I'm right there with you Allen ( The coding I mean ) So I'll just post the sprites I made and then someone who can code can do it

I guess i still love this one!

So if this is going to be a total conversion (as i want it to ideally) i want to take out all the color except a few hints here and there. Or give it all a monochromatic feel, like a sepia-toned photo or scanning electron microscope photos. Colorize it and rarely mess with anything but the value scale. Sure, blood will probably be an accent color, but if there's a way to give it a creepy, gritty feel i think that's the most obvious way to do it.

So: i have another coding challenge:

I want every character, weapon, environment and effect to be in grayscale. When a new planet is traveled to, i want a low-opacity layer to cover this, giving it a tinge of the color of my choosing. each planet has a specific feel or color to it.

now, if that's impossible then that's fine, but i've thought an extra step ahead just in case. What if, in times of great violence or destruction, that color became more saturated, or the contrast got turned up a few notches. It would give it a very organic feel, and would heighten the player's senses on the battlefield. Sort of like in Half Life when the screen turns red at the corners when you get hit.

Another way this could help with immersion is if the sun(s) on each planet would rise in the sky, so the passage of time could be felt. It would be less saturated, and a cooler color at night, but during the day the world would take on a new personality, along with everything on that world that you're controlling.

Is this possible? Would it even be a good idea? I have my doubts about both, but what do you guys think? is that a cool aesthetic?

Well, it would make the game much more interesting to the eye and that sun is possible to make as an animated constant object. But however, right now CC allows only 1 set of backgrounds on a map. So either day or night scene.
Or you can try to make the map's backgrounds so that they would be as good as night and as a day and the sun would define whether its a day or night.

Although large animations can prove to be laggy so it might be not so possible.

All the stuff as greyscale, yeah. Just sprite them in greyscale colors and thats it.

As for that more saturation when action is going on... well... theres no support for such features as layers/filters in CC and using a giant glow would only lag the game at this rate.

For a sun, could you do a big glow thing and have it emitted from a slowly rotating emitter? Or possibly attached to an emitter or something? It seems like a sun could be doable with a little tinkering. But for everything else, what numgun said

Im really interested in this... Too bad im terrible at spriting... And i know nothing of coding... I wish i could help you in this, this is a very interesting (total conversion) mod
Im seriously interested in the serpents... Altough i had an idea that they would be *giant* snakes with arms, such as the ones seen in the game "Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone", instead of the sketch you made of the serpent with 2 arms, a body, 2 legs and a head... but its awesome too!

In the same way as the United States revived itself after the Great Depression, as Lance Armstrong gained his second wind in the French Alps, as Dr. Dre released Chronic 2001, as the Phoenix rose from its ashes - so too this thread has been reborn...

So i'm ready to start working on this again. I've done the most recent two sketches in the last half hour, and i've got more churning around in my head. The first are some physiology notes on the Bear, and what their most basic unit may look like. I also toyed with an idea for their mech. Think sputnik meets ATST meets Big Daddy from Bioshock.


And then i thought to myself "Why is the bear so lame compared to the other factions?". It turned out that it was because they just look like wookies and, while lovable, wookies were some of the biggest losers in the galaxy, and that shows in my previous drawings. So i've re-thought the faction. This is the first sketch i have of their "new look", but i'm excited about it.


It came to me that the whole "beast worship" idea behind this mod was overshadowing the scifi environment in which the characters reside. I had to make visual allowances for the fact that this is happening in f*cking space, not on some grassy tribal battlefield. There won't be any horses or mounts. So i had to tech-up the bear. I'm really glad i did, because i think they're visually more dynamic now.

So you guys should know that i'm going to be doing another surge of drawings over the next couple weeks, and some sprites as well. Since the mac release is very very nigh (if Data is to be believed) then i may try my hand at coding in a little bit.

alright, for the colours on each "planet" you could just use a massive, massive glow. it shouldnt lag too much if it's only one, and you could place it over the whole map with a pinned emitter. i can show you how to code this easily.
now, the bear mech. that thing is very cool. not only is it possible coding wise - albeit a ♥♥♥♥♥ to do, but if you get good at offsets and walkpaths, all fine - but it reminds me of that bizzare race of mutants from spyro the dragon, which is good nostalgia.. anyway, cool.
how much of a scale change do you want for this?
youve said it before, but what multiple of the current coalition heavy would you like, height wise, for a human of the same theoretical size?

this... was...
REVIVED?

my day has been made... of course i will still need to wait, this seems like no easy task to accomplish...

Bear looks more alien now, I like it.

I think the reason we haven't had many modders working on it is because it's a massively tough thing to make: each actor must be very well-sprited to live up to the drawings, all custom offsets and new walkpaths, and then of course custom wounds and stuff.

We need to collaborate.

Then how about making some sort of plan?
Ex:

Crow:
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-
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Serpent:
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Bear:
-
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Or maybe:
Sprites: -
Offsets + Walkpaths: -
Wounds and stuff: -

As the Crow tribe is my favourite, I've assembled a nice WIP for us to toss around. It works without crashing, but it's still basically a dummy. Feel free to download this and do a bit.

All I've done so far is the Head (with helmet).

Still to be done:
- Body Sprite
- Arm Sprites -> Hand Sprite
- Leg Sprites -> Foot Sprites
- Gibs
- Offsets
- Custom walkpaths and atomgroups (remember, this guy kind of half walks half crawls, very sneaky. similar to DarKlones.)
- Custom Wounds
- More armour attachables
- Custom Jetpack: I'm assuming this is going to be a jump pack, but I don't know.

Now I'm happy to do the offsets once someone else has done the body, legs and arms sprites, but someone else will have to do the walkpaths. I can do the rest from there easily enough.

wow, I just looked through this entire thread. You've got some serious art here man!
here's my attempt at your thing exalion
it takes your basic helmet shape, but I redid the head and I added a torso.
I also made it a dull green color mostly, and made the helmet more brown. Oh! I added feathers too.
I think the parts are pretty cool, its hard to tell how they all fit together, though. It needs arms and legs.
btw, if you are trying it out, I took off the fg arm to see the torso better.

and allen, you have to draw some more things soon.
also sprite some more, the thing you made was pretty cool lookin'

The mockup Crow looks really cool, but remember that Allen wanted everything in greyscale: I'm not sure if that green tinge would fit, though holding strictly to greyscale would really limit your shading options.

I'm working on my own mod, but it would be the least I could do for this idea to put a bit of work in. I can do simple stuff like wounds and the jetpack. If nobody else volunteers for the walkpaths, I guess I could see if I can learn how to do those as well. Maybe I could add a few of the weapons by tomorrow afternoon.

Yeah, not sure about that head Aspect (use the original sketches), and your body was too green.

Changes: I put my head back on but modified it, I think it looks much better: shape was wrong.
Made the helmet a tad less green
Made the torso much less green
Head offset tweaks
put the FG Arm back on

Changed it so it has it's own menu category instead of Dummies.

I can do a lot more if someone where to do the arm and leg sprites for me.