Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Debido on August 25, 2014, 02:13:21 AM

Title: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Debido on August 25, 2014, 02:13:21 AM
Frequently when people are dropping their sprites on the forum there is a lot of subjective commentary relating to colours, shading, lines, geometry etc.

However subjective advice cannot tell you something statistically, graphically or objectively. It can of course point you in the right direction, and certainly the advice given by the few rare professional artists who roam the forums is fantastic.

What I have wanted is tools that tell you some useful and objective information about your ship, that with some interpretation can lead you in a definitive direction as well.

People have probably already noticed I have started using the histogram tool to analyse sprites to help in giving feedback.

I could show every vanilla sprite histogram. However the general trend is something like this for the Onslaught:
(http://s5.postimg.org/3tv9f52lz/Baumgart.jpg)

What does this mean? Very little very dark, average mid range, and a small amount of bright pixels.

And you can still see there is a fully fleshed out dynamic range on the Paragon:

(http://s5.postimg.org/fffjh30qf/baumgartparagon.png)

Other vanilla sprites may have peaks in the highlight area due to specular reflection off a spherical or rounded fuel tank for instance (below)and so on, it will depend on the 'material' of that section of the ship, the paint/colour and the geometry which is reflecting or absorbing light towards the 'camera'.

(http://s5.postimg.org/gljjfvp13/Baumgart_Tanker.png)

The histogram shows that having a good dynamic range is essential even down to fighter scale with the Dagger:
(http://s5.postimg.org/mjxcq47zr/baumgart_Dagger.png)

or even the fighter:
(http://s5.postimg.org/v3gqnvgc7/baumgart_Fighter.png)

The takeaway from this is make sure you have a broad dynamic range to start off with, this mimics both real life photographs as well as how David Baumgart does his ships.

So your histograms should not look like this:
(http://s5.postimg.org/yya0w7muv/Dolcy_Destroyer_Histogram.jpg)

or this:
(http://s5.postimg.org/gsoca1piv/bjorn_ship.png)


If they do, they need some work.

However there are times when the histogram can look fine, there appears to be a good 'range' like the Batavia Battlecruiser:
(http://s5.postimg.org/486p8yzcn/Batavia_Battle_Cruiser.png)

But why is it that the Batavia and some other mod ships not look like 'vanilla' ships? Well there is something else that David Baumgart does, and that is he uses colour even when it doesn't seem he is, he is exceedingly subtle in his use of it, and unless you zoom in a lot and look at the RGB values of many of the pixels you won't actually notice what he's done.

Well first of all, let's use an example:
(http://s5.postimg.org/9xrj70uwj/asteroid4.png)

The asteroid above, it's 50 or 60 different shades of grey right with some black right? Wrong. Vanilla sprites, even the 'grey' asteroids are not grey. In fact of all the active pixels, only about 4% of them use a grey scale colour.

In making tool to help with analysis of ship size/area for something else, I also made it so that it can analyse the percentage of pixels that use the grey colour palette. What I found on average was that vanilla ships use the very very little, in fact only 5.5% on average.
Here are some other interesting tidbits:
Highest: Shuttle - 30.15% <--smallest ship in the game
Second highest: Brawler - 15.48% <-- Might need some work David :P
Low: Talon - 0%

Ships of interest:
Onlaught
onslaught_bb.png
Image size: 288 x 384 px / 110,592 px
Solid pixels 64,323 px
Partial transparent: 489 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 64,584.64 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 579 / .90%
Pure black: 8 / .01%
Pure white: 8 / .01%

Paragon:
paragon.png
Image size: 330 x 364 px / 120,120 px
Solid pixels 71,818 px
Partial transparent: 1,807 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 72,901.50 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 3,760 / 5.16%
Pure black: 514 / .71%
Pure white: 164 / .22%

All vanilla ships
Spoiler
apogee_cx.png
Image size: 140 x 280 px / 39,200 px
Solid pixels 23,454 px
Partial transparent: 628 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 23,802.09 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 1,310 / 5.50%
Pure black: 48 / .20%
Pure white: 46 / .19%

astral_cv.png
Image size: 320 x 440 px / 140,800 px
Solid pixels 71,304 px
Partial transparent: 803 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 72,004.59 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 1,046 / 1.45%
Pure black: 20 / .03%
Pure white: 19 / .03%

atlas_af.png
Image size: 200 x 400 px / 80,000 px
Solid pixels 48,969 px
Partial transparent: 771 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 49,486.96 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 237 / .48%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

aurora_ca.png
Image size: 128 x 280 px / 35,840 px
Solid pixels 22,818 px
Partial transparent: 1,027 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 23,424.85 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 1,198 / 5.11%
Pure black: 47 / .20%
Pure white: 36 / .15%

brawler.png
Image size: 110 x 54 px / 5,940 px
Solid pixels 4,170 px
Partial transparent: 232 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 4,303.40 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 666 / 15.48%
Pure black: 14 / .33%
Pure white: 18 / .42%

