Enhancement suggestions for HD inserters graphics

[manuco]

TL;DR

Each inserter has a slighty different shape and look behavior (as well as a different color). The faster, the bigger the base. With fancy effects.

What ?

While you are at upgrading graphics in HD, you could improve the look of the inserters. I'm not talking about gameplay. "bigger" only means that it looks bigger, not that it takes more space on the map.

Each inserter type should have it's own form, based on its capabilities. But they should all look coming from the same collection.

- the burner inserter should have a kind of mini furnace, one the side, that would emit light and smoke when moving (like the game furnaces)
- no extra modification (regarding this suggestion) for the yellow inserter
- the long handed inserter should have its base a little bigger since it is faster
- the fast inster should have a big base since it is fast
- the filter inserter should have a kind of detector (such as a mini camera) on its arm to detect what it takes (and the same base as the fast one)
- the stack inserter should have the same base as the fast inserter (keeping its doubled arm)
- the stack filter inserted should have a big base, a camera and a doubled arm

- electric inserters could emit some kind of small lightning light in their base (containing their engine) when moving (like the one when you plug an electrical plug in its socket). But as others devices don't have this behavior, I'm not sure...

When resting (because of brownout, no proper electric network or because logic signal is False, but not when only waiting for something), inserters should recall their arm with the same animation (but reversed) as the one when you connect them on the electric network for the first time.

Why ?

Beside the fact that it would improve the graphical richness of the game, it would allow color blind people to more easily distinguish between inserters. It's not a miracle solution, but once you noticed the details, it will be much easier to see them.

For the burner inserter, since it consumes burnable materials, emiting smoke would remind us that they polute (or they should...).

For the arm deployment animation, I feel it's too bad that we see it only one time. It could be reused in some case like when something else deactivate the inserter.

[Koub]

This would need a load of additional work from the graphics team

[manuco]

This would need a load of additional work from the graphics team

Sure, but they can pick only what they want I hope that the HD work has not already been done, so that they can pick whatever they want in my suggestion.

[pingger]

Sorry, I think I have to tell you, that the HD Graphics for inserters are already finished and in the Game ... at least in the 0.15.32

[manuco]

Are you sure ? On the image, I can see nice plates well sharpened, but the inserter is still pixelized.



Edit : I'm playing 0.15.32

[Koub]

They are in game since 0.15.17 :

Inserters in high resolution; normal resolution inserters are unchanged.

Source

[daniel34]

Are you sure ? On the image, I can see nice plates well sharpened, but the inserter is still pixelized.



Edit : I'm playing 0.15.32

You are not playing in HD. HD looks like this (notice the splitter, the assembling machine and the arrows on the belt):

factorio-hd-20170808.png (314.08 KiB) Viewed 3403 times

To switch to HD graphics go to Options --> Graphics and set the Sprite resolution to high. 2GB of VRAM are recommended for this option.

The inserters are all looking the same apart from the color, here is an animation from FFF #193 that showcases them:

Inserters in HD

[pingger]

2GB of VRAM are recommended for this option.

Sorry, but 2GB of VRAM are not enough. The Atlas is about 1.7 GB large, leaving less than 300MB for the actual rendered image, which is not enough and causes memory swapping, which cause lag spikes every few seconds. That why they High Graphics settings is only enabled when having at least 2.5 GB VRAM, which would be enough ...

[daniel34]

2GB of VRAM are recommended for this option.

Sorry, but 2GB of VRAM are not enough. The Atlas is about 1.7 GB large, leaving less than 300MB for the actual rendered image, which is not enough and causes memory swapping, which cause lag spikes every few seconds. That why they High Graphics settings is only enabled when having at least 2.5 GB VRAM, which would be enough ...

Factorio displays this dialog box if the VRAM is < 2GB:

We detected that this computer has x MB of video memory (VRAM). That is too low for the high quality sprites. You may experience performance issues, missing graphics, crashes, or the game may not be able to start at all. The recommended video memory size for high quality sprites is at least 2 GB.

Of course this is just a rough guideline and doesn't account for graphics card / system specifics, other processes using VRAM, ..., but on my GTX 750 Ti 2GB it runs flawless, even with bobs+angels and a few other small mods enabled.

The game even runs in HD on my switchable-graphics laptop (vanilla, haven't tried mods) that only has 1 GB dedicated and the rest shared memory (where I get the message above) without any lags.