty- | XMH/Iocrym

I found that the Teratons use Ithalium so I got the texture from their ship model. The old one (which I liked better) went to the transuranic group, and needs a color tweak now.
Retextured solar using a hexagon texture I found in the Transcendence Art and used it for the diamond lattice and some sheen for 4/6/8 carbide to associate all carbon based armor types.

It seems hierosteel and darkmatter are only available through extensions so I'll skip them. Or maybe put the Majellen gate texture on Hierosteel for modders ;-)

Still haven't done a special Omsk or V# powered and I'm a bit stuck on the massive plate model, maybe a horizontally elongated hex? or stick with the four sided config? Descisions, descisions...
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Matz05
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:shock: ...Awesome. Thats just... BEAUTIFUL!
I wanna see that in game once its finished! I might have to choose diffrent armour simply because its so PRETTY!

Then again, I just discovered the joys of Carbide Carapace, and I LOVE the texture for it.

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this is amazing, coloured armor this shall be a useful tool. great job once again siafu. And thanks for the great content.
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SiaFu
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I'm testing them in game already. Plasteel and Ceralloy were a bit to similar so I made ceralloy shiny at the expense of making plasteel look flat.
The xml overrides are all OK, but here's what I spent most of the time on:

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First the armor:
top center are two variations of Sung armor, single scale (corrected), and three overlapping ones. I might use the overlapping icon for Dragon armor or discard it. Some have IRCed they prefer the regular shape+texture variant so we'll see about that.
Top right is the new model for massive armor sporting Worldship plate (the top right corner of which will not be obscured by shadow next time).

Then, a bit off-topic: I've had a special icon for Black market 'merchandise' and Sung coffins, but now they look ugly next to what I could render in Truespace. So - until I can - here are some other new special items:
[2nd row]: Human Cadaver (rendered), Fusion trigger (mashup), Longzhu sphere (mashup ;-) );
and the +Res type commodity pressure tank (rendered) - for all those LOX, boson, fibre and other gaseous/tinkerable/industrial misc goods that wouldn't be shipped in a crate).


And last, but not least, top left is not an item, but the new 8-segment armored Corvette class SFs30 'Indigo', the design of which has been holding up the mod.
That's why I'll release it for 1.03 smooth and semi-featureless like this and add all the decals, prongs, and design tidbits in a future revision.

There'll be the alpha release of the mod for 1.03 (no quests yet, just the toys) so I can get feedback on how the goodies, weapons etc. balance out.
Expect it in a few days. Comments are welcome already.
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Song
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From what I can see of the corvette, it's a little smooth and glossy (roughing it up a tiny bit, adding a few indentations, lines of segments of armor, scrapings from bad dockings, etc, while taking far longer, makes it look more "real")..but it's still a beautiful ship regardless.

The Sung armor design in particular I really like. It's a innovative design, and is aesthetically pleasing.
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Jeoshua
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You could use the two different Sung armors for light and heavy variations...
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Atarlost
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I think a 7 tile sung plate might look better than 3 or a single tile.
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SiaFu
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I have a question first: what is the significance of the

areaSet="0,2" part of the ArmorSection definition?
In the original ships the values are: Front: 0,2; Left(Port) 3,4; Right(Sbd) 7,13 and Aft 1,6. Northwinds 5-seg armor just reuses the combo and I can't find the definition in the Wiki.


Back to graphics: Here's the HUD for the SFs30 Indigo: Bashed up with full shields, sporting Iocrym plate for armor strength display placement (1-4 digits, centered); then unscathed with shields at 60%, then armor at 20% with shields down.
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Until I've successfully implemented the HUD I won't have time to make changes to the model. I planned to add some detail with a custom bump/texture and redo the wings, but It'll probably be for the SFs31.



And there's the 7-scale Sung armor. To me this looks more like studded than scale plate as the connecting studs seem to stand out.
Detail is constrained by the 96x96px format. I've tried adjusting the lights in the standard scene to reduce the burned out white areas, but I'm limited by the camera perspective.
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Wurmish
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That's REALLY cool...
I'm curious, what program did you use to alter the armor pictures? I'm developing my first mod and I think a couple custom graphics for my armor would be nice.
My first mod, mostly done, still balance testing.
http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=789
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