Reworking the Artwork needs to be a priority

[Vandom]

This is not an ‘AI Art Bad’ post, but a critical review of the artwork, and how it negatively affects game play. What I’m referring to is the pictures for items, technology, but also other ones like on the Phase Resonance page.

Images aren't helpful

The biggest issue is that these images don’t give any useful information to the player, they just kinda look nice and Sci-Fi like.

For example: Phase Resonance Combat 3 gives an increase of not just weapon reload, but also weapon damage. How is a player at a glance supposed to tell that at all by two green energy looking things? All Combat levels are just generic green energy looking things!

This is also inconsistent with the Technology page, as the Shield tech uses generic green images. Level 1 Shield tech is a green orb thing, Level 2 is the exact same picture, while Level 3 has a picture that is similar, but without the side orbs so it looks at a glance even weaker.

The AI art looks fine, and matches the style, but is too generic. Hardly anything is descriptive, while there are inconsistencies are all over the place.

Non-AI images also suck

There are a few cases where a non-AI generated image is used, and that is for actual ships and structures. This makes it a lot easier to see and identify them, some of them even show corresponding increases to the level of the upgrade level!

However these are also terrible and need to be redone. They don’t match the art style of the other images because they are screenshots of the game models, and in general look bad and lazy.

Many screenshots are also nondescript or unclear, since for example: For the the Orkulus, the Hangar upgrade doesn’t show any strike craft, the Phase Jump Drive doesn’t show it being used so it’s just a picture of the starbase. The Armour upgrades just show a picture of the arms of the starbase, and while the differences between the levels of upgrade are shown, but so tiny they can’t be seen unless you are really looking hard for them.

There are also loads of inconsistencies and issues with these screenshots. The Icon for many of them doesn’t match the picture when you mouse over it, usually the backgrounds are different. The Phase Jump Inhibitor is also not centred, I could go on and on…

It all really matters

It’s all a mess, and unfortunately negatively affects my enjoyment of the game, and how I play. For example, currently if I want to find the Armour upgrade for all my ships, I would need to mouse over the Health, Hull Regeneration, then the Armour upgrades. The pictures aren’t clear what is what, so I have to mouse over and read the name, and more often the effect, just to understand what I am researching. It’s the same when getting planet or ship upgrades and items.

The current art doesn’t help the player figure things out at a glance, and is wildly inconsistent. It’s really annoying, and I don’t care if it’s AI or screenshots. Please fix.

[VoiD]

I really like the artwork, then again, I've only played advent

[CptnCankles]

The artwork looks fine for me. The only real issue I have is that some images are used twice for different research options and that can lead to confusion.

[SuicidalCivie]

The tech tree is a barrier to entry. Why all the different names and pictures that just make it complicated? Why not Supply Increase I, Supply Increase II, ... Same pic, different roman numeral superimposed? Same for the economy upgrades.

[Star Paladin]

Ya, guessing what a map looks like when you are setting up a game is bad. Needs to be fixed soon please.

[Vandom]

Цитата допису XartaX:

Personally I don't mind AI at all, and if anything utilizing the technology makes me more interested since its a mark of actually trying to keep up to date with new technologies.

That said, the research tree specifically needs some work. You can use the AI art pictures, but it should probably also have icons added to it which tells the player what categories the research is about. For example if the colonization techs had an icon of a planet with a flag sticking out of it attached to the tech, you'd immediately make out which techs are colonization related. Shield techs could have a shield icon. And so on and so on.

I hope they go with this, have the research tree be easy to read icons. But I also agree that a lot of the AI art isn't bad, it fits the art style well and adds some lore character to those upgrades. A good compromise might be to replace the icons with simplified ones, but mousing over them to read the descriptions shows the art and descriptions, along with the number values.

They sort of already have this with item upgrades having their own little symbol that makes them stand out.

[Dispenser (Garacian)]

Цитата допису Soyak Striker:

♥♥♥♥.. I wish I realized it had AI crap before I bought it.

Completely agree, I was taken aback when I saw the awful AI art. Not only does it look bad and soulless, it's also harmful to real artists. Grow a spine and hire some real artists.

