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Mare Draconis - Early Preview (Click to enlarge)
Mare Draconis - Early Preview   Art   Lurhstaap | 4/3/2016  log in to like post  1

Decided I ought to upload this for feedback since, although I'm primarily making this for myself, I also want it to be useful to other people. Plus I thought there might be points I might not be considering that others with more experience in such things might consider.

So. I've recently been finding myself wanting a metaroom that meets a certain description, and while a lot of what's out there is close, nothing -quite- makes it. Hence... well, this. I'm calling it Mare Draconis right now (meaning Sea of Dragons... or maybe Sea of the Dragon, not sure, but whichever). I might change that in time. That'll be the working title in any event. The full-size image is 6,000 x 3,000 pixels, so pretty good sized. I'll be painting this for ages. But it'll be worth it. It's not visible in this image, but there's also going to be a very large tree on the leftward land mass which will hold a couple of lift-accessible platforms to provide more above-water living/wandering area. I didn't think about it when designing this, but it almost kind of looks like an alternate Albia. I definitely intended it to represent a planetside location rather than a room on the Capillata or Ark, so that kind of amuses me to consider.

The holes in the rock are from when I was considering making this wrap and experimenting with how it might work. Since wrapping turns out to be so resource-expensive I'm going to fill those in and it'll be more like a big scoop-out. The area in the upper right where there appears to be a floating bit of land is going to be a cave with a lift leading to the surface. In general though they'll be able to just walk in and out of the water via the two slanting beaches. Haven't decided on the precise placement of the water level yet... might flood the lift cave, might only flood the bottom part and leave the higher part where the actual lift will be dry.

This is obviously VERY primitive - little more than color blockout plans - but if there are any major (or, heck, minor) design problems, please let me know! In general my inspiration for this is the coast where I grew up so it's going to have a rather Northern Californian flavor... the tree is going to be a heavily wind-sculpted Monterey live oak, there'll be a kelp forest and typical Monterey Bay type fish and wildlife. (In short it is a giant exercise in nostalgia, but nevermind. :p)
 
 
Lurhstaap | 4/3/2016  log in to like post

Yeah, that's what I'll have to do, or else it'll just be Cheerfully Illogical Rock in my mind forever. On the other hand it does remind me happily of Worms... but nah. XD (Although a Worms-inspired metaroom would be insanely cool except that it'd violate the heck out of the angle rule.)
 
Wingheart | 4/3/2016  log in to like post

Make the rock in the middle attached to something in the background? Like a spire of rock in the background that has a bit going into the actual play area?
 
Lurhstaap | 4/3/2016  log in to like post

Noted, thank you. I will definitely keep that in mind, especially since a big part of the concept is the ability of the creatures to just wander in and out of the water on foot rather than having to always use a lift. It'd be silly if I made the beaches too steep for that to work. :p It'll also be an issue in the tunnel fill-in and the lift cave.

I just realized that rock in the middle is attached to nothing whatsoever, too... my brain's sense of landscape is dangerously influenced by 2D video games from my childhood. XD
 
RisenAngel | 4/3/2016  log in to like post

The problem's the angle, yes. Usually replacing the steep slope with a wall and much-less-steep slope is the solution.

Slopes in general aren't a bad thing; the official metarooms have a lot of them. However, any slope that's greater than...around 20 or so degrees and isn't a vertical wall has a chance at getting baby creatures stuck on it.
 
Lurhstaap | 4/3/2016  log in to like post

That's exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for - thanks so much! So the problem there is the steep angle? What's the correction - totally vertical walls? Just making sure I understand the problem.
 
RisenAngel | 4/3/2016  log in to like post

Here's something to keep in mind while you're painting this thing. In general, really steep slopes are a bad idea since creatures and a lot of agents will have trouble with them.

Beyond that, this is looking good so far.


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