Loading Screen Artwork

Exactly, Chris. These will cycle randomly as the game initially loads. There will be more. I'm shooting for at least 7-8 total. Anyhow, The biggest complaint that I heard about the second one is that the ships look odd viewed from the rear. I've fixed this. The Camel and rear pirate fighter are now coming towards the camera. It's much less confusing now - at least I like it more. As for the first one - I've lightened the little camels in the back, and adjusted the lasers a bit. Other than that, it's pretty much the same as the lsat one... I like how it looks. I'm gonna go make a new one. Back in a bit.
http://www.hedfiles.net/wcpioneer/loadingscreen02.jpg
http://www.hedfiles.net/wcpioneer/loadingscreen22.jpg
 
First image looks much better, IMHO. Gives a strong evocation of the original Privateer screen without looking like someone simply replaced the ships in the artwork. As for the second one, I pretty much love it no matter what, so no complaints there :P

Explains why I'm not in compositioning. Or maybe I just need a bigger monitor.
 
Full power to frontal shields? ;)
But seriously how about a couple of shield flares where the 2 Dralthi are giving it to the poor ship?
And the jump point.....brighter and smaller (or a bit further away) in my opinion - it kinda looks like a big dark blue blob of jelly but that might just be my hunger talking.
 
No matter what, the loading screenshots are just plain wonderful. Are all of them going to be a part of your rotating cycle of images? Or are you only filtering out only the best ones?
 
That third picture looks really great! I would suggest losing the jump hole thing though (I assume that's what the bluish sphere is?) For this picture it doesn't really seem to add anything. (I know you were probably wanting to show a scene where the merchant is desperately trying to make it to the jump and get away but I think the scene would be just as effective without it due to the planet in the background. If it was just a scene of "empty" space then the jumphole would be more useful. As always, just my humble opinion.
 
Yeah, the third one is great, with or without a jumppoint... the two others look alot better too.
 
If I'm seeing these right the Kilrathi to the planet side is firing
while sweeping to port . It missed high starboard , and has fired again
which looks to be on target .
It is either manuvering and firing at an incredible rate , or IMO
there needs to be a flash of impact on the freighters , mid to lower ,
port side .
 
My biggest criticism about the busier ones is that they aren't particularly interesting compositionally. They seem to be just a jumble of ships floating in space with no significant direction or movement. For example, having a group of 3 fighters (like the Pirates or Dralthis) all moving with different headings and pitches makes them lose any sense of cohesion as a group. I would suggest taking a look at some paintings by the likes of Robert Taylor, Keith Ferris, Nicolas Trudgian, etc. to get some composition ideas as they apply to dogfights. Another thing to keep in mind is to figure out not only where the ships are, but where they will be in a few seconds. If that doesn't make any sense, the image probably won't work either.

Some specific critiques I have are:

The 2 ships up at the top of the new Hornet chase one are pointless. They do nothing compositionally from visual or "story" standpoints. In fact, their engines blend in with the starfield, and you can't really even see them upon an initial glance.

The jump point in the new one is just "off." Jump points in the games have been brighter, and either pointy or swirly. The one in the picture is just a floating dark blob. It looks more like an image of a galaxy than a jump point.

Sorry if this post came off as particularly harsh, but I think these pictures need a bit of improvement to raise them to the level that I've seen in the rest of the project, especially the actual models themselves.
 
Alrighty then:
Alpha1-1: Well, the main reason I'm not doing shield flares is because we haven't decided how they should look yet. I'd like to figure that out before we start doing art for it.

RAZZOR: These are going to be randomly cycled as the game initially loads.

Maj Striker: The jump point is there to give the merchant a very specific reason for doing what it's doing. If it can make it, it's pretty much home free. (Dralthis don't have jump drives)

Cargoman:Huh - the rate of turn looks reasonable to me. Especially when you remember that laser in the WC universe don't actually travel at the speed of light.

Magnum: I'm just not seeing your point. I really don't see any compositional problems with these images. All these images have very specific things happening in them - the ships are positioned as the might have been in the actual game. There's nothing unreasonable going on - everything makes sense.
These are supposed to be entertaining images of action from the game's universe - not ship portraits. Having all the ships going one way looses you any sense of excitement, movement, or intensity. It's boring. The artists you referenced deal exclusively in atmospheric imagery and dogfights. In most of the cases I saw, there is very little action going on - just pretty formation flying. Which is fine - it's just not exciting - or interesting, for that matter. As for the ship's movement - I actually animated all these scenes. You pretty much have to in order for MAX's motion blur to work correctly. All of these ships are moving through the scene - and have very intentional destinations.

I'll add a bit to the first image to explain the reason those two ships are there. (damage to the left-hand camel).

The jump point is a near-identical recreation of the one from Privateer. They were these wierd shifty wiggly bubbles that floated in space. There was nothing pointy or bright about them. They also were big enough to totaly engulf the largest ship in the game - at least 500m across. It took a couple of seconds to pass completely through them. Thus - the bubble. As it is, it might be too small.

