Space station - Hydroponics (Plants are HARD!)

[WHAM]

Here's a rough first version of a background I'm working on.
I'd like to hear what you people think of the plants (I added an clean extra sample to the left on the picture) and the glass tubes the plants are floating in in the actual picture.

EDIT: GOD! It probably helps to add the bloody link, eh?
http://www.whamgames.com/images/Forumsht/hydroponicstest01.png

FINAL EDIT: Here's the final version! Thanks to all who presented their ideas and feedback!
http://www.whamgames.com/images/Forumsht/finalhydroponics.png

[cat]

Is this violett light in the tubes? If yes, you could make bright violett reflections on the plants for a more dramatic effect.

[Gilbert]

Also, you can place the plants higher in the tubes to make it more apparent to the viewers that they're floating. They currently almost touch the bottom of the tubes and don't look as much as if they're floating.

[WHAM]

Actually there is no violet light... =(
I use a bluish transparent layer to represent the glass. I am thinking of using a whitish gray with 80-90% transparency instead of blue hues, and adding an orange light to the bottom of the grow-tubes, which would then illuminate the plants from below.
The plants themselves are supposed to be floating in this sort of fluid, which is why the glass tube is required, and will be bobbing up and down a bit as they float about.

Placing the plants a bit higher might be a good idea. I'll try that next. It would also allow the player to see if there is someone / something just behind a grow-tube.

[cat]

Ok, if this is liquid I'd make small bubbles (animated)

[Darth Mandarb]

Do you use photoshop?  I would suggest creating a brush for the leaves/berries of those plants and then set it to random and paint each tube's contents individually.  The repetitive nature of the plants now throws off the image I feel (each plant looks identical to the next).  Barring the ability to do that (if you don't have a program that can do it I mean) maybe just flip them around, some vertical, some horizontal ... anything to give it more random (realistic) feel would step it up a bit!

I like the idea of animated bubbles ... but make sure it, too, is random

Also, the glass feels a bit flat...



This was done very quickly, but was just an idea to give some more depth to the tubes!

[Matti]

Nice edit, Darth. And I also second the randomization of the plants, especially since the plants are the only things in the whole room, so they're getting a lot of the player's attention.

[Anian]

Anything I think would look cool, like some light effects and glass depth like Darth repainted...they all seem to change the style of you backgrounds, so personally I don't know how to help.

[WHAM]

http://www.whamgames.com/images/Forumsht/hydroponicstest02.png

Here's a new edit of the first row. I changed the glass and remade the plants to closer resemble Darth's nice looking edit. The idea about using a picture tube in PSP to make the plants was great, by the way!

Also, there will be some computers on the left side of the room, and pipes and and such on the walls and in the middle of the room as well. I'm just trying to get the plants to look good first.

[Matti]

It's much better now, but I think the plants look too flat. Maybe you should add more contrast to them, e.g make darker areas within the plants.

[Mad]

The thing I noticed first is the height difference between the tubes and the walls. Maybe you should make the walls reach a bit higher and than fade them to black just as the hydroponics.

The other thing you could consider is the vast floor space behind the tubes. If your not going to fill that with machines and thing-gummies that go ping etc., I'd take the back wall further to the front.

One hardly notices the highlights on the glas you've added. Just take that a wee bit further like in Darths edit.

[Unai]

Now that you have the plant brush you can make it change, not only the angle, bus slightly the size and the darkness. This will make them even more random.

I really think bubbles and floating motion are a must. Also, i would give the liquid a bit of color, so you can see the tubes are full.

What about not filling the tubes all the way up? Maybe some air in the top, and seeing the surface of the liquid a bit would help...

[WHAM]

http://www.whamgames.com/images/Forumsht/hydroponicstest03.png

Here's another edit. I clarified the gradient used on the glass, added a darker shade to sections of the plants and created a scetch of "the bubblers" on one of the glass tubes. I'll have to see if I want to animate the bubbles, as that is a potential pain in the ass (the game will have several variations of this room, so if I do it, there will probably be one or two different bubble patterns and a lot of copy-and-paste).

The empty space in the back of the room will be filled by two massive horizontal tanks which store the fluid the plants are floating in, so no worries there, Mad.  =)

[Unai]

Maybe you can have a bubble sprite and a function that animates it randomly inside the tubes

[Matti]

Maybe you can have a bubble sprite and a function that animates it randomly inside the tubes

I was going to say the same thing. I did that with fireflies who randomly appear and animate in the background.