[Thylein]

I see it as far more annoying and insulting that they used AI to make artwork but then still repeat a most of the same artwork for the map select screen, the research screen, the artefact screen, the ship part screen and the building screen. I had a run with the TEC and literally had the same weird red virus picture 3 times on the screen. How could any one sign off on that? Some of the artwork looks like it was the first selection from what the AI generated and no one had time to generate 3 or 4 more pictures so that you a) have a fitting picture and b) do not have to use the same image multiple time?

[Trentscousin]

If they are using in house material mixed with "Ai", and have gotten permission/acceptance from the artists, how is this an issue?

On the other hand, if the game is spamming same/ very similar images over and over that's a bummer.

[XartaX]

Цитата допису Dispenser (Garacian):

Цитата допису Soyak Striker:

♥♥♥♥.. I wish I realized it had AI crap before I bought it.

Completely agree, I was taken aback when I saw the awful AI art. Not only does it look bad and soulless, it's also harmful to real artists. Grow a spine and hire some real artists.

I'll buy some extra copies for friends to reward the use of AI, no worries.

[General T.Montana Tropic Thunder]

Цитата допису XartaX:

Цитата допису Dispenser (Garacian):

Completely agree, I was taken aback when I saw the awful AI art. Not only does it look bad and soulless, it's also harmful to real artists. Grow a spine and hire some real artists.

I'll buy some extra copies for friends to reward the use of AI, no worries.

Yesterday, I got zapped playing the game and I saw
The Light of Zartha !

[Kaezeribato]

Цитата допису SaltyClownShoes:

Sometimes I think people just like to find things to complain about. Because this game is a 10/10 uplift of an already great game, but brought to modern systems with modern stability and support for epically massive gameplay on the new 64bit game engine.

Beside the high rez and high FPS cap, nothing else is better. The skill description are similar, the building description as somewhat similar, the UI was ten time better in the Rebelion, the Tech tree was better... In fact, everythings that differ from the first is worst.

For a dev team that decided to go 2 year epic exclu for the money it's quite sad to see that they didn't keep what was good and redid what did not need to be redone.

Цитата допису BORG Mad TV:

It's like going food shopping and someone complains that the shop's lighting is 17 Kelvin to yellow or that the light installation guy may have been from Texas or Halflife Black Mesa.

It's like going shopping and find a box with a naked lady and read that it's actualy a box of potatoe. Then you find a box with a super muscular dude doing push up to find out when your read the text that it contain suggar.

Also why are some people acting as if we could not differenciate AI art? Even if dont take in account all the horror and aberation AI do, because it just smashing things together until it somewhat stick, there is still the issue of the total lack of detailed and different texture for different part. When a character look like he was drenched in oil and his skill has the exact same texture as his skin there's an issue.

It barely take any time to draw a potrait for a good artist, but it take way longer for a team to create a decently sized library for an AI to give you stuff from what you made.
As someone else said, if you want an AI to give you 10 portrait you'll need to draw farm more image than this, so you're losing time for no gaing in quality.

[Sasha Mason]

Цитата допису BORG Mad TV:

No clue what this thread is about,
the in-game graphic icons look great...Its 99.9% space action rts play. :rosebud::llama:

It's like going food shopping and someone complains that the shop's lighting is 17 Kelvin to yellow or that the light installation guy may have been from Texas or Halflife Black Mesa.

You know, it's great that you like it, it really is, but I would personally prefer icons where I can actually tell what I'm looking at without having to zoom in. All of the planet items for example look way too same'ish, there's no way to tell them apart just from how the icon looks. It almost always represents some kind of building, naturally, but there is nothing about the building that makes it clear what it's for.

There might as well be no icon images at all. Like I have explained numerous times before, adding more fidelity and detail to an icon =/= making it better. Everything's just too vague. The icons should be simple, yet stylish and very distinct so I don't have to hover over every single planet item every time just to know that this gray advent building adds Harmony Research while that other also gray advent building adds Hostility, while the also gray Advent building on the other actually has to do with culture, or commerce, or mining.

[Serious Ludd]

Late to the party but I agree 100% that the art, especially the portraits, needs a rework.

The Vasaris are probably the biggest issue. In the first game, you could tell they were biological aliens, using very fancy and advanced garments and accessories. They felt like an advanced nobility.

In SoSE II however, they all look like a generic SF cyborg or robot. They have completely lost that "noble" aspect.