Graphics Enhancement Mod (GEM) v2.4. Updated: December 22, 2012

[Shark7]

Another Suggestion Martian:

Can you break this up into 2 or 3 downloads. I have fast broadband and it isn't a problem for me, but for some of our community broadband might not be available and a 120mb DL will take them a long time.

[Martian]

Thanks Shark!

[/quote]

You did use a blue other than pure blue (R= 0, G = 0, B= 255) right? Pure blue would just give you a giant moving engine glow.

Everything should look fine. Light's yellow (255,255,0) and Engine's blue (0,0,255) are not used. [8D]

I wish the game's engine allowed closer zooming. I wanted to make ships size smaller. IMHO in vanilla their scale is too big compared to planets, spaceport and stations. But if I make them say 2 times smaller it would be difficult to see and identify them clearly with current zooming limit.

Can you break this up into 2 or 3 downloads. I have fast broadband and it isn't a problem for me, but for some of our community broadband might not be available and a 120mb DL will take them a long time.

Sure, added.

[Martian]

To those who already tried this mod.
I would like to know what do you think about ship restyling? Is this a step in right direction?
Also what do think about making ships (and maybe stations too) smaller compared to planets? Maybe about 2 times smaller than now?

[ASHBERY76]

I am not sure the game uses more than 4 pictures for each planet landscape.I have never seen a landscape_4 picture onwards on a planet screen yet.

[Martian]

Hmmmm... Thanks for pointing this out, Ashbery. I didn't pay much attention, but looks like you are right. That explains why there are only 4 images at maximum in original landscapes folders... It's sad. Looks almost like a bug to me. I hope Elliot will remove this limit in Shadows. Otherwise my landscape mod is half in vain.. [:D]

[Martian]

Yes, you were completely right! I've made some testing. I used editor to make 80-100 continental planets. I checked them and for all of them game used only first 4 images from continental landscape folder and only one image from "forest" folder!!! [:(]

[Martian]

I did same testing for all of colonizable type of planets and things are even worse. From my understanding the game uses only original amount of images.
So for continental planets it uses 4 images (plus one from forest folder). For ice, marshyswamp and desert planets only 3. But for oceanic and volcanic it's only two images! I really hope this will be improved in Shadows.

[Cruis.In]

id ont like the outlines on the ships no way to turn off?

[Martian]

You don't like all outlines including black ones? Or it's only bright outlines (red, blue cyan and green) which bothers you?

[Arcatus]

ORIGINAL: Martian


NEW RESTYLED SHIP GRAPHICS

The ship restyling has several purposes in mind:

1. Make ships look clearer and distinctive on various bright and dark backgrounds during gameplay.
2. Quick identification of all controllable state ships.
3. Quick identification of military ship types.
4. More eye candy look.[;)]


All controllable ships have various colour outlines:

Red - Military ships
Green - Construction ships
Cyan - Exploration ships
Blue - Colony ships

Military ships have following distinctive insignia painted on them:

One stripe - Escort
Two stripes - Frigate
Three stripes - Destroyer
Four stripes - Cruiser
Five stripes - Capitalship
Small circle inside a bigger one - Carrier
Small diamond inside a bigger one - Troop transport

[&o]

Aw, man that is innovative.

(damn you for thinking of this before me [;)][:D])

As my shipsets are frankensteined from many sources, this would be a odd one to add, as only some races would use this new outline.

But I really like the concept. Especially on the troop transports - being able to identify and target those quickly is something I really, really want to add.

So, I'll frankenstein this concept into my shipsets. Thankyou!

Edit: And you added even more stuff as I made this post. You, martians are awesome! [&o]

[Martian]

Minor update for the mod. Added 9 new cursors. See the first post.

Generally I am quite happy with these new cursors, but I don't have much experience for cursor design, so please feel free to share your opinions & ideas about improving cursor's representation to make it easy to see what each cursor "do" in the game. For example original "build" cursor was a "hammer" cursor, which I think is great to give an idea of "building, construction", but unfortunately it's completely out of game's sci-fi atmosphere. So I've decided to replace it with something which looks more industrial as you can see, but I am not sure if it "works", and if it can be clearly identified as build cursor... [:)] What do you think?

[Martian]

ORIGINAL: Arcatus
Aw, man that is innovative.

(damn you for thinking of this before me )

As my shipsets are frankensteined from many sources, this would be a odd one to add, as only some races would use this new outline.

But I really like the concept. Especially on the troop transports - being able to identify and target those quickly is something I really, really want to add.

So, I'll frankenstein this concept into my shipsets. Thankyou!

Thanks Arcatus!
Yes, troop transports can be very sneaky when you have enemy's fleet attacking your planet! That was on of the thing which moved me to make this mod.
I am very happy you liked this concept! Wish you sincere good luck & patience to put it into your shipsets, as it took me about 2 weeks to do it for all of 651 original ships!

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Martian,

This looks like some fantastic work! Is this your first mod or are you a veteran modder/artist?

Regards,

- Erik

[Martian]

Hi Erik,

Thank you very much! No, I am not a veteran modder. I did few small mods for other games (for myself) but this is my first mod I release publicly. But I have some experience as 2D/3D designer (for broadcasting & commercials mostly) which I am enjoying to use to do some modding for this great game in my free time.

[Martian]

I've made a mistake: "explorationMarker.png" cursor is not used during gameplay, only in game editor mode. So I'll leave it unchanged for now.
But I can't find out where and how "mine.png" cursor is used. Does anyone have any ideas about it?

[Arcatus]

Maybe if you have a controllable ship with mining components?

[Martian]

Thanks for the idea, Arcatus.
Other than deploying resupply ships on gas planets I've never used any controllable ships for mining in my games.
I'll check that..

Edit: You were right, I made a new constructor ship with mining equipment. And with the ship selected I moved my cursor over planets: the "mine" cursor naturally appeared.

[Martian]

Gameplay cursors set updated (finished).... See first post.

[Martian]

Mod is updated to version 2.3. See first post....

+ Added 53 new & refined pictograms for game's interface.
- Most of the cursors are redesigned and refined.
- New version of galaxy backdrop.

Enjoy!

[Ponicus]

Martian,

Your comprehensive graphics overhaul is impressive! I've been waiting for a mod like yours for a long time.

Wasn't sure I was going to like the colored outlines around the ships but once I fired it up it seemed like a natural feature for the game. That and the new ship exterior patterns quickly convey some important pieces of information (ship size and type) that it's hard to go back to playing without. The new icons add crisp clarity that is much appreciated when playing at a high resolution. The planets and stars look much better (although I think the atmospheric effects on planets is a little too strong). The new landscapes are amazing but unfortunately they are wasted since only a handful can be displayed in the game, I also hope the devs change that with the next expansion or version.

I'd recommend that everyone that owns the game give this mod at least a try. I also think that the devs should take a look at this mod and think about including it or something like it in the Shadows expansion. The game couldn't hurt for some updated graphics.