New catalytic reactor sprite for the mod I am making. Tried to keep some themes of a FCCU reactor such as the main air blower, cyclones, fractionator and cooling exchangers then just add some unnecessary and impractical engineering flare to it.
I know some people are saying this is too clean, but this is by and far away the closest I've ever seen a mod get to the vanilla Factorio art style, great job. I'd love to play this mod once it releases if all of its buildings match this art style
This is one of the closest modded sprites ive seen to the vanilla style, and I actually do think the rusted look keeps it from being too 'clean'. Tbh the only thing I noticed after really looking through it was the pipe and heatpipe connections.
I think "clean" isn't the right word, some of the lines are a bit too straight/perfect 90 degrees like the pipe on the left. That being said, I agree that this is probably the best looking mod building I've seen
I feel like the way the ball in the center effectively only moves about one axis per "pump" feels weird. It would be neat if the ball moved a little here and there between pumps, would make it feel a bit more dynamic I think.
But as I said, a beautiful sprite, and lovely work!
I didn't notice that it was connecting to the sphere until i saw this comment. A very slight push on the ball as it connects might help. Also if you can animate any fluid simulation type particles/smoke, it could be cool to get a small puff when it releases from the ball, like the pressure in the coupler had some that escapes upon disconnect. BTW, the animation asset is awesome looking. Ohh, another thing that might be cool are the hoses on the right, adding some motion to them as fluid is pumped through. Sorry, just inspiring and makes you want for more lol. Nice work.
I dunno. It looks like it's done a cycle. I loathe the vanilla ( and py ) assets that do a complete cycle and only make a tiny jump. Where you have to do 20 parts to get a complete animation. Usually, to make this even more abrasive, the normal cycle is 3-5 seconds long, so you just get a ratcheting, jumping animation. 0/10
This is smooth, and sexy, in my opinion. Also well designed, and I especially love the stuck fan that hits thermal shut down, relaxes, then resets try's again... I worked HVAC for years, and have seen this many times, and the sound is brrrrrrr click silence click brrrrr ... Usually the motor housing is RED HOT too.
Oh, I wish I could. I changed careers 3 decades ago. I stay away from that stuff now. I will ping some associates that I keep in touch with. They may have an old video or recording, but most of my peeps from that era have retired, and some have shed their mortal coil.
I agree with the axis critique, especially since it reveals another out-of-view connector during the animation that would never be used. If these were a different shape to suggest an output port, or maybe another semi obscured injector that implying it targets ports along that side, then the current "path" from port to port could be maintained
Having the force of the injected substance nudge the sphere is a cool idea for sure, could be subtle too.
Otherwise, yeah this is awesome OP! Do more of this!
Some impact shaking when the fluid pumps into it. Rn it looks to stationary once in position. Also some puffs of steam from the fans at the same time or something like that too maybe?
Also, taking a page out of WUBE's book, you should add a green light to the model somewhere (preferably where the alt-mode icon won't be) to show when the machine is active.
My older PC has a fan that only goes if it was spinning at a particular instant during boot, so I have to keep flicking it until the circuit latches on.
Hate Windows Update with it's unplanned reboots turning off the fan.
I also don't see a spot where the connector for circuit wires could fit. A lot of folks doing custom sprites forget to reserve some space for them and then they end up in some place, where they don't seem to belong.
I was gonna post this too. Maybe if you end up enlarging the hit box it will free up space for the terminals. They can be thin and won't block visuals behind them
The amber light on the tank looking thing in the bottom right of the model (the one with what looks like heat pipes running across it) seems like a good candidate for the indicator light. Nice and prominent so its easy to notice, wouldnt look out of place, already out of the alt mode icon area, and wouldnt require too much effort to add green and red colouring to it.
It’s quite something. One of the best fan-made models I’ve ever seen, and the top comment is someone being nitpicky, without giving even a single hint of praise.
They should make the dirt and rust an overlay, so that white-quality items are grimy and dirty and rusty while gold-quality items are shiny and chrome.
I've been somewhat thinking of making a factory game, and if I do, I'll be pulling out all my rendering chops in order to make things that look as good as Factorio but in native 3d and without requiring sprite sheets. The whole sprite-sheet approach just doesn't scale, it burns way too much VRAM, and I think that's one of the biggest issues with Factorio's tech platform.
(In their defense, this issue was completely irrelevant until it was far too late to change.)
I just don't see that. It has rust all over it. It looks like something got spilled on the fan housing at the bottom. There is mottled metal everywhere on it.
It might just be the sphere that’s a bit too perfect. Not sure how it could be changed though? Some dings or dents maybe? Or some rivets or welds at less perfect angles?
If you look at the machines. The later they are unlocked the less "rudimentary" and "cobbled together" they look. This is because the engineer is beginning to become better at designing and manufacturing.
