They all look really great in-game, except for "Small.png" when downscaled to 128x64. I think we might need to adjust a few pixels just for that resolution.
In addition, I wonder how forests on the same tile as the colony can best be solved. I am a bit tempted to just hide the trees ... especially for the larger colony graphics. We could add an icon with a tree to the colony name or something.
We can also render the forest, but I think this would require custom forest graphics for every combination of colony and forest type.
OK, here's how I did it. I've used bicubic compression in Photoshop. Another possible good quick fix for such issue (no artistic skills required) is just to make the Level 1 houses a little bit bigger in relation to the other city level. The reason I've made the houses so small is precisely to leave space for the forest. As well as other possible variations. Huge Aztec temples which should at least pretend to be in scale, etc... these aren't easy choices to make.
TLDR* I should send you my .blend file with the colonies, so that the others, the junior FreeCol artists, etc, can work on it, build from it and use it. But it's over 400M already.
...Regarding the forests. The real trick is for the trees on the colony image to match seamlessly with the forest tiles. So I think let's have forest first. Then I might do it manually in 2D perhaps, on the already existing colony images. We'll see what'll work best. Fun fact: I've already planned three versions of each colony picture set for different climates; the Arctic, the moderate and the tropical. Snow, trees, and palm trees. And that's because I've found that a settlement without vegetation looks dead and artificial. Human settlements are always established over some source of water even in the middle of a desert!
@misiulo: Do you have an approximation on how much space we would need with uncompressed Blend-files, textures and other asserts? We can ask SF.net for permission (that is the routine when having large files sizes).
Alternatively, I have a server where space can be allocated -- but this would require some time to prepare (securely).
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
An unfortunate event has struck. When I sellected the 'pack textures' option so the file is complete and self-sufficient the program has corrupted the source file making some textures permantntly pink?! Sometimes I hate Blender so much. I suspect it's due to the fact that I run out of disk space during the process. ButI just don't understand this. It's like some chaotic power wants to sabotage my efforts.
I just don't want my work,to get lost. We probably don't have many active Free Col artists other than me at the moment, if any. The file is around 900 Mb, but only 85 Mb once compressed. I should be able to repair it..
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-01-13
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years ago I rescued anything still interesting from the old SVN and put it into git already. Anything left in there is only for historical purposes and I'd highly suggest staying as far away from it as possible, because there is stuff with licensing issues in there, but not much else.
If you can not use git cause of the file sizes, please, make a new clean SVN!
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Mike's goal was to have everything in one repository. He put the website in www.freecol.org/.
The image source files should be in srcdata/ where I put them, as they would not change much (only updating the raw files many times is where git gets bloated from keeping all versions). Some replaced resources were moved to unused/, as they were committed anyway.
Last edit: wintertime 2022-02-07
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It's supposed to be my Southern European set; :) Iam making all the sizes and combinations with red roofs and green grass, I'm just taking my time this time and fixing every minor bug and slightly experimenting with the size of the final colony image. Yesterday for example I was thinking of a simple solution to a colony on a river issue and came up with such mockup; dunno if it works at all or should we finish the basics first and cater to the fetish interest and other perversions later ;D
With bridges! I got an idea; the game should display a bridge across each river when it's being crossed by a road. And just a bridge whenever the road is running alongside the river.
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And another thing; Island colonies were not surrounded by walls! They should just have a fort or a Fortress. A couple of sharpened stakes in case of stockade and in case of fortress and coastall tower to signify their capability to bombard enemy vessels, plus a single, straight section of wall if the're located on a peninsula. (I know this may sound nitpicky but it should be easily done. I can supply the colony picture, the wall section in all 4 rotations and the coastal tower separately.) The walled colonies on small islands just wouldn't look right.
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-02-19
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The buildings look really good! :-D Are you planning on using them for the colony panel as well? They would be a great addition there, provided you have graphics for all the different types of buildings.
