Microbe Models/Images/Textures

I'm back in with a background that actually tiles, and looks fairly nice at close ranges.

Spoiler:

I like that background and it fits the darker style I imagine the game will end up looking like. (darker as in darker colors)

That's looks great. Would fit perfectly for a dark side planets.

It's a very good thing you put that in a spoiler.

Great work, as always Scio.

Awesome works!

Hello Thrivers, I'm making some models for cells, but what about parts for cells? The organelles, that kind of thing. I think we would need these things in a separate way.

First make the nucleus then in the coding make it react with the membrane, make the animation for the cell movement/reproduction, then we see were we go.

I think it would make a good division of work making it easier to model and the cells would be easier to diverse. If we make the cell in a total we would have to change it, but with each part separate from the other we could change that only thing and the whole cell would be the same.

An example, instead of making the whole shiner we could make only the part that shines. Instead of making the whole meat-eater we could make his sections.

What you guys think?

Theusfilipe wrote:

Hello Thrivers, I'm making some models for cells, but what about parts for cells? The organelles, that kind of thing. I think we would need these things in a separate way.

First make the nucleus then in the coding make it react with the membrane, make the animation for the cell movement/reproduction, then we see were we go.

I think it would make a good division of work making it easier to model and the cells would be easier to diverse. If we make the cell in a total we would have to change it, but with each part separate from the other we could change that only thing and the whole cell would be the same.

An example, instead of making the whole shiner we could make only the part that shines. Instead of making the whole meat-eater we could make his sections.

What you guys think?

That's pretty much the idea behind the new organelle list in the OP.

This is a snapshot of my most recent model i have made. I am willing to create models of limbs/ attachment/ full cells. I am just confused with the layout of the forum so i don't know what is done, what isn't done , and what needs to be done.

Spoiler:

Welcome to the project JackOfSpades!

Check out the thread here:

https://thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t1131-art-team-we-need-you

It is a more up to date progress report of our art assets. It has a list, on the third post down, of all the models that need completion, and all that have been finished. Thriving Cheese is coordinating the modelling effort at the moment.

That's a very nice droideka model. I'm sure you would be loads of help on the team.

Would it be better to do organelles since there seem to be less done? also for things like flagellum, how is the animation supposed to work in game? will it be an animated body part, or multiple models that it cycles through, like a stop animation.

JackOfSpades wrote:

Would it be better to do organelles since there seem to be less done? also for things like flagellum, how is the animation supposed to work in game? will it be an animated body part, or multiple models that it cycles through, like a stop animation.

Organelles would be great right now. Ideally, the flagella would be an animated part, not a cycling model, but it moves so fast that it may not even matter in the end.

Lamellipodia are a characteristic feature at the front, leading edge, of motile cells. They are believed to be the actual motor which pulls the cell forward during the process of cell migration. The tip of the lamellipodium is the site where exocytosis occurs in migrating mammalian cells as part of their clathrin-mediated endocytic cycle. This, together with actin-polymerisation there, helps extend the lamella forward and thus advance the cell's front. It thus acts as a steering device for cells in the process of chemotaxis. It is also the site from which particles or aggregates attached to the cell surface migrate in a process known as cap formation.

Spoiler:

^^ just a quick little model of a lamellipodia.
here is a link to the model. mediafire.com/?wjjydap63ssrat8
if you want higher quality models, please ask. this model is a reference so I know the quality that is needed.

Wow, nice and speedy work! I'll message Thriving Cheese to add this to the collection.

NickTheNick wrote:

Wow, nice and speedy work! I'll message Thriving Cheese to add this to the collection.

Cheese sees everything...

EDIT: I've added your it to the art pack now, and if it's ok for you, I've also added you to the 3d artist list.

Could we possibly do a moving background?

Do you mean like it being an animation, or some thing else?

I use Blender, the current actual development needs of this game my skillset is most suited for is cell stage layers, and concept art of landscapes and planets.

Ok, let's talk GUI for a moment. On the Building Microbe Stage thread, Oliveriver posted a fantastic demo of a GUI concept for the cell editor. I loved it, but it did include some unnecessary buttons and whatnot, so I decided to take a crack at adapting it. The Editor GUI is going to be fairly important in terms of setting the visual style of the game, so I think we should settle on it fairly soon. I want input from artists and programmers here, because we need to have a GUI that is not only good-looking, but possible to implement- I know there have been problems in the past implementing a shatter-style button setup, so I want everything to be optimized here before we have problems putting it in the game.

Here's my crack at it.

Spoiler:

That version is using only tiles to represent the microbe and its organelles. The next one uses tiles and sprites.

Spoiler:

Finally, the finished product.

Spoiler:

The GUI functions would be exactly like those of Oliveriver's prototype- when tabs are selected, they expand to show the parts or functions that that editing mode contains.
Go ahead, start discussing the GUI. I want a final editor GUI design and sprites+hex block arrangements for organelles ready by the end of the month.

Wow, that looks really amazing especially the end design of the cell. I just have a couple of questions about the buttons. How is revert different from undo? What is the big hexagon around the cell? What is "RpAse Generation"?

Some minor suggestions, I think the editor at large looks nicer with thinner hex outlines, like in the last image. I also like the transparency of the background of the final image. However, for the GUI itself, I think the buttons in the bottom corner are a novel design. Having said that, it does get visually frustrating for me seeing the tabs oriented diagonally. I think GUIs are just best left with horizontal text. Nevertheless, I realize that making those buttons horizontal would mean they would no longer fit in with the Finish button.

