Splash screens

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 3:40 am

I think that a good way to immerse players more in the Vega Strike universe would be to have a variety of splash screens, each one with some kind of attractive visual, along with some concise text that would convey some Vega Strike universe related idea.

For example, I think that a splash screen about the Aera would be great. We could have an image of an Aera (i heard that there was one somewhere), collaged together with some pictures of an Aera fighter in battle, as well as some stylized text describing who they are.

another idea might be a communist propaganda poster for the ISO! Or a recruiting advertisement for the Confed Navy. Each one would help give the players a bigger feeling of actually loading up a special universe when they start Vega Strike.

I am volunteering myself for this task, too! What do you all think?

Post by **hellcatv** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 3:47 am

hehhee go for it

jacks has a nice pix of the aera but it's a pencil sketch and hasn't been digitized...
same with the rlaan

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 5:01 am

Okay, I was inspired, and I've got nothing better to do. So here's what I came up with. The fire is a stock photo that's completely free for non commercial use, and the other element is a VS screenshot. : )

It's just a mockup, pretty much. Anything text could be changed.

http://students.washington.edu/peteyg/b ... splash.jpg

Duality · Post by **Duality** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 5:51 am

Seeing pencial sketches is fine for me if its scanned.

Post by **hurleybird** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 5:53 am

maybe we should scrap the "thank you for playing vegastrike" disclaimer... it kind of gives VS more of a cheap-freeware feel than commecial game feel.

Anax · Post by **Anax** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 7:56 am

Good pencil sketches can look very cool - gives them an arty feel. Infact, it can also give it an explorative/discovery feel, which may fit it. Also can give a story-telling feel. depends how you go for it. Oft even games manuals use pencil sketches (i THINK star craft used them for eg), so go nuts

Also, that splash looks very cool dude - what program did you use? (oh, cept back off on hte flames a bit so we can see the aera ships better)

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 8:02 am

Ahhh, here's my second one. I have a sneaking feeling this one might be slightly crappy. So please... don't hold back.

And if anyone else has some ideas for nifty splash screens, feel free to propose them!

This one is a recruiting poster for the Confederatin's navy.

http://students.washington.edu/peteyg/b ... splash.jpg

Post by **dandandaman** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 9:06 am

PeteyG wrote:Ahhh, here's my second one. I have a sneaking feeling this one might be slightly crappy. So please... don't hold back.

And if anyone else has some ideas for nifty splash screens, feel free to propose them!

This one is a recruiting poster for the Confederatin's navy.

http://students.washington.edu/peteyg/b ... splash.jpg

maybe something galactic rather than jupiter......after all, *everyone's* been there

and maybe a different coloured uniform

Otherwise looks good

Dan.a

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 8:04 am

Hmmm. Okay, I've now tweaked my Navy recruiting poster a bit, and have done a bit of ISO propaganda.

I'm a bit worried about the wording on the ISO poster. Most of that propaganda is.. er... 'borrowed' from the REAL ISO... but the central block is my own. Any thoughts on tweaking that?

http://students.washington.edu/peteyg/b ... plash2.jpg

http://students.washington.edu/peteyg/b ... splash.jpg

Post by **dandandaman** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 9:57 am

looks great

good work

Dan.a

Post by **zaydana** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 10:51 am

i did a sketch of an alien today, and a sketch of a spaceship, and a nice new font to write the title on. Problem was, it was on paper and I have no scanner... o well

I think the best way to do all this would be to have some archiac piece of information on each, with a sketch of the species, a background on the species, maybe a picture of one of their spaceships, and their name?

Also... an idea for the human one... is a picture of the description of humans which we put on that probe we sent out a few years ago, which had a picture of humans, some prime numbers, some radio lengths, etc.

That would work for the humans one, anyways...

Bazza · Post by **Bazza** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 11:07 am

Those splash screens look great. I think they give the game a more polished feel. I reckon the aera looks the best.

Man, if only my graphic work looked that good

Post by **hurleybird** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 5:57 pm

those posters are starting to look really good. A little bit more tweaking and they will be PERFECT.

Post by **hellcatv** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 8:24 pm

I totally agree--these are going to make the difference in 0.4.0

make it feel like someone really purchased a game and is now unwrapping it for the first time

"may I have my receipt?"
"Here sir, it's $0.00"
"what about tax"
"well at 8.725%, it's $0.00; thank you, come again!"

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 10:16 pm

Thank you so much!

I know they're pretty cool too, which makes me REALLY excited about them. I mean REALLY excited. I'm going to have to discipline myself so the other VS-related projects I have going get done as well. But I'm definately going to work on this.

