Cargo-Art for Dilithium
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Cargo-Art for Dilithium
I just made two similar graphics for Dilithium. Staying true to the description it is "not particularly exciting". However, I tried to stay true to the structure of actual dilithium telluride:
What do you think?
What do you think?
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It IS pixelated in reality...
Well, of course not. Now that you mention it.
Perhaps I shouldn't have compressed the png. so much. I resized the pics from 1024², perhaps that did some additional pixelating?
Well, of course not. Now that you mention it.
Perhaps I shouldn't have compressed the png. so much. I resized the pics from 1024², perhaps that did some additional pixelating?
Just like Lot's wife I could never look back
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Hmm, maybe a bit more exciting wouldn't hurt too much. These white things could be anything. Maybe a close-up could reveal more, some dispersion and caustics? I did a quick sample to illustrate what I mean:
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Well, that looks a bit nicer I must admit. But the colour is not correct since the stuff is white or if not 100% pure slightly amber. But I guess the stuff Trekkies would go for is the stuff they'd use in the warpdrive and I assume this should be pure.
Unfortunately I dunno how to make it look more like a real crystal...which software do you use?
Unfortunately I dunno how to make it look more like a real crystal...which software do you use?
Just like Lot's wife I could never look back
Megatherion - selling YOUR wines all over the Galaxy.
If you're producing wine that deserves the name and need clients in all parts of the universe, be sure to check and call 1-800-MEGATHERION!
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Well then, a white version:To Megatherion wrote:Well, that looks a bit nicer I must admit. But the colour is not correct since the stuff is white or if not 100% pure slightly amber. But I guess the stuff Trekkies would go for is the stuff they'd use in the warpdrive and I assume this should be pure.
and a light amber one:
In white it doesn't look as spectacular, though.
What is the structure of dilithium telluride you were talking about? It's hard to see on your pictures. Hexagonal and somewhat flattened, I presume?
The sooo ugly one: BlenderTo Megatherion wrote:Unfortunately I dunno how to make it look more like a real crystal...which software do you use?
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Ehm... wasn't dilithium fictional?
AFAIK, lithium is a metal... no crystalline structure... and according to the wikipedia, there's no pure form found in nature. (di-lithium would be one such pure form).
In any case, neither you could make pure di-lithium: as all metals, they bind in a metallic way, so just like you don't have Fe2, or Na2, you neither have Li2. You could create Ionized cristalline componds, but Li-Li - no, not that, not with any techinque I know (which isn't much to say, I'll grant you that).
AFAIK, lithium is a metal... no crystalline structure... and according to the wikipedia, there's no pure form found in nature. (di-lithium would be one such pure form).
In any case, neither you could make pure di-lithium: as all metals, they bind in a metallic way, so just like you don't have Fe2, or Na2, you neither have Li2. You could create Ionized cristalline componds, but Li-Li - no, not that, not with any techinque I know (which isn't much to say, I'll grant you that).
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dilithium crystals fueling the warp drive... yes exceedingly fictionalklauss wrote:Ehm... wasn't dilithium fictional?
AFAIK, lithium is a metal... no crystalline structure... and according to the wikipedia, there's no pure form found in nature. (di-lithium would be one such pure form).
In any case, neither you could make pure di-lithium: as all metals, they bind in a metallic way, so just like you don't have Fe2, or Na2, you neither have Li2. You could create Ionized cristalline componds, but Li-Li - no, not that, not with any techinque I know (which isn't much to say, I'll grant you that).
yes, lithium is a very soft metal (makes a good addive to grease) somewhere buried in teh back of my mind is all the periodic info on lithium... but um... i thnk the hrd dfrive has bad sectrs on itd
lithium is also helpful in keeping some ppl from killing themselves...
dilithium telluride (Li2Te) however, would be a mineral with a crystaline structure... too bad natural chemistry on earth pretty much rules out the possibility of finding it in your backyard
oh... and it looks like the site i linked to cant be brought up anymore... huh... it had a neat picture of a crystal....