broadsword_hftr.png
Image size: 30 x 33 px / 990 px
Solid pixels 436 px
Partial transparent: 39 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 457.64 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 37 / 8.08%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 5 / 1.09%

buffalo_af.png
Image size: 100 x 150 px / 15,000 px
Solid pixels 11,528 px
Partial transparent: 138 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 11,614.34 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 75 / .65%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 2 / .02%

buffalo_dd.png
Image size: 100 x 150 px / 15,000 px
Solid pixels 9,099 px
Partial transparent: 205 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 9,200.83 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 682 / 7.41%
Pure black: 16 / .17%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

claw.png
Image size: 26 x 32 px / 832 px
Solid pixels 384 px
Partial transparent: 55 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 420.13 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 13 / 3.09%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 4 / .95%

condor_dd.png
Image size: 105 x 204 px / 21,420 px
Solid pixels 12,780 px
Partial transparent: 282 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 12,985.83 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 379 / 2.92%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

conquest_bc.png
Image size: 190 x 400 px / 76,000 px
Solid pixels 51,210 px
Partial transparent: 594 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 51,579.09 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 2,405 / 4.66%
Pure black: 534 / 1.04%
Pure white: 280 / .54%

construction_rig.png
Image size: 100 x 220 px / 22,000 px
Solid pixels 7,010 px
Partial transparent: 715 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 7,441.17 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 58 / .78%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 6 / .08%

dagger_trp.png
Image size: 26 x 34 px / 884 px
Solid pixels 367 px
Partial transparent: 38 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 384.53 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 31 / 8.06%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 6 / 1.56%

dominator.png
Image size: 220 x 180 px / 39,600 px
Solid pixels 26,468 px
Partial transparent: 652 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 26,908.93 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 772 / 2.87%
Pure black: 32 / .12%
Pure white: 26 / .10%

eagle_ca.png
Image size: 168 x 218 px / 36,624 px
Solid pixels 21,556 px
Partial transparent: 537 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 21,854.74 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 1,596 / 7.30%
Pure black: 94 / .43%
Pure white: 79 / .36%

enforcer_dd.png
Image size: 136 x 136 px / 18,496 px
Solid pixels 11,874 px
Partial transparent: 405 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 12,112.09 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 372 / 3.07%
Pure black: 15 / .12%
Pure white: 5 / .04%

falcon_cl.png
Image size: 162 x 222 px / 35,964 px
Solid pixels 17,492 px
Partial transparent: 632 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 17,833.53 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 1,505 / 8.44%
Pure black: 134 / .75%
Pure white: 38 / .21%

fighter_assault_midline.png
Image size: 30 x 28 px / 840 px
Solid pixels 496 px
Partial transparent: 51 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 528.28 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 26 / 4.92%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 1 / .19%

fighter_heavy_escort.png
Image size: 38 x 43 px / 1,634 px
Solid pixels 810 px
Partial transparent: 228 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 971.46 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 12 / 1.24%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 4 / .41%

fighter_heavy_escort_mk2.png
Image size: 38 x 41 px / 1,558 px
Solid pixels 808 px
Partial transparent: 172 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 935.57 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 9 / .96%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 4 / .43%

fighter_heavy_escort_strike.png
Image size: 38 x 45 px / 1,710 px
Solid pixels 846 px
Partial transparent: 218 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 1,000.01 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 30 / 3.00%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 4 / .40%

fighter_heavy_midline.png
Image size: 38 x 33 px / 1,254 px
Solid pixels 694 px
Partial transparent: 66 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 737.01 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 24 / 3.26%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 4 / .54%

frigate_phase_assault.png
Image size: 80 x 80 px / 6,400 px
Solid pixels 4,286 px
Partial transparent: 190 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 4,416.15 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 461 / 10.44%
Pure black: 2 / .05%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

frigate_phase_strike.png
Image size: 60 x 120 px / 7,200 px
Solid pixels 4,406 px
Partial transparent: 284 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 4,557.71 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 754 / 16.54%
Pure black: 6 / .13%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

gemini.png
Image size: 140 x 160 px / 22,400 px
Solid pixels 14,137 px
Partial transparent: 268 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 14,314.98 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 749 / 5.23%
Pure black: 10 / .07%
Pure white: 54 / .38%

hammerhead_dd.png
Image size: 108 x 164 px / 17,712 px
Solid pixels 11,143 px
Partial transparent: 353 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 11,339.08 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 1,000 / 8.82%
Pure black: 42 / .37%
Pure white: 2 / .02%

hound_ff.png
Image size: 62 x 72 px / 4,464 px
Solid pixels 2,667 px
Partial transparent: 176 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 2,774.87 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 359 / 12.94%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

hyperion_ff.png
Image size: 76 x 72 px / 5,472 px
Solid pixels 2,210 px
Partial transparent: 208 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 2,329.44 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 225 / 9.66%
Pure black: 6 / .26%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

