Choice of Ship Display Angle in Future Versions? re: Frogboy's "What Went Wrong"

from Stardock Forums
Maybe you guys can show the ships at an angle to show all of the designed 3d glory in a future version.
I read that Frogboy was upset that he went with the top
down version of the ships since they are really 3d.

Perhaps you'll give the user a choice in the menu.

Ships Displayed- Toggle TOPDOWN or ANGLED 3D VIEW

hmm?


Great great game.

Douglas
532 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
That would double the amount of memory that the ship gfx take now, and the time it would take to re-render all the ships wouldn't be worth it.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, in the NEXT Galactic Civilizations game, it should be fully 3-d. I know it's hard to conceive of, but I can see a functional UI with a 3-d galaxy in my head. You could keep it like a gameboard, except at a slight angle so there's some depth, or you could be pioneering and make a real z-axis galaxy. With a planet list at the side, that would zoom immediately to that star, it wouldn't be so hard. The view could rotate slowly, at the player's discretion, so you get a good picture of where the star is in relation to other stars...and you could play down the actual z-axis so there isn't a huge amount of moving up and down.

I mean, I have NO CLUE how you would do sectors or what, maybe you could base it on star systems rather than open space sectors, or, well, I dunno. I'm not a programmer.



~SDC~
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I've seen plenty of 3D galaxies. Trust me, it isn't very fun having to play with 'camera angles' to just be able to give a couple of orders.

GalCiv is 2D. There is up and down, left and right. Frankly, I'm surprised that Star Dock tried for 3D graphics in a 2D world. In a 2D map, what's the point of 3D designed ships? You don't get to see them twirl or anything.

I'm seriously not picking on the hard work. But so many game design teams spend so long working on 3D graphics, only to see them reduced to simple 2D tiles in a 2D world. It wastes the artists time, and makes people feel bad to have to go from great graphics to simple tile presentations. My sympathies to all the artists... but perhaps they can take that experience and make it useful for their next projects.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
There's got to be a way to automate the rerendering process... sigh- I wish we could see angled ships. Oh well.

~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Perhaps they could animate the ships in the production view, like they do with the social projects. That wouldn't take any more memory, since they're already animating the buildings (social projects) in that view.

As it is now, it doesn't make much sense to show an animation for a building which never moves, while not animating the ships which do move. When I look at a Harmony Generator it spins around, but when I look at a Dreadnought it just sits there. Weird. :notsure:
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Perhaps they could release the 3D models to someone who wants to see the angled ships and allow them to render it as a kind of unpair third party? I'm sure there would be someone with the know-how here willing to do it.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
How about using a fixed angle (maybe a flattened oblique rather than a overhead), and allow the player to see (maybe control) a 3D image. Saves the overhead for the map and lets us appreciate the pretty pictures.


~SDC~
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

We'd still have to create the binks for the ships, but since we'd only have to do it for the Humans, that might not be a bad idea.

The ship angle is not going to change on the starmap for Gal Civ 1.  Any thing that we would have to do to change it would be too time consuming, and time is money that we can spend to better effect.  The ship angle is really only a cosmetic detail that doesn't interfere with playing Gal Civ.