I love bush. Do you love bush?

[machina]

come on

I'm just trying to be as accurate as possible in my comments so Loner could make use of it. At least, I hope my posting is helpful. This is this topic's purpose in the end.

[L[0ne]R]

It is useful, that is the kind of feedback I'm looking for. The issues you mentioned are something I'm aware of though - both the weird lighting, some shape issues and inconsistency in the amount of detail. I kept trying different methods of painting to find the most efficient one, which is why they turned out different from each other. I plan to fix at the end though.

[L[0ne]R]

I was busy/lazy so I only just finished the remaining two bushes. Didn't do any changes to other bushes yet, but that's the next thing on my list.

[Viral]

Very nice bushes :3 I'm quite certain they will fit both more cartoonish and realistic looks, they seem very universal

[Akinaro]

I'm quite certain they will fit both more cartoonish and realistic looks, they seem very universal

Compared to rest of default sceneries? Dont fit that good. They look flat and blurred.




I would rather see more "universal" look.

[%%%%%%%]

When they're side by side like that, kinda have to agree with Akinaro

[Monsteri]

There is only one thing to be done: replace all the sceneries with the same look!

[Akinaro]

I would vote for stopping making Soldat to look like My Little Pony.

[machina]

I would vote for stopping making Soldat to look like My Little Pony.

But we need new players so let's target My Little Pony fans! xD

But seriously, some universal assumptions might be necessary for designing graphics for Soldat.

[L[0ne]R]

They look "flat" on purpose - that's how original sceneries looked, and I found that increasing contrast makes them appear too distracting and out of place. Current uber-realistic tree sceneries clash with everything else and look amateurish in my opinion (with all due respect to daaw and everyone else who made those), mainly because of inconsistent high-contrast shading. I don't recall seeing a single 2D game that uses photo-realistic assets with minimum post-processing AND looks good. Just slapping up some photo cutouts ends up looking like this
 
Either way, these two sceneries they seem to match well enough, no? I know the bush is a bit blurry but again, this is something I plan to address and try to add more detail and sharpness. Other than that I don't see a problem:

[Akinaro]

(...)look amateurish(...)

Nice comment on something that actually work and no one have problem with it...

No one is asking for 100% photo realistic look. There is difference between shitty photo look-like graphic and good made one style graphic that fit many style and it can be used in many maps.
If you know what you are doing its really nothing hard to make less candy and more realistic sceneries that at the end product would look excellent. Especially when we take in to the account how most of maps look on Soldat.
There is no real problem to make it, just because of one weird example it doesn't mean that game can't look good with it.

And I hope you realize that if something was made to be flat and boring... It's gonna look like that in game. There is no magic that make it look better in game. Soldat doesn't use shaders and filters and simple coloring make it just uglier.
So instead of having universal graphic that mappers can use, they would be forced to use their own graphic just because one person that made them "had such idea".


After all its game used by loots of people, it's not private testing ground, it would be nice if people would remember to at least try to fit as many taste as possible.
And IF all developers decide to stick to flat cartoon style, as Monsteri said, change rest of graphic or at least say where you going with it.

[darDar]

**

Your attached image just sums up soldats art issues pretty well. There are 3 things creating the design in soldat

• textures
  
• gfx
• sceneries

and sadly none of them fits to the other.
This certain cartoonish bush you made goes into the right direction though. Before any work is being done to maps / gfx / textures; what about sitting onto a table with soldat's 'bosses' and find a design you would want to aim for, not even saying that it will be done right now but ppl. would have a guideline.

[L[0ne]R]

This certain cartoonish bush you made goes into the right direction though. Before any work is being done to maps / gfx / textures; what about sitting onto a table with soldat's 'bosses' and find a design you would want to aim for, not even saying that it will be done right now but ppl. would have a guideline.

The problem is that "sitting and discussing" is what often prevents us from actually doing things. It's extremely difficult to organize a "meeting" in the first place since everyone's schedule is so different, and not everyone has the time.
Even when we do manage to get together and brainstorm - more potential issues surface which also require discussion, and everyone has a different opinion on what should be done. As a result very little actually gets done.

