GRAPHICS (ver2.0): Hosted by evil conquerer

[evil conquerer]

<h2>Summary so far</h2>

These ideas are in no particular order.

<hr>

EnochF: The map should have different styles depending on the age it's in. For example, it could be a papyrus scroll during the rennaisance, a map with a compass arrow and fancy European script during the rennaisance, and a viewscreen in the future (JT).
Potential problems/caveats: May make map hard to read.

Ecce Homo: Animate the water tiles.
Problems: May make it hard to customise the map tiles
Suggested fix: Have an animated format for the default that is replacable with a common 2D (.pcx?) format for customization.

Many people: Bring back the throne room!. But make it customizable according to which civilization you have (for example, the Japanese have samurai armor hanging on the wall, the Europeans have knight armor, etc.) Some people also support the palace instead of the throne room, or something completely different.
Problems: May make it hard to customize civlizations.
Potential solutions: In the civlization's text file, have an option to say which kind of throne room is used.

JT: Show wonders in the map grid somewhere within the city's radius.
Problems: May make it hard to see what's in that square.
Solutions: Make the wonder show up under units and special resources(?), make wonder invisible with terrain viewing key (T in SMAC and Civ II).

Many people: Either make the units 2D (unacceptable in a modern game, IMNSHO) or have an alternative 2D format to customize the units with. In SMAC, for example, a historical MOD pack is impossible because there is no way to modify the unit pix ("those chariots look pretty silly with particle impactors" ).
Suggested fix: Provide an alternate 2D graphics file (.pcx?) to provide for the customization of units.

Many people: City architecture should be cilivization-specific.
Implementation: Provide a setting in the civilization's text file to determine the architecture style. This could be the same setting that determines the throne room and unit(?) styles.

Many people: The graphics should not slow down the game too much or require ultra-fast machines in order to run acceptably. For example, the animation for founding a new city in Civ's I and II (something unfortunately missing in SMAC) would just be a pain if there wasn't a way to skip it. The high-res graphics in SMAC ran unacceptably slow on my machine (PII-300 w/ 64 MB, in case you're wondering), but the low-res units looked just fine and ran much better.
Solution: Make the graphics as good as you can without slowing down the game.

evil conquerer: If the units are modular (as in SMAC), the different sections of the unit should be clearly visible. I didn't have this problem, but some people complained that the different weapons and special abilites were hard to tell apart.
Possible solution: Weapons and special abilities may have to be exaggerated slightly on the map screen.

EnochF: If terraforming can be done from inside the city, there should be an icon that indicates work in progress on that square.
Potential problem: Might obscure the resources in that square.

Debate: Should the units be 2D or 3D?
2D isometric: Would make the units easier to edit. Would also make the units move faster (exception: CTP ).
True 3D: Anything less would be unacceptable for a new game. The units would simply look better. An alternate 2D format for editing could be made available relatively easily.

Debate: Should the world be 3D too?
2D isometric map, flat terrain (a la Civ2): Would be easier to edit, would be faster to draw on the screen.
2D isometric map, 3D terrain with altitude (a la SMAC): Altitude is an important concept that the game must have. It looks cool, too.
Would be hard to edit, sometimes obscures units behind a mountain.
True 3D map: Two words. Awesome graphics.
May be hard to get a good sense of proportion or distance. May make terrain really hard to edit. Note: I don't mean a 3D spherical map (that's not my department). I'm just talking about how the map looks.

Icedan: Check out <a href="http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Keep/3402/Civ.htm">http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Keep/3402/Civ.htm</a> for a quick sketch of what the 3D graphics could look like.
Potential problem: No sense of distance at all.
Solution: I dunno, maybe some kind of gridline system.

Trachmyr: A style of graphics similar to Lords of the Realm II.

Rusty Nail: If fog of war is on, don't make it too hard to see the terrain through the fog of war. For units and terrain, clarity is very important.

evil conquerer: Bring back the city view! It gives the user a sense of satisfaction, even if it is completely useless.

Eggman: Change the monocolor shield to a flag with a symbol on it. For example, the British would have a union jack, etc.
Potential problem: Customization would be hard.
Solution: Leave a space in the faction file for a customizable flag.

