For Backers Only: Planetary Biome Concepts

Keep in mind, the same guys who make the art also have to make the wallpapers. ;-) That doesn't mean we don't still take the time to make some awesome wallpapers on occasion. However, once stuff is public, it's why we also don't mind people having fun with them, and even try and share them out when we can.

I've been (slowly) working on a fan art post to put up on our website, for some of you guys, and others who aren't even on the forums, who have already started doing some pretty rockin art homages to the game. <-- This is still backers only forum, so that applies to this. :mrgreen:

Really awesome garat.

ARGH! when is the alpha?! I ordered the Cosmic pre-order! cant wait to try the game out! I have been looking forward to a TA sequel for YEARS... I'm so excited!

I liked this guy's color idea. Is it readily doable to adjust the tint of the colors of planet atomespheres to make them slightly different colors from one another?

Like some light green some dark green forests, some dark magenta some bright yellow lava, some red some grey airless planets, some grey some silver looking metal planets, some dark blue some light blue waters, some white some light blue ice, ect...

This is codeword for "we don't want to admit we have been showing BS colours for 40 years". Incidentally the very first image ever published had good colours and was then promptly retracted and colorized.

The unprocessed data is not representative as it has not been processed for display. Showing raw data doesn't mean that's what it looks like, if you've ever taken a picture with bad exposure or white balance. The processed colours are created using calibration data from the camera itself.

See: http://areo.info/mer/



Curiosity represents a significant step in NASA backpedalling on the cartoon-red colorization.

Truth 1: mars is red (ish).
truth 2: media like to exaggerate.

Mars is blood red in the public's mind because pretty much every cartoon and tv show featuring mars shows it blood red.


variable biome colors sounds good. not just always bright green plantation. Around a red dwarf, plants would be much more black.

Mars is a rusty beige at best.

It depends whether you want a Realistic Mars (ie what it would actually look like to human eyes) or a Mars that's consistent with the common idea of what Mars looks like, and all the cultural stuff that invokes (planet of war, blah blah blah). Two equally valid styles.

IMO, when you make *everything* in the environment red (eg the first zone of Red Faction Guerilla), it just looks like a colour-shifted rocky desert. You need some lighter accents in there to sell me on the Mars look.

The biomes look really cool!

I like the swirl on the texture (as in the forest biome pic) or on the planet like the airless moon.
I am unsure about swirls in the terrain since they can affect gameplay.

My favourite is the mountain/rocky biome, I like the lichens on the rocks.
My least favourite is the lava one; the left picture looks generic and lacks the recognizable style of the others.

Keep up the good work

Mars under MARS LIGHTING is kinda a redish blue sky with greyish red dust.

Its not super red or super blue its just kinda between.

Those Biomes look beautifully pristine! Can't wait to beautify them further with legions fleets, kill-zones, craters and fortresses! =P

Can't wait to see more like this ^.^

I have to agree with this. A lot of the other assets seem to lean towards looking realistic, which is (personal preference) great, whereas the trees in that pic still seem super cartoony and jarr with the new look.

I have a feeling though, that this is an old picture (someone previously mentioned this), because in the live stream, the trees in another of the biomes looked much better.

I'd have to disagree there, I really like the cartoony trees. The game as a whole is going for a subtle cartoony style anyway.

If you don't like the trees mount some flamethrowers on your kill bots.

But seriously, where would you prefer they spend their polygon budget? On the trees or on the tanks?

I am a robot so i choose...TANKS OF UBER WAR & ANNIHILATION

Is one more important than the other, visually? I don't think so, they will both feature prominently on the screen.

All I'm saying is the trees look out of place because of their poor quality. I don't mind if they're blocky, that is the style. But they should look nicer than this.

The trees look awesome as is. They're Stylish and not demanding on my CPU while keeping the quality very high. I have no idea what trees other people are seeing, but the ones I see here are top-notch stuff.

Please do not counter my complaint with baseless contrarianism.

For you, it's "not good enough". For others, it looks amazing. I like them at their current level of fidelity.

If we were playing "forest loggin simulator" I would agree with bmb. Alas, trees are not the focus of this game.