Suggestion - foliage type variation

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Sabratha
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Suggestion - foliage type variation

Post by Sabratha »

Generaly I was thinking what could be done in a small scope to add to the "alien planet"" feel and thought more about the foliage and plantlife. Currently all looks very earth-like, down to the green 3d jungle.

So as a bit of a SF buff myself, I thougt about more world generation options and came up with:
1) Star light spectrums. To quote http://www.solstation.com/life/a-plants.htm
If comparatively more bluish or reddish light reaches a planet's surface than on Earth, photosynthetic plant-type life may may not be greenish in color, because such life will have evolved to different pigments in order to optimize their use of available and so color the appearance of the planet's land surfaces accordingly.

(...)"Plants" on Earth-like planets orbiting stars somewhat brighter and bluer than the Sun might look yellow or orange, and even look bluish by reflecting a dangerous overabundance of more energetic blue light. On the other hand, plants on planets orbiting stars much fainter and redder than the Sun might look black.

Autumnal to bluish colors. Main sequence stars brighter than the Sun (spectral types F and A and the very short-lived B and O) emit more blue and ultraviolet light than the Sun. Given sufficient time for Earth-type photosynthetic life to evolve (e.g., hundreds of millions to billions of years), planets around such stars could develop an oxygen atmosphere with a layer of ozone that blocks more energetic but potentially harmful ultraviolet but transmits more blue light to the ground than on the Earth. In response, life could evolve a type of photosynthesis that strongly absorbs blue light, and probably green as well. In contrast, yellow, orange, and red wavelengths of light would likely be reflected by such plants, so the foliage would have the bright colors found during autumn in Earth's deciduous forests all year round. On the other hand, some plants may reflect some blue light due to its overabundance and potential to "burn" photosynthetic organisms (e.g., like sunburn from ultraviolet exposure on Earth).

Darker schemes. A main sequence star that is dimmer and redder than the Sun (spectral type K and M -- red dwarfs) could have plants that absorb more red and infrared wavelengths. Red dwarf stars, which only have some 10 to 50 percent of the Sun's mass but comprise perhaps 85 percent our Milky Way galaxy's stars, radiate most strongly at invisible infrared wavelengths and produce little blue light. By absorbing the entire spectrum of visible light more completely, such plants might look black but any color might be possible. Whatever their color, however, such plants would likely look dark to humans because little visible light would reaches the ground.
So I'd suggest the following options:
A) Very bright star - blueish foliage
B) Bright star - red and gold "autumn" looking foliage
C) Sunlike star - earthlike green foliage
D) Dimmer star - dark green foliage
E) Very dim star - very dark grey brown or almost black foliage

This would add to the alien-ness of the world in a very visible way, but would not require much graphic work (can even be just recoloring the already existing terrain textures). Gameplay could either be left entirely the same, or non-erathlike light spectrum planets could require the player for example to pay extra upkeep until he researches some technology.
void
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Re: Suggestion - foliage type variation

Post by void »

Interesting idea! We could do the recoloring by changing the ambient light, which is currently done when the world gets more polluted (goes from blue to green). Could be a new world setting, or maybe even better, we could link it to the selected world temperature.
Lorenz Ruhmann
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SephiRok
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Re: Suggestion - foliage type variation

Post by SephiRok »

Do you think changing the ambient light alone would achieve the desired effect? Plant colors in that link look very drastically non-green. Sounds like the foliage textures would have to be recolored or perhaps even grayscale and colored in-game based on whatever we want (e.g. temperature).

Sounds pretty cool though. It's an interesting point.
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Sabratha
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Re: Suggestion - foliage type variation

Post by Sabratha »

SephiRok wrote:Do you think changing the ambient light alone would achieve the desired effect? Plant colors in that link look very drastically non-green. Sounds like the foliage textures would have to be recolored or perhaps even grayscale and colored in-game based on whatever we want (e.g. temperature).

Sounds pretty cool though. It's an interesting point.
Hey, its you guys doing the texture work. However (as a person that has worked both in QA and edited textures with photoimpact) I don't think it would be a complicated thing for any pro graphic design person with a good photoshop knowledge.

Here's a very quick attempt of my own - changed vegetation.png and some terrain textures by shifting the green color to an rgb of 38-129-150 blue. (Don't worry, I backed up the originals to make sure no bugs are caused by this, I'll keep testing using original files). It was a sort of speed-job for an example, but even so I think it looks more alien than the regular green.
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SephiRok
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Re: Suggestion - foliage type variation

Post by SephiRok »

My questions were actually directed at void. But yeah, I think it's a great idea and I'm really happy you brought it up. Hope we can do something good with it.
Rok Breulj
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Sabratha
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Re: Suggestion - foliage type variation

Post by Sabratha »

SephiRok wrote:My questions were actually directed at void. But yeah, I think it's a great idea and I'm really happy you brought it up. Hope we can do something good with it.
Ah ok... Sorry I thought Proxy Studio members communicate via email or some internal company system and all questions openly posted in the forums here are aimed at non-contract betatesters. Sorry, my bad. :oops:
gfurst
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Re: Suggestion - foliage type variation

Post by gfurst »

I do +1 on this idea, specially linked to temperature.
But I'd think though, even with a major color for foliage depending on the planet, there could some small variations, leaving the overall image less bland.
azpops
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Re: Suggestion - foliage type variation

Post by azpops »

Not to put too much of a damper on this topic, but please remember that there are some of us out here who are color-blind. Colors don't mean much to me, but differentiation in the actual image is very important for me to be able to tell what each hex type is.
Monaldinio
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Re: Suggestion - foliage type variation

Post by Monaldinio »

Sorry, but in my opinion, this Blue trees looks Not reaky nice...i like the Green better.
I think, the coloration of the Map depends of different Impression.
If the pandora team Build in the "Alien Planet Ambiente light" it should be an Option like mapsize or climate...
I like the actuel Look of the Map...
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