Space Map Eye Candy

[majorita]

TL;DR

The 'Space Map' menu is lacking. It isn't pretty enough. I suggest improving it by adding an animated background texture, and animated planet textures.

What?

I have two recommendations.

Firstly, replace the flat black background of the 'Space Map' with the animated space texture used elsewhere in the game - on 'Space Platforms' for example.
You could also make something from scratch, but this would look fine as is I think.

I am not an artist, but here is the 'Space Map' as it is now:

20241114084525_1.jpg (197.54 KiB) Viewed 270 times

As you can see it isn't ugly, but it is a bit flat and unappealing to look at.

And below is how I would like to see it improved:

20241114084525_1-e.jpg (299.53 KiB) Viewed 270 times

With this, I think much depth is added to the image. I think it looks much better.

Secondly, I think the individual planets could use some light animation to improve the visual experience of the 'Space Map'. In particular, I feel the sun is lacking. The sun should be one of the brightest features of the solar system, since in many ways our character's lives revolve around it, but at the moment it's simply a still image...

Here is the sun as an example. This is how it looks like in-game right now, with maxed graphics settings. I think every planet could use a little bit of an animation makeover, but the sun is the most important one by far since it's so large and thus much easier to see the flaws in the compressed texture...

Screenshot From 2024-11-14 11-04-18.png (753.53 KiB) Viewed 270 times

Again, I am not an artist, but I rendered this to show off an EXAMPLE of what could be done to improve the texture. Obviously the 3D design, shading, light bounce, doesn't really match Factorio's aesthetic. But it sure would be nice to see the in-game 'Space Map' have planets that rotate in this manner.

sphere-pixel5.webm

(1 MiB) Downloaded 33 times

Why?

Simply put, I think it would greatly improve the visual experience of navigating the 'Space Map'. I think this is an important menu, and players should be 'wowed' by it when they open it for the first time, and every single time after that.

That is all, thank you.