Microbe Stage Mobs

Rather than burying the final draft with early models for Microbe Stage, why don't we give it it's own thread!

In other news, roadkill says he wants to work with sprites. Let us appease his appetite with the greatest sprites history has ever seen. All hail the Binary Messiah!

Cell stage with sprites.... I remeber seeing some art movies about microbes in sprite form and it looked totally great, ill try to find a link

https://imgur.com/a/7ZEyo
They look kinda stupid in the preview thing, but they're not as Belgium when you actually click them and lookit, i swear. I tested these out on the gradient thing, and i'm pretty much happy with it.

OT: So, Bashi has been deified then?

I've said it before, but good job, Alaska.

Alaska, would you mind if I'm completely honest here? I don't want to offend you.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Alaska, would you mind if I'm completely honest here? I don't want to offend you.

Nonono, go ahead. I know quite a few of them are only semi-decent :p

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Alaska, would you mind if I'm completely honest here? I don't want to offend you.

Nonono, go ahead. I know quite a few of them are only semi-decent :p

Okay, I really don't like them. Shape and design-wise they're fine, but they have no aesthetic consistency. The colors are very ugly, and picturing this all together is leaving just a mess.

Tenebrarum wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Alaska, would you mind if I'm completely honest here? I don't want to offend you.

Nonono, go ahead. I know quite a few of them are only semi-decent :p

Okay, I really don't like them. Shape and design-wise they're fine, but they have no aesthetic consistency. The colors are very ugly, and picturing this all together is leaving just a mess.

Yeah... I may have done them just any colour... And other than colour, i don't know what to do about consistency. Some are round, some are globs and some are worm-shaped. I don't know how to make them appear to be aesthetically consistent :S

Could i have some colour suggestions for each cell?

I have to disagree with Rex. They do have a common style, but I can't really say I like that style. It seems too.. cartoony for me.

It's way more than enough for now, though, the phase of worrying about graphics will come much later.

On the aesthetic consistency, I do notice some of them look like you would see in diagrams, as if they had been cut in half, while others look like a whole. Some need to look like they have a cell wall, or have chloroplasts, and so have been created 'cartoony', like a diagram, while others look more realistic.
Having the cells look like a diagram isn't a bad thing, since we need to know what they contain, or that they have cell walls, and the way it has been done is very good. The problem is when they are put alongside realistic cells, no matter how good either look alone, together it makes them both look bad. We need one or the other.


I think that's the problem, anyone agree, or am I just missing the point?

Colour has also been mentioned, but I think that's mainly part of the diagram vs whole issue, or just another form of it. Some have very bright colours, like a diagram, some are more greyed and shaded. Both look good, but look bad together.


Another thing to remember is that they are not yet animated. It will look very different when animated.


But I better say it before I turn this into a critical review of how to improve: Good job with these, Alaska! They all look very good, the styles may appear to clash, and that's not really anyone's fault, but as individual designs they are still very good.

All right, I think you stayed most consistent with 7,8,9 and 17. They all look like the outer surface of the microbe.

For the current purposes, they're fine, though. We need some code before we can decide how detailed these creatures are going to have to be, whether our graphics can handle various transparencies (which is where I think you were going with the ones that Uteen says look like cut-apart diagrams,) etc. Part of it is that some of them have specific organelles to show and some don't, but I'm sure with these as a basis we can draw some more consistent ones. I'll have a poke at it in gimp, (I've been slowly learning...) but that's going to be a slow process this month.

Colors can always be changed later.

I think it can definitely do for now, and i will keep the same sizes for any future proto-cells i create so as to not mess anything up there. But we need to make a clear decision now about the style for cell stage, so that when we make the good copies and animate them we have a good solid style behind it. I thought we were going for like a microscope, but that would mean nearly colourless and then people threw colour gradients at me and i got all confused :p

Yeah, I think we're going to have to find a good concept for a cell where we can somewhat see the organelles, but can track the cell as it moves.

Meanwhile, this is harder than it looks. I did a quick cell concept yesterday night, and it looks like an egg made out of jello. Wow, I sounded like scio for a minute there, until I admitted that my picture sucks. Maybe I should throw something in here about generating noise and gradients.

Plus, not sure how well this will work ingame.

Spoiler:

(I was going for the light-emitting kind, but that would require rendering, and it looks like an egg made out of jello.)

Hrm, if I remember correctly according to red star's microbe stage concept, cells will be assigned different coloring for each world to mix things up. I don't know if we're still running with this but that may solve our style problem a bit.
Anyways I hold a preference towards the more realistic style a bit more. I like all of your models Alaska, but ya I agree they have an inconsistent style.

The problem is that the ones that look realistic look realistic because they have things inside them. Not all of them do, though, from the sketches.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

The problem is that the ones that look realistic look realistic because they have things inside them. Not all of them do, though, from the sketches.

If my sketches suck, do whatever you want to make the end products better.

I dont think all cells need extra sprites inside. But some cells should have them.

It depends on how far the concepts can support the look of real-life microbes.

If you feel like putting small animated sprites in bigger half transparent animated sprites... nobodys stoping you.

I'll see what i can do this week, guys. I should have some time to work on it all like a real project rather than ten minutes at a time.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

I'll see what i can do this week, guys. I should have some time to work on it all like a real project rather than ten minutes at a time.

Cool.

Hrm. I'm not sure if happy with. Here's the three "defensive" proto-cells, coloured green for defensive.

https://imgur.com/a/uqEcN#0

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Hrm. I'm not sure if happy with. Here's the three "defensive" proto-cells, coloured green for defensive.

https://imgur.com/a/uqEcN#0

I like the colour coding, these look good. And they keep to a style. Very nice.

The Uteen wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Hrm. I'm not sure if happy with. Here's the three "defensive" proto-cells, coloured green for defensive.

https://imgur.com/a/uqEcN#0

I like the colour coding, these look good. And they keep to a style. Very nice.

Those look fabulous. uteen, your sig is eye-searing.

The last one looks a bit artificial, more like the logo of some company than a cell, but I don't see any problem with the rest.

Is that supposed to be a vacuole in the last one? Dunno, I think it could be fixed by looking a little less like an easter egg, otherwise it's perfect.

And I just saw Uteen's new sig... Well, it's unique, I'll give you that, Uteen. (Goes to quietly examine whether there is damage to my retinas...)

Don't worry, Halloween is now over. Just wait until fireworks night.

Also, something I notice, compare: Alaska's cells with this... Heheh... We just need a few more 'coincidences' and we can make everyone find these cells recognisable.

Anyway, on with whatever we discuss other than models on this thread... Mobs or something...