Unit mod WIP

[Philippeatbay]

This is the preliminary analysis of the units before I get to work on changing them.

I'm trying to get a handle on what unit colors to use.

When I've got the colors nailed down I'll move on to repainting the first row.

This is only the first draft of a first draft.

I'm not satisfied with the first three or four sets of unit colors.

What drove me to do this was a desire to make CSME look a bit more like an unpublished mod of JTS Middle East.

I've decided to try and go with the vanilla terrain, but the violence and oddity of the unit colors needs to be addressed.

I'm particularly not fond of the various shades of yellow, and I'm trying to convert most everything to shades of brown and Khaki.

Messing around with the unit colors in this case is particularly difficult because the existence of the alternate 2D counter set prevents me from creating new colors from scratch.

I thought of abandoning the alternate counters altogether because I consider them an unfortunate design decision (they clutter up the surface of the counter and make information hard to read).

But in case anyone is in love with them I decided to keep them and try to figure out a way to work around them.

I haven't decided how I feel about grey-toned units (like the third set, just below the UK units), and I'd be curious to hear some comments.

I'm not allergic to green since it is an appropriate color for certain units in the Middle East, but I'm cautious about using it because it is a very strong color.

I'm a very long way from finishing this, and before it gets released I'll have to do repaints of the symbols and icons so the colors don't clash.

And whoever put together the internal architecture of the graphics of this game should get the Rube Goldberg award for weird design. I mod a lot of the modern Tiller games, but didn't remember that the earlier generation was so poorly designed. Modding the graphics of this game is absurdly labor intensive. I hope the new set of designers and developers think long and hard about scalability when they construct the next game in the series.

[Jason Petho]

I don't see the image?

[Philippeatbay]

Do you mean the twelve pairs of unit counter sets or something else?

[Jason Petho]

I see it now, thank you!

[Crossroads]

Hello Philippe, I recall seeing your JTS Middle East '67 mod in a Grogheads post, quite neat! I like what you are doing here as well, a nice difference to these vanilla chits, where I indeed went for a glossy cardboard counter look.

As for the Alternative Counters option, they are quite complex. Here's a post from our Dev Forum from the time as how I made them. Note, that with CSME, there's indeed an added complexity that Alternative Counters have special versions for some special units with the said NATO symbol appearing on their chit as well (there's a pointer to these in Platoon OOB data):

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

Speaking of counters, here's the design I am settling in for CSME at least. VN, I'd like to have the Armed Forces branches per row ie. Army, Marines, Air Cavalry etc. I'll let Rod to comment on which ones to include at this level (and what they were called at the time, not sure about the Air Cavalry for instance).

Anyhow, here's the template I will next implement to all CSME nations, then I'll proceed to VN.

It takes five layers to make these counters. Six, if you count the bottom color:

[*] Magenta background color (opaque)
[*] Counters, or chits in opaque squares. Green, in Libya's case. Note Tanks and Helos on larger chits.
[*] Alt Counter option watermark, Libyan Armed Forces insignia in this case (transparent, so sits nicely with green shits underneath)
[*] Unit stat marker layer, for those little white squares under the stat number (transparent)
[*] Unit type bars on Alt Counters, often nation specific (opaque).
[*] And finally, the special ability NATO symbols on top (transparent, so again sits nicely with all things underneath).

A bit of an effort to have this detail, but I believe the result is all worth it.

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

Speaking of counters, here's the design I am settling in for CSME at least. VN, I'd like to have the Armed Forces branches per row ie. Army, Marines, Air Cavalry etc. I'll let Rod to comment on which ones to include at this level (and what they were called at the time, not sure about the Air Cavalry for instance).

So here's the tentative look of the US chits from the current CS Vietnam BETA. Note that now there's rows for each "branch" present in game: Army, Marines, (Air) Cavalry, and Paras:

[Crossroads]

Finally, I use the PaintShop Pro Batch processing feature to resize from 2D Zoom-In size to other sizes. I have recorded a script for each target size, and then run that as a batch, having the output on a separate folder from source folder, where all I need to do there then is to rename the files to have their proper size monikers (7d, 6d, 2d and 1d, from 8d originals).

Hope this helps.

[Philippeatbay]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

Speaking of counters, here's the design I am settling in for CSME at least. VN, I'd like to have the Armed Forces branches per row ie. Army, Marines, Air Cavalry etc. I'll let Rod to comment on which ones to include at this level (and what they were called at the time, not sure about the Air Cavalry for instance).

So here's the tentative look of the US chits from the current CS Vietnam BETA. Note that now there's rows for each "branch" present in game: Army, Marines, (Air) Cavalry, and Paras:

I hope that the Vietnam game will have a plain counter option.

The artwork on the counters is very nice, but it tends to make them a little too busy to read easily.

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: Philippeatbay

I hope that the Vietnam game will have a plain counter option.

The artwork on the counters is very nice, but it tends to make them a little too busy to read easily.

Yes, just like with CSME chits, there's the plain standard version and the more detailed alternative version available as options. I just took a snippet of the latter, to show the insignias.

[Bradley62]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

Finally, I use the PaintShop Pro Batch processing feature to resize from 2D Zoom-In size to other sizes. I have recorded a script for each target size, and then run that as a batch, having the output on a separate folder from source folder, where all I need to do there then is to rename the files to have their proper size monikers (7d, 6d, 2d and 1d, from 8d originals).

Hope this helps.

Love it! Can't wait to dislodge some N Vietnamese!