lasher_ff.png
Image size: 68 x 96 px / 6,528 px
Solid pixels 3,744 px
Partial transparent: 140 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 3,824.24 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 317 / 8.29%
Pure black: 10 / .26%
Pure white: 11 / .29%

longbow_intg.png
Image size: 34 x 35 px / 1,190 px
Solid pixels 538 px
Partial transparent: 33 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 553.45 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 48 / 8.67%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 8 / 1.45%

medusa.png
Image size: 134 x 138 px / 18,492 px
Solid pixels 11,894 px
Partial transparent: 728 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 12,344.51 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 865 / 7.01%
Pure black: 10 / .08%
Pure white: 16 / .13%

midtech2x_cv.png
Image size: 140 x 250 px / 35,000 px
Solid pixels 22,360 px
Partial transparent: 580 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 22,637.87 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 554 / 2.45%
Pure black: 4 / .02%
Pure white: 90 / .40%

mining_drone.png
Image size: 32 x 27 px / 864 px
Solid pixels 565 px
Partial transparent: 18 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 576.25 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 7 / 1.21%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 1 / .17%

monitor_ff2.png
Image size: 110 x 70 px / 7,700 px
Solid pixels 4,804 px
Partial transparent: 428 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 4,966.35 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 587 / 11.82%
Pure black: 17 / .34%
Pure white: 22 / .44%

mule_dd.png
Image size: 128 x 192 px / 24,576 px
Solid pixels 13,162 px
Partial transparent: 428 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 13,483.49 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 293 / 2.17%
Pure black: 4 / .03%
Pure white: 4 / .03%

munitions_d1.png
Image size: 122 x 164 px / 20,008 px
Solid pixels 15,645 px
Partial transparent: 591 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 16,024.93 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 237 / 1.48%
Pure black: 47 / .29%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

munitions_drone.png
Image size: 32 x 30 px / 960 px
Solid pixels 453 px
Partial transparent: 46 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 479.05 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 17 / 3.55%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

munitions_f1.png
Image size: 78 x 92 px / 7,176 px
Solid pixels 4,775 px
Partial transparent: 353 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 5,014.73 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 71 / 1.42%
Pure black: 18 / .36%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

odyssey.png
Image size: 168 x 400 px / 67,200 px
Solid pixels 39,285 px
Partial transparent: 1,437 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 40,177.03 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 3,780 / 9.41%
Pure black: 62 / .15%
Pure white: 138 / .34%

omen_ff.png
Image size: 66 x 84 px / 5,544 px
Solid pixels 2,818 px
Partial transparent: 219 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 2,938.75 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 331 / 11.26%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 32 / 1.09%

onslaught_bb.png
Image size: 288 x 384 px / 110,592 px
Solid pixels 64,323 px
Partial transparent: 489 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 64,584.64 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 579 / .90%
Pure black: 8 / .01%
Pure white: 8 / .01%

ox.png
Image size: 54 x 46 px / 2,484 px
Solid pixels 1,690 px
Partial transparent: 74 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 1,730.15 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 1 / .06%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

paragon.png
Image size: 330 x 364 px / 120,120 px
Solid pixels 71,818 px
Partial transparent: 1,807 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 72,901.50 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 3,760 / 5.16%
Pure black: 514 / .71%
Pure white: 164 / .22%

piranha_bmb.png
Image size: 30 x 34 px / 1,020 px
Solid pixels 507 px
Partial transparent: 72 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 549.67 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 8 / 1.46%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 3 / .55%

repair_drone.png
Image size: 30 x 26 px / 780 px
Solid pixels 443 px
Partial transparent: 45 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 466.26 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 6 / 1.29%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

sentinel_apbmb.png
Image size: 30 x 34 px / 1,020 px
Solid pixels 507 px
Partial transparent: 75 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 550.40 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 6 / 1.09%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 1 / .18%

shuttle.png
Image size: 18 x 22 px / 396 px
Solid pixels 207 px
Partial transparent: 23 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 222.22 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 67 / 30.15%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 5 / 2.25%

shuttle_ff.png
Image size: 56 x 82 px / 4,592 px
Solid pixels 2,929 px
Partial transparent: 141 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 3,026.27 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 315 / 10.41%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

shuttle_ffB.png
Image size: 56 x 82 px / 4,592 px
Solid pixels 2,990 px
Partial transparent: 148 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 3,088.14 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 198 / 6.41%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

shuttle_modern.png
Image size: 58 x 63 px / 3,654 px
Solid pixels 2,555 px
Partial transparent: 103 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 2,626.64 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 150 / 5.71%
Pure black: 2 / .08%
Pure white: 24 / .91%

shuttle_modernB.png
Image size: 58 x 75 px / 4,350 px
Solid pixels 3,131 px
Partial transparent: 127 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 3,216.41 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 150 / 4.66%
Pure black: 2 / .06%
Pure white: 20 / .62%