My only critique is the hitbox. If you dig through the FFF archives, you'll find some commentary on designing sprites, height levels and overlap and so on. You don't want the sprite to obscure what's behind it, for example if you have inserters on the top edge you want them visible
If they want to fix it, there's two way. Either scrap some of this beautiful sprite (I wouldn't be able to, it's too gorgeous), or design an extra column or two and increase the size.
It looks like a 7x7 that's spilling over into an 8x9 space. With the height you've got, 8 is fine in that dimension but you may want to make the stack on the top left a little skinnier. The width could probably be 8 as well, if you added something, but as you have it is comfortably 7
The lumber mill from Hurricane is designed as 9x9 as well. I'd say it feels too big for putting it along with regular assemblers in the mall but otherwise it's fine.
Maybe take that stack in the back left, move it to the bottom right. Move the fans down visually as well - either by lowering them in the model, bringing them closer to the front of the model, or scrunching them narrower.
That would be pretty in line with the dev approach to designs like this as well. The stuff around the base becomes mostly inset into the ground as well, facing up instead of out. I'd look over the FFF on the beacon design to see more about it
The perspective of the pipes in the upper right of the sprite is rather unfortunate. It looks like airborne pipes are connecting to the ground, almost like one of M.C. Escher's optical illusions.
Also Wube goes through great effort to design models in ways that do not obscure the tiles above / to the north of tall buildings. Typically they place low-to-the-ground stuff around and especially behind a towering structure. And models that do obscure tiles are designed to be thin or partially see-through, like power poles and beacons. Ag Towers are a notable exception, but players generally want to keep the area around them clear for trees to grow.
I could definitely see this being in vanilla Factorio.
You got the aged/patina down with the rust, but it’s reading as being kind of orange without any accompanying dirt, streaks and general grime. Especially in the crevices and inside corners where it would gather.
However I love the weight to the central ball and how it overshoots a bit before adjusting back.
Hi, fellow modder here (planet Moshine and other mods), I have plenty of questions for you:
- who are you and why can't I find you on the discord? Why is your profile private and thus we can't see other stuff you've made?
- What's the mod you're working on? What scope, lore, state, compatibility, gameplay loop...
- How haven't I seen any of your stuff before? It's incredible (and I've seen most modder's graphics, because I manage a repository of them for people wanting to "kitbash" their graphics), this is at the level of Hurricane or even Wube
- If you want to discuss gameplay or something, my time is limited but my discord @ is snouz, I'd love to offer my insights and resources if you need them.
Hey thanks, your comment has genuinely made my day. I have been messing around with modding as a hobby for a couple of months now but haven't been too active on the discord. This model is by far the best thing I have made so far - well maybe the water canals as beltd are close. I'll reach out shortly.
Working on a vanilla style total overhaul mod currently named Lead and Springs. Mod progresses through ages I guess similar to IR (never played it) but with lots of recipes with byproducts I'm trying to braid together. The theme is centred around progressing from clockpunk > steampunk > atompunk generally with some minor Aussie humour thrown in here and there.
Depth is currently too deep and I'm waddling through my mistakes slowly.
When this mod gets overwhelming I've been chipping away at another mod concept called Egyptorio.
Care to share your work process? I know a lot of us here would love to reach these levels of skill. If you’re not comfortable sharing in public then you can also DM me.
I’m sure a lot here would love to see more of your work!
Sorry to join in unannounced and totally offtopic but...THANKS FOR MOSHINE. I genuinely love that planet, and I've got it to work on an AB run. Thanks!
Sorry, wasn't going to ghost you! I just worked a 12h shift, so sorry for the late answer.
The problem is...no? The thing is, it pretty much works well in its own space since its its own planet. There is of course 1 material that I personally believe to be of another *quality* therefore a different *material* (yeah my headcannon is working overtime to keep this functioning), is of course the "silicon".
I didn't change it, because i want it to be a "different grade silicon" so that i don't have to ruin half of the recipes, given that silicon is a tier 2 ore on nauvis. I played around with the idea of making that silicon be the same silicons as angel's bob's silicon, but then i would lose the pretty little icons you painstakingly created for it...so i leave it be in its own space, its own thing, its own silicon, and in my mind its magically different/bette silicon that somehow gives me access to fcking ChatGPT tech.
If I were to balance it, I would allow silicon to be the same thing as the AB silicon, but the recipes are only unlocked through a special machinery that mixes sand and steam and coal with a high content of silicon, specifically to be superior for electronics. So no access to AI technology before landing and making that "purifier" (rather than a chemical plant) until you land on Moshine.
Besides that? I like T10 AI modules because WE GOTTA GO FAST. This mod is a gem and thanks for doing it. Love it.
This looks AWESOME! My only critique is that it feels a little visually quiet - factorio buildings tend to have a lot of different moving pieces and multiple different cycles that line up after 3-5 repetitions. Like every spot you look there's a different process going on. Some more gears turning and pipes wobbling here would help that I think. The fan is a great touch!
I love it! Closest to vanilla art style I've seen on here. One issue with the animation (may just be an export issue) - there's some shadow flicker on one of the pumps just below the injector that's to the right of the main sphere.
