Friday Facts #214 - Concrete rendering

[darkwolf]

While I love the looks of the texture I have to agree with the others.
It doesn't look at all like what you would industrial concrete expect to look like.

On top of that, I personally prefer a hard border between hazard and non hazard concrete. It enables me to clearly mark hazard areas.
Like some of the images posted earlier in this thread I'd expect them to be sharp borders.

The texture used for the concrete would however work well as a precursor to concrete if it's used as a regular stone floor. (a cheaper alternative so to speak)

[Diablo]

I too would like to echo the common opinion here that concrete should be straight edged and not messy.
I would very much like the old concrete to stay in the game. It is much more pleasing to the eye.
Thank you.

[Local]

I think it would be fantastic to keep both of these textures as (Cobble)Stone and Stone paths (by adding a path made out of raw stone) and then changing to a new Concrete texture as others have suggested. Love the textures, but love the clean look of a flat concrete. A normal stone path would be a simple aesthetic addition I'd be all for.

[kpreid]

It's been said already but I'll say it too: this is not how concrete should look. Yes, Factorio's aesthetic is rough and messy, but the point of concrete floors/paths is to be flat. Make it nubbly, make it have rough edges, make it have somewhat nubbly slab edges, make some plants stick through even though that also doesn't make sense — but don't make it up-and-down.

And the hazard concrete transition also — it might make sense for it to be rough as a hand-spraypainted edge, but it should still have an edge that looks intentionally defined rather than fuzzed out across an entire tile size, because hazard stripes are intentionally put down to mark some border.

[Sander_Bouwhuis]

I haven't read all the previous posts, but here's my 2 cents:

I love, Love, LOVE the looks of the last picture on the FFF page. I would like there to be an option to make all the running speeds identical. I would hate it if you run slow, super fast, fast, super fast, slow, fast, ... whenever you run over mixed floors like you have. It really looks like a nice path you would have in a garden or park, so I would love to create nice patches like that in my factory without the annoyance of variable running speeds.

[ManaUser]

When I saw that animation, I literally thought "wait, there's hazard stone now too?". Then "oh, that's supposed to be concrete". Sorry but this is a step backwards as far as I'm concerned. I don't have a strong opinion on the grid, though I don't understand why it would be a problem when concrete really looks like that often enough. But I would not want that as a floor in a factory, and if I had to walk on it, I would slow down and watch my step extra carefully, not speed up. Both aesthetically and logically considering its purpose in the game, I feel like concrete should look flat, much more like it did before.

I know it must kind of suck to get such a negative reaction to something you were obviously pleased with, so I want to be clear, it looks pretty, and the technical stuff sounds great, I just don't think it's a suitable replacement for the existing concrete. Hope you will reconsider.

[Lav]

Is it just me, or the thread is getting slightly teeny little bit repetitive?

[5thHorseman]

Is it just me, or the thread is getting slightly teeny little bit repetitive?

FF214 is the new "Bored after 100 hour"

[ske]

Is it just me, or the thread is getting slightly teeny little bit repetitive?

FF214 is the new "Bored after 100 hour"

"Bored after 1000 hours and still can't stop."


I think this "aesthetics" move is something that could grow big. If you regard factorio as a game engine instead of a finished game, this change could be pivotal in that other contributors can now make beautiful maps and scenarios. Modding is already there but as far as I can see it is mostly about changing the default game and less about creating the maps and scenarios that make other games live on. Especially with the whole fighting aspect which is underdeveloped in the standard sandbox.

[Selvek]

Looks great... but I agree it doesn't look like concrete.

Also agree that the hazard concrete transitions should be sharp. The paint lines between yellow and black are sharp - it looks weird to have the edges so fuzzy.

Also, can you post some new screenshots of walls on the edge of the concrete? It's always bothered me that you can't end your concrete nicely below a wall - it either sticks out the far side or you leave a gap of grass on the inside. I'm hoping you fixed that in this process.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Seems to me a lot of players have problems thinking for themselves if they can't work out distances without concrete to do it...

But it's a valid argument this doesn't look like concrete. Some Victorian cobbled paths maybe, not concrete. It is gorgeous, but a crappy factory floor.

Both options is my vote. It's too pretty to discard, would really add to the game having more scenery options like this. People try for production/throughput or aesthetics, or both once they get the hang of it. This is really nice art.

[PacifyerGrey]

While screenshots displayed really look cool I have to agree with majority here. This is a stone flooring MK2 and does not look anything like concrete.
Concrete should be flat. If you want to go away from tile-sized rectangles you might go for 2x2 per tile or smaller RECTANGLES or other clean geometrical shapes. Not randomly layered randomly sized stones.