sunder_ca.png
Image size: 112 x 192 px / 21,504 px
Solid pixels 9,197 px
Partial transparent: 245 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 9,381.78 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 1,156 / 12.32%
Pure black: 18 / .19%
Pure white: 40 / .43%

superhound.png
Image size: 80 x 100 px / 8,000 px
Solid pixels 5,732 px
Partial transparent: 214 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 5,863.98 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 212 / 3.62%
Pure black: 4 / .07%
Pure white: 16 / .27%

talon_ftr.png
Image size: 24 x 24 px / 576 px
Solid pixels 288 px
Partial transparent: 0 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 288.00 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 0 / .00%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

tanker_large.png
Image size: 248 x 360 px / 89,280 px
Solid pixels 52,938 px
Partial transparent: 4,182 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 56,407.94 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 156 / .28%
Pure black: 19 / .03%
Pure white: 1 / .00%

tanker_medium.png
Image size: 120 x 234 px / 28,080 px
Solid pixels 18,106 px
Partial transparent: 893 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 18,737.55 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 35 / .19%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 4 / .02%

tanker_small.png
Image size: 90 x 132 px / 11,880 px
Solid pixels 7,236 px
Partial transparent: 440 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 7,554.38 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 8 / .11%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

tarsus.png
Image size: 105 x 204 px / 21,420 px
Solid pixels 12,451 px
Partial transparent: 143 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 12,538.85 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 90 / .72%
Pure black: 4 / .03%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

tempest.png
Image size: 64 x 92 px / 5,888 px
Solid pixels 3,264 px
Partial transparent: 116 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 3,355.70 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 293 / 8.73%
Pure black: 10 / .30%
Pure white: 4 / .12%

thunder.png
Image size: 26 x 43 px / 1,118 px
Solid pixels 548 px
Partial transparent: 21 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 560.94 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 21 / 3.74%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

trident.png
Image size: 38 x 34 px / 1,292 px
Solid pixels 715 px
Partial transparent: 94 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 771.89 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 43 / 5.57%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 6 / .78%

valkyrie_ap.png
Image size: 80 x 260 px / 20,800 px
Solid pixels 15,837 px
Partial transparent: 637 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 16,295.34 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 450 / 2.76%
Pure black: 4 / .02%
Pure white: 128 / .79%

venture.png
Image size: 194 x 190 px / 36,860 px
Solid pixels 22,037 px
Partial transparent: 267 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 22,217.43 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 588 / 2.65%
Pure black: 22 / .10%
Pure white: 4 / .02%

vigilance.png
Image size: 63 x 101 px / 6,363 px
Solid pixels 3,670 px
Partial transparent: 284 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 3,847.42 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 368 / 9.56%
Pure black: 11 / .29%
Pure white: 12 / .31%

wasp_ftr.png
Image size: 18 x 21 px / 378 px
Solid pixels 130 px
Partial transparent: 43 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 156.90 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 2 / 1.27%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

wolf_ff.png
Image size: 52 x 96 px / 4,992 px
Solid pixels 2,969 px
Partial transparent: 63 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 2,999.25 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 320 / 10.67%
Pure black: 12 / .40%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

wolf_ff_old.png
Image size: 48 x 96 px / 4,608 px
Solid pixels 2,693 px
Partial transparent: 0 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 2,693.00 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 27 / 1.00%
Pure black: 0 / .00%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

xyphos.png
Image size: 38 x 38 px / 1,444 px
Solid pixels 680 px
Partial transparent: 102 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 741.20 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 58 / 7.83%
Pure black: 2 / .27%
Pure white: 2 / .27%

Average grey area: 5.4325995%
[close]

Vanilla Avg. vs Mod average
I then analysed some other factions, here are the results:
Vanilla: 5.4325995%
Ahriman Association: 3.260657%
Batavia: 85.67105%
BRDY: 16.377554%
Citadel: 63.379013%
Ethereals: 48.33101%
Exigency Corporation: 0.7511463%
Firestorm Fed: 51.456833%
Gedune: 24.461386%
Interstellar Imperium: 7.2946897%
Ironclads: 26.918768%
Neutrino: 14.093536%
SCY: 51.88975%
SHI: 0.68406194%
UAF: 75.80649%
Valk: 52.602436%


So what is the reasoning behind a ship sprite artist not using lots of shades of grey? Well in real life nothing is pure black*, pure white* or a pure value of greyscale. Almost everything has a 'colour', even black ink on white paper is not pure black on pure white. So if you're seeing more than 15% grey scale or 1.5% pure black or white usage on your ships you may wish to review your palette usage.

I may be releasing the analysis tool for general usage later on, it's currently undergoing testing and improvement.