BTW, we are planning on making the FreeCol 1.0 release on January 2nd, 2023. There will also be a few more minor releases before that time.
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And yeah I wanted to make at least the northern ans southern buildings for the colony panel as well, however it's takes so much time! Help would be welcome :)
Great minds think alike. I've been thinking about this exact task for some time. And I wanted to ask you, does the colony panel authomatically resize the pictures of the buildings? I think this could make things easier. Just one image in high detail would fit all resolutions and window sizes.
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Is there someone else who could render and make the 2D images to be added to the images to the game? This is not necessarily artistic work, but it still does take time; If I could deliver models and just move on without wasting more time on menial tasks. Maybe I'd manage to do more.
2nd Jan 2023 WOW! Is an oddly specific date :)
Reduing the colonies the settlements and the colony buildings and forests too, if we're lucky, will be possible within that timeframe. But rivers, and units I don't think so, unless some really good help arrives .
I am excited regardless. After all, we've been waiting for this moment for decades!
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-05-04
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This is what I've been working on theese days:
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-01-04
That looks really nice! :-D
Finally the new full Colony set is here!
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-01-06
Fantastic work! :-D
They all look really great in-game, except for "Small.png" when downscaled to 128x64. I think we might need to adjust a few pixels just for that resolution.
In addition, I wonder how forests on the same tile as the colony can best be solved. I am a bit tempted to just hide the trees ... especially for the larger colony graphics. We could add an icon with a tree to the colony name or something.
We can also render the forest, but I think this would require custom forest graphics for every combination of colony and forest type.
(Honestly I forgot there will be downsizing
OK, here's how I did it. I've used bicubic compression in Photoshop. Another possible good quick fix for such issue (no artistic skills required) is just to make the Level 1 houses a little bit bigger in relation to the other city level. The reason I've made the houses so small is precisely to leave space for the forest. As well as other possible variations. Huge Aztec temples which should at least pretend to be in scale, etc... these aren't easy choices to make.
TLDR* I should send you my .blend file with the colonies, so that the others, the junior FreeCol artists, etc, can work on it, build from it and use it. But it's over 400M already.
...Regarding the forests. The real trick is for the trees on the colony image to match seamlessly with the forest tiles. So I think let's have forest first. Then I might do it manually in 2D perhaps, on the already existing colony images. We'll see what'll work best. Fun fact: I've already planned three versions of each colony picture set for different climates; the Arctic, the moderate and the tropical. Snow, trees, and palm trees. And that's because I've found that a settlement without vegetation looks dead and artificial. Human settlements are always established over some source of water even in the middle of a desert!
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-01-10
We might be able to have all the graphic source files stored using SourceForge.net's hosted Subversion (currently named "Old-Svn").
Using Subversion as version control for uncompressed blend-files should work fairly well according to this post:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/108115/version-control-for-blend-files/108186#108186
@misiulo: Do you have an approximation on how much space we would need with uncompressed Blend-files, textures and other asserts? We can ask SF.net for permission (that is the routine when having large files sizes).
Alternatively, I have a server where space can be allocated -- but this would require some time to prepare (securely).
An unfortunate event has struck. When I sellected the 'pack textures' option so the file is complete and self-sufficient the program has corrupted the source file making some textures permantntly pink?! Sometimes I hate Blender so much. I suspect it's due to the fact that I run out of disk space during the process. ButI just don't understand this. It's like some chaotic power wants to sabotage my efforts.
I just don't want my work,to get lost. We probably don't have many active Free Col artists other than me at the moment, if any. The file is around 900 Mb, but only 85 Mb once compressed. I should be able to repair it..
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-01-13
I have created a ticket for storing this data here at SF.net: https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/site-support/23088/
For once during Corona -- hoping for a positive answer :-P
SourceForge said yes :-)
I have renamed the "Old-svn" tab into Resources.
