Modified tech column

[Blastfrog]

I've never been a fan of Freedoom's tech column, either in appearance or that it has rotations.

I did this as a single-rotation replacement. I'm still not satisfied with it but I like it better than what's currently in.

[Da Werecat]

It looks like it's bent to the left.

[MrFlibble]

Da Werecat said:

It looks like it's bent to the left.

Indeed! That's a very interesting perceptual illusion that seems to be created by the pattern on the column, and also the dark/light contrast of the left and right sides.

For a start, perhaps you could try a more symmetrical pattern design to fix it?

[Angry Saint]

To me it seems to be more stone than tech.

[Jewellds]

Admittedly I never had a problem with the existing column, or the rotations, but you've done a good job cleaning the sprite up. The added texture is a definite improvement. :)

I think the main thing I miss from the existing column is the blue accent. Your version is a little too monochromatic.

[frithiof]

I like Sodaholic's single rotation replacement, but perhaps as an idea, maybe instead of having multiple rotations, instead it could be a two-frame object, with multicolored lights turning on and off, with, say, a ten second delay between changes (to avoid being too distracting while in combat, but it would still give the player something to look at when idle).

Maybe just have a large blue light on it that turns on and off at ten second intervals.

[esselfortium]

There are some issues with it that stand out to me:

It looks like it's crumbling apart or being eaten by termites or something. If there were a lot of variants of it to get randomly intermingled, that could work, but since it's replacing a single static decoration, it will look weird to have several columns in a room all decayed in the exact same way.

If it's not supposed to look decayed, then the lines and shapes are just too jagged and weird to convey well at this resolution. It would help to use shading to emphasize the main shapes while decreasing the contrast on the smaller details might help -- it seems like a lot of visual detail is muddled by blackness and high-contrast shadows.

The shading in general looks unfinished to me. The horizontal 'lip' segments that stick out near the top and bottom look a bit rough, and the main middle segment of the column gives the appearance of being a flat sheet rather than having cylindrical depth.

[raymoohawk]

sorry but this sprite is pretty bad :(

[duh]

I was looking for blueish PCBs, and stumbled upon this image:

A bit abstract, but look at the color scheme. Leave the mid darker and put some neon lines on it. :)

[Blastfrog]

I worked on it a bit more, how's this version?



I know the shading could still use serious work, and I'm not sure about the green thing in the middle.

[chungy]

The light/dark shading still makes it perceptually bent. I think if you settled on a neutral gray for the right and left sides, it would probably stop looking that way.

[scifista42]

I think it looks "bent" just because of the forum background color. See how it looks on your browser's default background (presumably white).

[Blastfrog]

Round 3:

[fabian]

Well this is nice!

[Da Werecat]

A lot of old Freedoom assets should be just scrapped and remade from scratch, in my opinion. Kinda like the spider mastermind design.

scifista42 said:

I think it looks "bent" just because of the forum background color. See how it looks on your browser's default background (presumably white).

I don't remember a lot of white in Doom. Perhaps it should be tested ingame.