[Edit: Split Exigency Corp and Ahriman Association statistics]
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Erick Doe on August 25, 2014, 02:32:45 AM
Hurray! Looks like Project Batavia takes home the grey cup!  :D

Not surprising considering I use an all grey palette for them. Except for the bridgelights and blue stripes. Also, the style is not designed to look like vanilla. But I get the point you're making. And it is good advice if you're looking to match vanilla's style and look with your mod. Out of curiousity, what do you get when you run these three ship sprites through your histograms? If you don't mind, of course.

(http://i.imgur.com/Dckp32Y.png) (http://i.imgur.com/KavS6FW.png) (http://i.imgur.com/xBf57iT.png)
I am still predicting a fairly high grey rating, eventhough I did go for a more vanilla matching look. This is because I did use true shades of grey. However, with the workflow of these ships no black outlines were used, so it should score significantly less in that area. Though heavy contrast and shading on the middle ship did create some dark outlines, which I may or may not have to remove.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Debido on August 25, 2014, 03:02:12 AM
Spoiler
(http://s5.postimg.org/5pwqy9th3/batship1.png)
[close]
Image size: 147 x 235 px / 34,545 px
Solid pixels 22,968 px
Partial transparent: 0 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 22,968.00 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 3,490 / 15.20%
Pure black: 1 / .00%
Pure white: 60 / .26%

Spoiler
(http://s5.postimg.org/ux7myiwl3/batship2.png)
[close]
Image size: 132 x 210 px / 27,720 px
Solid pixels 16,793 px
Partial transparent: 0 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 16,793.00 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 1,867 / 11.12%
Pure black: 411 / 2.45%
Pure white: 0 / .00%

Spoiler
(http://s5.postimg.org/6hzexgxo7/batship3.png)
[close]
Image size: 40 x 77 px / 3,080 px
Solid pixels 1,900 px
Partial transparent: 0 px
Solid Area + psuedo transparent area is 1,900.00 px
Pixels that are shades of grey: 792 / 41.68%
Pure black: 105 / 5.53%
Pure white: 3 / .16%

Average grey area: 22.665665%

The histogram profiles were generated with GIMP using the 'Levels' tool as it is known. This tool is available in most graphics programs, PhotoShop CC, Paint.net etc.

The stats are from my program
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: kazi on August 25, 2014, 03:09:48 AM
Erick, I might actually use more color for your stuff. Not like "oh hey lets dial up the saturation to 11," but maybe just add a few really colorful bits to add a bit of contrast. Doing lighting with a "soft light" layer mode also improves color depth a bit.

And yeah, like Debido said, it's a really good idea to avoid greyscale colors. You gain a lot by being just slightly off of grey. (I actually think most of the vanilla midline stuff could use a bit more color as well. Not a fan of the green-silver that it is currently)

Also, welcome to the wonderful world of writing scripts for image analysis <---- (what I do for work sometimes. )
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Debido on August 25, 2014, 03:11:08 AM
So there we go Erick. I'd say the first ship might do with some more overall lightness, and has a bit too much darkness. The second one needs a few less pure black lines. The third one appears to have a strong presence of grey scale colour palette, and needs some more presence in the upper range. That's compared to vanilla, technically speaking, as for the overall design, shape, theme and geometry I'd say that's a topic for the spriters judgement thread.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Debido on August 25, 2014, 03:12:33 AM
Hey Kazi,

What other kinds of useful information can be derived from the images that would aid in artists understanding their sprites?
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: kazi on August 25, 2014, 04:11:18 AM
Well personally, I try to stay away from actually attempting to measure everything and just try to go with what "feels right." A bit of an analogy is that I used to be into really into measuring and visualizing every aspect of music while learning to write it (I still love spectrograms to this day), but it didn't honestly help me that much while I was learning. Where this kind of thing comes in handy is while doing final touch-ups or trying to diagnose weird issues that you just can't quite identify.

A few tips/things that I usually try to do while spriting (I don't pretend to be a pro at this, feel free to disagree with me on any of these):
-Make sure that the general hull design isn't a variation on a circle/square/triangle/etc. It's just not as visually interesting as using more complex shapes. I'm not a fan of vanilla ships like the medusa, which is LITERALLY JUST A CIRCLE. (rage~)
-Plan your ships outline to include weapons that can be mounted there. Ships often look completely different/worse with weapons, so plan where you are putting the mounts on really early.
-Don't use the pencil tool or MS paint unless you're going for a very "pixel-arty" style
-Have lots of large structural details in the z-axis. The more stuff that appears to protrude up and down, the more realistic the sprite looks.
-Again, like you've already mentioned, don't use shades of grey. I hear it's not even that great of a book.
-Already covered here, but use the full spectrum of white/black lighting values.
-Also use a full spectrum of color/saturation. Have some bits that are very colorful, and some bits that are not so much.
-Don't add greebles everywhere. Some areas should be smooth, it adds a bit of visual contrast and gives your eyes a break.
-You can never have too much lighting. The light source should be directly above and slightly in front of a ships center. For reference, I only use like 4-5 colors for the base sprites, and all of the rest is just lighting fx.