Please, if anyone else has cool ideas, feel free to suggest them. Hellcatv gave me another idea for some ISO stuff, but I don't want them to feel unbalanced if there doesn't end up being a BUNCH of them.

I've uncovered a treasure trove of stock photos on the internet, at www.deviantart.com, so I am wanting to incorporate one of the really nice landscapes into some kind of advertisement for a new colony, or something.

I know what I'll do next. A 'have you seen this ship?' missing person poster. The ship got lost in the axis system (whichever one the mysterious alien probe quest starts), and there's a picture of it and some of the people, and then maybe some kind of blurry/scrambled picture of the ancient drone. Doesn't such a thing exist already? Does anyone know?

Post by **hurleybird** » Wed Jun 25, 2003 2:08 am

hey peteyG, you did some music right? maybe you should do music for the load screens, or you could have some race specific music play depending on which screen is loaded...

G3David · Post by **G3David** » Wed Jun 25, 2003 3:29 am

I would like to see a Rlaan poster
also, a pirate poster, special forces confed poster, and maybe trader poster?

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Wed Jun 25, 2003 6:48 am

Jason_Ryock wrote: 1)What the hell are the factions?
2)What do all these ship stat numbers mean?
3)Mission with plots are mentioned, how do I play them, find them, and how do I know if this is one?
4)What's the point of the bar?
5)What's all this information in my cockpit?
6)Is there a simple document with all the shortcut keys?
7)What are all these buttons on the launcher?
8)Confed?Aero?What does any of that MEAN?

Could we have a splash screen to help explain some of this? Could it be rigged so that a specific splash screen is shown the first time the game is run?

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Wed Jun 25, 2003 8:19 am

I just finished a new one. This one... it might not be obvious enough. Or too obvious?

And does the ninja on the left totally screw things up? I couldn't find a good standing figure in my stock photo resources... so I used the ninja. Could be replaced.

http://students.washington.edu/peteyg/b ... splash.jpg

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Wed Jun 25, 2003 9:02 am

this one really rocks !
instead of the ninja, maybe a space pilot (or space marine)?
Your interior shots are really great, is it your work?

Post by **hellcatv** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 2:14 am

I can't stop thinking about your splashscreens.Â These guys are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

bonus points to whoever knows where I got most of that quote

Â

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 2:59 am

hurleybird wrote:hey peteyG, you did some music right? maybe you should do music for the load screens, or you could have some race specific music play depending on which screen is loaded...

That'd be cool, but I suspect that it's not worth hammering out a few seconds of music for each species, and then having the music player load earlier... all for an extra few percentage points of immersion over the course of 15 seconds. I don't know, maybe if Hellcatv thinks it's a good idea.

G3David wrote:I would like to see a Rlaan poster
also, a pirate poster, special forces confed poster, and maybe trader poster?

Excellent ideas. I've got an Rlaan poster in the works, I just need to think of something remarkable to say about the Rlaan. I'll queue up the other ones too.

etheral walker wrote:Your interior shots are really great, is it your work?

It isn't... the left interior is a stock photo of the interior of a tunnel. The right interior is from VS itself, the inside of the Industrial Planet bar at nightfall.

hellcatv wrote:I can't stop thinking about your splashscreens. These guys are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

bonus points to whoever knows where I got most of that quote

Well, that's okay. I can't stop thinking about your game. : )

Well.... I googled it, so I will take myself out of the running. But I am quite familiar with the reference. : )

Shrike · Post by **Shrike** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 3:20 am

hellcatv wrote:These guys are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

bonus points to whoever knows where I got most of that quote ;-)

Hahahaha. I dunno, but I bet whoever said that must really hate pirates.

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 5:51 am

a splashscreen for the Rlaan. I've left some space open in the bottom left. Some random information could go there, or perhaps the mythical picture of JackS.

the lower background is a volcano... or at least a really hot wasteland type of thing. Not obvious enough?

I should note that I'm stealing all of the Rlaan / Aera stuff straight from the 'history' folder that comes with Vega Strike.

http://students.washington.edu/peteyg/b ... splash.jpg

Post by **dandandaman** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 10:19 am

hmm.....not sure I like the rlaan one....I think it may be too sparse (as you said)...

maybe a screeny of a Rlaan/Aeran cruiser battle would look good in the background instead of the lone ship, and some reference to the Rlaan/Aeran war etc (you'll need to talk to jacks on this)....

but all the others I think are good, and instead of the ninja, maybe a mob-boss looking guy, or a cloak and dagger guy?

great work on all of these

Dan.a