Graphic Mod - "Best of both Worlds"

[Dave25210]

adding the screenshots of the flat rectangle counters too:

[marcusm]

Great looking mod.

[fulcrum28]

Dave, may I ask where is that map and counters? it looks great !

[fulcrum28]

that map is telumar version in winter or new version?

[Dave25210]

Hi there,

I combine and alternate various mods, however, in my most recent screenshot with square flat counters which I posted
I believe I have currently Cabido's Boardgame Style Mod v1.4.1 installed for map and Telumar's Blue GUI, plus stuff by Cabido, Telumar, Shadrach... and then
my own counters, cursor(s), fonts. On my earlier screenshot it must've been the Telumar's BoBW map. Post #40 of this thread includes my latest counters
(flatcountersV2.zip), flat-round and flat-square styles.

ORIGINAL: fulcrum28

Dave, may I ask where is that map and counters? it looks great !

[Zovs]

Dave,

Thanks for your flat counters, I think they look great and much like the old board war games. Here are some screen shots from my attic...

TGW:


My SPI War in Europe (with custom counter colors):


and

[Dave25210]

Hi Zovs, nice to see they get used, they fit well these maps. Cool!

ORIGINAL: Zovs

Dave,

Thanks for your flat counters, I think they look great and much like the old board war games. Here are some screen shots from my attic...

TGW:


My SPI War in Europe (with custom counter colors):


and

[marcusm]

Sorry for being a bit slow here but in order for me to get the map style and flat counters I need to download what?
I have the dropbox files from page 1 but what else was there? I couldn't find any links.

I found the flat counters at least. Anything else I might have missed to get the look above?

Thanx in advance
Marcus

[Zovs]

I have the broken rails too, they are much different then the stock one, easier to spot. I’ll PM you a link by or on Monday if you want. I use a mixture of Telmars, and others.

[Hellen_slith]

Here is the set of broken bridge / busted railroad tiles that I use to make them better to see.

You may already have tiles for that if you have already installed a full grafx mod, but I thought putting this set out there for people who might like to keep the default map style, but enhance just the broken bridges / busted rail

[Rick2020]

Okay. Once I figured where to put the contents of BobW.zip into - libraries/documents/my games/The Operational Art of War IV/Graphics override

and I changed the name of those three files in - programs (x86)/Matrix Games/The Operational Art of War IV/Graphics

everything worked beautifully. I really like the Blue GUI because its soooo much easier on the eyes.

I have a request. The open (non-hill) hexes seem too yellow and I'd like to try my hand with gimp and make them a little greener. Do you know what filename I should search for?

Maybe I was a honey bee in a past life , but I really like hexagons. The ones in this mod are, in my humble opinion far superior than what comes stock with the game.


Other than that, I'd just like to shout out a BIG thank you for this mod.

Cheers,
Rick

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: Rick2020

Okay. Once I figured where to put the contents of BobW.zip into - libraries/documents/my games/The Operational Art of War IV/Graphics override

and I changed the name of those three files in - programs (x86)/Matrix Games/The Operational Art of War IV/Graphics

everything worked beautifully. I really like the Blue GUI because its soooo much easier on the eyes.

I have a request. The open (non-hill) hexes seem too yellow and I'd like to try my hand with gimp and make them a little greener. Do you know what filename I should search for?

Maybe I was a honey bee in a past life , but I really like hexagons. The ones in this mod are, in my humble opinion far superior than what comes stock with the game.


Other than that, I'd just like to shout out a BIG thank you for this mod.

Cheers,
Rick

Rick, the files you are looking for are named 'tiles_misc' (H_tiles_misc.png, tiles_misc.png and s_tiles_misc.png)

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: marcusm

Sorry for being a bit slow here but in order for me to get the map style and flat counters I need to download what?
I have the dropbox files from page 1 but what else was there? I couldn't find any links.

I found the flat counters at least. Anything else I might have missed to get the look above?

Thanx in advance
Marcus

You mean the look as in Dave's post, post#41 in this thread (fb.asp?m=4889080)?

If so, it's mostly cabidos excellent board game mod, which you may find here: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4523087

EDIT: As it looks, Dave kept the original tiles_hills and didn't use the ones from the mod

[Rodia]

Thank you for this, Telumar and Cabido.

The map now looks terrific but... Is it possible to add transparent hills_overlay graphics in the mod, instead of renaming the originals?

I should try that myself, but I need to spend some quality time with Paint Shop Pro for this.

[Zovs]

So I have a question.

I have been using Dave25210's flat counter mod. I do love the flat look, it reminds me of all the old board games. But I did notice a problem with Dave's mod. It seems to darken every single counter up a bit too much, for example the the light gray counter background is dark gray, the white counter background turns grey, and the yellow counter background turns a well putrid mustard color.

This is in no way a criticism to Dave, I (and or we) know that modifying TOAW is or can be complicated and I am just wanted to be able to use his flat counter mod without the darker colors (as seen below) and hope someone can help out.

He includes two modified files:
CounterBackground.png
h_CounterBackground.png

I also notice in the default game directory there is also:

CounterBackgroundShadow.png
CounterInsideColorMask.png
CounterOutsideColorMask.png
h_CounterBackgroundShadow.png
h_CounterInsideColorMask.png
h_CounterOutsideColorMask.png

Do these Shadow and Mask files also need to be modified?

Here is what I am seeing when and when not using Dave's excellent Flat Counter mod.

Grey
Default counter colors for color ID 10 (white and black on gray):


Dave's counter colors for color ID 10 (white and black on gray):


White
Default counter colors for color ID 30 (blue and black on white):


Dave's counter colors for color ID 30 (blue and black on white):


Yellow
Default counter colors for color ID 35 (yellow and black on yellow):


Dave's counter colors for color ID 35 (yellow and black on yellow):



Any ideas, helps or suggestions would be great, especially if someone could just fix this. lol (i.e. not me, not sure how to fix it)

[Dave25210]

Hi Zovs,

the actual color shade can be changed, I recall that I made 2-3 versions (to test) originally, however the brighter
version that would depict closer matching colors would make many counters look too bright at the end for my taste. That's because when you look at the
stock counter's face, the outer 3D part contains a mix of pixels varying roughly 5 (photographic) stops, so you have very dark part and very bright part.
I therefore set their average (so minus 2 stops or so) as "flat" unified pixel shade; however, we can bump up the shade as desired.

I didn't mess with counterinside/counteroutside colormasks because they only set the inner/outer areas of counter's coloring.

I'll try to raise the counter face brightness a bit, will post a result, OK? Its no problem to have various versions in MODS folder and hot-swap them with JSGME as desired.

EDIT:

looks like this (embedded) - a lighter version, tried closer match to stock colors shade. If interested in this version, I'll attach the files in separate post because the single attachment per post forum limit.
The modified h_CounterBackgroundShadow.png file is included in the attachment flat-round - light v1.zip (I added the counterbackgroundshadow file already earlier in V2 counters attachment too),because otherwise there is artifact in
bottom right corner of counters due to counters shadow.

ORIGINAL: Zovs

So I have a question.

I have been using Dave25210's flat counter mod. I do love the flat look, it reminds me of all the old board games. But I did notice a problem with Dave's mod. It seems to darken every single counter up a bit too much, for example the the light gray counter background is dark gray, the white counter background turns grey, and the yellow counter background turns a well putrid mustard color.

This is in no way a criticism to Dave, I (and or we) know that modifying TOAW is or can be complicated and I am just wanted to be able to use his flat counter mod without the darker colors (as seen below) and hope someone can help out.

He includes two modified files:
CounterBackground.png
h_CounterBackground.png

I also notice in the default game directory there is also:

CounterBackgroundShadow.png
CounterInsideColorMask.png
CounterOutsideColorMask.png
h_CounterBackgroundShadow.png
h_CounterInsideColorMask.png
h_CounterOutsideColorMask.png

Do these Shadow and Mask files also need to be modified?

Here is what I am seeing when and when not using Dave's excellent Flat Counter mod.

Any ideas, helps or suggestions would be great, especially if someone could just fix this. lol (i.e. not me, not sure how to fix it)

[Zovs]

Oh Dave that looks really nice, yes please post it (afk), and I’ll download and try again. Thanks again for understanding and making this adjustment for me!

Your the best!

[Dave25210]

Hi Zovs,

files attached, enjoy!

ORIGINAL: Zovs

Oh Dave that looks really nice, yes please post it (afk), and I’ll download and try again. Thanks again for understanding and making this adjustment for me!

Your the best!

[Zovs]

Dave25210,

Thanks! Looks great! I can work with this. The lighter shades of gray makes things work much better!

[Zovs]

ORIGINAL: Dave25210

Hi Zovs,

files attached, enjoy!

Dave,

Love your flat icons. They were still a bit dark to me, so I modified your mod by using Paint.Net and turning the Contrast down to 10. Looks fantastic on my end.

I can always 'reshare' if you want to see what I did.

Thanks again.
Don