The tubes look much better now, but you really can't tell that there's liquid inside them and I'm not sure if the bubbles alone will solve the problem. Well, maybe they will..

[WHAM]

I wont make the surface of the liquid visible because of my idea on how the room works (will be explained in game if player wants to know and reads the files about it):

The grow tubes are, when active, filled with a fluid that is always slowly circulated between the large tanks that will be in the background, and the tubes themselves. In the tanks there are systems that extract oxygen from the liquid and the "bubblers" that are now visible in one of the tubes are used to insert CO2, that has been filtered from the atmosphere, to feed the plants.

I'll see if I want to script the bubbles automatically when I get that far. Right now I'm mostly concentrating on making backgrounds. =)

I'll see if I can get around to drawing some of the tubes, tanks and computers in the room in the next day or two and I'll post those ASAP.

[Misj']

Many things have already been said, and you've nicely incorporated most of the advice. There are a few things I would like to add; which have to do with the overall design and layout (and some biology).

Personally I would go with fewer tubes in the room. It's a repetitive design (even with the randomness in the plants), and repetition is always a bit boring. Personally I would go with fewer (and probably bigger) tubes in the room while hinting to the existence of multiple such rooms.

The layout of the room can also benefit from adding some floor-levels: by rising or lowering the right-half of the room you also lose some of the repetition and will make the room visually more pleasing (especially if you give it a fixed view rather than the scrolling view which is mainly needed to show just how many tubes there are; which I wanted to reduce anyway).

I would add light from the top of the plants rather than the bottom. As a biologist I would probably add lights all around it to ensure optimal photosynthesis, but visually light from above (and thus a shadow below the plants) will create a nicer effect.

I'm sure you're also going to add some tubes and mechanics to the scene; but I would also consider reshaping the tubes to a more erlenmeyer-like shape just to make the shapes a little less 'straight'.

Maybe an inactive growth-tube could be shown as well in the scene (just for variability).

Finally, as a biologist (sorry, comes with the job), I would use C4 plants wich have a much higher carbon efficiency than C3 plants (CAM is also good but would work in this particular case because they are particularly adapted to a water-restricted environment). Of course your plants could be C4 plants (or even C3 plants that have been (genetically) altered to include C4 photosynthesis; like they're currently trying with rice...so this is actually partly besides the point. It's actually more likely they wouldn't use plants at all, but cyanobacteria because they would be much easier to work with, and can be cultured really well in an aquatic environment. That being said: plants are of course visually more pleasing in the design.

[WHAM]

Thanks for the tips, Misj'.

The reason for so many tubes is redundancy: even if several tubes are out of order, or in the process of having their plants harvested, the others can still work in full capacity. Also, as the plants are more effectively separated from one another, the separate plants are more safe from infections (contaminations sometimes happen during harvest or maintenance, and bacteria combined with prolonged exposures to the background radiation of the space station can cause unexpected consequences. The nutrition-fluid tanks that separate the oxygen from the fluid also disinfect that fluid before it is recucled back to the plants.).

You also mentioned the variating floor levels and that gives me an idea: the parts of the floor between the tubes could have a mechanism that elevates sections of the floor to allow easier harvest to the upper parts of the plants when the tubes are "open". In some variations of this room I could then have the tube opened (raised so that only the bottom of it is visible ner the top of the image), and the surrounding sections of floor elevated, to break the monotony. I'll have to try this out in the next edit!

Also: keep in mind that the game this is for is 640x400, and this is a scrolling background, which the player only sees a section at a time.

I wanted to break from the usual rules of biology and photosynthesis with these plants, to show the player a combination of themes:
1: Familiarity = "Hey, those look like apples! They ARE apples! I know apples and they are yummy!" (In the example pictures those are apple trees that have been genetically engineered to only grow thin branches and no trunk or roots.)
2: Practicality = The plants are aesthetic, they generate oxygen AND they generate fresh food!
3: SciFi = While the plants seem normal and produce edible foodstuffs and oxygen, they are genetically engineered to better suit their space-station surroundings. They need less light and can more efficiently spread the energy of the light across the plants whole body, maintaining green leaves and more effective oxygen production even in parts of the plant that are not in direct light. This is why everything is basically upside-down, to show the player that things work a bit differently than they might expect.

