Graphics Enhancement Mod (GEM) v2.4. Updated: December 22, 2012

[Martian]

Current version: 2.4
Updated: December 22, 2012

Quick overview of GEM features:

- New icons & pictograms for game's interface
- New cursors set
- Restyled ship graphics
- Improved planet & star graphics
- New landscapes
- New ruins
- New galaxy backdrop



- FEATURES -


NEW ICONS & PICTOGRAMS

53 new redesigned and refined icons & pictograms for game's interface.



Resized to perfectly fit interface's elements so there is no need for the game to resize them to fit in buttons and frames. As a result all new pictograms look very sharp and clear in the game (except those which are used in more than one place and with various scale). Here are some examples:







Unfortunately most of other interface elements are not available for modding. There are some of interface's resources present in "images\ui\chrome" folder which are not used by game (Or at least not where it was expected).
Another issue is that the game sometimes uses same resourcses for different elements of interface (for example "firepower.png" is used both for military ships and crash research icons). This fact limits design choices for the interface improvement. So looking forward to modding improvements in DW's future releases.



NEW CURSORS SET

14 all new "pixelart" cursors.





RESTYLED SHIP GRAPHICS

The ship restyling has several purposes in mind:

1. Make ships look clearer and distinctive on various bright and dark backgrounds during gameplay.
2. Quick identification of all controllable state ships.
3. Quick identification of military ship types.
4. More eye candy look.[;)]

I know that game already has good ship type identification signs such as triangles for military ships, rectangles for construction ships and so on, but I believe average human eye is much more responsive to colours than to shapes. So I decided to use different colour outlines to make it even easier to quickly identify ships during a gameplay.

All controllable ships have various colour outlines:

Red - Military ships
Green - Construction ships
Cyan - Exploration ships
Blue - Colony ships

Military ships have following distinctive insignia painted on them:

One stripe - Escort
Two stripes - Frigate
Three stripes - Destroyer
Four stripes - Cruiser
Five stripes - Capitalship
Small circle inside a bigger one - Carrier
Small diamond inside a bigger one - Troop transport

Here are few examples:









Additionally, there is an alternative shipset for those who prefer ships with black outlines only:









IMPROVED PLANET GRAPHICS

Continental planets


Desert planets


Ice planets


Marshyswamp planets


Oceanic planets


Volcanic planets


Barrenrock planets




IMPROVED STAR GRAPHICS

Main sequence star


Red Giant


Super Giant


White Dwarf


Neutron Star




NEW LANDSCAPES

Original artworks were not created by me but were searched and taken from the net, mostly from Terragen's gallery. I just resized, framed and colour graded them. So all kudos and credits go to their creators.

Landscapes are resized and adjusted to perfectly fit game's interface.

Unfortunately, at the present moment DW has a hard-coded limit to use only few first images. So it uses only 4 images for continental planets (+1 from forest folder), 3 for desert, marshyswamp and ice planets, 2 for volcanic and oceanic planets. Hopefully this will be fixed in "Shadows" release, but for now most of these landscapes wouldn't appear in the game.

If you want some particular landscapes to be present in the game, please rename them to use first few numbers. For example, use names from "landscape_0" up to "landscape_3" for continental planets.


Continental planet's landscapes


Desert planet's landscapes


Ice planet's landscapes


Marshyswamp planet's landscapes


Oceanic planet's landscapes


Volcanic planet's landscapes




IMPROVED RUINS

For the ruins I used amazing and myserious paintings of Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński.





NEW GALAXY BACKDROP





GEM DOWNLOAD LINKS

GEM v2.4 - Complete mod
http://www.mediafire.com/?7r0xul9p7fd36a8


Alternatively, if you don't need all of the features, you can choose which individual parts of the mod to download:

GEM v2.4 - Galaxy backdrop only
http://www.mediafire.com/?ipwww3mbdekwswo

GEM v2.4 - Cursors & icons only
http://www.mediafire.com/?2odwi8mndekqd30

GEM v2.4 - Landscapes & ruins only
http://www.mediafire.com/?8tpm52tgjin0r95

GEM v2.4 - Planets & stars only
http://www.mediafire.com/?w3o99fn0j4o7ac0

GEM v2.4 - Shipset only
http://www.mediafire.com/?0rrcz3z7s47s712

GEM v2.4 - Alternative shipset only (without colour outlines)
http://www.mediafire.com/?v123ydbyja41nhb



INSTALLATION:

1. Backup original "Distant Worlds\images" folder
2. Extract archive and overwrite original files in Distant Worlds\images
3. Enjoy!