This is exactly the situation with the new map format - implementing it is relatively easy (from what I heard), but it's forever stuck in the discussion phase. And this is why we don't do much discussion graphics-wise. There's only 3 people working on graphics right now (me, daaw, and Monsteri) and all of us are barely active as it is. Best we can do is just do what feels right (or at least looks close to the original) without worrying about discussions and guidelines too much, otherwise it's too much effort. At least everyone works on a different aspect, which does yield some sort of consistency.

It's not perfect, but the good part is - unlike code, graphics can be tweaked over time relatively easily, so if there's something wrong - it won't be too difficult to fix.

[daaw]

yeah.. yeah..we are terrible at discussing

have you noticed..

.., which does yield some sort of consistency.
... should be moving in terms of consistency, ..
.. because aside from pace and consistency it has potential ..
.. they just need more consistency/repetition,...
...  why "different" is bad, or why consistency is needed there
.. do you mean consistency?
.. I have nothing wrong against consistency
.. , and there you have consistency.
.. in consistency in the amount of detail.
Consistency just for the sake of consistency..
..instead of "attack/defend" for the sake of consistency, ..
... again, for the sake of consistency.
 Maybe they could use shadows too, for the sake of consistency.

[L[0ne]R]

Pretty much, since that's one thing Soldat is lacking in almost every aspect.

[Akinaro]

If you know that you cant make proper discussion, make it on forum.

Simple choose: Cartoonish or more Realistic?
After that another selection:  prepare few examples of most common graphic and eg. map mockup(or modified screenshoot on map): this or this or this style?

When you choose, fallow it with rest of graphic.
No talking, simple choose and suggestion if needed.

Then just check toward what majority is, and its done.
And Im talking about devs and people behind Soldat, not users.
 

Discussion actually is really useless for most of time because people have their own opinion on something and no matter what they always be biased toward it, discussion is just there to shout loud that you like it over something else but you can hide that rest of people dont care about it because they have their own opinion. Some people say that loud that they dont care rest would pretend that their are nice to each other.

Its really simple way, devs gather their balls and make their chooses in this terms, no crying that its need more discussion or "we need more data", its bullshit, there was few good years for talking. Now its just a matter what to fallow. Of course people would be mad that you choose that something that they dont like, but its part of this business, you cant make everyone happy.


Two-three weeks and it should be done.
You all had few good years to make your mind of what you expect from soldat, so its matter of 2-3min to choose/write it, especially if we talk only about one part of game(graphic style).

[Monsteri]

Cartoony is way easier to produce, so that's the obvious choice.

[Akinaro]

its not easier, its the same amount of work like with any other style. Its all depend on what you are good at, and how much experience you have with specific style. If you just experimenting and you never made such think before it can even take more time.


Now its a matter of making few mockups based on one screenshoot that would contain part of map, sceneries and all other typical graphic.

Its one of most common work with games, creating concepts.
So just prepare few with different style, it should not take you more than 2 weeks(half hour per day) one more "darker" one more pixeleted, one more candy, one more realistic, etc etc.

Then devs just choose their pick and its all gonna be clear without useless talking, as I said you all had few good years to make your mind of what you expect from soldat so its matter of few minutes to pick it.

[L[0ne]R]

I can't be arsed spending 2 weeks making mockups out of which only one may be used. I barely spend an hour every few days on this. These here are mockups of bushes made in one style which IMO works best for Soldat, majority also seems to like where this is going, so I'm gonna stick with it.

[Akinaro]

Sadly this is how this business look like: you making looots of graphic and concepts and just 10% of it would be used.
If you spend some time with it making such mockup is nothing big, and few min per day is always something, and maybe daaw and Monsteri could help?

I know its free work in free time but no one rush anyone, and when you all would know how end product need to look, you would need less work with actuall graphic because you would know what style need to be done, and you dont need to spend more time just to play with graphic that dont fit to the rest.