Diverse Worlds v19 - Shandar

[Data]

Many of us lined up at the start line...all we need is the go ahead aka patch [:)]

[Cykur]

Woodman, I love these shipsets and wanted to express my appreciation at all the hard work you put into them.  I've used many of them in my custom games because I hate it when races have the same shipset, so I was really happy when I found these.

I wanted to give a bit of feedback, because I think there is a ton of detail in these shipsets and you've obviously put many, many hours of work into them.  At the scale we see ships in Distant Worlds, I think a lot of the detail is lost and many of the shipsets end up looking kind of monochrome and bland.  With a little more contrasting colors or highlights, I think it would really help some of the ships pop and the detail to show up when viewing the shipsets in game.

For example, your Teekan and Gizurean shipsets are great because the colors pop.  Mortalen is also great because of contrast between the light and very dark -- it also really works as the ship you would see these guys flying.  Securan and Ackdarian work very well too -- Securan is kind of the opposite of Mortalen, with the dark highlights contrasting with the very light metallic ships giving them definition.

Shipsets like the Boskara, Ugnari, Sluken, Kiaden, Human need the colors to pop a bit more so they don't end up looking so bland.  There is a ton of detail in these models that just doesn't come through as well as it could if the colors were a little brighter and more contrasty, or they had little highlights like a racial colored running light, etc.  With a bit of unique color swatches or brighter running lights, I think it will do a lot to make these racial models distinct when they get crushed down to the scale of DW.

Again, these are all great models, and I really appreciate you making them available to the community.  I just wanted to provide some feedback since you obviously will be continuing to do this kind of thing. 

Best,
Cykur

[Data]

aha, Woodman strikes again and a new recruit surfaces [:)]
welcome to the community, Cykur

[WoodMan]

Thanks Cykur, I'm glad you are enjoying the ships. 

About the colours, I'm actually editing the existing DW ships (as I'm sure you've noticed) which limits my colour options somewhat.  If possible I try to get the colours to represent the default race colours in the game, but sometimes its just not possible so when this is the case I usually go for a more gritty realism kind of look rather than choose brighter colours that don't represent the races colours.  There is a very simple way of getting around this and that is to desat the colours and then brush over them on an overlay layer with the colours you want.  If I was spending much more time on them I could definately do that, but because there are so many ships I generally get a bit lazy and simply try to make them as quickly as I possibly can. [:D]

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I'm having real problems with the Atuuk ships, they are actually really p***ing me off now [:@]  I just can't find anything that looks right for them, I've got nowhere and I originally wanted to post them today [:D]  It looks like I'm not doing anything today, so I've got some time to have another go, but they've delayed me so long now that if nothing comes of this attempt I'm going to skip them and move on to the Ancient Guardians.

[J HG T]

Well, that sounds rough. I Hope you find some inspiration for the Atuuks Woodman.
Still, I wouldn't mind seeing the new "I-warish" Ancients soon.

[WoodMan]

Hey all, my other problem with the Atuuk is that I've been using the same shipset to make them as I'm planning to use for the Ancient Guardians. Here is a comparison, its an Ancient Capital and an Atuuk Explorer. Do you think they are too similar? Bear in mind the Atuuk ship shown is at full zoom and the Guardian one is at default zoom.

[WoodMan]

Sorry for double post, gotta post another image. Here is the same Atuuk Explorer changed to green to try and make it look more different to the Ancients. Also, green is the Atuuk colour. I'm not sure, please let me know what you think as I'm pretty stuck on these guys, I'll go with what you say, as I personally now hate the Atuuk so much I can't even tell if I like the ships I'm making for them.

I can't wait until the patch, going to start a new game, hunt down the Atuuk and exterminate them mercilessly.

[J HG T]

I like the Atuuk design! I think you should definetly go with that style.
Hah! Next time I see some other race at war with Atuuks I'll just imagine an angry Narn on one of their capital ships shouting: "Kill them! Kill them all! They gave me such a headache that even my ancestors felt it!" [:D]

[Igard]

Both the Ancient Capital and the Atuuk explorer look different enough to me. Even with the colours so similar, assuming you're going to use the same design scheme throughout the set.

The green Atuuk ship looks great and you should definately go with it, WoodMan. It's nice, it's simplistic, not too advanced looking. I don't know if you can add some filthy marks to the ship? I kind of imagine the Atuuks decorating their ships with various trophies. That'd be very cool. [8D]

[WoodMan]

Okay cheers guys, at least now I have something to aim for, building these ships blind with no ideas or inspiration is very hard, and very boring [:D]

Much better when you know what your trying to do.

[WoodMan]

Long time no update! [X(]

But I've set aside the entire day tomorrow to work on the mod, we'll see what happens, maybe an Atuuk update in the evening [:)]

[Igard]

It's really amazing the amount of work you've put into this WoodMan. You're almost finished, Good luck and enjoy. [:)]

[J HG T]

Just little more to go Woodman. Can't wait to see the Atuuks. Got them in my current game, fighting a noble fight against the mighty Quanemos and the dupious humans.
BTW. The "new" human ships, especially cruisers, frigates and escorts look great ingame. 

[WoodMan]

Hey all!

Still no update [:(]

However, I have some news! The next update will be the last major update for the mod as I've decided I want to do it all in one go. As I mentioned before I want to go back over some of the stuff I've already done to fix a few things like blurry large spaceports in the early sets I made, that won't be included in the next update, but the next update will include everything to make the mod into a "finished" state. Fixing the old stuff will be done in minor additions which I'll probably string out over a looooong period of time because once the next update is out I want to make an AAR which will take up some time.

The next update will be HUGE! It will include the Atuuk, Shakturi, Ancients and pirate/wrecks. It will also include some other surprises [:D]

[ehsumrell1]

FANTASTIC work and dedication Woodman! [&o]

[J HG T]

One big update?? Surprises? Oh yeah! That's mighty fine by me.
Thanks for the update Woodman!

[Data]

why call it an update still? call it an expansion [:)]

[chrisol]

Very much looking forward to this, thanks for all your work - very impressive

[WoodMan]

Thanks for the kind comments!

Because its going to be a while I'll post little updates as I go along.

Tonight was a nice game of Blood Bowl, as I hadn't played for a few days, but also managed to knock up a couple of images for the mod before I go to bed!

Tonights work:

[Data]

Cliffhanger, damn cliffhanger [:)]