Thundercraft's Race Pack

[Thundercraft (OP)]

The more I looked at Aurora's race images, the more I was repulsed. The vast majority resemble Eldritch horrors, right out of Lovecraft novels. And some do not even look sapient. Also, there are quite a few robots and guys in futuristic full body armor.

So, several years ago I started to compile my own race pack. You would not believe the number of days (weeks, actually) I spent on that. I had given up in frustration and distraction. But, I recently decided to finish what I started.

Note: Aurora expects race images to be in .BMP format. I was shocked: The BMP format is completely obsolete! It may be lossless, but it does not use compression. It's a sinfully huge waste of disk space, especially since .PNG or even .GIF and .JPG are superior in every way.

As a workaround, I saved my race images in JPEG format, then renamed the extension to .BMP. This actually works as Aurora sees the fake .BMP images and can decode the .JPG format. By doing so, I reduced the size of my pack from 65+ MB down to a mere 6 MB! 

The old rack pack had 351 images. My pack has a whopping 590 images. Of these, only about 42 of the original 351 were kept. I managed to find a larger version of each of those 42 so I could zoom and crop for best quality.

Yes, that means I had to do a lot of browsing to find several hundred new race images. And then there was the cropping, resizing, cut and pasting, and Photoshop-level image editing. I think my time and attention to detail payed off:



I looked for high quality versions of the old race images. But, mostly, I looked for replacements that were easier on the eyes, or better fit expectations of what a sentient alien may look like. (Urban Dictionary definition of 'easier on the eyes': "Not painful to look at because its some-what decent looking and figuratively won't 'blind' you if you see it.") While you will recognize several of these from pop culture, I'm sure you won't recognize most of them.

Race000 is an improved placeholder. Race001 through Race543 are the aliens. That is, with the exception of Race327, which is the game's default choice for the human empire. With the exception of Race001 (from the old race pack), I tried to keep the near-human (human-looking) races located between Race451 and Race498 to separate them and make them easier to find. Though, arguably, the term "near-human" could be extended for Race436 through Race 499 and a handful of others.

I've also added 45 high quality images at the end of the list (Race954 through Race 999) to be used for human empires. I've included these for those who play colonial wars type campaigns. Or, if you want, you could use one of these to replace Race327.bmp (the default human empire image). This can give you a better idea of the quality:



Now my issue is having to choose. Aurora does not really let players preview each image. We have to choose one at a time to see what each looks like. So, I recommend browsing with either Windows Explorer (in a thumbnails view) or a thumbnail viewer (such as Xnview).

Edit: As of 2016-10-28, I've added 54 more race images, for a new total of 644. Most of these are robots and people wearing full armor. See reply #4 for a full breakdown.

[TCD]

Wow, they look great. From what you posted the only things I can't see are robotic/mechanoid races. Are they buried in the pack somewhere, or did you deliberately go for organic only?

In any case I can't wait to download them and give them a whirl. Really appreciate all your hard work on this.

[83athom]

Great work as usual Thundercraft. My only reasons for not using this though  is #1; as TCD said, no mechanical races (like 215, 223, or 225 etc) and #2; the humanoid powersuits I like to use were left out (namely 074, 074, 080, and 086).

[MarcAFK]

Great work, I see Morgan Freeman there, handy since he's already the president of earth in my hibernating star trek enterprise game.

[Thundercraft (OP)]

From what you posted the only things I can't see are robotic/mechanoid races. Are they buried in the pack somewhere, or did you deliberately go for organic only?

In my OP I stated what I disliked about the old race selection. Among other things, I complained how there are quote, "quite a few robots and guys in futuristic full body armor."

I'm not against robot races in space 4x games, per se. However, does it make any sense that a robot race must breathe a certain type of atmosphere and have both gravity and temperature tolerances similar to fleshy races? [sigh] I do wish Aurora had racial bonuses and penalties, like most other space 4x games. There are government bonuses and penalties, but that's not the same.

As for images of races in full environmental body armor... what's the point? When I look at half of those, all I see is a human in armor. Full armor obscures what they really look like. Can you really imagine a Diplomacy Team wearing full combat armor while trying to negotiate trade with an alien empire and convince them that your people have peaceful intentions?

My only reasons for not using this though  is #1; as TCD said, no mechanical races [snip] and #2; the humanoid powersuits I like to use were left out [snip].

I did not think that there were many players who would miss them. But, in the interest of appealing to a wider group, I've added 54 more race images, for a total of 644:



Race544 through Race553 are some more fleshy aliens.
Race554 through Race558 are rocky or otherwise resemble silicon-based life forms.
Race751 through Race753 look like cyborgs (flesh-machine hybrids).
Race801 through Race815 are wearing full environmental body armor.
Race851 through Race871 are robots. Though, I suppose these could also work for a cyborg race. (There's plenty of room in such mechanical bodies to hold a Brain-in-a-Jar™.)

Here is a list of the first 42 images I kept from the old race pack:

Code: [Select]

Race001, Race006, Race014, Race018, Race020, Race024, Race026, Race032, Race033, Race036, Race037, Race038, Race039, Race047, Race048, Race050, Race058, Race061, Race065, Race066, Race071, Race106, Race125, Race143, Race144, Race145, Race148, Race192, Race220, Race230, Race238, Race241, Race242, Race246, Race261, Race262, Race263, Race264, Race289, Race293, Race330, Race337And, as of 2016-10-28, here are 23 more images imported from the old pack:

Code: [Select]

Race004, Race011, Race019, Race022, Race025, Race031, Race075, Race077, Race083, Race086, Race087, Race088, Race094, Race112, Race117, Race156, Race199, Race202, Race205, Race221, Race227, Race275, Race309

[Garfunkel]

Thanks for this pack, definitely useful!

[TCD]

Thanks Thundercraft. At the very least I can now pick something for certain spoiler races!

And given the way many NPs shoot at me on sight, I can certainly imagine their "diplomats" wearing full combat armour, and probably using a gun during "negotiations". Sadly the Auroran universe is often a very hostile one. 

[shadowgod3211]

ah crap really space ####s! 

[Thundercraft (OP)]

ah crap really space ####s! 

Umm... I'm not sure what you were trying to say.

Perhaps it has to do with how the image host I had used to show what my alien images looked like got shut down and replaced with frowning smiley faces?

Well, now I've re-uploaded those images to a new host so you can once again see what my race images look like without downloading and installing.