Astraeus Player's Guide
Art
ART SUBMISSIONS
Teams are encouraged to create their own art to add to the pool of unit styles. You'll need to get Mr. M's approval for your design to submit it and have it added for use during trials and tournaments.
Every design must add something to the pool of styles. Start with a unique silhouette and add details from there. When your image is done, tested, and approved Mr. M will assign you images an ID value. You can offer a suggested name, but Mr. M has final veto power.
If successful, your image will be permanently added to the pool of Astraeus images, and you will be credited in the project code.
IMAGE INFORMATION
You'll find the unit style images in the Astraeus / Res / Objects / Units directory.
Each style consists of four Sprite Sheets all in .png format
Light are sized 24 x 24
Medium are sized 36 x 36
Heavy are sized 48 x 48
Assault are sized 72 x 72
Each sprite sheet contains five subimages in this order:
Primary - The body of the ship.
Secondary - A significant element, often the ship's guns
Accent - A minor detail, typically the cockpit
Low Speed - A small flame.
High Speed - A large flame.
The primary, secondary, and accent must be in greyscale.
Ships typically have a range of value between 60 and 100
In terms of RGB, this means (150, 150, 150 to 255, 255, 255)
The ship flames consist of three colors. You must roughly match the palette:
Yellow - 251, 242, 54
Orange - 222, 170, 40
Red - 250, 74, 55
ADDING AN IMAGE
Modifying Code / Test Images
Start by copying four existing image files and giving them new names including the next numerical value
For instance, if there are units 0-6 in the folder, you can copy "assault0.png" and save it as "assault7.png"
Open up Astraeus and in your code...
Go to UI --> Display --> Images
Increase STYLE_COUNT by one.
Go to Objects --> Unit --> Style
Give your new style a name and update the getID() method
Create a unit and apply the "new" image. It will look the same, but shouldn't crash!
Advice For Building Frames
LIGHT - Start with the smallest pixel value and design it. Save the file to replace light7.png. See how it looks in game. Tweak your image!
HEAVY - You can resize the image to make it a double. Save this as your heavy image. Depending on your image editor, you may need to be careful to select "Nearest Neighbor" for resizing. This makes every pixel become four pixels.
Then, manually go through and break up all the big chunks and smooth out the image. You can also add more detail. This image will be larger can can afford more visual styling.
Repeat this process for MEDIUM and ASSAULT
In the above example, you see a MEDIUM and ASSAULT version of the same image.
Before submitting your art, it is require that you smooth out the pixels. Adding additional detail is up to your artistic discretion.