Has anyone corrected the military multi-hex building icons for correct scale? Were these added with the intent to fix them later? I'd love to use the buildings in that group, but if I fix my own icons, I can't share my maps without including the corrected icons every time.
RockinHarry, have you worked with these at all?
Regards,
David Boutwell
Military multi-hex building icons!!??
Moderator: MOD_SPWaW
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David boutwell
- Posts: 347
- Joined: Sun May 28, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: Haymarket, Virginia, USA
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RockinHarry
- Posts: 2344
- Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 10:00 am
- Location: Germany
- Contact:
hi David,
you mean Ter61 shape file? I´ve not worked with them for a while. Do you think the building sizes are too big? ..or off centered?
If you plan to correct them..just do and share the new files with anybody who´s interested. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
..so far I don´t have plans working on these files, nor do I know anybody else.
________
Harry
you mean Ter61 shape file? I´ve not worked with them for a while. Do you think the building sizes are too big? ..or off centered?
If you plan to correct them..just do and share the new files with anybody who´s interested. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
..so far I don´t have plans working on these files, nor do I know anybody else.
________
Harry
yeah,multihex military buildings are little big and they don't have stonebuilding status in all hexes that they cover. I've done so that I have set one-hex stonebuilding to those hexes where status is missing.
Redoing/scaling and delivering them... might be good idea, but how that affects to scenarios where they are used ?
mosh
Redoing/scaling and delivering them... might be good idea, but how that affects to scenarios where they are used ?
mosh
salute
mosh
If its not rotten, shoot again
mosh
If its not rotten, shoot again
-
David boutwell
- Posts: 347
- Joined: Sun May 28, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: Haymarket, Virginia, USA
Create a map and go to the multi-hex military buildings and place a bunch of them at maximum magnification. Better yet, place roads, etc., around them, then zoom out, and watch those roads or whatever you had surrounding your buildings disappear. That means that the lower magnification icons for most of the military multi-hex buildings are not correct.
How does it affect play? Before I get to that, I'll explain how it affects map-making. When I'm designing a map, I don't usually look at every icon I place at all zoom levels to make sure that the icon fits the space that I'm placing it in. If I'm designing a city map, for example, I need to know that a building is going to take up the same hexes at maximum zoom as it is at 35%. As the icons are now, a building that takes up 5 hexes at maximum zoom may take up eight or nine at 35%. That's like a tank that takes up one hex at maximum taking up two at minimum. I can't believe that that wouldn't irritate the snot out of a bunch of guys.
Now, how would it affect game play. If you use only one zoom level to produce a map, design and play every round of a scenario, it wouldn't affect a thing. But that's impossible. If I'm manouvering my troops, zoomed out so that I can see around me, and I move into a hex that indicates a building in it, I'm going to be pissed when I realize that I just got plowed because I REALLY moved into a clear hex with an adjacent enemy unit.
I know from experience that people jump all over any design errors in scenarios, even when they are accidental. I'm not about to use buildings in my maps and scenarios that I know, going in, are faulty.
So, I guess I'll take Rockin Harry's advice and take on the task of fixing them, even though I've got more skillets in the fire than a cattle drive cook.
Regards,
David Boutwell
How does it affect play? Before I get to that, I'll explain how it affects map-making. When I'm designing a map, I don't usually look at every icon I place at all zoom levels to make sure that the icon fits the space that I'm placing it in. If I'm designing a city map, for example, I need to know that a building is going to take up the same hexes at maximum zoom as it is at 35%. As the icons are now, a building that takes up 5 hexes at maximum zoom may take up eight or nine at 35%. That's like a tank that takes up one hex at maximum taking up two at minimum. I can't believe that that wouldn't irritate the snot out of a bunch of guys.
Now, how would it affect game play. If you use only one zoom level to produce a map, design and play every round of a scenario, it wouldn't affect a thing. But that's impossible. If I'm manouvering my troops, zoomed out so that I can see around me, and I move into a hex that indicates a building in it, I'm going to be pissed when I realize that I just got plowed because I REALLY moved into a clear hex with an adjacent enemy unit.
I know from experience that people jump all over any design errors in scenarios, even when they are accidental. I'm not about to use buildings in my maps and scenarios that I know, going in, are faulty.
So, I guess I'll take Rockin Harry's advice and take on the task of fixing them, even though I've got more skillets in the fire than a cattle drive cook.
Regards,
David Boutwell
I sometimes use the military buildings.
The portion that does not have the stone building characteristic makes a good "porch" or shed or covering for a train station. The stone building hexes with no icon, I change to clear terrain.
Seems to work ok if I am careful.
But it would be nice it they were centered.
The portion that does not have the stone building characteristic makes a good "porch" or shed or covering for a train station. The stone building hexes with no icon, I change to clear terrain.
Seems to work ok if I am careful.
But it would be nice it they were centered.
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David boutwell
- Posts: 347
- Joined: Sun May 28, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: Haymarket, Virginia, USA
OK, who are the shp editor experts in here? I just went into terrain file #61 and saved each size 4 icon. I then created three smaller versions of
61 4, icon 1 using the formula that Rockin Harry told me the different scales were(61 4=100%, 61 3= 80%, 61 2=60% and 61 1=35%). I then went in and replaced the original 61 1 icon with my new one and then proceeded to the SP Header Fix to make sure my new icon was centered to the same place my larger versions of the building were going to be. It was here that I found that the left-right adjustment function would not work. Therefore, it would be impossible to center any of the buildings. I tried other files, and found the with all of them, the up-down and left-right adjustments were uncooperative to one degree or another. Are the size of the pink border around the icons themselves too large to allow the header fix to work? Any ideas???
