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New Geoscape UI preview!


Chris

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So today I've done various things, but at about midday the updated background art for the new Geoscape screen arrived and I went back to trying to find the look I want for the Geoscape in our new UI. I think I'm pretty much there now. Here we go:

http://www.xenonauts.com/devimages/Geoscape_normal.jpg

http://www.xenonauts.com/devimages/Geoscape_zoomed.jpg

For comparison, this is the current Geoscape:

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/5035/xenonauts20120106203251.jpg

Basically, we've made it a bit more colourful and used the trusty black border around the landmasses to give them that handpainted feel. We'll redo the base / UFO / aircraft icons to fit the style a bit better too, but hopefully you'll agree that it will make the game significantly nicer than it currently is!

Comments and feedback welcome.

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Wow so cool!! i also like the bottom part too.

will you add city lights at night?? its a tactical screen so maybe its not realisic but its fun to show us when aliens crush in a small town city unless city tiles are only for terror sites. can't wait for mods to add tile sets for every unique country in the world!!!!! like a big district of japan and fancy city lights and stuff. its 70s i forgot and i was not born that time so i dunno but i wanna see unique set mods for majr citys.

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The new UI elements look really good.

Oddly, I'm not too sure on the colour of the water on the map images, I think I prefer the black of the first, or at least I'd like a much darker blue. It's probably too late to change now but I'm sure I'll get used to the new one.

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Not that I didn't like the old one, but this is a really big improvement. Fits in very nicely with the art elsewhere in the game. Has a nice Atlas feel to it. Particularly like the two guys on the desk. A very nice touch linking the screen with the menu screen and the UI (well the less colourful old one anyway :) )

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New one is "reads" little better in dark parts. Old cold and "wire framed" has little better mood, maybe this because it is become familiar.

I'm personaly feel(I'm about whole UI) like you slightly shifts from starting cold, straight, calm, I dont know maybe serious, (in colors and design) mood to something "toy", it's not precise definitions, and it's more about directions instead of state, but it is hard for me to explain my opinion better. And I'm not sure is I'm like this direction. Maybe I'm wrong

I hate the old geopscape. The new one looks so much better.

Because of what? Old one was only little more cold and more dark, but I not see significant changes wich can to make it shift from hate(such strong feeling) to nice, just strange.

Edited by zzz1010
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Super cool night/day representation. I've just momentally imagined how this thing can be made with the projector and shadow casting. Nice overall look. It's exactly how can command center in the 60-70s would like, be it designed shortly with the mass funding.

I'm personaly feel(I'm about whole UI) like you slightly shifts from starting cold, straight, calm, I dont know maybe serious, (in colors and design) mood to something "toy"

The mood is lightened certainly, not necessarily worse or better, it's just changed. The expectations of the project rised with the kickstarter funding, after all.

i'd prefer a dark and gloomy themes, especially when it comes for the alien invasion, despair and terror. But it would need a solid backup in the gameplay, balance, and missions, such as nest tileset. So better it would be a wholesome brighter game than a half-baked dark one.

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Because of what? Old one was only little more cold and more dark, but I not see significant changes wich can to make it shift from hate(such strong feeling) to nice, just strange.

Because I found the old one to be ugly and too dark. And the new one looks likes it on a gigantic plasma screen in the command room.

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The day-night cycle.. will it change as the year progresses or will it always be like that?

Inasmuch as it looks absolutely same as it was before(shadow sprite is just little more transparent) I think it will change as previous one did.

Edited by zzz1010
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zzz1010: I don't know what you are referring to? The old one is static straight edged sweeping across the map. This new one seems to try to simulate the tilted axis the earth spins around. If it is trying to accurately portray the axis tilt it should change over the year as night lenghtens on the notrthern hemisphere while it shortens on the southern. (and the other way around)

I'm a bit bothered by the news report window. Is the window/font colour optimal? isn't red on black kind of hard/annoying to see?

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zzz1010: I don't know what you are referring to? The old one is static straight edged sweeping across the map.

Maybe it's my bad english or I didn't understand something, but this is shade from current build and I didn't see any difference.

(I change map brightness to be sure you clearly notice this)

thumb.png

Not understand why do you think new one is behave differently.

but the old UI screenshot Chris posted shows the straight edged version? =S I'm confused.

It's not straight even at Chris screen, but there is some time when shade form is close to square. You can look in assets for sprites and fast forward couple month and you will see how all this work.

Edited by zzz1010
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zzz1010: I don't know what you are referring to? The old one is static straight edged sweeping across the map. This new one seems to try to simulate the tilted axis the earth spins around. If it is trying to accurately portray the axis tilt it should change over the year as night lenghtens on the notrthern hemisphere while it shortens on the southern. (and the other way around)

What's exactly the last version you've been playing, Gorlom? This feature is in since v15! :P

I've generated 36 lightmaps (can be found in assets/earth) using an alghoritm like the one described in this article. They are then changed by the game each 10 days.

They are not 100% accurate TBH, because the model used to generate the images assumes the earth is a perfect sphere, while really it's an ellipsoid, but surely much more realistic than the flat one it was used before!

Edited by Giovanni
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