But again this is great work! My comments are quite trivial but I do hope to keep posting now and then and helping out until I can get all of my exams done, which will actually be in not two weeks but one now. I'm glad to see the rate of development here picking up so fast.

NickTheNick wrote:

Wow, that looks really amazing especially the end design of the cell. I just have a couple of questions about the buttons. How is revert different from undo? What is the big hexagon around the cell? What is "RpAse Generation"?

Some minor suggestions, I think the editor at large looks nicer with thinner hex outlines, like in the last image. I also like the transparency of the background of the final image. However, for the GUI itself, I think the buttons in the bottom corner are a novel design. Having said that, it does get visually frustrating for me seeing the tabs oriented diagonally. I think GUIs are just best left with horizontal text. Nevertheless, I realize that making those buttons horizontal would mean they would no longer fit in with the Finish button.

But again this is great work! My comments are quite trivial but I do hope to keep posting now and then and helping out until I can get all of my exams done, which will actually be in not two weeks but one now. I'm glad to see the rate of development here picking up so fast.

Revert would undo all changes the cell made during this editing session. The big hexagon was meant to be a size boundary. RpAse generation would be the maximum rate at which your cell's ER produces RpAse.
The thinner hex outlines are ideal- I was just using thicker lines to cover up some antialiasing problems in the hexgrid.
I should probably just make the editor bars Horizontal: it would most likely help out the programmers to have mostly simple rectangular bounding boxes. Thanks for the comments.

On further speculation, I think it would be nice if the stats on the right hand side were colour coded, or given icons, or both. Same with MP (Mutation Points). We could give it a little double-helix icon, and then colour code the acronym light blue, just to add associated images and colours to these variables.

I think an example of a game that pulled this off well in their GUI is Civilization V. Colours and icons became more recognizable than the variables themselves. Green for food, yellow for gold, hammers for production, beakers for science, etc.

Again, just a minor suggestion.

EDIT: On the topic of revert, I think "reset" would be more accurate in conveying what you intend that button to do, since I don't know about the others but revert makes me think "undo".

That might be the coolest and most science accurate cell editor I have seen in my life O_O

I just wan to ad this last part:(sry space is not working properly for some reasson)
How can I help (I can't really code,paint super awesome or help with computers but I am a idea person :3)

NikolaAnicic007 wrote:

That might be the coolest and most science accurate cell editor I have seen in my life O_O

I just wan to ad this last part:(sry space is not working properly for some reasson)
How can I help (I can't really code,paint super awesome or help with computers but I am a idea person :3)

All you need to do to help is think critically about proposed ideas.

This already looks a million times better than mine!

There are just a couple of points I'm uncertain of or would like to make a suggestion for. One problem I could foresee with the hexagon size limit is that a player could spend a lot of time shaping part of a cell only to find that they've placed everything too near the top of the limit so couldn't complete its shape without creating it all again further down. One way to fix this could be to have a drag-select and group move tool to select the entire cell or parts of it so far and move it around.

One thing I did add to my concept was an arrow on the kernel to show which direction the cell would face - this will of course not be visible during gameplay, but would be useful if a player doesn't know which way the cell is supposed to face. This brings me to another point - it may be that you've already thought about this, but in my concept I had two buttons which rotated the editor area. Either we could still use them or use the right mouse button to move around.

With a hexagonal grid four-fold and six-fold symmetry are possible (as Nimbal noted), plus there may be some parts of the cell a player may not want symmetry on. We'll need a symmetry toggle button somewhere to switch between these four options (none, 2, 4 and 6).

To quote Nimbal from the Building Microbe Stage thread:

Nimbal wrote:

There are no external organelles in the specification anymore, they have been replaced by functional edges (makes organelles like the one for engulfing a little easier).

Therefore we might need another tab to deal with functional edges, or else we could incorporate the exterior tools into something else.

I also agree with NickTheNick that symbols would be better for representing things than the words themselves. Like in the right hand ability list from Spore's editors (they did at least get some things right). Maybe the tooltip feature would shed light on what they are should the player not know.

The last point I'd like to make is that I designed my editor with premade cell models and concept cells in mind. Without pivot points or a custom membrane tool, some of them (especially the Heat-Eater and the concept cell from the ModDB page) won't be possible to make.

That was all my niggles about it, but on the whole it's far better than mine, and many more exponents better than Spore's. Even as a concept it looks amazing.

I'm glad you like this concept, I loved yours bud did want to add to it.
Here's a list of things to do for the next one, based on yours and Nick's suggestions.
-Squarer buttons for tabs
-Icons for abilities + sprites for compounds
-Front arrow
-Rotation buttons/anchors (to grab and drag)
-No size limit?
-Symmetry options+ Symmetry GUI elements (I'm not quite sure how we could handle double axis (four-fold) symmetry unless you mean Hexagonal (six-fold) symmetry but with one axis subtracted, making it a sort of pseudo hexagonal symmetry.
-No need to deal with functional edges- they are easy to identify- any hex occupied by the cell that is not bordered by 6 other hex cells is a functional edge. I'll make it so these are highlighted.

Also, there are a few things we should decide right now: cell centers and cardinality.

The cell center is what keeps track of the position of the cell and what the cell pivots around when changing direction. I say this should be the center of the centermost hex of the kernel (in other words, the nucleus). Also, the front-direction of the cell should be defined by the way it is facing in the editor: the editor has a constant front direction, it cannot be changed and is shown by the front arrow.

No pivots or special membranes for now: cells are rigid and their final shape is determined entirely by the membrane shaping algorithm in the editor.