Anyhow, I appreciate all the feedback.
 
Awesome work as usual Howard!

My only issue with your loading screens is I feel, a lack of a sense of distance. Planets are small, ships are close together. I don't get a good sense of scale when I look at them. While compositionally and graphically they are excellent, it feels like model planets and model planes 10 ft away from each other.

If this is the look and feel you're aiming for, that's cool, but I'd prefer to get a sense of the vastness of space, the bustling pioneer feeling, the dangers of interstellar space travel, etc.

On a side note: I kind of liked the WC3/4 jump holes more heh. Going to model a navigation bouy for yours?
 
The scenes are better now... I'd still make a few changes though:

On the 1st scene, the two ships at the top look like you forgot to remove them... you might as well do it. :p I'd also do something about the moon... I'd hide it away behind the planet just a bit more (so that it doesn't stay directly behind the Hornet), and maybe even scale it down... it seems to be either too big or too close to the planet.

On the second scene, I'd rotate the canvas about 120 degrees clockwise. :) Ok, there's no "up" in space... but there is "up" in my head, so the image as it is now seems unnatural, uncomfortable to look at - it makes me want to tilt my head... and when I do tilt my head, I see what's probably the best composition among the three scenes you've got so far.

My only nitpick is that I'd make the ship that's dodging blue gunfire in the back maneuver *away* from the asteroid instead of towards it (so, pointing its nose towards what is currently "down", but will hopefully become "left" :p)... it looks weird that the pilot is making his evasive maneuver towards the asteroid even though he seems to be very close to it.

On the third shot, I'd either lose the smaller Dralthi (the one right above "loading"... it makes the scene border on "too busy", and it doesn't look like you're accomplishing anything with three Dralthis that you wouldn't accomplish with two) or move it further away from the human ship, then I'd either lose or align the laser shot on the upper-left corner with the other ones that are coming from the right-most Dralthi, and shed some more light on the human ship. It's the first thing that comes to attention in the scene, so it seems really interesting and I'm trying desperately to take a good look at it, but the lighting doesn't let me.

Finally, I agree with Cam that you could try to make that jump hole a bit more interesting, perhaps incorporating some elements from the ones we see everywhere except Privateer. :p I don't really see anything aesthetically wrong with the current one or its placement, but it just might look more familiar for WC fans in general if you take some elements of the jump holes from other games (make it a blue cloud with what seems to be a WC3/4-style jump vortex ready to open inside it or something, rather than just a blue cloud).

Just my 2 cents. ;)
 
Eder: I'll give that 120 degree rotation a shot - the only problem I see it that the thing won't fit on the screen that way. Oh, well, I'll still give it a shot. Good catch on the rear fighter - I have no idea how it got turned around like that, it should be facing the other way.
I'm going to give the jump point another pass - and hopefully do an animation that matches up with the various eras of jump point. At this point I'm kinda thinking that we could do something cool where we just have a bouy sitting there - when you get within range you can triggera jump by hitting "J" and then this jump bubble expands out from around the bouy - you fly in and then the thing collapses into a WC3 style jump point flash. Anyhow, I'll stick together a quick animation tonight - hopefully it'll turn out ok. If it works, it'll let me use all 3 elements of a jump point in the WC universe - a bouy, a jump bubble ( as much as some of you seem to hate it, it was a rather integral part of the way Privateer looked) and that spiraly flash of black-hole suckage....could look cool.
 
I'm pretty sure the jump bubble is meant to be a HUD representation of the jump point, and not the jump point itself. Having it in an external shot is a bit like seeing red boxes around the enemy ships.
 
Well, the Privateer explanation mostly solves the jump point problem for me, as I never played it. (blasphemy, etc.) Still, it could use some visual interest, which it seems you are going to incorporate.

What Cam said about the ships appearing to be too close actually goes a long way to explaining what I saw as wrong. That's a pretty good reason why I see a shapeless jumble instead of a dogfight in some of those. Like you said, Taylor does a lot of "portraits," but when he does do dogfights, there is definitely more distance between aircraft.
 
Howard Day said:
Eder: I'll give that 120 degree rotation a shot - the only problem I see it that the thing won't fit on the screen that way.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I understand - I've tested butchering up the render in Photohop. :p

You'll be able to space it out a bit more horizontally and then you can either zoom out a bit or slightly modify the position of the foreground ship in order to make sure everything fits. Oh, and the upper left and lower right corners will look empty too, so you might want to throw in a few more asteroids (smaller than the current ones, I'd say, so they don't detract from the lower left-upper right axis which everything else will be in).
 
Not only were the jump bubbles visible from outside of the cockpit with external camera views, they were also visible during the jump cutscenes.

Personally, I think you should stick with the traditional privateer jump sphere setup, and skip the flashy jump points of the other WC games. Pioneer is supposed to be a Privateer homage, as I understand it. If I'm not misunderstanding, then IMO you should keep the Privateer touches, in this case the jump sphere.
 
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