Unit Depictions on Screen

[JagdFlanker]

good to see that even though i'm new to this forum i'm already causing trouble! [;)]

i would say that in light of keeping everything simple for you you may want to try to keep everything that is graphical in the game accessable for users who want to 'mod' the graphics themselves - in the end that always gives an opportunity for EVERYONE to be happy if they are willing to put the work into it! and it extends the life of the game too - you never know what great work an obsessive fan might be capable of! when the game was designed i'm sure the last thing the designers were worried about was the art on the counters!

keep up the good work - i can never argue starting with the traditional map and counter graphics! it is a classic wargame, after all and it's never going to go away!

[Froonp]

a gentleman named cobra has been creating absolutly stunning artwork for War in the Pacific - since he's already done a pile of WW II aircraft you might consider asking him to do your counter artwork for you!

here's a sample:

I think that that kind of detailed and beautifull bitmap could be used when accessing some sort of "properties" window about the plane, you know, the place where you will place Greyshaft descriptions of the planes.

[wodin]

ORIGINAL: Froonp


I think that that kind of detailed and beautifull bitmap could be used when accessing some sort of "properties" window about the plane, you know, the place where you will place Greyshaft descriptions of the planes.

Great Idea.

Also thanks for taking the 3d counter effect onboard. The counters looked part of the map rather than a chit without the effect.

Also will it be possible for people to mod the counters? Or will they be hardcoded?

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
You guys certainly are pushing for this aren't you?

I may be joining this discussion a bit late, but in my view some type of 3D effect for the counters is a must. It looks much better than just having 2D counters.

As an example, here is a screenshot of a counter mod I am experimenting with for GGWAW. It uses subtle shading and highlights for the various counters.

[mlees]

In regards to the "thickening" of the appearance of a unit-counter, I would vote that this effect is only used to indicate that multiple units are in the same hex.

However, I am not going to declare war over this...

(The Polish corridor, however...)

[kafka]

The decision on how to render the graphics for the units was discussed back in July and August (2005) and the decision was to use the counter sheets that came with WIF FE - or as close to them as possible. That decision then drove the decision on the size of the hexagons. From there we decided on how to render the map elements: terrain and icons. I recoded the routines that draw the map and the units based on those decisions.

Does this design decision imply that the game won't allow for defining any custom grafics set (within the restrictions set by the implementation)?
This leads to the question whether the game will be moddable at all. I don't ask for an editor, but will text based modifications be possible?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: kafka

The decision on how to render the graphics for the units was discussed back in July and August (2005) and the decision was to use the counter sheets that came with WIF FE - or as close to them as possible. That decision then drove the decision on the size of the hexagons. From there we decided on how to render the map elements: terrain and icons. I recoded the routines that draw the map and the units based on those decisions.

Does this design decision imply that the game won't allow for defining any custom grafics set (within the restrictions set by the implementation)?
This leads to the question whether the game will be moddable at all. I don't ask for an editor, but will text based modifications be possible?

The graphics for the map are complex. That is because:
1 - the map is very large
2 - there are 8 levels of zoom
3 - each coastal hex is done as an individual bitmap (5000+)
4 - each river and lake is done as a handdrawn overlay (7000+ hexes involved)

To store that much information, primarily the bitmaps, requires clever coding. A straightforward approach simply exhausts the resources that Windows provides (pointers and other internal programming elements). The demand for screen refresh speeds also applies another major constraint on the design of the map graphics. "Clever coding" means that changing the primary graphical elements may make a hash of the map image. I do a lot of preprocessing to speed up screen refresh - yet still a lot more has to be done on the fly.

Designing a support system so players can edit the graphics is not part of MWIF product 1. That was my very first question to Matrix, before I even signed on to the project: What are we creating? WIF, the game, or a WIF design kit?

Whenever reasonably possible I will provide the players with the ability to make changes off line. That is why I have transformed the storage structure for all the files from Delphi binary to CSV (comma separated values). However, it is much more important to me to actually publish this game so people can play it, than it is to create WIF editing systems - for the map, the units, the graphics, or the rules.

[Neilster]

However, I am not going to declare war over this...
(The Polish corridor, however...)

Is this your last territorial demand in Europe?

[mlees]

ORIGINAL: Neilster

However, I am not going to declare war over this...
(The Polish corridor, however...)

Is this your last territorial demand in Europe?

I'll let you know.

[Anendrue]

I've been away for a bit, but I am glad to here that a counter shading is being seriously reconsidered. Please, please, please... does the begging help? If so, I'll start a begging thread and even a collect a payoff for Steve thread [:D]

[Mziln]

ORIGINAL: Flanker Leader

a gentleman named cobra has been creating absolutly stunning artwork for War in the Pacific - since he's already done a pile of WW II aircraft you might consider asking him to do your counter artwork for you!

here's a sample:

anyone else notice the swastikas are backwards on some of the planes?

[Caranorn]

ORIGINAL: Mziln

ORIGINAL: Flanker Leader

a gentleman named cobra has been creating absolutly stunning artwork for War in the Pacific - since he's already done a pile of WW II aircraft you might consider asking him to do your counter artwork for you!

here's a sample:

anyone else notice the swastikas are backwards on some of the planes?

I hadn't, but I bet those images were flipped horizontally at some point, which could mean some otehr inconsistencies slipped through (both sides usually ain't identical, though in most cases differences are minimal (unlike some armour graphics I did last year, flipping an M3Lee/Grant looks a bit odd).

Edit: Obviously my original assesment of flipping does not explain matters, or at least not in every case. If those images had been flipped horizontlly text would also be mirrored...

[Froonp]

anyone else notice the swastikas are backwards on some of the planes?

