It uses a sprite system (24-bit RGB + 8-bit Alpha). The sprites are rendered from 3d models*. Units have 16 rotations, some have movement animations (like infantry walking), and combat animations. I thought about opening up the graphics system so other people can add new unit images/animations. That could be done through the same system that I use for downloading/uploading maps/scenarios/rules. I had done some initial work on this, but there are no plans to have this available at release. (I could potentially open it up post-release.) There are some image/sound management issues involved that I have to get resolved. (Presumably users would want to add sounds as well as images, since units make sounds.)
Some of the complications: if someone added an image/animation to the game, it would be used in a new ruleset. The ruleset would have to remember what images/animations it uses. Then, whenever users downloaded a ruleset, it would have to download the associated images/animations/sounds as well. The system would have to avoid overwriting existing images, and would need to remember its dependencies. The whole thing can get rather complicated in terms of remembering dependencies. So, what I'm saying is that opening up the image/sound system in the game isn't quite as easy as simply "opening it up" - which is why that functionality won't be included in the initial release.
* I found that I could pack a lot more detail into sprites than using full 3d. With sprites, I could do 8-bit Alpha and sub-pixel details (admittedly, this is approximated by using 3D anti-aliasing). I could also put subtle outlines around units that made them more visible, and add some "increase sharpness" post-processing to the rendered images that made the images better defined.
Hello, here is another player of Civ 3, who is very dissapointed about Civ 4 and the way the Civ series is going now.
May be the following link can be of some interest for you:
In that thread I transformed a couple of animated Civ 3 units to animated 24 Bit-BMP-Sprites for "Civ 2 ToT" by using a simple tool, that the modder Mercator offered to the Civ 2 community for free. There are thousands of animated high-class units for Civ 3, that can be used for free by modders (so not for the first commercial release of that game). I was able to do this so only beeing a normal gamer and no graphics artist.
May be you should consider about a simple feature to allow modders to introduce graphics from Civ 3 to this game.
Comparison with CIV?
in Empires of Steel
Posted
Hello, here is another player of Civ 3, who is very dissapointed about Civ 4 and the way the Civ series is going now.
May be the following link can be of some interest for you:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=169829&perpage=30&pagenumber=2
In that thread I transformed a couple of animated Civ 3 units to animated 24 Bit-BMP-Sprites for "Civ 2 ToT" by using a simple tool, that the modder Mercator offered to the Civ 2 community for free. There are thousands of animated high-class units for Civ 3, that can be used for free by modders (so not for the first commercial release of that game). I was able to do this so only beeing a normal gamer and no graphics artist.
May be you should consider about a simple feature to allow modders to introduce graphics from Civ 3 to this game.
And you should use better terrain graphics.