Station Facelift: Feedback thread

[Star Dust]

This could just be being a man who hates change and all that, but when I look at the textures I feel like the stuff around it feels out of place almost. I can't put my finger on it but it just feels wrong. Don't get me wrong, its wonderful but it still feels out of place.

[canon35]

I echo the sentiment that this facelift gives a much darker and industrial feel to the station overall. I don't mind that personally, however. It feels kinda fitting to have this space installation feel a bit more claustrophobic, dangerous, etc. 

My only issue with this facelift comes from the walls. As previously stated by wowzewow, their sprite seems like a poor comprimise between the style of our old walls and those used by Eris/Bay. I would prefer that the sprite either embraces the perspective shift entirely or just sticks to the old way. Besides this minor complaint, this face-lift has been excellent. Good work. 



 

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I would greatly prefer the lighter color of the original floor tiles but within the style of this reboot. It feels very much like a gritty industrial setting, or a space prison - i don't know how to explain this next bit but it also seems like sprites are harder to make out visually as easily. It's the same issue I see with modern games vs old strategy games where the foreground blends in with the background.
 

Anyway I think the lighter color would help. It's not as bad in medical where the tiles are lighter.

[Skyglazer]

Let me just preface this with an apology, as I'm about to rip into this PR. Keep in mind that this is geared purely towards the contents and how they compare to what we currently have. I absolutely appreciate the artists as people and think they could make something that looks great. It never feels good to harp on something that has clearly had so much time and effort spent on it, but I have to agree with a lot of the detractors in this thread: I think the facelift sets out to solve a problem that isn't there, and in the process, has created a few more. A lot of the points I was thinking of when I first saw these changes have already been brought up, but I'll list a few of my biggest ones here for convenience.

1) The dark, muted color scheme is bland and inoffensive. The brighter colors and simple designs from before helped what make things that needed to pop, well, pop! Others in this thread have already pointed it out, but a lot of the colors are so dark they just... blend together.

2) As well, some things pop that aren't really supposed to. The stark differences in detail between the AI holopad and the floors make the holopad look like an item that was dropped on the floor rather than a pad in the middle of the floor.

3) Some of these sprites seem to lack polish or feel even unfinished. I'm not sure if this is intentional and is going to be fixed in a later PR, but a lot of these sprites seem to be lacking- or like they're placeholders or something. As an example, I'd cite the air alarm, and reinforced walls. As for the air alarm, the light the bounces back-and-forth is juuuust barely off-center, as is the text that says 'AIR.' Not to mention that he bouncing light doesn't have any real borders and just bounces back and forth seemingly against the wall... Reinforced just look strange with that dot in the middle rather than looking reinforced. This was a problem in the old style, but it's made more extreme by having said dot being the only major detail (with the rest so faint and greyish that they are too difficult to make out).

4) I don't think the station's aesthetic needed a change, and while I applaud the authors of the facelift for making the PR, I think it is a bit too ambitious and falls short. I invite everyone to keep in mind that we don't need our own custom-made sprites to be our own distinct server- and if we're going to majorly overhaul the look, it shouldn't be only half the artstyle. The new-style tiles clash majorly with the old ones, like windows, airlocks, shutters, pipes, lockers, tables, chairs, etc. that were made in the old style. In my opinion, it's probably this style consistency that's the most important. You can't make a solid artwork by painting half of it and finishing the rest with crayons and markers.

5) But my concluding remark will have to be that just because the old sprites are old doesn't mean they're necessarily bad. To echo something said at the beginning of the thread, I feel like most of the floor-equipment sprites (scrubbers, vents, holopads) are just straight downgrades from the old versions, just made a little fuzzier, greyer and less detailed. 

That all being said, I don't see this PR not going through no matter how many people are against it- I just hope that when it does inevitably get pushed through, that some concerns of people who are fans of the old style will be addressed. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to seeing the final versions of these sprites when they get implemented.

[ferner]

Thank you all for your valuable feedback, I'll be seeing to some of these complaints concerns later in the coming week.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Oh I know what it is. Other than the small color change I'd like to see, the walls and everything look great!

 

Your hallway floor tile sprites have thicker borders than most anything else, and the shading makes them have a sense of depth. They aren't as 'flat' as before

[ForgottenTraveller]

My two cents. I like the idea, and quite a few of the smaller sprites. The APCs seem a little bulky compared to most of the other reduced sleek sprites though.

Like others the reinforced walls are a bit funky (big fan of the plain though), but my main issues come with main metal floors being as dark as they are, makes some places very, VERY grey in some areas (see image) It needs a decent contrast. I will also echo that the medical tiles seem soft enough that they are hard to look and a could easily lead to a headache, so while their contrast is far easier on the eye in terms of the grey, they still have issues.
While the sprites do need a massive overhaul, and congrats for stepping up. Try not to loose the vibrancy we once had, even the grass seems ghostly and pale.
 

Edited April 1, 2020 by ForgottenTraveller

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I like all the walls and stuff and i like the sense of depth it provides now. My eyeballs adjusted to the thicker borders of the floor tiles vs the very thin sprites of mobs and they dont smear anymore.

My only issues are the air alarm light blinking so far across off the main sprite and the scrubbers looking like dropped holopads rather than a scrubber.

[Carver]

There's a particular blurry lack of sharpness that my eyes find utterly revolting, as though I've had six shots of whiskey before looking at them.

I mentioned this in a thread before, but; the entire art style revolves around how tiles look. When your tiles are blurry and look like they're from the 2003 era of SS13, then you may in fact have an impossibly hideous downgrade that harms the aesthetic of everything around it in turn.

On an additional note; there are cases in which the new sprites work, but only in extremely specific areas such as the vault where the lighting complements it and particular effort was put into the floor layout. Not every hallway has dim, coloured lighting and such effort.

Spoiler

 

Additional additional note: Whatever this strange bubble-reflective looking tile is, just doesn't work. This one in particular sticks out for not matching anything else in the new or old sprites.

 

Yet another additional note: Holopads look like an item dropped on the floor that I'd be able to pick up, rather than a part of a floor. Those and the atmos things really shouldn't be sticking out as much as they do.

 

Final note: The walls do look good, but only in particular respect to when they use the old floors. Examples:

Spoiler

 

 

 

Overall, my opinion: Keep the walls; toss the floors (except for the reinforced floor, which looks all-around cleaner), atmos things and holopads.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Carver

[StationCrab]

After playing a bit with these changes I have to echo what Carver said. It feels like someone smeared vaseline all over my screen.

 

 

[Scheveningen]

My only complaint is that the airlocks and windows/grille sprites don't suit this atm, but I'm sure that's in the process of being worked on rn.