I like the horseshoe in the serco graphic. Is this for luck in getting more serco players?

I like the tire track effect. Feels very Serco to me.

These look great. My feeling is the sooner we get them in game, the better.

The Serco and Itani logos work for me, but I'm still not sold on the UIT logo's 'winged pickaxe' motif (although I think the octagon/compass border is OK).

I should also note that it would not be out of place for a nation consisting mostly of powerful corporations to have a minimalist 'corporate' type of logo...

Yes, I'm more on the side of "it's ok for now, stick it in the game already, move on to other stuff". These graphics are important to me and how they relate to immersion and storyline and so on, but they're almost guaranteed to be re-worked as we go along. I'd like to hit things at a decent baseline and move forward. I don't want to spend a vast amount of time obsessing over them. Which is why we cranked these out and then moved on to teaching Curt how to work with the effects system.

So, yeah, we'll do another quick pass. I hear everyone on the toilet-bowl/whatever thing in the Itani logo. That was never a strong element. We'll tinker a bit with the others too, and then we'll integrate them and move on.

I am not aiming to make every graphic in VO super awesome this year. I am aiming to raise the overall level of our commonly-encountered content, this year. And we have a lot of ground to cover. Having the world's most amazing faction logos, surrounded by the current icky interface, is not the balance of graphics I'm looking for.

Well in that case just put them in. I really also like gavans serco one and I think it could be modified into more what you're after, but ultimately we need shields more than fancy graphics. Read: gameplay is what makes this great.

Not to plug my own shit, but just in case: Inc you guys have my permission to use those logos however you like, should you desire (in their whole, or in pieces), with no claim on my end to any sort of ownership/licensing. No worries either way, just want to put that out there. I might even have ai files kicking around somewhere... /me goes to rustle through his closet

Thanks, Gavan. If you find those AI files, and want to send them to me, that'd be appreciated.

"I am aiming to raise the overall level of our commonly-encountered content, this year. And we have a lot of ground to cover."

Does "commonly-encountered content", include... maybe ships? Don't get me wrong... the Rag, Centaur and a few others are not so ugly that they would not impress someone who's last game was Pong, but...

^ This really is the question we're all dying to hear about. New ship designs/new ships would make a massive difference to the game!!

If we get new ship designs, may I suggest that faction variants of those designs remain as-is so as to generally increase the overall number of designs in the game instead of just replacing them. The EC-88 and Axia Wraith are examples of what I mean; continue this!

This is just me doing it quickly, as Curt is currently working on a new ship-explosion effect.

This sounds rather neat, any ETA? :p

Actually, improving the shard-like asteroids would do a lot more for appearances than would improving ships. Some of our asteroids look very nice, but then there are the shard ones that have like ten polygons. You see those way more often than you see a ship. At least all of the ships look like ships.

As for the explosions, yay!

say whaaatt.. roids?!?! boring! ships, ships and more ships. The atlas looks like a big white pencil not a ship.

I always thought the ship explosions were one of VO's graphical strong points. The Heavy Assault Cruiser explosion is downright epic.

The HAC explosion is pretty good. Unfortunately, few people ever see it until much later in the game (aside from demo-mode or the game trailer). My early priorities are probably going to be those areas encountered in the first 15 minutes of the game, followed by those that are most commonly encountered overall, mixed in with those that directly impact new gameplay (like capship station assets, for instance). Yes, it is the plan for this to eventually include ships and other assets.

There are a lot of parameters to the order in which we'll pursue graphical improvements. The biggest is the amount of training and oversight required on a given area of the art pipeline. Even for a seasoned pro, creating assets for our game would be a huge learning curve. The training for this learning curve has to come from one or two people, and impinges on their time as well. Ray is the most aware of the technical aspects, and I'm most aware of the artistic aspects (how to actually use our engine's strengths and work around the limitations to the best effect). If one or both of us are hyper-busy or traveling and so on, that makes further juggling of appropriate tasks necessary (having the person work on something simpler, so they can stay independent and aren't blocked by the temporary lack of support/training).

So, starting out on logos and moving into effects is a sensible way to bring someone into our art pipeline. Ships will be at a later stage, probably after environmental assets. That's not an "art priority" decision, it's a training and learning-curve decision.

Anyway, if people want to ask me more about the greater art intentions for the game, a new thread would probably be appropriate.