Sarah Clarity Studios

Hard / Soft, Near / Far Future Tech Trees

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Sci‑Fi Tech Trees — Hard/Soft, Near/Far Future (Genre Toolkit for Environment Concept Artists)

Why a tech tree clarifies style and space

Science fiction spans laboratory to myth, but sets become believable when you publish how technology stacks and what it costs. A tech tree is a compact way to tie art direction to engineering logic: energy unlocks mobility, materials unlock spans, computation unlocks autonomy, habitation unlocks viable places to live, and fabrication/medicine unlock repair and growth. Once those ladders are chosen, street sections, ports, skins, props, lighting keys, and wear patterns stop being guesses. This article frames tech trees across two axes—hard ↔ soft and near ↔ far—so concept and production can land a coherent look, from grounded near‑future clinics to far‑future field cities.

Hard vs. soft, near vs. far: four quadrants you can sketch in minutes

Hard/near futures express today’s physics and supply chains. Surfaces carry fasteners and gaskets; plants and stations resemble scaled‑up contemporary infrastructure; interfaces are legible and safety signage is boring in the best way. Soft/near futures introduce speculative leaps but keep present‑day ergonomics and culture; color, typography, and ritual still feel contemporary; miracles appear in a few sanctioned places. Hard/far futures remain disciplined about physics but operate at new scales—spin gravity, fusion grids, cryo‑skins, light‑lag; sets show mass, redundancy, and maintenance. Soft/far futures allow field manipulation, near‑magical computation, and bio‑architectures; plausibility comes from repeated costs and coherent social rituals rather than visible bolts. Decide your quadrant early; it sets expectations for shape, value, edge, palette, and prop density.

The ladders and what shifts with hardness and distance

Energy determines night, skyline, and density. In hard/near, rooftops carry PV, fuel cells, and heat pumps; substations and switchgear look like now with better packaging. In soft/far, field crowns and beam collectors replace mass; fall‑hazard law, aura beacons, and corona residue become the tells. Materials determine span and skin. Hard/near sticks to steel, concrete, and CFRP with visible joins; hard/far adds ceramics, lattices, and grown ribs with readable load paths; soft/far permits matter editors and force skins but still shows anchors and access bays where people touch. Computation determines interfaces. Hard/near uses glass and e‑ink with physical backup; soft/far hides UI in edges, acoustics, and atmosphere; in both, keep a consistent language so wayfinding does not wobble. Mobility determines section. Near futures electrify roads, add micromobility, and grow transit; far futures stratify drone lanes, mag corridors, sky lobbies, locks, and portal courts. Habitation determines envelopes. Hard/near optimizes HVAC, water, and daylight; hard/far builds domes, rings, and hulls with locks and suit docks; soft/far edits climate locally, but still posts rules at thresholds. Fabrication/medicine determines repair culture. Near futures print parts in back rooms and triage in modular clinics; far futures grow tissue and disassemble matter; both need clean zones and waste paths that you can draw.

Dependencies and failure modes that generate sets

Tech trees are not lists; they are causal. If computation outruns energy, you get brownouts and triaged service; if mobility outruns habitation, corridors jam and hulls sweat; if materials outrun fabrication, spans crack and shoring posts multiply. Failure modes are opportunities. Hard/near neighborhoods reveal battery‑swap queues during storms; hard/far colonies show pressure alarms, handlocks, and emergency stairwells beside lifts; soft/far portals need cooldown cloisters and burn‑off chimneys. Bake redundancy into geometry—manual valves near smart ones, stairs shadowing elevators, handrails alongside glass—so gameplay and narrative read even when the power fantasy hiccups.

Shape, value, edge, and palette by quadrant

Hard/near prefers rectilinear modules, crisp contact edges, and a mid‑key value with strong task light islands. Palette leans to material neutrals with a disciplined set of signal colors for hazard, navigation, and service. Soft/near keeps familiar geometry but simplifies surfaces; edges soften inside forms while remaining tactile at contacts; palette allows one speculative accent, used sparingly, to announce the leap. Hard/far smooths mass where pressure and radiation matter, but preserves ribs, diagrids, and anchor plates; value shifts toward calm mid‑high key for legibility in large volumes; edges remain bevel‑true; palette compresses into thoughtful neutrals with rare civic accents. Soft/far minimizes geometry, hides joins, and lets edge language live in light and atmospheric falloff; value favors high key serenity; palette trends near‑monochrome with a small canon of sanctified hues for portals, fields, or sancta. Whatever you choose, prove it in grayscale first, then in a palette page with roles and numeric PBR bands so vendors cannot drift.

