Oolite Bulletins

I’d like to see a Furry overlay that works just as well for Lobster, Insect and Feline…

is that a challenge?

The entire universe will end up looking like Mr Potatohead .

I suspect you are underestimating the scope Murgh:
six variables for every race is not 6 pictures, but 6X8=40 pictures

So all variables combined we need 864 pictures (perhaps 1/8th less with colour overlays, but still >100) plus one Human colonial.

Unless you go modular, but now that I have thought a little about it, I don't think that will look good.

modular:
It will come down to 3 seperate bodyforms per species (=24 bodyplans),
plus the 6 special facial characteristics for every species and their 3 bodyforms (=144),
The colour overlay could be done with an alpha-layer covering the bodyplans (=24).

Harmless could be white. Somehow domesticated animals turn out albino in the end.

What style are we going for? anime? paste-photo? sketch? comical? CGI?
Whatever is decided, all should be in the same style.

no seriously. I wasn't understimating the scope of the suggestion I made. whether or not it would look great in the end is another matter, but the Mr. Potatohead direction should be avoided. I'm suggesting, as Ahruman scoffs at, that the one furry or bony or whatever, overlay would work for all species.

I must side with Ahruman on this, Murgh
I don't think it can be done. (overlays that work for every species)
But if you think you can, show us an example.


edit: http://home.tiscali.nl/arexack/aliens/

ok, serves me right.
I'll look into it.

Ahruman wrote:

I’d like to see a Furry overlay that works just as well for Lobster, Insect and Feline…

Since 'Furry' is a tautology for Felines (they are all furry, well, unless Oolite includes Devonshire Rexes), the Furry only needs to cover Lobster and Insect. The similarities in overall body shape of a generic insect and lobster goes well for a single overlay

I'd think the furry felines would be extra furry. As would the rodents.

chewbacca : fierce/large furry humanoid
ewok: small harmless furry rodent (or bear?)
yoda: small green bug-eyed frog
Mr. the Hutt: large yellow slimy/fat insectb (grub)
danger bunny: fierce green rodent
etc.

yeah. fur and slime would look bad as generic overlays, I concede.
horns would be easy though

Wouldn't it be easier to stick to planetary scenes (e.g. EVNova) representative of the climate/topology most easily associated with different species?
Or is that too boring? - could use Bryce to generate loads...

You could even have a library of horns.
just adding to your workload. hehe

In the a-elite picture there is a picture of the landscape, that is dependent on the economy/populationlevel though.

random general landscap: forested, mountains, seascape or plains, cratered, vulcanic, etc
Overlays:
Economy: farmlands or smokestacks in background,
population : a city sprite that grows or shrinks acc to pop level. (various styles for variety maybe)

Again: we can make thing as complicated as we wish. :p
Possibly it's best to stick with generic description of effluence+economy (e.g. poor industrial).

If you fancy an assortment - I luuurrve doing Bryce stuff - underwater cities, sky cities, deserts with curious luminous globes, yer know, all yer tippical sighfigh wierdos... (apologies to Alf Garnet)

That would be even more fab!

exotic worlds like: aquatic, volcanic, gaseous, desert, forest, airless moon with all kinds of weird habitation/industry structures, would be difficult to fit into a fixed system based on the descriptions... but it might just be possible to fix something with the planet-seed numbers.
Or just have them OXP-planetinfo triggerable: We'd need to change the planethue etc for these anyhow.

Knock yourself out and impress the smeg out of us!
That way we might even do this, iso just yapping about it.

if there were a person that had the time on their hands to create such a vast amount of images, the programmers would be able to muddle through lol! As it happens, i am currently a sad individual with a prolapsed disk that HAS the time to create images. I will be the first to admit that the programming part takes me ages to catch up on, but i can create images etc, so if anyone wants images creating that they can work on I wil gladly do so. Just tell me the specs and i will try my best. Its the programming that defeats me, so if someone wants to take that side up, i will throw graphics at you, until you are satisfied. Its either that or death by XBox!