MoO1 redesign project

[Arne]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post something like this, but I've been working on a MoO1 redesign project. It's a bit difficult to get feedback on art forums, so I find that posting my projects on specialized forums often results in a deeper discussion. People who really care about the game are more likely to speak up if I commit an atrocity in the form of a redesign of a character or whatever, and while I have my own style, I still want to be faithful to the source material.

So, here's the link:

Master of Orion 1 redesign project (Plus some ideas for turning it into my own franchise.)

It's a bit of a text wall at the moment, but if you want you can just look at the pictures and give me feedback on my take on the aliens. I had problems finding good reference. I'm playing the game on DosBox, but usually I prefer to dump the graphics from the game myself. It's generally faster than ripping by 'print screen'.

I've been looking around and saw that people have done some work with the lbx files, but mostly concerning the headers. The images may have been done using Deluxe Paint AGA. the game is from '93 and uses 256 colors.

Byte editor - image dumping

I had a little breakthrough when I figured out how to take screenshots from DosBox (Ctrl + F5 if you make a capture/ dir). This preserved the palette, which allowed me to check whether biplanes or chunky pixels (in this case 1 byte per pixel) were used. I picked a simple still image, a radiated planet. I get a lot of hits on the right pixel values in COLONIES.LBX (this is where the image is stored, it seems), but some kind of compression have been used. I color coded the bytes in my editor, and any value over 127 is green. I was guessing that some RLE like ByteRun1 had been used (there are very few 255), but the dark green (>127) values are... strange.

The image width and height is listed as 84 * 102, which means the black border might be included. If it were, it would be RLE'd early on because the encoding should start in a corner right? Something like (127+84, 0) I can't see much zeroes at all. Maybe I'm totally off, or I'm very close and just need some inspiration.

Edit: I just noticed that index 1 is also black, so it's possible that some transparent color switch is used. There are a lot of 1's. The purple 122's does not seem to be compressed much. With RLE I wouldn't expect to see so many of them in a row.

Edit: Here's some info on the headers.
MoO lbx header info

[KnTenshi]

I've read your proposal and have couple of suggestions.

To be honest, I like a lot of your ideas for the art redesign. You really took a good look a most every pic in the game (and if I understand you right, you have ripped the sprites from the game). Some of the stuff you are suggesting would take a major hack and reprogramming, so it just might be easier to remake the game on your own.

One thing you have is automated battles. While I'm split down the middle on Player controlled versus auto, I've a suggestion that you may like. Lost Empires: Immortals has auto battles but the player and AI assign the AI of the ships. Here are some that make sense in MOO: Wolf (attacks the closest enemy), Sniper (attacks dangerous targets from the longest range possible), Surgeon (attacks weak targets from the longest range possible), ECM (cripples enemies with Specials), and Unarmed (flees from battle). What do you think? Oh, and I can't entirely recommend playing LE:I. It has some great ideas, but suffers from some unstoppable late game crashes. Basically no one realized that having Lists of fleets larger than the limit of Integers would be a bad thing.

Also, if you can expand the Apes part of Apes and Angels more than most current games do, it'd really pique my interest.

Edit: Never mind, you are prepared for the split to make your own.

[Arne]

Thanks for taking a look!

Yeah, I would be coding this from scratch (if I had the patience). I use BlitzMax, which is a type of BASIC language, but with some useful OOP stuff. The most difficult part is probably the general UI and program flow (not making a mess of it as the program grows), and the AI of course.

I'm no sure if I should make MoO1 or my own thing yet. I added that section just in case, plus I can't resist designing my own set of aliens.

I had an idea (for another Dune2-type RTS project) about using player-side 'AI generals' which can be given a personality and then be assigned to a set of units. I didn't think about using that approach for this project though! Didn't MoO2 have characters/captains? While the MoO2 captains may have had stats and stuff, I think just having more pictures of aliens in the game would serve to animate and flesh out the universe better.