Andy B: Make cities look different based on their position on the globe (ex. glacier cities have little igloos, etc.)
Potential problem: May conflict with the idea to have unique cities for different civilizations.
Solution: Pick one, Firaxis . If you can combine the two, that would be awesome.

Fugi the Great: If the graphics are unbearably slow (i.e. CTP) then have a key to speed up the animation of units when they're on a long GOTO, by skipping frames, substituting a 2D unit graphic, or by something else. Make sure you can still see where the unit is going, though.

Kris Huysmans: All these civilization-specific graphics will take forever to edit (custom flags, custom units, custom cities, etc.)
Solution (evil conquerer): The user can, in the civilization's .txt file, either specify which type of graphics to use (i.e. oriental, middle-eastern, european, etc.) or include a 2D graphics file in a common format (.pcx, .gif, etc.) that has all the custom graphics for that civ in it.

Bubba: Make the graphics like AoE.

<hr>

If I missed anybody's please tell me and I'll gladly put it in. If you disagree with any of the suggested fixes or anything on the list, please feel free to post here with your suggestion.

Credits:
JT
Ecce Homo
Pythagoras
Fugi the Great
meowser
Mo
evil conquerer
Shining1
Trachmyr
EnochF
Icedan
E
Atahualpa
longchamp
don Don
Andy B
Depp
Eggman
Darkstarr
LordStone1
Doo1284
Kris Huysmans
Bubba

[Kris Huysmans]

I found the idea to include extra graphics for scenario and mod builders a great idea.

I have also some sugestions for extra graphics for civ3:

animals : tanks replaced by elephants, airplanes by birts, battleships by whales, ...

WW2 : because WW2 scenarios are very popular

Cartoon : Micky Mouse, Astrix, Donalt Duck, ...

Starwars : for the hardcore fans of starwars


Maybe you could make it so that you can choice a mod pack when you start a game.
Of course should the extra graphics be free to use and change for scenario and mod building without copy rights.

[NotLikeTea]

Good idea!

I think that the thing that kept Mods from being a big thing for civ is that they were hard to use, and change from one to the next.

If a Mod organiser was included with the game, it would be a joy!

Plus, it would be nice to make a few Mods available on the disk, as not all gameplayers have access to the internet..

[yin26]

-=*MOVING THREAD UP*=-

[Kris Huysmans]

Suggestions:

The city view:
Make the city view like civ1:

First primitive huts, later flats and how bigger the city how more houses. also: rivers, coast line, wonders, city improvements, moving cars and walking people like in sc3000. Maybe you could set these graphics in editable graphic files so that scenario and mod builders can change them. And for a walking person animation you need only 3 pictures(editable of course) per type of person and for a car only one per type car. There should be a option for the scenario builders to set city animations off.

About the head above the city screen
where you can set specialists:

In the cold regions: white heads
In the warm regions : black heads
In warm regions with much rain : Yelow heads
This will gives you more the idea that you are really in a Chine or Iceland and this are only a few graphics to change and in scenarios should there be a option to set this off.

Yes, though Civ2's City View looked better than Civ1's. Civ1's Idea was better than Civ2's

So mixing them together, would end with great results.

[evil conquerer]

Well, where did everybody go?

[Eggman]

Sorry, but I'm out of ideas. OK, let me think...

I think that when you play the Bloodlust option, units should die with huge piles of blood. Fatalities like Mortal Kombat would be nice.

Um...

Seriously, all I want for graphics is that they be serviceable. I don't need animated units, death scenes or 3D graphics. Just as long as I can figure out units and terrain by SIGHT (no fifteen shades of red or identical hulls), the info charts are easy to read, the units don't take 5 minutes to move from square to square and the mod makers can edit the graphics without requiring a PhD in computer design, I will be happy.

OK, one more thing. If they INSIST on a units workshop, PLEASE have multiple designs for the same "hull". If there is a tank, I want the choice of 10 different tank icons that all look different. Thus, I can tell all my various models from each other without have to search for that information. MOO and MOO2 were able to do this, for example.

