Updated unit counter and icon info mod

[RoflCopter4]

I uploaded an extension to the old unit icon info mod a while back, which was based on my constant obsessive tweaking of how the unit counters look. Since then I have been continuing to tweak and modify things. Unfortunately I haven't played much in the past year, so if any large number of new units have been added in that time then this will be a bit out of date, but as of one year ago I had a unique unit icon (the ones that pop up at the bottom of the screen) for 100% of the units in the game.

Furthermore I have completely remade the counter for the highest zoom out level (where the icons are literally impossible to see in the vanilla game), and tweaked the counters a lot for all other levels. Things are now hand drawn. No more fuzzy anti-aliasing nonsense. Everything is crisp. Furthermore, I tweaked the colors of the status triangle to be clearer, and made a few other tweaks. I never knew how unbelievably time consuming this kind of pixel art could be.

Anyway, since the old mod is probably well dead by now, I've bundled it with this one. Unzip the contents into your main game folder. Make sure JSGME.exe and the folder called MODS are both in the same directory as WarInTheEast.exe. Then simply activate the mod by first double clicking on the original counters mod (which I left intact), then double clicking on my extension. This will copy them both to your game files, while backing up those files. Should you have second thoughts, you can just deactivate the mods and the original files are restored. It's important to make sure my extension comes second because it in turn overwrites the files of the original mod. This program is easy to use and very underappreciated in the mod community in general in my opinion. I use it for all games I mod.

If you really prefer, you could also just dump everything in the main folder and overwrite all the originals, but I don't recommend that.

Here are some screenshots I took a while ago that demonstrate the changes to the counters. They are out of date, I have improved the look a fair bit since I made these screenshots, but they're close enough to give the gist.

https://imgur.com/a/5fu2Z
https://imgur.com/a/4ER6C

And the download link:
EDIT: Reuploaded in a hopefully less broken zip format. Sorry.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/677z5p3qm ... bined2.zip

Let me know what you guys think.

[xhoel]

Thanks for the great work I'm having a problem exporting the files though, any idea what may cause that?

[EwaldvonKleist]

Your modification for the zoomed-out-view looks good. What did you change at the other zoom-levels?
I have problems extracting/copying the files downloaded from your link and all .tga files show as 1kb in size. Can you please send the mod to me by E-Mail (see PM).
Regards&Thanks

[RoflCopter4]

Strange. I made the archive with 7zip, so I think it's possible that it may have created an archive that the built in Windows unzip utility can't unzip for whatever reason. I was able to unzip it with no problems with 7zip, but not with unzip. Sorry about that guys.

I would in general recommend that everyone install 7zip, it's a great program and unpacks pretty much every format known to man without problems, but I will also re-upload the mod. How silly of me.

At the other zoom levels I hand tuned much of the text (especially the XX unit size markings) to look better and be less fuzzy. I tweaked the colors of the tabs that indicate unit status very slightly to make them more distinct, and fiddled with a few other things like that.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/677z5p3qm ... bined2.zip

[EwaldvonKleist]

Thank you for fixing the problem, I like your mod [&o]. Especially that the shaprness on the most zoomed out level is no better. I always try to have only the absolute minimum of software on my PC (yes, that absolute min includes 4 installations of WitE in different game version).

One question though, except on the most zoomed out level the red border for isolated units does not appear anymore, is there something I do wrong? Also, with units being red on that level, you can't see the red border not that good, is there a way to change that into another colour?

What is the difference between "Unit counters mod" vs. the "orgininal counter mod"?

[SparkleyTits]

I love the zoomed out visuals is there anyway I could use them while still keeping my normal counters when zoomed in?

Thanks!

[EwaldvonKleist]

Hi S-T,
copy the 9*9 image only into the WitE untis foldr as shown in the screenshots. Please do not ask me why this works (for the image looks a bit odd), I might not be able to answer that question.

Make sure to make a back up copy of your art folder before you do this.

[SparkleyTits]

Works like a charm

Much appreciated bud!

[EwaldvonKleist]

I am simply puzzled why this works, for the image looks as shown below. Not sure how the program also derives the changed counter colours from this.

[leverkuhn]

Thanks for all the effort.

[EwaldvonKleist]

@Rofl: Do you know if it it is technically possible to edit the counters in a way so that on the most zoomed-out level, motorised forces have a unique counter? It would be quite helpful to see the Axis Schwerpunkt on the view from the space.

[RoflCopter4]

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

@Rofl: Do you know if it it is technically possible to edit the counters in a way so that on the most zoomed-out level, motorised forces have a unique counter? It would be quite helpful to see the Axis Schwerpunkt on the view from the space.

It isn't possible. At that level, the only possible counters are those for each country and the special ones for Guards, SS, etc. You can't distinguish units. That's just hardwired into the game.

Also, you need to open the images with a program that knows how to deal with transparency. The one you opened it with seems to have gotten confused by it and colored the areas for which there is no data whatsoever black. Even something like paint should be able to handle it, but normal image viewers usually can't.