Been a long time lurker of the forums and appreciate a lot of the graphic mods shared so I thought I'd contribute a mod I've personally been using to make things a bit more clear to understand at a glance. This is not a major overhaul of the graphics but just some minor tweaks. I'm not a graphics artist but have had some exposure to UX design. I didn't do too much outside of using some basic (mostly coloring) tools with GIMP.
The spirit of this mod is to make things easier to read but not straying too far from the original design. You also can combine some of the items with other UI mods should there not be any conflicts.
NOTE: Some of the screenshots below also include the Terrain Mod by mroyer(because I love it!!!), this mod does not contain any terrain changes and the features shown are for non-terrain elements. Some just happen to have terrain as part of the screenshot to help with context.
Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5sjc0nt1o139 ... uGdna?dl=0
To download, select the link above, then select which of the sub-mods you want or select "Everything" to get everything. Whichever one you picked, there will be a "GraphicsAlt" folder inside, copy that folder into the location of your shadow empires installation.
NEW Icon Clarity
A few icons have been updated, including a few resource icons and QOL icons. On the map, resources now appear within a circular emblem, enhancing their visibility. Additionally, the QOL icons have been redesigned to more effectively communicate their significance through contemporary, descriptive iconography.
Metal resources and rare metals now resemble ingots.
Recruits icon updated to no longer have that white outline that made it seem like a copy paste error (at least to me)
Hitech icon changed from a calculator to a microchip
Colonists changed to have cowboy hats, maybe that will go away but I thought it was cool
Updated Resources:
resources within a circular emblem, enhancing their visibility:
resources in use:
QOL Icons
QOL design to more effectively communicate their significance through contemporary, descriptive iconography. Icons for health, security, entertainment, and education:
UPDATE! (ocean?) Tile targeting
For when you use airforce, ranged attack, or strategic movement, you'll see this blue ball thing appear. Tile targeting was updated to include all levels of zoom:
Asset Highlighter (and clarity)
This highlights the assets you've selected, darkens the background, and darkens the text area (label area).
I've also darked the background a bit so you can see the resources easier, and made the label area background darker to see the names easier. This also will keep the color the same as the asset type on the title bar so it's easier to know if its private vs public
Combat Enhancements
This changes the coloring and adds blood spatter to combat which just makes it a bit more exciting. This also adds a minor highlight to dead units of red and escaping units of yellow. I changed the retreating color to yellow and retreated to gray. This is personal preference but for me it makes it easier for me to see at a glance what is happening. I do think a color difference between retreating and retreated helps me tell who is really gone much easier especially when there's a lot of units on the screen.
History Highlighter
When there is movement on AI turn it is difficult to see and I've quite often missed who moved, so I added a yellow highlight, making it much easier to see who has moved and where during the AI turn.
However, this will change how the selector looks when zoomed out so I had to balance it so both views work. The history one is still more opaque (thanks to game engine magic) so it shouldn't be distracting. here is a screenshot using zoomed out though:
4. Tabs and Buttons highlight
The selected tabs and buttons are highlighted to stand out to help easier see what is current. This also adds a red background to resources that are problematic.
Files changed:
Screenshots:
Attribution
Icon clarity artwork:
The following icon artwork was created by Font Awesome and licensed under SIL OFL 1.1, see https://fontawesome.com/v4/license/
- bp.png
- credits.png
- privatecredits.png
- hitech.png
- qoleducation.png
- qolentertainment.png
- worker.png
- colonist.png
The following icon artwork was made available by RPG Awesome and licensed under BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" https://github.com/nagoshiashumari/Rpg- ... LICENSE.md
Copyright (c) 2014, Daniela Howe All rights reserved.
- energy.png
- maxenergy.png
- qolheath.png
- metal.png
- privatemetal.png
- raremetal.png
- qolsecurity.png
recruits.png was made availabe from https://game-icons.net/
Changelog
Version 1.0 - Initial Release
Added icon artwork to improve clarity on the meaning of the icon
Updated tile targeting and added it for all levels of zoom
Version 0.1 - Initial Preview Release
# License
License - CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
!!
. I'm using it with the original Eddy colors and I think it looks fine.