[croxis]

I aggree. For all I care CivIII can be a text only game. I personally never enjoyed most eye candy. My computer has only a 133 Pentium. I would like CivIII to be able to run reasonably smooth on this. So lots of animation should not be placed into the game or have the option to turn it off.

------------------
"A human imprisons one of us? Intolerable!"
-Ulkesh

[Eggman]

Well, text only is pushing it. But anything like Civ2 would be just fine.

[KenThur]

Against bogging down a fine STRATEGY game with a lot of eye candy. Some of the suggeations are ridiculous in terms of implementing. ie, vary cities & unit looks by area of globe; what if it's not earth!? Get real. A company & it's people only have so much time to invest, it's a game, not a movie. (same logic applies to throne room & videos).
Altho, the city view adds a nice 3D & realistic touch.

SPEAKING OF REALISTIC: Please, add the ability to TOGGLE OFF CITY NAMES!! That is the ONLY thing that prevents whatever world we happen to enjoy playing in from looking very close to what it would REALLY LOOK LIKE from a "Deity's" or spaceship view... & i would think it rather easy to implement & would in fact be 1 less thing a slower machine would have to keep up with.

Age of Kings is taking 2 years, thats about the same length it takes to make a good movie. And you have to keep in mind that it IS Civ3 we are talking about here, not some Quake type game here. (don't get me wrong, I do love quake, but compared to Civ, its nothing!) If it takes 5 years to make the game then do it!(And if it does take 5 years, I'll expect it to be so damn good you'll never need to play another game again for a thousand years!!!)

[evil conquerer]

KenThur: The ability to toggle off city names is already in SMAC. But I'll include it in the list lest Firaxis forgets...

What if it's not Earth? Then the cities can all look the same, or they'll look different depending on their location on the planet/star system/galaxy. It's not too much to ask to make the cities look different, considering how long the game is expected to take and the high quality that is demanded from modern computer games.

Why do you like the 3D city view? Aesthetic appeal, probably. In the same way, we like the customized cities, flags, and the throne room because of aesthetic appeal.

Of course having a lot of eye candy is bad, but there is a difference between good ideas and tacky ones that are impossible to implement. So far, IMHO, almost all of the ideas are ones that can reasonably be expected from Firaxis.

[The Brain]

This is just something cool little things I would like to see:

1. A thing sorta like when you take over a city in Lords of the Realm II. Just show armies marching in, that's it.
2. When your civ gets conquered totally show an execution type thing similar to the gillotuine (or however you spell it!) at the end except it be FOR YOU!
3. Have units move, not all fancy or anything, just walk. When they fight, Hmmmmm, kinda hard having a tank fight a warrior, ain't it?

That's all I can think of right now...

------------------
Acctually I'm a genetically altered lab mouse plotting to take over the world!

[evil conquerer]

-=BUMP=-

[Mo]

I think that all of the eye candy (units walking troops marching in a city ect...) there should be an option to turn them off. This can help the speed on slower computers and also for multiplayer.

[evil conquerer]

Mo: Excellent idea. How about this:

Firaxis includes all the eye candy they want in the game.
In the install, you can select how much detail you want (high, medium, low?).
The base detail level (high, medium, low) and all of the specific detail options are configurable during the game as well.

One note is that these options should not be configurable by copying "alternative art files" over a la SMAC. This solution is unacceptable. A dialog box must be included to edit the detail levels without leaving the game.

[Kc7mxo]

I am just curious if THE LIST's managers monitor the posts in the Civ 3 General Suggestions board, or if you would like ideas also posted on this board.

If it has gone unnoticed there has been a lot of ideas concerning the City View on the General Suggestion board, as well as a significant discussion concerning variable unit graphics per civ, similiar to the different graphics for the city.

The current idea seems to focus and having at least four styles of units to match the pre-industrial buildings, Stone-Age, Classical, Midieval, and Bronze-Age. There would be no difference in unit abilities, just different graphics. The objective of this would be to enhance atmosphere and make the units more distintive from eachother.

Concerning the City View, the consensus appears to be that the style of the one in Civ 1 was superior, though weaker in graphics than that of Civ 2. Most ideas concern the use that this window could be put to, such as showing different things happening to the city.