@misiulo: ...or perhaps you would prefer having a separate Subversion repository for Blender projects called "3d"? (that's easy to make -- you decide)
Hi @stiangre,
years ago I rescued anything still interesting from the old SVN and put it into git already. Anything left in there is only for historical purposes and I'd highly suggest staying as far away from it as possible, because there is stuff with licensing issues in there, but not much else.
If you can not use git cause of the file sizes, please, make a new clean SVN!
Did you place the image source files (.xcf and .psd) somewhere in Git? I cannot find these files anywhere else than old-svn.
We can definitely make a new clean SVN -- without the conceptual folder.
Using SVN is better than Git for large files -- especially when git-lfs is unavailable.
Mike's goal was to have everything in one repository. He put the website in
www.freecol.org/.The image source files should be in
srcdata/where I put them, as they would not change much (only updating the raw files many times is where git gets bloated from keeping all versions). Some replaced resources were moved tounused/, as they were committed anyway.Last edit: wintertime 2022-02-07
@misiulo: I have create a separate repository for Blender projects and related resources:
https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/resources-3d/
If possible, please store the Blender project files as uncompressed -- as this will reduce the storage size when changes are made.
Please do contact me if you require any assistance setting up or using Subversion :-)
PS. Maybe I should give the southern european houses redder roofs; because they merge visually with the dirt too much.
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-01-11
It looks Soo much better now!
Oh, and that small compression of Level 1?
That should no longer be a problem 8)
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-01-16
Nice :-)
Should these files replace the other city images -- or just be used for Spain and Portugal?
It's supposed to be my Southern European set; :) Iam making all the sizes and combinations with red roofs and green grass, I'm just taking my time this time and fixing every minor bug and slightly experimenting with the size of the final colony image. Yesterday for example I was thinking of a simple solution to a colony on a river issue and came up with such mockup; dunno if it works at all or should we finish the basics first and cater to the fetish interest and other perversions later ;D
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-01-16
Great! :-)
I think the best solution for colonies on rivers is making a moat around the colony. Rivers could then be connected to the moat in any direction.
It would be best getting the basics done first ... although the most important aspect is you having fun and continuing working on the project ;-)
With bridges! I got an idea; the game should display a bridge across each river when it's being crossed by a road. And just a bridge whenever the road is running alongside the river.
And another thing; Island colonies were not surrounded by walls! They should just have a fort or a Fortress. A couple of sharpened stakes in case of stockade and in case of fortress and coastall tower to signify their capability to bombard enemy vessels, plus a single, straight section of wall if the're located on a peninsula. (I know this may sound nitpicky but it should be easily done. I can supply the colony picture, the wall section in all 4 rotations and the coastal tower separately.) The walled colonies on small islands just wouldn't look right.
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-02-19
Great news! the North Euroepan colony set is ready.
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-02-03
The buildings look really good! :-D Are you planning on using them for the colony panel as well? They would be a great addition there, provided you have graphics for all the different types of buildings.
BTW, we are planning on making the FreeCol 1.0 release on January 2nd, 2023. There will also be a few more minor releases before that time.
We can cartainly use the City Halls!
And yeah I wanted to make at least the northern ans southern buildings for the colony panel as well, however it's takes so much time! Help would be welcome :)
Great minds think alike. I've been thinking about this exact task for some time. And I wanted to ask you, does the colony panel authomatically resize the pictures of the buildings? I think this could make things easier. Just one image in high detail would fit all resolutions and window sizes.
Is there someone else who could render and make the 2D images to be added to the images to the game? This is not necessarily artistic work, but it still does take time; If I could deliver models and just move on without wasting more time on menial tasks. Maybe I'd manage to do more.
2nd Jan 2023 WOW! Is an oddly specific date :)
Reduing the colonies the settlements and the colony buildings and forests too, if we're lucky, will be possible within that timeframe. But rivers, and units I don't think so, unless some really good help arrives .
I am excited regardless. After all, we've been waiting for this moment for decades!
Last edit: Misiulo 2022-05-04