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A pure metal is per se of crystaline (regular spacial) structure. But it doesn't have the diamond looks, since the electronic structure causes it to reflect visible light.klauss wrote:AFAIK, lithium is a metal... no crystalline structure... and according to the wikipedia, there's no pure form found in nature. (di-lithium would be one such pure form).
Hmm, there's a lot of research being done in the area of metal clusters. If you can collect 10^23 atoms for a macroscopic piece of pure metal, why not just 9. Of course, clusters as Na9 for example cannot exist in our atmosphere. One needs to produce them in vacuum or embed them in a noble gas matrix.klauss wrote:In any case, neither you could make pure di-lithium: as all metals, they bind in a metallic way, so just like you don't have Fe2, or Na2, you neither have Li2. You could create Ionized cristalline componds, but Li-Li - no, not that, not with any techinque I know (which isn't much to say, I'll grant you that).
see wikipedia for clusters
@sunfire: the links works fine for me, but I didn't want to steal To Megatherion idea! I just wanted to give an example of how a crystal could/should look like in terms of quality.
P.S. Don't have time now... good bye!
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Hm... funny, I always thought of metal bonds as "irregular"... but after reading a bit, more than irregular is "maleable", in that layers have no fixed position and can slide rather freely - that still wouldn't constitute a crystal, and that wouldn't have any crystalline structure, would it?Zeog wrote:A pure metal is per se of crystaline (regular spacial) structure. But it doesn't have the diamond looks, since the electronic structure causes it to reflect visible light.klauss wrote:AFAIK, lithium is a metal... no crystalline structure... and according to the wikipedia, there's no pure form found in nature. (di-lithium would be one such pure form).
Anyway... my chemistry is utterly basic, I was just pointing out that you won't find, by any chance, real-life pictures of dilithium.
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I think most processed metals are granular, meaning, made up of microscopic metal crystals. Jet engine blades are grown as single metal chrystals, or at least some are, but it's rather expensive to do.
My chemistry is poor too, but I think that knowing the color, whether it's transparent or reflective, and if the former, its dielectric constant, should be enough data for shading it. From the christaline structure, one could try and figure out how the chrystal would break (facet orientations).
Though, it's not necessary that a christal be broken like a jewel, and some won't. Pyrolytic graphite is opaque gray and bends like rubber, yet it's a chrystal.
EDIT:
Ermm.... This PDF shows dilithium chrystals, scroll down half way..
My chemistry is poor too, but I think that knowing the color, whether it's transparent or reflective, and if the former, its dielectric constant, should be enough data for shading it. From the christaline structure, one could try and figure out how the chrystal would break (facet orientations).
Though, it's not necessary that a christal be broken like a jewel, and some won't. Pyrolytic graphite is opaque gray and bends like rubber, yet it's a chrystal.
EDIT:
Ermm.... This PDF shows dilithium chrystals, scroll down half way..
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Yeah, well...since the structure shown here (http://webmineral.com/data/Dilithium.shtml) is only the smallest available structure it's not really necessary to keep it, I mean, not every salt (NaCl) crystal has the shape of a cube. So I guess those Blendered longish crystals are just fine and look way better than mine, especially since Blender seems to be able to do something with the refractive index unlike OpenFX, which I'm using and which doesn't look very impressive. (Yet there's a slight chance of my not using it properly).
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another crystal shot appears at http://www.webelements.com/webelements/ ... 36593.html
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Right, but it only shows you the grid which won't tell you what a macroscopic crystal would look like. Those elemental cells (Elementarzellen, dunno what it's called in English) are always based on cubes (as on the site you pointed out) and are the smallest unit representing a repeating pattern in the structure (similar to formulas of polymers like polystyrene etc.). Yet one cannot assume that the crystal is cubic because the elemental cell is a cube...else every mineral would be cube-shaped.
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Well, I've done some generic crystal pictures (just different colous from the same template) for the four different types of crystals being used. The original image is in the public domain (from wikipaedia). They're all 128 x 128 PNG's.
Would it be better to have different variations of the same pictures for all the crystals, or completely different images?
