Topic: New GFX set for AGS default Template (based on Sierra games)

[abstauber]

I dunno... That may have made sense at the time, but I suppose we're all over it by now, right?

All the naysayers are gone for Unity anyways Though I have to admit, I'm quite nostalic when it comes to the blue cup.
Let's send ol' Roger and is dull GUI buttons to retirement!

@Selmiak: The included sci fonts are terrible and do not support any foreign characters. They need to go.
@Hobo: Looking great, keep going

[Danvzare]

I'd just like to mention that we had this discussion in 2006 as well.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=27959.0

I think I have the assets still cached on my drive, the "new" Roger was drawn quite nicely.

Wow, I had no idea. I guess it only took a little over a decade for everyone to get over themselves.

Also, while I love that new Roger. I think we should make him look a little more like the AGS Roger rather than the Space Quest Roger (yes, I know they're one of the same, but hear me out) by giving him brown hair and red sleeves.

[selmiak]

I added the list of everything in the template (by now) to the first post and added abstaubers comment about the fonts (with which I agree ).
I'll keep the first post up to date with everything else happening here and after some finetuning and getting a direction we should get some contests rolling to finally do some pixeling.

I have to admit, I'm quite nostalic when it comes to the blue cup.

You mean the very first sprite in the template? Of course we keep it, it's not even used in the template (yet) and just appears when you add a new object to the game

@Hobo: Cool talkie animation!


For all the low res versions of the icons and sliders and menus (read: non characters, non inventory items) we need a palette, then we can even vote on individual icons and gfx in the contests and easily combine them all to the final set. The palette needs good contrasts and lots of blue, as in blue cup, y'know.
Does anybody have a fitting 4-16 color palette at hand or wants to define one, please go ahead, guess I'll try something later today or so...

[CaesarCub]

If we want a blue-cup blue palette, orange gives the best contrast.

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Edit Added one using the forum blue cups as a base.

[abstauber]

@CasearCub:
In which case should the palettes be used?

@Hobo:
Do you also have some spare backgrounds we might add to the template(s)?

--edit: if anyone else has a nice background with a low color count (preferably matching Rogers space theme)... you know the place to post

[CaesarCub]

@CasearCub:
In which case should the palettes be used?

I was mostly thinking of the idea of using one set of colors for the UI panels, and the other for the icons, and maybe the fonts, like this:

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Selmiak was mentioning the idea of having a small palette for the UI in general, and he mentioned it would be nice in blue-cup blue.
So that's why I decided to make these two.

I am stopping myself from designing more, because several people mentioned the idea of making it a contest.

I'll see if I find some of the fonts I already made for AGS and post them here for consideration if anyone cares.

[abstauber]

How about some more contrast on the oranges?

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[CaesarCub]

I like it, but I wouldn't go so red.

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[abstauber]

Way better. Cool!

[Snarky]

This is the first version where I recognized what it was depicting, so that's a definite improvement. Thumbs up from me!

[CaesarCub]

As for fonts, these are the ones I made for different games, most of them are missing characters, but that is easily fixable, if needed be. Though from what I recall there are tons of fonts already in the forums right?

Spoiler: ShowHide

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[Hobo]

@Hobo: Do you also have some spare backgrounds we might add to the template(s)?

Not really, at least nothing that would fit the size and style of that Roger sprite.

Good work with the icons so far!

[selmiak]

The darker brownish red is a nice tone and contrast.

I like reserving the blues for the backgrounds. The shadow-of-the-object color is redundant though, the darkest blue also fits there and frees another color slot.

I tried introducing some contrasty greens for more colors for the actual objects but it all looks crap Maybe I didn't go dark enough, but green is somehow not the color to go for, at least I didn't find a fitting hue of green, then I tried some deep purple 

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[CaesarCub]

I like reserving the blues for the backgrounds. The shadow-of-the-object color is redundant though, the darkest blue also fits there and frees another color slot.
I tried introducing some contrasty greens for more colors for the actual objects but it all looks crap Maybe I didn't go dark enough, but green is somehow not the color to go for, at least I didn't find a fitting hue of green, then I tried some deep purple 

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Yeah, purple is the direction I was already going with the orange/gold dark tones.
I added a fourth blue color just to have more options when it came to making borders, but I never really used it.

How generic should the borders be? I did that double-line border because it felt more interesting that just doing the classic 3-shade bevel button.

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[Ali]

This has been overdue for years, good work everyone for kicking it back to life.

However, I have to say: if the idea is to replace the default sierra template then I think these icons make too strong a colour statement. Blue and orange are pretty contrasty - they're not going to work well with low-saturated artwork. It could be very difficult to use this artwork for a horror game, or a mystery noir, for instance.

In an ideal world, no one would use the default graphics. But since people do, I think they should be as neutral as possible. I think buttons that use one easy-to-change colour, or greyscale would be more useful. Perhaps there should be neutral / monochrome / high contrast alternatives?

[CaesarCub]

However, I have to say: if the idea is to replace the default sierra template then I think these icons make too strong a colour statement. Blue and orange are pretty contrasty - they're not going to work well with low-saturated artwork. It could be very difficult to use this artwork for a horror game, or a mystery noir, for instance.

In an ideal world, no one would use the default graphics. But since people do, I think they should be as neutral as possible. I think buttons that use one easy-to-change colour, or greyscale would be more useful. Perhaps there should be neutral / monochrome / high contrast alternatives?

The idea (at least how I see it) is to use a very limited palette (so far only 8 colors) just so anyone can quickly change them as needed if they wanted to:

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Maybe we could vote for different palette colours for the default Sierra Template once the icons are made. I did the blue/orange one because I found cute the idea of basing it on the blue cup.

[Crimson Wizard]

BTW, it is easy to script a function that would replace the colors on dynamic sprite according to certain rule. You can create a set of sprites in greyscale, for example, and template will have several coded presets (color mappings), one of which would be chosen and applied in the game_start function.

[selmiak]

Ali raises a valid points and CW has the solution, though that would require making the template some kind of short demogame that explains where to define the colormapping or where to switch the predefined palettes.
I like CC's greyish version, but let's not jump ahead, we should first all be happy with the basic palette for the first iteration of the icons and so, have some contests, get the final designs, then we can play around with palette swappings to darkness and brighter values and vote on that. Well, noone is stopping you from experimenting with palette swapping now already, but we don't need it atm.

@Borders:
What about we don't define the borders now, but rather say max 2px wide borders (or 3px max?) please on icons that are w x h and then see what comes out of the contest, both borders and the icons.

So if nothing game/template/contest breaking happens in the next few hours I'll make a thread for this in the competitions board tonight. I'd say gIconbar is the first thing from the template to get the overhaul.

Does anyone have a fancy title for all this? Like RessurAGSion. Or like, better than this?

[abstauber]

BTW, it is easy to script a function that would replace the colors on dynamic sprite according to certain rule

In realtime AGS SCRIPT?!

That would be mindblowing - colorcycles could finally be done again...

[Crimson Wizard]

BTW, it is easy to script a function that would replace the colors on dynamic sprite according to certain rule

In realtime AGS SCRIPT?!

Depends on what you mean by realtime. I used this trick to prepare a number of differently colored sprites based on a single template, but only at the room load. Doing that repeatedly each game tick is also possible, but that's time costly operation (uncomparable to 8-bit palette cycling), and will slow game down if you are processing lots of images.

True 32-bit solution is perhaps shaders, but AGS does not support them.