The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

How would you like to see the aliens in the next Star Control?

Some not-quite-serious suggestions for 'something else':
- machinima
- ASCII characters (think Nethack)
- Shadow play
- real aliens

3D, I think.
An opttion to make the aliens look like
ASCII characters would be a fun easter egg.

3d Computer generated, though "cartoon-style" should work too.. "Arne-style" even better...

3D.
the time has come and I see no disadvantage to it.

I agree.
As long as the 3D images are well done.

2D-drawn  cartoons.

Just leaves more imaginability for Talana.....

Although real aliens would just be cool.
Imagine the Melnorme landing on Earth and selling a SC2401 with real actors from certain races.......

Well,
enjoy the new year!
 Martin

3D has been overdone, and it's still not a good medium for lifeforms (even the latest fantasy movies have 3D art that is lacking).
The only games where I've been impressed with the 3D graphics have been mechwarrior, scrapland, etc where it's all robots.  Even Thief 3's 2Dish cutscenes are better looking than the 3D in the game.  If the vidscreens you communicate with the aliens with are 2D, then let 2D art make a comeback, not for nostalgia, but because it's just darn better for the given purpose.  3D art exists because it's easier to walk around a 3D object than it is to draw a 2D object from all it's angles (think doom or the original system shock).  You won't get to walk around the aliens (unless there's a FPS mode to the game), so I vote for 2D, hand drawn.
That, and the ridiculousness of SC requires a cartoonish feel in my opinion.

It depends.

I'd go 3D, but probably cel-shaded to keep the charm of Star Control(all of the races in realistic 3D would look...well, weird...okay, maybe not all of them, but some would definitely lose their charm). That shouldn't be too hard to do.

If not, then I might as well take some well-drawn 2D art.

"3D computer-generated images" can also mean pre-generated ray-traced stuff.

I too vote for 3D cel-shaded graphics.  All the advantages of having 3D computer generated images with the charm of a cartoon.

3D computer generated (probably pre-rendered.) As a side benefit of this method, you can re-use the alien models for cutscenes or perhaps to create sprites that run around on planet's surfaces.

By the way, Meep, why did you put out this poll? Is the UQM team thinking about coordinating an official branch off of the port with new graphics and such?

Wallace and Fwiffo!

Hollywood-blockbuster-quality 3D and special effects. Kong, LOTR, the Hulk - these are the first things that came to mind with realistic 3D - no lacks (and if THOSE are lacking, I'd be more than happy with that).

Besides, until a Star Control 3 comes out I'm sure Id Software and nVidia / ATI would come up with the hardware/software capable of such real-time quality rendering, and for home users (cost-wise).

Nah. I just thought it would make a good poll.

And it does. Good idea, indeed!

3D models take a lot more work than 2D sprites, all things considered. I can see using 3D for navigation, exploration, and combat... but it would ruin the conversation aspects to have anything less than the best of 3D models. We already know that a more hand-drawn cartoon style better suits the often whimsical nature of the game, and it's easier to do well than attempting to get 3D models that look as good as the 2D cartoons.

If it's at all possible to do the models well, then I say go for it - but I doubt that it's the most prudent option.

Also, it'll be a good idea to keep the game capable of running on older machines.

Claymation! And given the opportunaty, that would be a lot of fun to do as well. Especially for fwiffo.

Fun? For the first few frames perhaps. But you need a *lot* of them. I think "boredom" wins from "fun" very quickly.

A very long time age, I experimented with clay animation, to make sprites for a game. What makes it difficult are three things:

1) No keyframing.

2) Whenever you move something, you leave finger marks behind.

3) After a short time, your models melt (unless they are kept really cold, and then you can't move them without them forming cracks.)

Deus_Siddis, I think problems 2 and 3 are simply due to inappropriate clay. I would think that the "pro" stuff is manageable.

4)The "pro" stuff (clay, lights, sets, etc.) is expensive (especially when compared to Blender 3D and the GIMP.)