In fact, worse than that, beyond the first "gorgeous" look of those pictures, the more I look at them now, the more bad things about them come to my mind and make me dissatisfied with them.
The poor choice of camo & unit for the Me109E comes first (A Battle of Britain one would have been best to picture an Emil, because Emils are best known for that), the reversed Svastikas you mentionned, the poor choice of camo for that Fw189 (an eastern front one would have been better as Fw189 were much more usual on the eastern front that in the Med), the poor choice of camo & unit for the Fw190A (the yellow one, hypotheticaly from JG2 and hypotheticaly flown by major Von Graff but without evidence of existence, there are a lot of cool camo & units for that great plane).

[JagdFlanker]

these must have been done "for fun" by him since they are not for any mod - they fit with WitP but there is no scen designed for them. i'd call them more samples than actual work. he has a "portfolio" here:

http://mathubert.free.fr/Cobra_files.html#New_Look

chances are you'l be a little more impressed by the time you go through more of his work! the ships with a pink-ish background are repeated farther down with a sky backgound, usually. i like how he takes "requests" - like the Royal Canadian Airforce Hurricane (nice!)

[tigercub]

forceddownload.asp?file=0%3B1073404
forceddownload.asp?file=0%3B1073404

[Norden_slith]

Will all airunits automaticly become visible, when airunits are moved, i.e. be on top of the stacks?

If this has been asked before, sorry.

Norden

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Norden

Will all airunits automaticly become visible, when airunits are moved, i.e. be on top of the stacks?

If this has been asked before, sorry.

Norden

The key word here is 'automatically'.

I always look with great suspicion on that word when it is used to described part of a user interface. I have encountered innumerable software programs where the programmer coded in something to be done 'automatically' and I can't get the program to stop doing it. I am sure everyone has a list of these annoyances with the software they use.

As for MWIF and the placement of air units in a stack, I have not read the existing code in detail. I do know that during most phases of the game the units that are eligible to be selected/moved are placed on top of the stack - automatically. There is always the possibility that there are multiple units in a stack that can be selected, which is common for land and naval units, are fairly frequent for air units too.

The program currently provides the ability to decide how all the stacks on the map are sorted (I am pretty sure I saw that in the code). So you could use that capability to get all the air units on top.

I intend to include an additional way to view units on the map. Namely, let four units be seen at one time in a hex. The hex will be large (zoom level 8) and the units smallish (zoom level 4) but that will let you spread out the units. A typical hex might have 2 corps, a division and an air unit. You would be able to see them all at once without having to cycle through them. Note that the whole map would be done like that, so all the land units on the map would be "on top". To accompany this new basic feature for viewing units, I would provide different sorting options. For instance, you could spread out all the air units so they were all visible. Probably can't do that for the naval units since there are often a dozen or more in a hex - but I am going to try to think up a clever way to spread out the naval units so they are all visible too.

2 or 3 weeks before I get to the point of coding how units are displayed on the screen, I'll start some threads on the topic and see what ideas you-all have. We'll kick them around for a while and see if we can design something that makes playing MWIF easier than playing WIF over the board - at least insofar as viewing the units is concerned.

P.S. I don't think anyone should ever have to apologize for asking questions. It just doesn't seem right to me.

[Froonp]

The program currently provides the ability to decide how all the stacks on the map are sorted (I am pretty sure I saw that in the code). So you could use that capability to get all the air units on top.

You're right.
CWiF had a right click command allowing to sort all the stack on the map the same way (planes on the top).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I finished rewriting the save and restore routines so they use comma separated value files (CSV). This makes it easier to debug what is going on during development. It was also the last task I needed to complete so the beta testers could start. Erik Rutkins at Matrix will perform a final blessing on the executable and then release it for testing to the beta team. That should happen today.

So, I have been able to get back to the high resolution air units. I only have three air units to work with at the present. Once I get the placement of the numbers straightened out, I can give the artist precise directions on where the bitmaps are to be placed within the counter (frame). And get more samples to test.

Here is an improved version from the mess I last posted. I have replaced the colored rectangles with colored circles, within which I inscribe the numbers. When the numbers are larger, the circles are larger. The placement of the range for the air units differs by type. Fighters have it at the bottom and the other air units have it on the right side. The reason for that can be seen for the 3 German planes that are serving as my testbed for number placement.

Changes I still want to make to these are:

1 - The F5 with a range of 14 should have its yellow circle raised 1 pixel and centered left to right

2 - The Do217K unit bitmap has to be brought down 6 pixels; there will still be overlap with some of the numbers but that happens on the WIF FIE counter sheets too.

3 - The Ju88A4 bitmap needs to be centered left to right

4 - The L6 with an extended range of 17 needs to have the 17 lowered within the orange stripe. It should be in the same position as the other extended range air units.

5 - I will probably replace the bitmap names with names drawn on the fly using true type fonts. The text for the Ju-88 A4 looks ok here, at the highest level of zoom (8), but it deteriorates at lower zoom levels. I don't expect it to be legible below level 6, but I would like it to look ok at 6 and 7. Making that change will take some trial and error as I test out various fonts, font sizes, and splitting the name into 2 pieces (as it was done for the Me-262 A-1c). But once I get it working correctly, it will work for all 1200+ air units.

6 - There are still some more odd ducks to handle: extra large transports and transports that cannot paradrop. I also have to make sure the carrier air units look good.

7 - Finally, I will take the code I just wrote for the circles and apply it to the other units types that need circles. For example, the artillery and anti-aircraft units.

[lomyrin]

Nice progress.

The numbers when using pilots ought to be F2, F3 and L2 L3 and L4 and NAV2, NAV3 and NAV4 though.

Can the numbers change with the use of the 'use pilots' option.

Lars