Some of the actions which would produce a reaction would be Military Invasion, with enemy units being distinguishable unit types, rather than Civ 1's generic infantry. Riots (Hopefully a rotund fellow in a top hat being chased by a mob with pitchforks and torches), as well as We Love the <insert Title here> Days. Other possible uses would be to display disasters, building construction, and the current happy level.

People are definetly of the opinion that it should change per Age, and the graphics would not be static, but have movement within the city. All these options would only be usable if they loaded fast, it is aggreed that everyone turned off the videos because they were very quickly got boreing, and took too long to load on most systems.

[mindlace]

2d vs 3d
Why can't we just have 3d, Isometric terrain, and 3d units composed of 4 2d graphics? These could be animated, too.

After all, you're never going to see the vehicle from more than 4 sides anyway since it can have only 4 facings. (assuming that you can rotate the map).

I would suggest PNG for the format- it doesn't have the licensing problems of gif.

If you want to achieve the tilting effect of SMAC, just assign a baseline to the image and then rotate according to the plane of the square.

This way, you'd get 3d, and users could still create their own graphics.

The first frame of the animation would be 'standing still', there'd be a fixed number of frames that each image would cycle through as it moved from square to square.
In whatever definition file that assigns images to units, you do things like they do for Cascading Style sheets:

unit{
chassis: infantry;
weapon: hand;
age: ancient;
attack: 5;
defence: 4;
special: trample;

img-north: uri(n_elephant.png);
img-south: uri(s_elephant.png);
img-west: uri(w_elephant.png);
img-east: uri(e_elephant.png);
}

or like so:
img: "n_elephant.png", "s_elephant.png", ..etc

or if you were lazy:
img: "elephant.png";

And then the engine would know to display that one no matter what facing it had.

If the PNG had no frames, the engine would just not animate it.

Sound kosher?

[loinburger]

I think that Civ III should employ a spherical world. I would personally prefer that the world be rendered in 3D, but would find it perfectly acceptable if it were rendered in 2D: this could be possible since a globe, if you're zoomed in enough, appears flat. Like SimEarth there would be a small globe replacing the map in the side of the screen, and you could move the view-box anywhere on this globe.

Reasons for doing this:
-no more endless arctic wastes, just a tiny region.
-Greenland will no longer be the size of South America.
-Transport through the Arctic Ocean, with the development of dog-sleds/icebreakers.

The view-boxes in Civ I and II are small enough that the curvature of the earth shouldn't make a top-down "flat" map impossible, so just because the spherical map is employed does not necessarily mean that 3D graphics must be employed--those with slow machines (I'm one of them, stuck with this old laptop) needn't be bogged down.

Problems: you can't view all of the world at once, and thus cannot have an overview of your conquests.
Solutions: I dunno, but this doesn't strike me as much of a problem. By the time I'd revealed the entire map in SMAC, there wasn't much left to look at.

[evil conquerer]

technophile: A spherical map cannot have square tiles. Some have proposed switching to triangular tiles or some other tesselating shapes, but that's more of a topic for the "radical ideas" category (unless there's a better spot -- I'm not sure). But I'll put down something like "If CivIII uses a spherical map, then this is how it should look..."

[Rusty Nail]

The recent civ3 interview emphasizes the importance the team is putting on graphics. Good news! Regardless of gameplay, good graphics determine whether the play is fun or work. IMHO both SMAC and TOT fail this test - too much work because of blurry units that you cannot distinguish from each other. My strong advice to the team. Keep the graphics clear, crisp, bright and easily distinguishable from each other. This is far more important than animation or customization. Civ2 did this well. No more backward steps please!

Hey Firaxis, why don't you use REAL Photo's of VISTIC scenes, real awesome looking ones. Real beauty of our planet, vast mountains. and deserts as far as they eye can see, lakes, flowing rivers with tree's with leaves of autumn.