Also have in mind that concrete tiles were often used as a replacement of visually dintinguished GRID which would help lining up structures. Same goes to hazard concrete. The edges should be clear as they are mostly used not for aesthetic purpose but to clarify some boundaries for structures.

[Alice3173]

Seems to me a lot of players have problems thinking for themselves if they can't work out distances without concrete to do it...

It has absolutely nothing to do with being able to think for oneself. It has everything to do with some people struggling to tell distances without something to help them, however. I've never used concrete for that reason and generally don't have trouble with estimating distance myself but on occasion even I'm off. So people wanting something to assist them with that really isn't an issue.

[golfmiketango]

Regarding "real" concrete. Real concrete can mean a lot of different things.... but one thing I notice is that concrete laid before the early 20th century kind-of breaks apart and corrodes, whereas after that, it becomes much more durable. This may be in part due to better formulations but the main reason is that "old-school" concrete often did not have the magical ingredient of rebar. I'm sure all the gory details are on Wikipedia

Without consulting Wikipedia, I know that when I was a child, even though my house was on a concrete slab, weeds and stuff would break through it. Clearly the elements were attacking that slab, whereas, nowadays, only super old or super cheap concrete surfaces seem to work that way. Maybe also today stuff gets scrapped so quickly it never reaches that state of decay -- but honestly I think it's mostly the ubiquity of rebar and availability of cheap pig-iron that drives this. Point being, it's not totally crazy to imagine there might be more than one kind of concrete, one that's "immortal" and one with more of a run-down"dieselpunk" quality (I do think the pictures look nice fwiw).

However, I think from a gameplay/functional standpoint, "paving the world" is a late-game activity. If you know what you're doing, you know that all that concrete is increasing your pollution radius and contributing to your death-world problems and maybe even adding lag. That's all fine, I guess.... my point is, if you are laying down concrete as a replacement-terrain (ie: if there's concrete underneath your solar panels ) that's a very different thing than, say, building walkways or even building a 10-tile-wide two-lane "super-highway" for you and your buddies to drive on.

Once you've reached the pave-the-world stage, I kind of feel like you've gotten your requisite eyeful of dieselpunk and are probably focusing on some other thing: maybe you want ice-cold aesthetic uniformity (that's usually my motivation if I do this) or you want to be able to get around as fast as possible on foot, or ... whatever. Doesn't matter why, just matters that, there's already a built-in cost and hopefully, you can afford it. If so, you've probably got 10 or 100 rockets in the air, invested hundreds of man hours, the game is "won" ... basically, you've earned the right to run around with a bag full of nukes doing more-or-less doing whatever the hell you want, and constraints like "well there's no smooth terrain in available in factorio, it's not consistent with the aesthetic we're trying to create...." start to seem a bit constraining.

[Neemys]

As a person that use concrete not all over my base, but only in key point and road I do love the new one. The border add more depth and make a real difference with the terrain.

[Jarin]

I would suggest to use the new concrete graphics as bricks.

New bricks graphics as cobblestone (smaller bonus but made from stone, not bricks).

And make a proper "flat featureless industrial grey" concrete with sharp (not blurred!) hazard painting.

I like this idea. +1

+1

Is it just me, or the thread is getting slightly teeny little bit repetitive?

Some things just get better with age.

[ChoGGi]

Regarding "real" concrete. Real concrete can mean a lot of different things.... but one thing I notice is that concrete laid before the early 20th century kind-of breaks apart and corrodes, whereas after that, it becomes much more durable. This may be in part due to better formulations but the main reason is that "old-school" concrete often did not have the magical ingredient of rebar. I'm sure all the gory details are on Wikipedia

Going off the top of my head the newer concrete mixes (Portland cement/Roman cement), are actually a lot worse in terms of longevity compared to old-school mixes (Roman concrete).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/spe ... cbd54703bb

[FactorioParadox]

I'd like plantable trees so we can actually make designs like the one shown in the screenshot

I do recall them saying wood would be automatable at some point in the future, so I would imagine that would involve planting trees.

[PurpleGreen]

I'd like plantable trees so we can actually make designs like the one shown in the screenshot

I do recall them saying wood would be automatable at some point in the future, so I would imagine that would involve planting trees.

there is bio industries if you want to plant trees and have an industrie branch for these pesky trees

[dinodod]

any chance we might expand the floor types like how the mods have done? Asphalt is a nice type for roads and if you could insert the white stripes as well....