New Alpha Graphics Mod

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: damezzi

Panama, I've already changed the fonts to make it cleaner in the normal view. I'll not say it isn't possible to make it still more readable using only black pixels and displaying jaggy edges, but the difference would be very, very small and not worth it. The problem here is the size (in terms of resolution); if you open the numbers.bmp file, you'll see it. I think that the huge view will be used more frequently now, not necessarily because of better graphics resolution, but also because Ralph did a nice job making zoom faster. The first time we zoom in takes a while, but then the zoom becomes much faster and one can zoom in and out with a lot of ease.

The mouse wheel zooms in and out. Also, if you have a 4 button trackball, the extra two buttons may zoom in and out. (I haven't tested it on anything but my ancient trackball.) I eventually want to use a new feature in Windows 7 that allows for better use of small fonts. unfortunately, it's only for Windows 7, so other OS's will have to use the existing bitmaps.

An easily accessible keyboard hotkey would make things yet more easy. Ralph has already set the space bar to hide and show units, which is something very helpful. Well planed hotkeys are a really nice substitute to a graphical interface. Anyone who learns to work well with hotkeys in any software package will tell you the investment in time (some packages can present a huge number of hotkeys) was worth and some aspects of the graphical interface becomes obsolete.

I agree, but the graphic methods will always remain. I need to change the menu options to show the hotkey alternative sometime, but it will probably be after the patch.

X.ray, showing units facing is an engine change. I don't know if Ralph plans doing it.

Not for this release. Does anyone know if it's in the wish list? It would be like the attack indicators, but using a different bitmap.

Ralph

[berto]

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

ORIGINAL: damezzi
An easily accessible keyboard hotkey would make things yet more easy. Ralph has already set the space bar to hide and show units, which is something very helpful. Well planed hotkeys are a really nice substitute to a graphical interface. Anyone who learns to work well with hotkeys in any software package will tell you the investment in time (some packages can present a huge number of hotkeys) was worth and some aspects of the graphical interface becomes obsolete.

I agree, but the graphic methods will always remain. I need to change the menu options to show the hotkey alternative sometime, but it will probably be after the patch.

Hotkeys are great. Please consider having the F1 key (or some other function key) call up an in-game help screen listing all hotkeys--this so we don't have to hunt down the hotkey list in printed documentation or in the appendix of some PDF help file.

[BigDuke66]

ORIGINAL: berto
Hotkeys are great. Please consider having the F1 key (or some other function key) call up an in-game help screen listing all hotkeys--this so we don't have to hunt down the hotkey list in printed documentation or in the appendix of some PDF help file.

That would be very handy.

[Abnormalmind]

When I zoom in during PBEM playback, the game crashes. I was wondering if this was just me, or does this happen for all?

[larryfulkerson]

Happens to me too.  I learned to leave the mouse alone during the playback.  I think Ralph said he was going to "fix" this with the next patch coming any day now.  It would be handy to be able to zoom during the playback.....or not have the game crash when you accidently hit the mouse zoom wheel during the playback.  Either way would be fine with me.

[ralphtricky]

I fixed it by disabling the mouse zoom while a dialog is open.

[erichswafford]

Looks fantastic. Can't wait

[Moltke71]

Great stuff! Please keep us informed.

[Johnus]

Just Beautiful !

[Hentzau]

saw this mod being mentioned at war-historical group, looks awesome!

[Curtis Lemay]

I thought it might be useful to provide some side-by-side comparisons between this mod and the old graphics. Note that you will be able to have both new and old installed and just switch between them with an Advanced Rule option. I only used the Normal View so it will be apples-to-apples. But, of course, remember that this mod has a dedicated suite of Huge View tiles that the original doesn't.

First, the old way from CFNA:

[Curtis Lemay]

And the new way:

[Curtis Lemay]

From France 1944 using the old tiles:

[Curtis Lemay]

And the new:

[Curtis Lemay]

Kaiserschlacht 1918, old tiles:

[Curtis Lemay]

And the new:

[Curtis Lemay]

Okinawa 1945, old tiles:

[Curtis Lemay]

And the new:

[Curtis Lemay]

Germany 1945, old tiles:

[Curtis Lemay]

And the new - note that the impact of transparency is most obvious here: