Iconography

#12

That would be a slab of meat.

#13

It seems so obvious in retrospect…

#14

Since we’re on the topic of icons, it might be useful to make the icons the same color as the compound clouds they refer to.

#15

Hey! I had time to work a bit on the icons again. The problem is that I can t try the game as I only have a mac … So I can’t see the compound clouds color. What we could do though is that I could send the vectorial version of my drawing and then someone else can take care of the color homogenising, what do you think?

I also got an idea for all the gaseous components: we could decide on a color for each and use the oxygen icon variating the color (I did it just to show you what it could be). I also redesigned the slack of meat as it was apparently taken for a nike shoe :wink:
Regarding the color of carbon dioxide, I think grey might be more appropriate than dark blue (and like this we could more easily differentiate it from the purple of the nitrogen)
I also thought about a new representation for gaseous compounds (represented for oxygen)

Thrives_Compounds2.png2998x968 396 KB

#16

These actually look really good right now, although a porterhouse might be a more recognizable slab of meat to use, The rest look great. I really like the sugar cube for glucose.

#17

Like that?

Microbe GUI
#18

Yeah, that looks great, good job in these btw. If I may ask, what does the bone represent?

#19

It was the suggestion of Oliveriver for the calcium

#20

Hm, i like it, a bone or tooth is perfect

#21

I started to work on the Biomes, tell me if I am on the right path or if I need to think/draw differently :slight_smile:

#22

I love the shallows one. The hydrothermal vent one is a bit hard to make out though, lets see what the others think before making changes.

#23

I tried looking through the code to find where compound colours are defined, but I got a bit lost. @TheCreator any chance you could give the hexadecimal or RGB colours for each?

While giving all gaseous compounds the same icon looks nice, I don’t think it’s a good idea since it will remove a lot of the distinctiveness we want to give each icon. Similarly, those which are just a bunch of circles will need to be different enough to others to make it clear at a glance which is which. I believe carbon dioxide is already in the code as dark blue (someone correct me if not), but nothing has been decided for nitrogen yet.

As for the icons themselves:

  • The protein one is absolutely perfect. Awesome work on that.
  • Same with calcium.
  • The flame works well for hydrogen, I like it.
  • I prefer the third of the oxygen icons, but they’re all good.
  • Water is good but could use some more detail (maybe not though, that’s just my opinion).
  • Carbon dioxide works but could be more interesting.
  • I like the amino acids one but be careful it stays distinct from all the other circle-heavy icons.
  • Neither of the glucose icons seem right to me. For one thing the backing circle should be closer to white than grey. A sugar cube could work but the positioning of it seems a bit…off. That might just be me.
  • I still have problems with the ammonia icons. In particular the blue atom breaks the colour consistency. I think the fourth one (with one big, textless nitrogen atom) would work if the blue was change to a different shade of yellow.
  • Any of the ATP icons could work but they all look a bit rough. I don’t think the 3D works on the lightning bolt.
  • If you’re changing oxygen to the second or third option, the nitrogen concept could work.

As for the biomes, I agree shallow ocean is great but hydrothermal vent needs work. If you didn’t know it was a vent you wouldn’t know it by looking at it. It looks more like a patchwork quilt.

#24

Huh, I wrote this message 12 hours ago, guess it didn’t send:

Shallow ocean is good, as are all the icons. I’m not quite sure I like the slab of meat for protein. It’s not a bad icon, I just don’t think its very intuitive. We’re in the cell stage and meat is more of a multicellular formation. I liked the polypeptide chain you had before more. For the hydrothermal vent I’d suggest making it less “puzzle-y”. If the bottom right part was one whole piece, I think it would look a lot better.

Also, should we start voting on icons yet? The second one for ammonia and third one for oxygen are just perfect in my opinion.

Here are the colors:
Glucose: 150, 170, 180
Oxygen: 60, 160, 180
CO2: 20, 50, 100
Ammonia: 255, 220, 50
Amino acids: 255, 150, 200

#25

I do like the protein icon, despite the fact that its meat and we’re in the microbe stage. Maybe a flexing arm would work too. As for the Calcium, I think a tooth would be better than a bone. Other than that I have to agree with @TheCreator about the oxygen and amino acids. I do like @Oliveriver’s ATP and glucose icons the best right now, even if they weren’t made for actual use.

#26

Thanks a lot for the comments, I will try to improve that in the next week then :slight_smile:

#27

I tried my hand at the vent icon. It’s mspaint quality so i guess you could consider it concept art. if someone wants to make a nicer version go ahead.

Also does anyone know a good program to make the icons with?

#28

I can see that being a good icon.

I’ve found that adobe illustrator creates the best icons/vector art.

Microbe GUI
#29

It could work with a design like that, but as you said it’s not the best quality.

#30

Look up the tool “token tool” I used to use it for making tokens in roll 20. It makes it easy to add “borders” to any image.I’ll see if I can find it again when I get home.

#31

Hey!
I know that I said that I will improve the icons in the next week and now it has been one month and a half… Sorry for the huuuuge delay, I was busy.

I try to include the choices/corrections and improve the colours according to the RGB codes, add a tooth for the calcium and work a bit on the water drop. I find the overall a bit heterogenous according to the drawing style which might come mainly from the oxygen.

Hope to be more active now, but thanks a lot for the screenshot of the game, it helped me to have an overview as I can’t load the game on my computer :slight_smile:

Thrives_Compounds3.png2998x968 342 KB