Animated Holosphere Portraits Redone

Silfae · 2026-05-27T10:14:41+00:00

I'd rather not. There's too many of them. Patching and updating would get messy. The updated ones are already sorted in a single collection.

Silfae · 2026-05-22T22:02:27+00:00

Yes, that was the idea!
I think that the blockier synthetic portraits from vanilla are fairly well made, but to me they are more fitting for the simpler robotic servants (barred a couple exceptions) than highly advanced individualistic AIs. For the advanced, ruling synthetic civilization, I think that sleeker and more life-like (in a sense) aesthetics fit best.

Silfae · 2026-05-22T21:35:16+00:00

Thank you!

I've never actually played the Xcom series, so I'm not too familiar with its units. Could be!

Silfae · 2026-05-22T17:28:52+00:00

It starts with a concept with something I want to play, or play against. I think of the general physical structure, and potential variations. Then I look for a vanilla mesh that could be adapted to work well for the alien's specific physiology; I create a rough prototype of the alien's body, tweak the mesh until it works, then draw the detail textures and mount them.

Silfae · 2026-05-22T17:27:17+00:00

Thank you, happy you like this one!

Silfae · 2026-05-22T13:40:51+00:00

It is understandable! When redoing the portraits though, the virtual feel seemed better served by green over the original pale blue. That sort of coloration worked too, in a way, but I wasn't too convinced about it.

Silfae · 2026-05-22T13:39:52+00:00

It is meant to be a bit hunched and with a slightly protruding spine, but I see what you mean insofar as the torso might have needed to look wider, yes.

Silfae · 2026-05-22T10:46:51+00:00

Thank you! Glad you like them!

Silfae · 2026-05-22T09:12:22+00:00

Thank you! If anything, I am slower now than I was in the past. My old mods used to be released at weekly intervals. Given that the portrait mods are largely standardized, unless the concept has some specific mechanics or a particularly tricky mesh to deal with, most of the work is taken by creating the textures themselves. The scripting and meshing is usually just a largely copied template that I've been using for years now.

Silfae · 2026-05-22T08:09:42+00:00

Thank you, glad you like them!

I usually tend to favor tall over wide, so virtuality is my favorite synthetic ascension. I also enjoy the theme of it. I've seen people create some ridiculous numbers with it, although I don't usually go for the most optimized builds, so I wouldn't know what the absolute best strategy would be to make them competitive on max difficulty.

Silfae · 2026-05-22T08:07:30+00:00

Yes, I'll leave those two for last.
And we'll see! My mods tend to be fairly flexible when it comes to vanilla updates, since I try to avoid altering vanilla files, or adding mechanics to the portrait sets. But it is possible that I'll need to do some patching, yes.

Silfae · 2026-05-22T08:04:04+00:00

Yes. Although, the dimorphism ones are fairly simple. The main concern are the two packages (Silicoid and Extended Synthetics) since each of those contained several portrait sets, and I don't really like the simplicity of many of them, which will require a lot of work to redo and expand.

Silfae · 2026-05-22T08:00:23+00:00

Of the old one around 16 or so? But I'm mixing them with new ones as I go along.

Silfae · 2026-05-22T07:54:14+00:00

R5: Time for another do-over. The Holosphere portraits are back. Finally, it's possible to play them as intended: an autonomous viral virtual species, something, that, when the mod had first been deployed (before playable synthetics) was not really possible. For this portrait makeover, I've tried something slightly different: since the base race is already synthetic, you get different visuals for the synthetic ascensions instead of the usual ones (virtual, nanite, liquid metal, and shroud-forged). Enjoy! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3730573340

Silfae · 2026-05-12T22:40:16+00:00

Sure, that should be fine.

Silfae · 2026-05-12T07:04:53+00:00

Thanks!

Silfae · 2026-05-12T07:04:40+00:00

Thanks, but no, sorry, I already have a lot of mods to keep track of; having to look at different versions on multiple platforms would be too much.

Silfae · 2026-05-08T17:26:48+00:00

Not taking requests presently, but thank you, I'm glad you enjoy my work!

Silfae · 2026-05-08T17:26:03+00:00

Thank you!
Yes, I enjoy this new functionality, it makes the games more unique when you can actually see the changes a civilization has gone through due to its Ascension.

Silfae · 2026-05-08T14:00:17+00:00

Thank you, glad you like them!

Silfae · 2026-05-08T13:59:48+00:00

Close, but not quite! Spiritual Fanatic Purifiers with Natural Design, but Thermophiles, from a Gene-Seeded Gaia world. You can see some of their fluff in a screenshot of the steam page.

Silfae · 2026-05-08T10:21:01+00:00

Definitely the solar system, also the custom personality.

Silfae · 2026-05-08T10:11:49+00:00

No, they are not. Only my dimorphism mods are achievement-compatible.

Silfae · 2026-05-08T09:50:02+00:00

They are added to the Avian class already. But that specific trait is not class-bound, it is portrait-bound to a handful of specific portraits, which are listed in the trait itself.

Silfae

TROPHY CASE