Friday Facts #214 - Concrete rendering

[EJlol]

The first thing I thought when I saw new concrete graphic was 'that's not concrete, that's pavement in front of my flat'.

It looks gorgeous.
It's richly detailed and really has that 3d feel.
But for love of god, this is not concrete.

Why not make something like this?

When I think of a concrete path, in my mind I picture something like that photo. Not the texture in the FFF... (the texture isn't bad though, just not concrete )

[TheRaph]

Cool but, that look less like concrete than the current implementation.



Concrete is plain and tiled, just like it is in game right now. Those are just more brick paths.

Also, when you paint concrete, you want the transitions to be sharp, not smudged.



The new version looks like someone randomly spilled paint on the transitions.

It's great that you are putting higher resolution textures, but real concrete is really plain and simple, and painted lines are sharp, so I don't think we need something so fancy. Also, the visible tiles were useful.

100% agree to that.

The graphics looks nice but not yet like concrete.

And I hope you get rid of the bushes, grass and other vegetables which stay there on concrete. I also don't understand why roots of eliminated tree, bushes and other stuff will not disappear if you place rail tracks on it.

[Sparen]

As others have said, I feel that the new concrete resembles a cobblestone path too much. I'm one of the Factorio players who uses the clear cut concrete block units for ordered, pixel-style control over where things are placed. Every x tiles, place object y, etc. Before I learned about the debug controls for enabling the grid view, I depended exclusively on concrete for orderly placement. If this functionality is removed, some alternative should be provided so that players that want pixel-style control over the tiles in their base can continue to have it.

It's not that the graphics are bad - they're very nice to look at. However, the graphics have come to be used in such a way that they provide a gameplay mechanic, and losing that feature will be a blow to those players who use it.

My overall suggestion:
-Keep the option to use these new graphics as a new path type, but provide the existing version as well (may need to adjust the bonuses each provides).
-Hazard concrete doesn't look particularly factory-like when rendered on this new cobblestone type concrete. I would suggest not applying the hazard graphic to this particular type of tile.
-If we are to have more decorative tiles in vanilla, please allow us to place wood. Wood is one of the few resources in vanilla that becomes effectively useless after the start of the game, and it also has the potential to be used in beautiful ways when interfaced with other floor types.

[Light]

As an ironworker who creates concrete floors for both factories and refineries, I can't say I've ever seen concrete like that before. You create the frame for the surface you're building for and pour the concrete into the mold until reaching the respective height, as it then dries as a perfectly flat surface ideal for working on. The floor itself should never be a hazard, nor are hazard lines so half-assed when marking a hazardous area. Safety isn't so relaxed and carefree.

Honestly, I think the concrete in game is perfectly fine and should just be left alone.

I could write more, but InstantMix pretty much covered most of what I had to say.

[voddan]

I was a lot of fun to read a detailed explanations and technical nuances! Thanks for great Friday posts, keep them coming!

Despite not having a strong opinion on the concrete itself, I really hope you find the time and back port those technologies for other types of surfaces. One of the great visual features of Factorio (which actually got me into the game in the first place) is how good the grass and the forests look. AFAIU the post, that new code allows for much easier implementations for grass and trees. Such an increase in simplicity would encourage the designers (you and plugin writers) to diversify and improve surface types (see the Alien Biomes as one of the best examples).

[mathturtle]

On the 3rd page before I got home from work... wow.

I agree with most of the above posters, the new graphic is great but it looks more like stone brick than concrete to me. I think it also fits the factorio theme more than the new stone brick graphic. Concrete is flat and while it may have tiles, the only time it buckles enough for shadows like that is if there are trees nearby whose roots grow under it. Some of the sidewalks in my hometown are like that (sorry I don't have a picture). But trust me, on those sidewalks 140% walk speed is unrealistic. But in factorio why do you have the true enemy that close to your base?

[pulsar9]

I love the way the graphic looks but it took me the whole article to figure out why you were showing stone brick renders and stone bricks blending with hazard concrete. Turns out that was not what you were doing and that nice looking image was concrete and not stone path. I would like to echo others in saying that the grid pattern of current concrete image was probably why it is used as the preferred flooring in bases. It is just so much easier to count tiles with the concrete grid pattern.

[pr0n]

ITT: People thinking they want a completely sterilized boring game with 0 personality.

[POPISowyNumer]

ITT: People voicing their opinions.

ftfy

[Jarin]

That last example picture in the FF article is amazing. I can understand what people are saying about the new blocky texture, and for a proper "concrete" look, it could be a little more... flat? Still, those transitions look great, and I can't wait to play with better aesthetics for my bases.