With these vistic scenes, you could add your own images to them, like you could use a grassland type scene, and you can place your city view on that. when you look at the city. etc. geddit? or do I have to draw it? ahh heck I'll draw it too

[Fugi the Great]

My vote is for a spherical planet, hexes instead of squares. Terrain on the sphere is flat but may look like its sort of 3d like in CTP and CIV2 with mountain, hills, ocean depths..., not like in SMAC with raising and lowering of land and water. The reason I say this is, when you sit down and figure out the amount of surface area each hex/square represents, it really not very realistic to raise a chunk of land and notice the difference from the distance in space you are looking down from.

[loinburger]

I agree, use hexes for the spherical map. This may cause a tesselation problem, but if so, just cheat around the poles a little bit. I doubt there will be much activity there anyway. (for example, you could use an octagon for the two poles if you had to, or for that matter, any sided shape).

[evil conquerer]

Ok, I'm posting this here as well as in the "summary" forum. Yin26: I'll format it correctly soon (monday at the latest) and e-mail it to you as a word doc.

<h2>Summary so far</h2>

These ideas are in no particular order.

<hr>

EnochF: The map should have different styles depending on the age it's in. For example, it could be a papyrus scroll during the rennaisance, a map with a compass arrow and fancy European script during the rennaisance, and a viewscreen in the future (JT). Kc7mxo: Extend this concept to all of the game graphics. This has much support on the CivIII disscusion/general (non-list) board.
Potential problems/caveats: May make map hard to read.

Ecce Homo: Animate the water tiles.
Problems: May make it hard to customise the map tiles
Suggested fix: Have an animated format for the default that is replacable with a common 2D (.pcx?) format for customization.

Many people: Bring back the throne room!. But make it customizable according to which civilization you have (for example, the Japanese have samurai armor hanging on the wall, the Europeans have knight armor, etc.) Some people also support the palace instead of the throne room, or something completely different.
Problems: May make it hard to customize civlizations.
Potential solutions: In the civlization's text file, have an option to say which kind of throne room is used.

JT: Show wonders in the map grid somewhere within the city's radius.
Problems: May make it hard to see what's in that square.
Solutions: Make the wonder show up under units and special resources(?), make wonder invisible with terrain viewing key (T in SMAC and Civ II).

Many people: Either make the units 2D (unacceptable in a modern game, IMNSHO) or have an alternative 2D format to customize the units with. In SMAC, for example, a historical MOD pack is impossible because there is no way to modify the unit pix ("those chariots look pretty silly with particle impactors" ).
Suggested fix: Provide an alternate 2D graphics file (.pcx?) to provide for the customization of units.

Many people: City architecture should be cilivization-specific.
Implementation: Provide a setting in the civilization's text file to determine the architecture style. This could be the same setting that determines the throne room and unit(?) styles.

Many people: The graphics should not slow down the game too much or require ultra-fast machines in order to run acceptably. For example, the animation for founding a new city in Civ's I and II (something unfortunately missing in SMAC) would just be a pain if there wasn't a way to skip it. The high-res graphics in SMAC ran unacceptably slow on my machine (PII-300 w/ 64 MB, in case you're wondering), but the low-res units looked just fine and ran much better.
Solution: Make the graphics as good as you can without slowing down the game.

evil conquerer: If the units are modular (as in SMAC), the different sections of the unit should be clearly visible. I didn't have this problem, but some people complained that the different weapons and special abilites were hard to tell apart.
Possible solution: Weapons and special abilities may have to be exaggerated slightly on the map screen.

EnochF: If terraforming can be done from inside the city, there should be an icon that indicates work in progress on that square.
Potential problem: Might obscure the resources in that square.

Debate: Should the units be 2D or 3D?
2D isometric: Would make the units easier to edit. Would also make the units move faster (exception: CTP ).
True 3D: Anything less would be unacceptable for a new game. The units would simply look better. An alternate 2D format for editing could be made available relatively easily.
mindlace: Have 4 image files for 4 different views of the unit.

Debate: Should the world be 3D too?
2D isometric map, flat terrain (a la Civ2): Would be easier to edit, would be faster to draw on the screen.
2D isometric map, 3D terrain with altitude (a la SMAC): Altitude is an important concept that the game must have. It looks cool, too.
Would be hard to edit, sometimes obscures units behind a mountain.
True 3D map: Two words. Awesome graphics.
May be hard to get a good sense of proportion or distance. May make terrain really hard to edit. Note: I don't mean a 3D spherical map (that's not my department). I'm just talking about how the map looks.