Not sure how to quantify all of that, but a color/saturation tool could be useful for a lot of people. Something along the lines of something that could be used to guide people away from overly saturated/desaturated sprites. That's usually one of the biggest problems with art that I see on these forums. Also perhaps something that detects and quantifies aliasing. The pencil tool can turn out really nasty sometimes if it's black on a light color. Crazybump can catch weird lighting mistakes when making a normal map (noticable if it generates a really strange looking normal).
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: David on August 25, 2014, 07:08:09 PM
Wow, that's ... detailed analysis. And fascinating.

Thoughts:
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Debido on August 25, 2014, 07:49:43 PM
I've wanted to do a historical histogram of the various ships, but I've never had the date stamps for the ships so it's been impossible to analyse any trends over time with accuracy. Though I would say that there is a small but defined difference between the Onslaught and the Paragon.

Onslaught Histogram
Spoiler
(http://s5.postimg.org/eq5xw7eyf/onslaught_Analysis.png) (http://postimg.org/image/db4d7hdv7/)
[close]

Paragon Histogram
Spoiler
(http://s5.postimg.org/asio6ss53/paragon_Analysis.png) (http://postimg.org/image/il9byry43/)
[close]

I'd say the Onslaught is a 'flatter' ship, if these ships were rendered in 3D and you were viewing them from the front I would say based upon the lighting and shading of the Paragon that it is 'taller' on the Z-axis due to the increased shading at the edges indicating greater depth.

However this could also be an artefact of the harsher lighting on the Paragon versus the Onslaught. When I mean harsher I mean it appears the light source is smaller and  closer to Paragon and directly above, causing greater highlights and greater shadows overall. This could also be used to explain the much darker/thicker lines that are found on the edges of the Paragon but not on the Onslaught.

Another factor is the materials of the Onslaught appear to be a variety of matte brown paints that are duller, dirtier, grimier and weathered. While the Paragon looks much newer, fresher and with a semi-metallic/gloss paint. As one would expect with a metallic material it would be 'shinier' and reflect more light than a dull/mottled paint job.

Anyway all of this analysis is to hopefully help others achieve ships that match vanilla more closely, I think it's like watching a movie and then a CGI element is suddenly thrown in and people notice modder ships and are taken out of the 'moment' because their visual system immediately recognises that it doesn't 'belong'.

As for the turret bases, yes they are fairly grey but even still their RGB values are with 1-4 points of each other on the Paragon for example, so not technically grey by the definition of the RGB values all being the same, but still close to it. I've been thinking of adding some additional analysis on how varied pixels are from 'grey scale', but people can usually look at the RGB component histograms side by side as well to get information on that.

With a small amount of effort I can have it so that pure black/white pixels X,Y coordinate is recorded in the output, but anyone with select by color utilities in PhotoShop/GIMP etc would favour that instead.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Sundog on August 26, 2014, 03:43:18 PM
Every once in a while I think about how to add more color to my faction, but everything I try seems to make it look worse. So far the best I've been able to come up with is just adding a little tan.

Spoiler
Original:
(http://i.imgur.com/6M91HRr.png)
Colorized:
(http://i.imgur.com/CQDUmmI.png)
[close]

Improvement?
Open to suggestions.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Cycerin on August 26, 2014, 03:55:12 PM
Given your faction's primary accent is cyan, any earth/khaki color would work well. I think the rightmost sprite is a good improvement.

As for Blackrock sprites, the black pixels is a sort of pet peeve of mine, and something I've tried to stay away from with recent sprites (Knights Templar)

Still, it's part of the faction's look and overhauling it would take way too much effort right now.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: ValkyriaL on August 26, 2014, 04:23:36 PM
Hmm, Valks really only have 2 colors so 50% seems about right XD
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Debido on August 26, 2014, 04:53:45 PM
As Cycerin pointed out, the black pixels are not helpful in getting the ship to blend with SS, pixels at the edge of a ship should be Anti-Aliased where possible so that the ship smoothly blends with the background when it is moving.

I've noticed that you do AA in some places, but in others you don't do it at all, and will even use pure black pixels at the edges. So I'd start by doing some smudging of the browny/white pixels with the black edge pixels and introduce AA this way as well potentially. Sometimes I will do AA by using the 'smudge' tool to combine the element from the ship with the 100% transparent background layer, leading to a 'dark, coloured, partly transparent' edge pixel.

So fixing up the inconsistent use of AA and blacklining would be good.

Next is the green lighting. Looking at the ship, there are times when the interaction between the green neon lights does not appear correct. Props to you for trying this technique, but it is hugely difficult in itself getting the shading on the base sprite from the 'above and in front' light source. By adding 20-30 green neon lights you're increasing the difficulty of shading it by a factor of 10!