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Would it be better to have different variations of the same pictures for all the crystals, or completely different images?
Regards
Antarctic
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Well, since different crystals crystallize in different shapes, I would recommend several pictures. Colour, of course, should also be correct. No need to make a corundum red or yellow when apparently real corundum is white (or without colour)*.
*Of course you get impure corundum in all colours...Ruby for example is a corundum that has some chromium ions in it.
*Of course you get impure corundum in all colours...Ruby for example is a corundum that has some chromium ions in it.
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You make a good point there, especially with the fact that corundum is a real life crystal (I didn't know this - you learn something new every day), of which we can find photos - I'll have a look into that.To Megatherion wrote:Well, since different crystals crystallize in different shapes, I would recommend several pictures. Colour, of course, should also be correct. No need to make a corundum red or yellow when apparently real corundum is white (or without colour)*.
*Of course you get impure corundum in all colours...Ruby for example is a corundum that has some chromium ions in it.
However, I was thinking that the purpose of the pictures is to tell the player what he/she is buying in the trade screens, and to make the UI more interesting - so IMHO having something that is immediately recognisable as a crystal may be more important than having an accurate picture.
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That is likewise my general opionion - in the absence of art, a very attractive interim solution would seem to be category based iconongraphy of some sort or another "A is a crystal/gemstone/etc. and B is a weapon and C has something to do with sheep". This is not to say that distinct per-item pictures are in any way undesired, but that A) they will be of more importance when the cargo list itself is less likely to be frequently rewritten and B) the benefit of having a very specific picture over a category picture would seem to be smaller than the benefit of having a category picture over no picture at all.antarctic wrote:You make a good point there, especially with the fact that corundum is a real life crystal (I didn't know this - you learn something new every day), of which we can find photos - I'll have a look into that.To Megatherion wrote:Well, since different crystals crystallize in different shapes, I would recommend several pictures. Colour, of course, should also be correct. No need to make a corundum red or yellow when apparently real corundum is white (or without colour)*.
*Of course you get impure corundum in all colours...Ruby for example is a corundum that has some chromium ions in it.
However, I was thinking that the purpose of the pictures is to tell the player what he/she is buying in the trade screens, and to make the UI more interesting - so IMHO having something that is immediately recognisable as a crystal may be more important than having an accurate picture.
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So you would like a category picture for crystals?
Well, for that purpose those crystal pics above would be quite nice...I mean, everybody can see those are crystals. I especially like the clear one since it doesn't imply it's any special kind of crystal...on the other hand, why not take the colour that goes best with the UI?
Well, for that purpose those crystal pics above would be quite nice...I mean, everybody can see those are crystals. I especially like the clear one since it doesn't imply it's any special kind of crystal...on the other hand, why not take the colour that goes best with the UI?
Just like Lot's wife I could never look back
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Well, here come the colours.
Trilithium (aka Trilithiumnitride) violet (since it is violet)
Dilithium (aka Dilithiumtelluride) amber (actually white, but tends to amber if not 100% pure)
Quartz (aka Silicondioxide) no colour (white translucent)
Corundum (aka Aluminumoxide) whit or red ((synthetic) ruby), blue ((synthetic)sapphire)
Trilithium (aka Trilithiumnitride) violet (since it is violet)
Dilithium (aka Dilithiumtelluride) amber (actually white, but tends to amber if not 100% pure)
Quartz (aka Silicondioxide) no colour (white translucent)
Corundum (aka Aluminumoxide) whit or red ((synthetic) ruby), blue ((synthetic)sapphire)
Just like Lot's wife I could never look back
Megatherion - selling YOUR wines all over the Galaxy.
If you're producing wine that deserves the name and need clients in all parts of the universe, be sure to check and call 1-800-MEGATHERION!
Only the best wines - everywhere.
Megatherion - selling YOUR wines all over the Galaxy.
If you're producing wine that deserves the name and need clients in all parts of the universe, be sure to check and call 1-800-MEGATHERION!
Only the best wines - everywhere.