I have not ripped all of the sprites yet. I've been screenshotting as I play through, and I've been relying on websites to compliment my library. Unfortunately people crop a lot and also save as horrible jpg. It wasn't until yesterday that I ripped some of the little 8*16px troops. These show the legs of the aliens. I still haven't got Mrrshan, Darlok, Klackon and Humans. I'm reluctant to go off on a time consuming ripping spree before I've explored the LBX dumping route more.

[Arne]

I got some new Silicoid ideas yesterday. I had problems with their very noisy (as in haphazardly textured) body, so I tried making the top textured and the bottom simple and smooth like a sea worn rock. I was gonna use the bulbous belly look for the Bulrathi but ended up making them more boxy, which freed up the bulbous look.

The simple bottom allows me to put the detail focus on the head, so I can play around with different head types to give the guys some personality.

I've updated the old image which I had with some more pencil thumbnails.




Edit: Here's some portrait sketches for the AI generals. These could be pretty varied, showing old guys, fat guys, edgy guys...

[TheArchduke]

I like your drawing style. I really hope you manage to adapt MoO1 a bit or do your own thing.

[Sullla]

Whoa! I don't know where you're going with this project, but those sketches are great! Best of luck.

[Arne]

Ty. Any favourite Silicoids on that image? I'm really unsure about the Silicoid and Sakkra designs.

Looking in COLONIES.LBX

I think the black pixels are RLE'd with generated stars, and the non black pixels (terrain) are uncompressed. I've loaded the palette into my program. This asteroid belt is an indicator of missing black bits. The stars really do have a generated look.

The brown image does have some RLE or something, but with the detailed sky there was no black to compress.

The blue bars are produced by the numbers 104,102. 102 is how high the image is (the pixels are stored vertically), and 104 could be the height of the whole column of data, pointing to the next one.

[KnTenshi]

Here's a fluff suggestion for your Virus Space Monster. A Grey Goo version of Von Neumann machines. They were intended to be self replicating space probes, but an error in programming or replication has caused them to overlap "Look for Intelligent Life" and "Look for the best breeding grounds".

Also, Have you tried drawing the Silicoids with lower bodies more like molten lava? An amorphous blob type of thing, from the chest area down?

[RefSteel]

Very cute pictures! I'd say my favorite among your 'Coid drawings right now is Armlegs - but I really like the overall look of Suction 2, because it hints at the possibility of a longer (almost snake/caterpillar-like) body extending behind. The suction cups don't feel right to me, but if the creature were given that longer body/tail and the suction cups were replaced with (say) jutting-out arrowheadish-shaped rocks, so the creature were imagined to move sort of like a caterpillar....
(The Sakkra are tough; maybe something along the lines of a scaled-down cartoon allosaur? Note if the 'Coids aren't made bulbous, that look might be good for the lizards instead....)
I also like your game analysis, even if we don't agree on all points. I'm not sure how much feedback you're looking for, but definitely enjoying your work!

[Arne]

Thanks for the comments!

KnTenchi> Reminds me a lot about the Slylandro probes from Star Control. In fact, that's pretty much exactly them...


RefSteel> Generally when the lower body is not seen in a game (it's the case in many sci-fi games, like Star Control and Starflight), I try to make the lower body pretty simple. The reason for this is because something simple is less likely to conflict with people's mental image of the alien. A worm is not so bad, it's a rather simple shape, but the Sillycoyds are seen wearing the space suits, and they seem to have legs on the ground combat sprite, so I don't know... I quite like the caterpillar idea though. I guess it could be 'prancing'

I have a worm like design for my Starflight project. There's the G'nunk worm and also the Humna Humna.

The Sakkra... I'll just have to explore more.



Molten looks kinda cool, but I'm not sure how they'd like ocean/tundra worlds.


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I managed to set up the config for DosBox properly today. The game runs much better now, and at a nice rez.

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Eddit: Some ground troop images, ripped, but I tried to be careful when spotting the transparent pixels. They're kind of hard to 'read' anyways.


The Psilons is a pretty good faction. Perhaps, being mostly mind, they should've been poor at ground combat. They don't look very sturdy or menacing.