What I would suggest is that the diffuse light emitted from the neons would not be as spread over the hull of ship parts as it is. If it was it would be much more subtle, looking at the position of many of the light sources I find it difficult to imagine light being able to bounce of the panel and directly up into the camera. Even if the light bounced off the hull and up to the camera the 'general' light source that is above would overwhelm it and you'd only be able to capture a smaller amount of green diffuse green light.

I would probably say the front 1/3rd of the ship has more correct green diffuse lighting than the rear, the rear of the ship, and especially the middle of the ship do not appear consistent or correct given the way light bounces around and the way light is capture by a overhead observer/camera.

Finally I would start suggesting increased use of darker/contrasty lines in some areas. At the moment the ship looks a bit flat despite the shading, this may be because the main light source is not showing multiple depths in the various greeble sections of the ship.

I also sense that that the parts of the ship that are higher or closer to the camera could be a brighter shade.

Hm, otherwise it's a very good looking ship.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Sundog on August 26, 2014, 08:05:14 PM
Quote from: Cycerin on August 26, 2014, 03:55:12 PM
Given your faction's primary accent is cyan, any earth/khaki color would work well. I think the rightmost sprite is a good improvement.
Ok, I'll spend some more time experimenting with colors. I think I've been too worried about deviating from the exact complementary hue of the cyan.

@Debido
Thanks for the detailed feedback  :)
I really only meant to ask about colors though, as I'm aware of the lighting issues (Kazi made sure of that) and the inconsistent aliasing. Still, your suggestions will be very helpful once I get around to actually fixing that stuff. For now I've got a lot of other tasks with higher improvement/time ratios. I really should start thinking about ways to improve the lighting  though. Your assessment of the lighting problems is spot-on with my opinion.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: kazi on August 27, 2014, 02:54:49 AM
I like the slight tan. Honestly though, the green lighting looks quite good (even with the occasional weird bit here and there). I think it adds a lot to the sprites, makes them look higher tech. You could also add more color pretty easily by just drawing on a bunch of yellow/red lights. Nothing huge, just little dots 1-3 pixels in diameter to various parts. Colored stripes/paint in various places could also help too, but it's a pretty major style change from you already have.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Okim on August 27, 2014, 03:59:18 AM
I wonder which faction did produce the 26% grey for Ironclads. ISA? :)
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Debido on August 27, 2014, 04:16:25 AM
I've attached a detailed analysis of all of them. Don't take much notice of the colour variance statistics for the moment, still going through the validation process for them.

Some time when this thing is finished might look at doing the different factions individually, and perhaps outputting these stats to a CSV or HTML file.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Okim on August 27, 2014, 05:02:16 AM
Thanks.

Didn`t realize that I was using almost the same amount of grey for RSF as for ISA. Kinda weird I must say...
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Wyvern on August 27, 2014, 09:14:07 AM
@Sundog:
One thing I'd try, actually, is going for a slight iridescence, instead of adding a single color.  You'd probably want it to be a bit subtler than the tan you demonstrated earlier in thread, but I think that might work well for the white armor bits.  (Oddly, in my work with 3D art, adding a bit of iridescence often resulted in an object that looked whiter than a plain white version!  Sadly, I don't think I kept any example images of that effect around.)

But I don't think it's the white panels that need the most attention on your ships, either; for example, the two hexagonal background segments near the center of the ship look very flat - and, aside from the occasional bit of blue-green lighting, the rest is not that much better.  Unfortunately, I don't have any really good suggestions for how to address this - it just looks like it could be done better, but I'm not really sure how.  Yeah, not the most useful of feedback, I know.  >.<
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Sundog on August 27, 2014, 07:09:58 PM
Ok, you guys have convinced me; at some point I'm going to do a major artistic overhaul of my faction. It'll have to wait a while, as I am planning on making it content 'complete' at some point, but I'm starting to see a lot of exciting opportunities for improvement  :)

@kazi
Yep, I like the lighting too in spite of the quirks. Rest assured; there's no risk of me reverting to my old, backward way of trying to avoid 'over-the-top' lighting. Still, I'd like to work on improving it at some point, and I'll keep point-lights in mind when I do. (I'm making a list of potential ways to improve)
On stripes: They could add a lot of things I want; color, detail, and (most importantly imo) a strong indication of the depth contours of the armor. I still worry that any stripes with significant contrast would disrupt the form of the armor, but I'm sure there are ways to mitigate that. And you're right; it would be a lot of work to add stripes to the current style. We'll see.

@Wyvern
Iridescence would be frickin' sweet. Right now I have no idea how to go about creating iridescent lighting, but I'll add it to my list and see if I can figure it out later.
Yeah... there's a reason I try to cover up as much of the dark under-structure as I can. Here's the Abraxas without its clothes on:
Spoiler
(http://i.imgur.com/QjceUcN.png)
[close]
I want to try replacing that whole pattern cutout with various kitbashed greebles (probably from free AI War assets). Not sure how that'll turn out, but I'm optimistic.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: mendonca on August 28, 2014, 05:24:34 AM
Thanks for all this, Debido, I look forward hopefully to a tool of some description being released.