CHANGELOG

[+] new content/feature
[-] update/fix

v1.0
+ Upgraded original graphics for all planets except frozen gas giants & gas giants.
+ Upgraded original graphics for all stars on a system zoom level.
+ Upgraded original galaxy backdrop.

v2.0
+ Upgraded original ship graphics.
+ Integrated updated version of "Surrealistic ruins" mod.
+ Integrated updated version of "Beautiful landscapes" mod.
- Made the atmosphere slightly visible even on a dark side of planets.
- Fixed a shadow artifact appeared when a planet overlaps another planet.

v2.1
+ Added 9 new cursors.

v2.2
+ Added 5 more new cursors and updated most of previously released cursors.

v2.2.1
- Minor design update of bombard, construction and mine cursors.

v2.3
+ Added 53 new & refined pictograms for game's interface.
- Most of the cursors are redesigned or refined.
- New version of galaxy backdrop.

v2.4
- Improved planet graphics, including new atmospheric effect.
- Added an alternative version of shipset without colour outlines.
- Updated version of galaxy backdrop. Slightly redesigned and significantly desaturated to improve contrast between backdrop and active objects on the map.

[Shark7]

Wow, you really managed to clear up and improve the graphics there, downloading this one now. [:)]

[Martian]

Thank you, Shark! Yes, it took me some time...
The game is very sensitive to errors. Sometimes even one wrong pixel can make things look awful! [:@] [&:] [:D]

[w1p]

I've always been a "gameplay over graphics" type of person, but the lots of little modifications you make sure do make a massive difference, and they have such a polished feel to them. I think Erik should consider getting you to help out with Shadows. No offence to the art team, but Martian's artwork is simply superb.

Simply put - Thanks!!

[unidterror]

these are real nice, ill download em and paste them in. this would be the first World mod i actualy try.
thank Mars keep up the fabulous work.

[tjhkkr]

This is a very nice piece of work.
Thank you, very much.

[Igard]

Excellent work, Martian. The stars in particular look amazing!

[Martian]

w1p, unidterror, tjhkkr, Igard

Thank you guys!

[Martian]

ORIGINAL: Igard

Excellent work, Martian. The stars in particular look amazing!

Yes, planets received most of my love, while all patience was spent for the stars! [:D]

[Arcatus]

Oooooh. Shiny!

Very nice stars. Especially that neutron star.

Downloading

[tjhkkr]

Is that the Great Nebula of Orion for that background?
How did you dim it down?
My version is very, very bright.

[Martian]

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr

Is that the Great Nebula of Orion for that background?
How did you dim it down?
My version is very, very bright.

I used original "galaxy_backdrop_OLD2.jpg" file which was located in "Distant Worlds\images\environment\galaxybackdrops" folder.
Here it is:



Then I just resized, slightly blurred (to soften "pixelization" effect when you zoom galaxy map in the game) and colour graded it.

Can you show me your version?

[tjhkkr]

I will get it to you soon... [8D]

[Kalthaniell]

The sun looks tenfolds better now[:D]. Thx!

[nelsonlee_slith]

why it donot work if I just modify the num of new pics?
form 1001 to 1023 for example

[Martian]

ORIGINAL: nelsonlee

why it donot work if I just modify the num of new pics?
form 1001 to 1023 for example

Sorry I don't quite understand your question. Can you be more specific?

[nelsonlee_slith]

for example
I change the /planets/continental/Continental-0001.png-->Continental-1001.png
donot replace the old pic,then put it in the game dir,but donot displayed in game.....

[Martian]

I guess the problem here is about how game itself reads files. Ether "1001" is too high number for game to "see" it. Or maybe its because of gap between numbers. Just for a test try renaming it to the consequent number after last one already used (0024 for example).

[Martian]

Mod is updated and renamed. See first post... [;)]

[Shark7]

Good idea on the ship icons, but I have to ask to be sure...

You did use a blue other than pure blue (R= 0, G = 0, B= 255) right? Pure blue would just give you a giant moving engine glow. [;)]

Landscapes and ruins look great and are about to get downloaded. [:)]