[Dev-iL]

Am I the only one who noticed that the top left hazard concretes in the FFF animation are not being connected correctly (i.e. with a triangular piece of regular concrete)?

The new texture looks great, but doesn't fit its purpose. The new concrete texture ("cobblestone") could work as another road tier along with stone path and concrete.

I have a feeling that the devs will see the complaints regarding the realism of the new texture and will just whip out the old "fun/aesthetics beat realism" argument.

[PantherX]

I really like the direction this is heading. The final render looks pretty good to me, although I do agree with other comments that maybe the concrete could be levelled off a little. One thing that isn't immediately obvious from the post is how the Hazard concrete is layered. Is this still a separate tile that just transitions better, or is it now an alpha layer that is merged with the base concrete layer?

[nevniv]

New concrete looks beautiful, but I agree it is not what I think of when I hear concrete. Might look a little too busy which is the opposite of what some people will want. Honestly though, I can't say how I feel about it without trying it in-game.

I suppose you could just make two difference appearances for the concrete, either through a checkbox in the Options or literally just two recipes if that's not too much trouble.

[SlondoTK]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-214

I loved this new concrete texture.

fff-214-concrete-preview.png (3.2 MiB) Viewed 9257 times

however it gives the impression of being the very stone floor that has a undergone concrete cover!

The idea of this concrete as faster would be crazy, because it is still uneven!
The texture is really good, but it is not very faithful to the concrete we know

New Idea!

It seems to give the impression of wear, I do not know if it is possible more..
Could you add a ground robot, whose job it is to lay concrete and work to keep the concrete in its original state?

Example
In FFF, you said that you would use the alpha mask to transition between different terrains.
As this texture gives the impression of being slightly worn, It would be interesting to see something to reverse this to the "factory default".
A different robot, which could do the maintenance of the factory floor!
The more worn the floor, the slower it becomes to walk on it.

This is where the robot enters, he would be responsible for maintenance in a specific area that your hangar can provide, such as the current robotic logistics hangar...

Now, you are surprising me more and more!
I'm looking forward to 0.16. I almost do not sleep imagining what it will look like

[vedrit]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks that this new texture should not be for concrete.
Really. Don't put this texture in, or everyone is going to grab the first mod they can find to change the texture back.
It looks good.
But it's not concrete.

[bripi]

The new render looks AMAZING!! Love, just *love* that garden design at the end! Gives the game a "oh yeah, we live here too and have to look at this stuff every day, so why not make it look nice" dimension. The new look isn't realistic (as many, many have pointed out) but it's beautiful - and I hardly *ever* call anything made of concrete "beautiful". Keep up the excellent effort!

[KampKounslr]

I *looooove* the last pic! Plantable trees yes, please! (maybe make player-planted trees a different entity than game generated trees, but with all the same attributes otherwise? This could allow players to blueprint their planted trees!)

[Lord_lammington]

i would personally like to see the next graphical update based on the wires connecting poles... they are the only things yet to get an upgrade

[noliVe]

well, thank you as always for an amazing FFF without delay! you get better and better each time you do something! THANKS!
BUT as everyone, I cannot see these putting these bricks in my base. I still want the REAL concrete to highlight an INDUSTRIAL-Style

GOOGLE concrete-pictures in Factories.

- Still, I want these Paving Bricks in the new Patch. It is a great new design method and was a lot of work for the graphic team.
SHOW THEM MORE RESPECT!
- BUT!!! I want true Concrete to have an INDUSTRIAL-Feeling 100%flat grey fire resistant and when walking over it with a 40%speedbonus

Thanks as always

[golfmiketango]

Everything looks freaking great (especially the new decorations, which you didn't mention in the FFF but look really nice to my eyes). However, I will agree with the majority of folks here who don't want concrete to look that way.

Specifically, I like the concrete because it provides an easy-to-decipher tile-grid, and otherwise, it minimizes the visual distraction of the terrain. Slightly faster walking is a nice "bonus" as is the ability to convey a small amount of information where that's called for using hazard concrete. What you're showing in the FFF is clear in the sense that, to an 0.15 factorio player, we will understand "this is obviously the new concrete in 0.16," which is nice and all... but it fails to serve the purposes for which I will have laid the concrete in the first place. It's too noisy. My favorite concrete was always the black concrete from the colors mod. That was perfect -- basically, a way to almost eliminate the terrain from the visual field entirely, without completely destroying immersion and suspension of disbelief.