Whilst reading this thread and contemplating some things or other I found this, what appears to be useful, online 3d histogram viewer:

http://3dhistogram.com

I think it works pretty well to give a good visualisation of where the colours are, case in point:

Spoiler
The Kraken:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/66536185/kraken_3d_histo.png)

compared to the Onslaught (one of the earlier ships with a slightly darker range)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/66536185/onslaught_3d_histo.png)

Quite clearly, the Kraken, whilst having a decent enough dynamic range, appears to be far too dark. There's a big representation of the central line of greys as well, which could do with some work, and the black splodge is too big.
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Debido on August 28, 2014, 06:13:03 AM
That's a really interesting tool, I've been looking at a few ships through the 3D histogram, though I think I need to read some more documentation on how to interpret it correctly.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: ValkyriaL on August 28, 2014, 08:34:10 AM
Considering if i Should add more Color to the Valks, 50%+ seems kinda bad, then again, their hulls are grey, so slightly unavoidable. i did try to add different shades of grey and black here and there to simulate height, armor sloping, and roundness around the edge of the ship.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: CrashToDesktop on August 28, 2014, 04:15:06 PM
To be brutally honest, I'm not liking this way of analyzing sprites very much - it's sort of like the XVM conspiracy with World of Tanks.  Someone pulls of your stats and calls you a noob for having a 30% winrate over 7,000 matches.  Now, you could be a bad tanker in a 1v1 scenario, but you could also be one of the best team players, backing up your other teammates, moving up with pushes, or even simply being there to deter an enemy from rounding the corner or not dying in the first 5 minutes of a match.

That's the feeling I'm getting with the histogram.  It's a mechanical evaluation of a sprite, it simply does not equate to the perfect sprite.  Hell, ValkyriaL and Sundog have pretty much choosen to modify their sprites solely based on this graph (no offense, though), which shouldn't be the case all the time.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Sundog on August 28, 2014, 04:59:09 PM
I don't think anyone here is fooling themselves into thinking good sprites need to have histograms and color schemes that are numerically similar to vanilla sprites. I think number-based comparisons like this are interesting and potentially useful for improvement, but a decent metric for aesthetic appeal? Not at all. Aesthetics are far too subjective and complicated to be judged by any analytical metric. However, similarity to the art style of vanilla is generally desirable, so analysis that gives indications of how sprites deviate from that style can be pretty useful.

As for me choosing to modify my sprites based on histograms, no offence taken, but you're simply wrong. I've wanted to add more color to my sprites for several months now. Debido's OP only prompted me to ask for suggestions about how to do that. The feedback I got from spriters whose work I admire is what convinced me to change my sprites. And anyway, (correct me if I'm wrong) but the histograms show information about variation in lightness/darkness, regardless of hue.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Cycerin on August 28, 2014, 05:38:55 PM
Well, it's kinda like how you could look at the spectrum of a piece of music and be able to roughly tell if its got too much bass or too little, or if there's weird notches and gaps or something. But your ears would still tell you the same thing, you just wouldn't be able to put your finger on PRECISELY what was wrong. I dont really know what my point is except that I like "dancing about architecture" type comparisons...
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Debido on August 28, 2014, 06:13:10 PM
@ Soldier

I can understand where you're coming from, valuing numbers exclusively over a subjective evaluation with the eye is not something I'm recommending. Statistical about the image is just data to be interpreted to validate your views on it. Sometimes it's difficult to describe with words if a ship looks one way or another without knowing if what your saying is accurate. You may think your ship has too many shades of grey by looking at it, but without a tool to evaluate every pixel and confirm that you won't know.

If you're able to make a ship look great with some greys, blacks and whites and a very low amount of colours in your palette - props to you, well done on making a visually striking and interesting ship. However if you're trying to make the best looking ship you can within your skills and available time, you have a well designed ship but the colour, shading or overall grading just doesn't match the vanilla ship you're envisioning - then it's time to get some tools to help assess the ship in a non-subjective way.

After the person has that data they then interpret it and potentially come to a different subjective view on how to improve their ship.

Now I've made my statements about the colour grey, and it still stands, as a colour it just doens't exist in nature and is use very little in vanilla - that choice by David Baumgart help lead to a particular overall look. If you're trying to match that 'look' of vanilla, then it's a good idea to try and match those parameters.
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Thule on August 28, 2014, 06:51:36 PM
Spoiler
(http://i.imgur.com/mPaLmas.png)(http://i.imgur.com/kqajzxI.png)
[close]
Title: Re: Starsector and mod ships graphics analysis
Post by: Sundog on August 29, 2014, 12:43:49 PM
Thanks Thule :)
Something like that would certainly add more color and fixes some of the lighting issues. As with Kazi's suggestion about stripes, I'd like to keep the armor free of decorative paint if possible, but we'll see.