Spaceships, tanks & everything gaming related
As usual, I have made two quick-and-dirty Full-HD wallpapers for EVE Online: Inferno using the available website assets.
If you like them, feel free to download them. If you don’t like them however, you can easily do your own wallpaper – just check my quick wallpaper guide in this post.
eveonline.com
looks more less unchanged since the 2005: the same menu, the same dull grey colour, animated header in the middle of the table. Over the last couple of years CCP has gradually redesigned the Account Management and Feature pages, so they look much more “modern” (as they should have in the first place!). The new websites feature amazing backgrounds, which look cool and in most cases better than the official wallpapers, which can be found here.
Ever wondered how to use such background as your desktop wallpaper? It is really simple.
You will need a web browser (this tutorial uses Chrome), a graphics manipulation program (you don’t need Photoshop for this; free GIMP 2 will do just fine – you can download it here) and some spare time.
Here I have linked a couple of backgrounds on the EVE Online website, which will do great wallpapers:
You can always use the expansion logo and add it as a new layer to your wallpaper, so you get something like this. To achieve best results, set the logo layer to “Additive” blending. This makes the white color of the logo show, while the black background remains transparent. CCP often uses transparent PNGs for their logos, so it is now easier than ever.
Making this kind of wallpaper takes up to 5 minutes, and the one above is in top search results for “Incursion wallpaper” on Google.
Feel free to experiment with the multitude of filters available in the GIMP – they allow you to affect colors and the image itself. On the right part of the screen GIMP opens the Layers Channels and Paths window, which allows the manipulation of different layers of the image. You can duplicate the main layer, add some filters to each of the copies and then change their opacity to less than 100% so they all intermix with each other.
Above you can see the result of such tinkering. Notice I have added a layer mask to one of the layers – layer mask makes parts of the layer visible, and parts hidden. To make a smooth transition I have used a black-to-white gradient as the mask (black hides the layer, while white shows the layer). This way the left part of the screen is gray and desaturated, while the left part is vivid. Download the GIMP image here. clicking on the “eye” icon will hide a layer. This way you can see how the image was created – layer by layer.
CCP is usually helpful towards creative minds and released this Fan Site Kit, which contains even more backgrounds, logos and icons, which you can use for your custom wallpapers. Thanks for hint @Irumani!
Remember! If you publish your wallpapers on the internet, always put credits where credits are due, and copyright information where it is necessary!
Many of you have asked me for some Raven Navy Issue screenshots from the new EVE Online: Crucible expansion, and so say the google search terms in my blog’s stats. To please your wanting eyes, I present you the new incarnation of the most popular PvE battleship of EVE, re-designed for the Crucible expansion. I hope you like it – I do for sure (not that I fly Raven too often, but it really got kick-ass looks). There are also screens of Tech I Raven and its Tech II counterpart, the Golem.
The new tier-3 battlecruisers are still not yet ready on Singularity (they are not even textured yet), but it doesn’t stop me ( 🙂 ) from creating wallpapers based on the entries to the Create a Starship contest run by the CCP and the one run by CCP together with Deviant Art.
Both ships will be coming to your hangar soon in EVE Online: Crucible, also known as “The Winter Expansion“.
EDIT: According to the forums, the new Singularity build already has Tier 3 BC textures, so expect new wallpapers really soon!
EDIT II: The official EVE Online: Crucible wallpapers have been released. Check them out if you like the new nebulae.
The original Tornado artwork is here
(all credit goes to its creator, =dreamwa1ker)
Look for the Mentor original artwork here
(all credit goes to its creator, Alexey M)
If you don’t feel like having a ship on your desktop, you might always like the new nebulae:
EVE Incarna is only three weeks away from now, and another public beta was just deployed to Duality.
On fanfest 2011, the Devs have announced a long-awaited overhaul for gun turrets. Hee they are! All turret models have been remodeled, have their animations updated, and their icons are actually pretty renders now (just like ships). You can easily tell the difference between Tech I, Tech II and Faction just by the look at it – their models and textures look different. Turret animation has also received an upgrade: most guns will now hide, when the ship starts aligning for warp. Fear not, they will pop back out the instant you begin to target something. If you switch targets, turrets will smoothly move on to it, as if they were really there. Once a target has been popped, guns will smoothly return to their resting position.
* small side note: gun icons are not being cached in the current Duality build, so every time you open a hangar full of guns, it will take a while to load all icons (the game is rendering them one-by-one).
The initial feedback about Incarna was that there is no obvious connection between the avatar and the ship – the missing link in the chain is what makes pod pilots different from other mortals – the capsule. Now every time you dock you will have it just behind your back, so you know where you came from.
The ship placement inside ship hangar has been changed, and now depends on the ship size. Frigates are parked just next to “the balcony”, while battleships have their place much further away.
An old GTS 8800 does just fine in Full-HD scenes in space (up to 90 fps all the time, 60 with 4x FSAA), but Incarna pulls it down by three nothches – down to 27 fps (22 with 4x FSAA). Personally I feel no problem with Incarna mode being slower than in-space, because it has no impact on the main gameplay. Loading times, however, are not much longer than currently existing station environment. Mainly because there is a placeholder texture which is displayed just after docking, and before the station environment fully loads. Dear CCP: please change the “Docking…” window from modal to a normal window, so players can immediately start interacting with the client, without the need to wait until avatar and CQ completely loads.
The animation on the logon screen is just perfect. A ship exits out of warp into the lower left part of the screen, slowly prowls before the camera, when suddenly its turrets pop out like claws and start melting something in the upper left corner. Great job, Devs!
*) did you notice the ship on the wallpaper is unlike any known Amarr ship? Looks a bit like a redesigned Sacrilege, but fires lasers. Curious, isn’t it?
With the Fanfest 2011 behind us, we (the EVE community that is) have learned a few new things about the future of our favourite MMO (or MMOs, because EVE is going to be closely tied to DUST 514).
First off – there will be walking in stations. Not just Captain Quarters (coming in EVE: Incarna this summer, which I have described in this post). A whole lot of new features is coming, involving your persona rather than your spaceship: ability to freely move around stations and to interact with other players. You will also see the space outside the station. Don’t believe me? You don’t have to (seeing is believing so click the picture for YouTube movie):
It’s still a work in progress. Please include source if you would like to redistribute this image.
You can find my previous wallpaper for Incarna in this post:
Incarna is on its way!
A few days ago I was playing EVE and was really bored. So as usual, to break the routine, I did something unusual. I looked for a wormhole and felt like coming through. So I have stumbled upon this wonderful place and immediately thought this is going to be one hell of a wallpaper. So here it is, I hope you like it, too.
Last wednesday CCP has released a statement about the incoming winter expansion here. To sum up the coming changes:
From the description of the coming changes it looks like a rather small expansion, similar in its scope to the Quantum Rise.
I took a minute or two to mash up the images from the Incursion website to make a nice wallpaper for the new expansion. Copyright owner of the images is (c) CCP.