Icedan: Check out <a href="http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Keep/3402/Civ.htm">http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Keep/3402/Civ.htm</a> for a quick sketch of what the 3D graphics could look like.
Potential problem: No sense of distance at all.
Solution: I dunno, maybe some kind of gridline system.

Trachmyr: A style of graphics similar to Lords of the Realm II.

Rusty Nail: If fog of war is on, don't make it too hard to see the terrain through the fog of war. For units and terrain, clarity is very important.

Many People: Bring back the city view! It gives the user a sense of satisfaction, even if it is completely useless. Kris Huysman: Make the city view look like Civ I, but with moving people and cars like SC3000. Icedan: Use a picture file for the background instead of a static image. This allows for customization *and* photo-realistic scenes.

Eggman: Change the monocolor shield to a flag with a symbol on it. For example, the British would have a union jack, etc.
Potential problem: Customization would be hard.
Solution: Leave a space in the faction file for a customizable flag.

Andy B: Make cities look different based on their position on the globe (ex. glacier cities have little igloos, etc.)
Potential problem: May conflict with the idea to have unique cities for different civilizations.
Solution: Pick one, Firaxis . If you can combine the two, that would be awesome.

Fugi the Great: If the graphics are unbearably slow (i.e. CTP) then have a key to speed up the animation of units when they're on a long GOTO, by skipping frames, substituting a 2D unit graphic, or by something else. Make sure you can still see where the unit is going, though.

Kris Huysmans: All these civilization-specific graphics will take forever to edit (custom flags, custom units, custom cities, etc.)
Solution (evil conquerer): The user can, in the civilization's .txt file, either specify which type of graphics to use (i.e. oriental, middle-eastern, european, etc.) or include a 2D graphics file in a common format (.pcx, .gif, etc.) that has all the custom graphics for that civ in it.

Bubba: Make the graphics like AoE.

Kris Huysman: Change the specialists' (in the city screen) skin tones according to where in the world they're located. Potential problem: On small maps (like a map of Europe for example), skin tones shouldn't change. Solution: Add even more stuff to the map file! :-)

Mo (and some other people): Include all the eye candy you want; just have a way to turn it off. During the install, let the user specify the overall level of detail (high, medium, low). During the game, all of the specific details (city view on, animated units on, etc.) should be available from an options menu. Note that having an "Alternative art files" directory on the CD a la SMAC is not acceptable. Many users will not have the know-how to copy the files over.

Kc7mxo: The general consensus on the CivIII Suggestions/General (non-list) board is that the city view in Civ I was laid out better. Add more city info (somewhere :-) ) to the city window.

<hr>

If I missed anybody's suggestion please tell me and I'll gladly put it in. If you disagree with any of the suggested fixes or anything on the list, please feel free to post here with your suggestion. In addition, if your name is not on the credits, then please let me know.

Credits:
JT
Ecce Homo
Pythagoras
Fugi the Great
meowser
Mo
evil conquerer
Shining1
Trachmyr
EnochF
Icedan
E
Atahualpa
longchamp
don Don
Andy B
Depp
Eggman
Darkstarr
LordStone1
Doo1284
Kris Huysmans
Bubba
KenThur
kc7mxo
croxis

[evil conquerer]

-=BUMP=-

[geofelt]

I would like to see some game setup menus for graphics options. For example, a choice between 2D/3D,brighter/darker, animation/none,Clear/realistic. Also, how about a throttle control on the speed of movement?

[evil conquerer]

Yin: I'm sorry, I really dropped the ball on v2. I missed your e-mail about the list and have been very busy also. I promise to watch this forum a lot more closely from now on.

And...

-=BUMP=- :-)

[Wodening]

On graphics... animated 3d unit icons are a great thing, but if they get in the way of scenario building, or variety of units.. no.

The only possible way I could see this being done is if they used say animated gifs, or VRML, something we fans and players have access to. I like the idea of keeping the throne room, as for maps. The only problem I have ever had with Civ maps is too little detail over too large an area. 10000 squares is way too small. 30,000 would be more like it.