It would probably be possible to pull off some 3D characters now, and it certainly helps with animation and movement. It's probably the best commercial alternative... for the US. In japan, hand drawn 2D all the way. I love the way RPGs have little hand drawn characters accompanied by their message box. The japanese seem to have more acceptance of 2D games.

Rival Schools was pretty awesome too; each character had like a few expressions (agressive, neutral, shocked, smartsy, etc), and they slid in against a letterboxed background, delivering their lines (jap voice and subtitle).

Personally I'd like something like Rival Schools, ie. several mood images, but static.


It sort of depends on how the game will be. If it's full blown 3D with ship interiors and all that, 3D is the only option of course, but I seriously doubt that anyone can live up to people's mental image of how a Spathi Eluder looks like on the inside. It would probably end up being this dull barren room with some attempts at colorful textures.
I've always imagined that the Eluder has atleast one colorful 'ball-sea' room and lots of things that appears to come from a kids playground (and toys for babies under 1 years), except it's hard to tell how to play with it. Their levers might have a rubberball on them that squeeks when they grab it.

"I seriously doubt that anyone can live up to people's mental image of how a Spathi Eluder looks like on the inside. It would probably end up being this dull barren room with some attempts at colorful textures."

That's only if they got the lighting wrong. In SC2, their bridge actually looks rather dark, during communication.


"I've always imagined that the Eluder has atleast one colorful 'ball-sea' room and lots of things that appears to come from a kids playground,"

Sort of makes sense, the Spathi would not want anything that wasn't at least child safe around them.

3D, preferably stylized to retain some of the cartoonish sc2 asthetic.

FYI: My vote for clay was a joke.

Saying that 2d is easier than 3d in this day and age is false, especially once you add animation. Also, certain types of animation are near impossible to do right in 2d, while making them look right in 3d is a breeze. For an example of how bad 2d can be at certain things, look at the smoke on the Utwig dialog screen. It looks horrible, and still would even if they added 10 times the amount of frames to the animation (which with 2d would be 10 times the amount of work).

Creating a decent, animated 3d model takes more time than creating a single frame 2d picture. The problem 2d has is the amount of time required to add new frames of animation. 3d simplifies this process greatly.

As icing on the cake, consider that 3d today has lots of fancy graphical effects that would be even harder to replicate with 2d, for example water, fire, slimy tentacles, translucent skin.

Not to mention that an animated 3d model takes a LOT less HD space and RAM than an animated 2d picture.

I think my rant is long enough now. :)

The biggest problem I have with 3D is internal consistancy;  Many things look great with little work due to pre-existing algorithms (water, clouds [recent], metal, plastic), but some only look acceptable even after months of tedious manual work (flesh, hair, human & animal motion).
It's much easier to suspend disbelief for something that doesn't attempt to look real (cartoons) than it is for something that looks almost, but not quite, real.

"It's much easier to suspend disbelief for something that doesn't attempt to look real (cartoons) than it is for something that looks almost, but not quite, real."

You can make 3D look plenty cartoonish, if you choose to go in that direction.

I beg to differ about the cartoon thing. This is one of the reasons I can't enjoy manga.

Look at the graphics of SC2 then do this.





ABSOLUTELY NOTHING if its not broke dont fix it. i think the graphics of the aliens are perfect already, in fact the graphics of the entire game is perfect.Why the heck did they bring 3d ships to SC3? If anyone wants to make a sequel just make a new story line taking after SC2 or SC3 ure choice, ahh something just came to mind ive always thought about how cool it would be to have a fleet of starships and try to conquer the quadrant. But i knew that would interfere with the sequels story line. So i got it make a mode that allows u to be at war with the quadrant. Make it a unlockable for after u beat the story mode.

But bout the graphics keep the original cartoon look. I mean when i played SC3 i missed the funny green looking spathi.

"I beg to differ about the cartoon thing. This is one of the reasons I can't enjoy manga."

Well, the quality of the various different styles is somewhat subjective. There's a lot of people who don't like anima' in general. Still, I would prefer 3D in a more realistic direction. If it is not perfectly realistic, then that's okay, because the aliens looked cartoonish in the first place.