[MERGED] Soldier Diaries 1.0

[ivandogovich]

Here are Mockups with Volutar's gradient vs. the previous gradient version by Dioxine.

New                                                                           OLD                                           Class of Award
Support
Wounds
Somber
  Normal
  Awesome

Submit your votes for New or Old backgrounds. 
Shoes has the deciding vote!

Cheers, Ivan

[vlad]

I like the old ones (Dioxine) as they fit the UFO theme more. If the graphics is being updated to higher resolution, maybe there would be a better place for Volutar's gradient.

[Shoes]

I like how dark the old ones are.

[volutar]

Vanilla xcom style doesn't imply black background. It's always "colored" with not vivid hue.
And exactly this darkest color->black dissolve with stochastic pattern looks awful.

[Shoes]

I do think matching the xcom style is important. Volutar, do you think a border or something is needed here?

[volutar]

I think it's needed. But this ribbonpedia utilizes multiple background hues (which is already slightly off the vanilla way) and I'm not sure the border of same color will look okay. This thing better to be done by someone with good experience with 8bit graphics and dealing with limited colors.

[Shoes]

This thing better to be done by someone with good experience with 8bit graphics and dealing with limited colors.

Then perhaps we'll keep the old backgrounds ivan has made up until someone swoops down and remakes everything

[ivandogovich]

<snip> But this ribbonpedia utilizes multiple background hues (which is already slightly off the vanilla way)  <snip>

The multiple background hues are by design as a way of categorizing the different types of award:

Blue = Normal
Green = Support
Purple = Wound
Black/grey = Somber
Red = Awesome

[volutar]

Blue = Normal
Green = Support
Purple = Wound
Black/grey = Somber
Red = Awesome

This colorcoding logic is questionable.
I woulnd't make WHOLE picture affected by the monotone/gradient background with some vivid color. It'd be better to split picture by 2, with medal+background and text on some neutral background. Looking into the picture filled with a color will affect color-hue shift in the brain (towards complementary colors), so after blue picture you'll perceive everything as yellowish.

Then perhaps we'll keep the old backgrounds ivan has made up until someone swoops down and remakes everything

I don't know which background you mean, but backgrounds made by Dioxine with random dithering looks very raw and not accurate, considering they are often contain colors from different colorgroups which is really BAD. It's not the way how XCOM should look. BTW, many of mods with fullscreen ufopaedia images (converted from highcolors) look off.

[Meridian]

Ivan, just give him the source material and let him do it the way he wants... otherwise this will be a never-ending story.

[volutar]

Ivan, just give him the source material and let him do it the way he wants... otherwise this will be a never-ending story.

If "him" is me, I won't do anything more than I already did (these backgrounds). I don't have necessary spare time to spend on mod I'm not really interested in. But the result I'm seeing doesn't reach the level of "good quality". The level of Robin's work is more than "good quality". This - is not. And Ivan knows that. I'm just making Captain Obvious statement, to push someone experiment with the look of these articles. Filling them "somehow" is not enough to make it feel "made with love" as any other part of xcom.
It woulnd't pass Quality Assurance. But it should. It deserves it.

[ivandogovich]

<snip>  But the result I'm seeing doesn't reach the level of "good quality". The level of Robin's work is more than "good quality". This - is not. <snip>

LOL!  I certainly wouldn't have tackled this if Robin wanted to do it.   Or Dioxine for that matter, or any number of other good graphics artists. 

However, I felt that adding the UFOPedia entries was worth the work, and it has really enhanced the gameplay experience for me.

The sad thing is, that currently, no matter how "perfect" we get this mod, it is not likely to be integrated into the main branch as far as I know.  When Sup and Warboy last talked about it, they felt like it was better standalone.   By integrating it into the main branch, the dev team takes up a significant responsibility in maintaining it going forward, and that, they are reluctant to do. 

Currently, I doubt that there are many people even playing with this Commendations Ufopedia mod. 

but, Volutar, as Meridian suggested, I would gladly pass on my .psd file for the medals so you could remaster all of the images as you wish, should you desire to play with this mod.

[volutar]

LOL!  I certainly wouldn't have tackled this if Robin wanted to do it.   Or Dioxine for that matter, or any number of other good graphics artists.

I wouldn't put Dioxine near with Robin here. Dioxine by my judgement is using 24bit images and convert them to xcom palette with "default" settings, without too much of hand-work after.

Commedation mod will be integrated into main branch eventually, after TFTD. It worth to be in the main, just, after some good review and perhaps refactor, to fit its concept better. And by that time, better to have really worthy ufopaedia images for it. Nothing stops from making that right now, spend, like a WEEK of precise hand pixel work for each background, but fill them with medals themselves really quickly after. I see no noticeable flaws in the medal images themselves, but excuse me backgrounds are out of XCOM style. They are more for the Pirates (which is full of ugly dithering). Some gradients I made are not good too. In some respect they are better, in some - worse (they are too light). Ideally these images need proper screen split/borders and stylization, and using this colored background only for the right "medal". I would ask Robin to help. He's the man who works in XCOM style perfectly.

[ivandogovich]

I like the alien behind bars and want to keep it for the commendation, but I want to change the commendation's name. Mercy and prisons don't really go together ;p I would almost want to say something like Hades Cross, because those alien prisoners are certainly not going to be treated with humane respect.

Aha! Better Name:  "Captus Cross"  for captive in Latin.  Captus de Bello is prisoner of war in Latin.    I think "Captus Cross" is perfect.

Also, Shoes.  Would you like to do this collaboration work for the Ufopedia stuff in another threads, so as not to "clog up" this Completed Mods thread?

[Shoes]

Aha! Better Name:  "Captus Cross"  for captive in Latin.  Captus de Bello is prisoner of war in Latin.    I think "Captus Cross" is perfect.

I like it!

Also, Shoes.  Would you like to do this collaboration work for the Ufopedia stuff in another threads, so as not to "clog up" this Completed Mods thread?

Well the ufopedia has been fully integrated into the mod, so as far as topics go it's a valid one. I think the discussion has been good so far, and I don't think there is much more to be said. At the moment, the ufopaedia portion of the mod stands out because it doesn't follow the general aesthetic of the game: to fix this, one should seek Robin's opinion on how to help. There was a comment made on the different colors being a bad design choice: the pseudo-categories could be defined using borders, ribbon shape, ribbon pattern or something else that has yet to be suggested.

At the moment, I am in no rush to get these things done because I don't know how the ufopaedia will be affected by TFTD. Not to mention I am not the one maintaining it so I won't force anyone to do work they don't want to do!