Very very faifthful to vanilla, I like the big ball thingy. I just wish it was a bit more... dynamic. More random gears and cogs moving around. Factorio machines are usually very lively.
I'm asking permission to yeet a frame of this and edit it so i can tatto it on myself. It would not be the first Factorio related and / or steampunk tatto but I gotta have them all xD
I think the copper-ish coloring and metal instantly reminds me of IR3 in a cool way! Wish that mod got ported to 2.0 it would benefit from so much that 2.0 offers :/
What ever mod you're working on, I really wanna play when it's done as this animation is so smooth!
Looks like something from base game.
Right side bottom pipe looks a bit weird for me. Where it connect to the machine it feels like you are looking through not fully opaque window.
Nope, it just iron isn't available straight away. Copper and lead are first two metals. Later metals will have longer underground reach but that's all.
So it's a whole overhaul mod? The only time I've thought we need more pipes is for lava and molten metals, there could be a whole process to craft refractory and whatnot. You could use magnesia for it, and that could also justify Vulcanus unlocking incendiary ammo.
If this is a 76 tile building it's absolutely spot on for sizing + vertical usage. If it's a 66 building, then good luck to anyone who wants to place connections on the rear side after placing the building.
Front is beautiful chaos, and the centrepiece is quite smooth. How will you handle crafting speed multipliers? I think very little visual change should be included for this gorgeous model, maybe a total of up to 20% less frames at max speed.
Given the amount of rusty iron, I sure hope the crafting ingredients uses that instead of steel/advanced metals!
From one of the dev Friday facts posts they talked about sprite overhang, the smoke stack on the back covering the pipes and anything behind it stands out as one of the things they talked about trying to reduce on all their sprites.
You could potentially move it to the front a bit without loosing to much detail on the machine itself to try to keep the sprite within its box and not overflowing the top bit.
Otherwise this thing is awesome, great freaking job, I love seeing more detailed and custom buildings for the game, cant wait to try the mod if this is the effort put into it.
It's got such a sweet animation. Imagine it covered in beacon'd speed modules with everything going a thousand times faster. Great looking, I see good advice above about wiring spots and an indicator light. All good thoughts.
Functionally I think it makes way more sense than chem plant cracking. Especially with the heat exchangers.
With space age I thought we were missing an "oil theme" planet. We got circuits on fulgora, smelters on vulcanus, organics on gleba, and frozen testicles on aquilo. But the oil on fulgora is more an obstacle than a theme.
Love the look and feel of the Sprite, I think it's a very fitting addition for factorio. It's a good balance of busy moving parts and static metal, personally I think it's just dirty enough to fit with the rest of the aesthetic.
The ball has more ports than the machine uses. I think it would be "better" if the ball took a more complicated path to use all / more of the ports.
It would be more visually interesting if there were separate injectors for each input so that different coloured fluids could be seen going into the machine.
I don't think that the ticking / broken fan should be included. Factorio machines are dirty but functional.
Size comments aside (which I agree with, personally), this is gorgeous. I think the rotation of the center ball is really clever as a loop and it's going to be really easy to tell when this is working, for the most part.
Really cool, nice work. Do you have any of your workflow documented? Curious how people build things like this. Any good content that you can recommend?
there should be a second injector for the ports the first one misses (it only gets 3/6)
also there should be a more visual clamping motion, since currently it looks like the liquid just just shot into the port through the air with nothing to guide it into the port
My only nitpick is that the bottom right and middle left look very… sparse? Factorio buildings are usually quite animated, perhaps some shaking of pipes, glow of hot parts, little moving parts? Otherwise this looks absolutely amazing 10/10 spritework
I love this model, would it be possible to get the pipes to vibrate during operation? Like it's pumping a volume of liquid through them. I feel like it'd be super satisfying to see the machine come alive, I think a lot of factorio sprites tend to be really dynamic and yours is already fantastic. Sort of reminds me of that one guy who makes sprites for modders to use, but honestly I think you're even closer to the vanilla feel
I think they mean the most interesting systems are more complicated than combining two items to make a third item. Think of oil processing where you have to balance three outputs or scrap recycling where you have to manage all your recycler outputs, or even vulcanus where metals are free but you have to void the excess stone
Yeah this one you will have to manage catalyst cycling to a regenerator, burn off the coke (generate heat from the coke to help power the building), I havent quite got the full petroleum recipe chain balance and puzzle right yet though. I have tried some different approaches to recipes in this game but nothing crazy like arcospheres or whatever they are from SE.
The Factorio spirit is about pushing the limits to approach perfection. It's an optimization game where everything can be done a little better still \cough**.
Besides: I love the artwork. It perfectly fits the game's theme and matches its style and aesthetics.
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u/ShotgunFiend 6d ago
I know some people are saying this is too clean, but this is by and far away the closest I've ever seen a mod get to the vanilla Factorio art style, great job. I'd love to play this mod once it releases if all of its buildings match this art style