I'll have to look into the bacteria you mentioned though. For instance: can they (or a sci-fi variant of them) be stored in a dormant state and then "activated" to create a breathable atmosphere in sections of the station in cases of emergency, for example. Since it's sci-fi, nothing is stopping me, but basing this stuff on actual science is much nicer.

[Misj']

The reason for so many tubes is redundancy: even if several tubes are out of order, or in the process of having their plants harvested, the others can still work in full capacity.

I assumed as much (which is why I assumed you didn't go for the usual 'big forrest section of the space ship' look: a single contamination cannot be stopped).

I'll have to look into the bacteria you mentioned though. For instance: can they (or a sci-fi variant of them) be stored in a dormant state and then "activated" to create a breathable atmosphere in sections of the station in cases of emergency, for example. Since it's sci-fi, nothing is stopping me, but basing this stuff on actual science is much nicer.

Most bacteria can be stored safely at -80 degrees Celcius to be unfrozen later. This is common in cell biology, and works perfectly well; protocols fore freezing and defreezing cyanobacteria can be found on the internet (search eg 'frozen stock cyanobacteria'). So yes, it can be stored (you might not call it dormant, but at least they won't grow and stuff) and they can be revived (activated)...in a Sci-Fi world you could of course come up with a more dynamic solution (like for example: a specific pathway is genetically deactivated by requiring an additional chemical that they cannot produce themselves. To activate them you just add this activator chemical to the environment and they the pathway is started (if it uses less ATP than the alternative pathway the bacteria are likely to use it. These bacteria could be stored in the floorpanels...the reason to use the floorpanels and not the ceiling is because if someone is deprived of oxygen he will fall and his lungs (which need the oxygen) are closest to the floor: the oxygen needed to keep the person alive is provided sooner). So could the cyanobacteria change the atmosphere well enough? - Well, the idea is that they initially changed the atmosphere on Earth which made further evolution (of oxygen dependant creatures) possible. So in theory at least they should be.

And yes...plants still look more fun

[Monsieur OUXX]

Your tubes have improved a lot.
Here is even more recommendations for the tubes:

Add thickness to the glass:
1- Double the vertical lines at the far left and right of the tubes. This way you show the thickness of the glass.
2- In any case, the outer line shouldn't be plain black. It should have the color of the glass (either slightly transparent, or bluish-transparent, but not plain black)
3- the inner line (the one I suggested to add) shouldn't have the same color as the outer line, because it's *inside* (so the contrast should be lower).

Improve the shading of the tubes:
4- Maybe you should increase the transparency of the layer you added in front of the plants . That's not what will show that they are behind a glass; at the moment it doesn't add much and instead destroys the contrast of the plants.
5- You should instead add a darker layer *behind* the plants, like Darth Mathab did.
6- The bright white reflection on the glass is absolutely necessary (that you've already done -- it's perfect, don't change it)
7- Add some darker shadows on the left and the right of the tube -- all you have to do is to duplicate the blurry, thick, white vertical line representing the reflection, make it black, and move it to the left side or to the right side. I believe Darth mathab did it, but it's too subtle to say for sure

About the liquid:
- You said you don't want the upper surface of the liquid to be visible
- You're reluctant to add bubbles
=> That's OK
8- Suggestion: Maybe you should strecth horizontally the left and right far sides of the plants. Just take your layer on which you have the plants, make a rectangle selection around the whole left side, and strectch it horizontally. Repeat with the whole right side. Keep the middle unstretched-- it will show the distortion caused by the cylindrical glass+liquid. If you make that effect really visible, the viewer will understand that only a liquid can add so much refraction to the light going through the tube.


About the general dullness of the scene:
9- Add the shadow dropped by the tubes on the ground. All you have to do is add a blurry dark ellipse at the bottom of each tube, on the ground.
10- Add some patterns on the ground (tiles? electrical wires? Whatever)

About the general perspective :
11- The tubes at the back of the room should have a slightly different contrast (make them darker or lighter) because the room is very big -- such optical illusion always applies on objects in the distance, and it's a quick trick to draw scenes that immediately show some depth of field.
12- the little screens at the bottom of each tube don't respect the perspective of the room. The tubes on the left should have their screen slightly more on the left, ad the tubes on the right should have their screen more on the right.