Interfaces and etiquette that grow with the tree

The more advanced the computation, the quieter the UI should become. In hard/near, switches and labeled panels cluster at reach height; floor tracks and screen beacons guide the eye. In hard/far, UI migrates to glove‑safe controls, large status walls, and color‑coded bays; speech and haptics supplement rather than replace. In soft/far, rooms anticipate intent; wayfinding becomes value, airflow, and sound; hazards are marked by field shimmer and color bands on architecture, not by blinking signs. Codify etiquette—where to stand, where to dock, how to queue—so civilians and crews move believably without dialogue.

Ports, labs, and streets across the ladder

Ports translate mobility and energy into legible plans. Hard/near docks look like today with EV bays, drone pads, and battery swaps; cranes and forks still rule. Hard/far ports stratify modes: mag platforms under drone decks under sky lobbies, with numbered bays and pressure vestibules; rescue stairs and rope ladders sit where they should. Soft/far ports are almost empty rooms punctured by anchors, beacons, and calm light; loading happens in fields, but anchors and maintenance cradles still betray the engine. Labs scale from machine shops and fume hoods (hard/near) to clean rooms and biovats (hard/far) to serene cores with sacrificial shells (soft/far). Streets progress from crowned asphalt and curbs (hard/near) to shared‑surface plazas with active canopies (hard/far) to climate‑edited galleries with scent and micro‑breeze for wayfinding (soft/far). Draw a one‑block canonical scene for your quadrant and test every asset there.

Prop ecosystems and maintenance cultures

Hard/near rooms are full of labeled totes, PPE racks, purge fans, and binder clips; oil, dust, and tape ghosts are the wear. Soft/near adds sleeker cases and inductive pads, but still keeps spares and carts near. Hard/far reduces clutter; tools hide in sealed caddies; residue concentrates at locks and service spines: frost halos, gasket polish, radiation paint. Soft/far looks sparse; props are ritual: anchor rings, access panels, sacrificial wands. Whatever the tier, dress by workflow—where hands need surfaces, where waste goes, where charge accumulates—so scenes read as working systems rather than prop salads.

Readability for gameplay regardless of tier

Tight or vast, your spaces must stage clear choices. Keep a continuous silhouette band from knee to head height along routes; push greebles above and below it. Mark main paths by value and floor logic, not just arrows: polished lanes, module direction, subtle runner strips. Place “breath pockets” every few seconds—service bays, rib niches, lock vestibules—so stealth and firefights pace cleanly. Let interactives share one sanctioned edge treatment or rim behavior so they pop without stealing hazard or navigation colors.

Near↔far time states and upgrades on the same map

A single district can slide along the tree across campaign time. Author state swaps: hard/near grid failing to diesel lights then stabilizing to district energy; streets refitted from curb lanes to mag corridors; panels repainted to neutral once hazard bands change; ports upgraded from cranes to drone nests to field anchors. Keep materials and palette consistent while geometry and prop density evolve. These toggles are cheap in production and rich in narrative.

Crossovers with Fantasy and Post‑Apocalyptic

To cross with Fantasy, map ladders to magic: energy ↔ ley, computation ↔ divination, materials ↔ relic matter, mobility ↔ gates, habitation ↔ wards, fabrication ↔ alchemy. Keep palette voices discrete so the blend reads intentional: tech neutrals carry the frame while ritual pigments or field colors cue the extraordinary. For Post‑Apocalyptic, drop certain axes by one or two tiers and show hacks: EV bays turned to markets, mag stations to shelters, lock vestibules to clinics, server halls to algae farms. Publish downgrade kits so swaps stay systemic rather than bespoke.

Production translation: deliverables that keep teams aligned

Build a short bible: quadrant choice, ladder tiers with notes, dependencies and failure modes, numeric PBR bands per material family and age state, edge widths by scale tier, palette roles with limited accent hues, and lighting presets for day, night, alert, and failure. Ship a canonical test scene per quadrant and require vendors to validate assets inside it before integration. Track drift in four buckets—shape, value, edge, palette—and correct at the rule, not the shot; update the bible and kits once when a good mutation wins.

A working loop from thumbnail to shipped district

Thumbnail the ladders and pick tiers; draw the dependency arrows and the failure path. Place districts by ladder strengths and winds, shields, or logistics. Prove the value ladder in grayscale across states; assign palette and interface language; set edge and module rules. Build minimal kits per axis; block the district; age and residue by masks; fit audio and VFX to the quadrant’s etiquette. Iterate with design until routes and breath pockets feel inevitable. When the ladders and quadrant agree, the future reads as engineered and the gameplay sings.

Final thought

Hard or soft, near or far, your sci‑fi should explain itself at a glance. Publish the ladders and their costs, and let maintenance, redundancy, and residue tell the rest. Spectacle will follow naturally—anchored to a city that could keep working long after the cutscene ends.