Regards,
David Boutwell
61 4, icon 1 using the formula that Rockin Harry told me the different scales were(61 4=100%, 61 3= 80%, 61 2=60% and 61 1=35%). I then went in and replaced the original 61 1 icon with my new one and then proceeded to the SP Header Fix to make sure my new icon was centered to the same place my larger versions of the building were going to be. It was here that I found that the left-right adjustment function would not work. Therefore, it would be impossible to center any of the buildings. I tried other files, and found the with all of them, the up-down and left-right adjustments were uncooperative to one degree or another. Are the size of the pink border around the icons themselves too large to allow the header fix to work? Any ideas???
Regards,
David Boutwell
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David boutwell
- Posts: 347
- Joined: Sun May 28, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: Haymarket, Virginia, USA
Hey David:
I have a limited knowledge of SHPED, but I'm gaining more all the time. All of my knowledge has to do with unit icons however, I haven't done anything with terrain as yet.
Just took a quick look at the ter46? was it. If you look at the buldings with SHP FIX the cross hairs are not center of building. I really don't know if this is important to terrain icons, but it is to units. You can't center them in the transparent pink box. They have to touch the edge.
Then the crosshair must be set on unit center.
I have done alot of multihex unit icons(not terrain), and I've encountered similar problems when I didn't set the crosshairs correctly. There are some limitaions to SPFIX right now. If you have a large icon (bigger than 88X88) it won't be fully displayed. If you have a very large icon you are limited to setting crosshairs at 100X100.
I have done some modification to SHPED that fixes the crosshair limit and size limit but not the display problem. Not really ready for release.
I would like to look into this more, but have a project for the next couple of days... see my post on Flash Cycle. After that I would be glad to help... probably about time I learn about the terrain SHP's.
I have a limited knowledge of SHPED, but I'm gaining more all the time. All of my knowledge has to do with unit icons however, I haven't done anything with terrain as yet.
Just took a quick look at the ter46? was it. If you look at the buldings with SHP FIX the cross hairs are not center of building. I really don't know if this is important to terrain icons, but it is to units. You can't center them in the transparent pink box. They have to touch the edge.
Then the crosshair must be set on unit center.
I have done alot of multihex unit icons(not terrain), and I've encountered similar problems when I didn't set the crosshairs correctly. There are some limitaions to SPFIX right now. If you have a large icon (bigger than 88X88) it won't be fully displayed. If you have a very large icon you are limited to setting crosshairs at 100X100.
I have done some modification to SHPED that fixes the crosshair limit and size limit but not the display problem. Not really ready for release.
I would like to look into this more, but have a project for the next couple of days... see my post on Flash Cycle. After that I would be glad to help... probably about time I learn about the terrain SHP's.
When you're wounded and left
on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out
to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Kipling
------------------
on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out
to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Kipling
------------------
Hey David:
Almost forgot... my two cents on the scale thing.
What you have in SPWAW are 2 scales... the unit icons use 2 pixels per foot. At the default this is the best view for having any detail at all, and having the units look like something other than non-descript little blobs. As it is, detail suffers, because 1 pixel is the smallest any detail can be. Rifle barrels are 6 inches wide, ropes on tents are 6 inches, etc. A default size any smaller would be a step backwards. The hexes however end up being roughly 1 pixel per foot.
I guess the dilemma is does one want the default building to look good on the hex, or to look proportional to a default size unit nearby. I always thought the buildings were based on the 2 pixels per foot and matched the unit icons.
I have talked about this dual scale thing in the past and someone reminded me that you can scale the units down in preferences to fit the default hex scale.
This is not a preference to me (maybe it's my old eyes, but I think it's because of the time I put into making icons), because the default unit icon size is about the smallest I would want for most of the game. Yes, I zoom in/out for various reasons, but prefer to leave the default most of the time. A true preference for me would be one of changing the hex size to the match the default of the unit icons and buildings. Sometimes, if I've been playing along time, I start to judge distance by the relative scale of the units and the buildings and not by the hexes, and would like to see a fix for it.
Sorry, guess this is more like 25 cents than 2. I think you should check the pixel size of the default size buildings you think are too large. A 100 foot building would be 200 pixels and at 88 (I think) pixels per hex would be larger than 2 hexes.
[ February 25, 2002: Message edited by: Dogfish ]</p>
Almost forgot... my two cents on the scale thing.
What you have in SPWAW are 2 scales... the unit icons use 2 pixels per foot. At the default this is the best view for having any detail at all, and having the units look like something other than non-descript little blobs. As it is, detail suffers, because 1 pixel is the smallest any detail can be. Rifle barrels are 6 inches wide, ropes on tents are 6 inches, etc. A default size any smaller would be a step backwards. The hexes however end up being roughly 1 pixel per foot.
I guess the dilemma is does one want the default building to look good on the hex, or to look proportional to a default size unit nearby. I always thought the buildings were based on the 2 pixels per foot and matched the unit icons.
I have talked about this dual scale thing in the past and someone reminded me that you can scale the units down in preferences to fit the default hex scale.
This is not a preference to me (maybe it's my old eyes, but I think it's because of the time I put into making icons), because the default unit icon size is about the smallest I would want for most of the game. Yes, I zoom in/out for various reasons, but prefer to leave the default most of the time. A true preference for me would be one of changing the hex size to the match the default of the unit icons and buildings. Sometimes, if I've been playing along time, I start to judge distance by the relative scale of the units and the buildings and not by the hexes, and would like to see a fix for it.
Sorry, guess this is more like 25 cents than 2. I think you should check the pixel size of the default size buildings you think are too large. A 100 foot building would be 200 pixels and at 88 (I think) pixels per hex would be larger than 2 hexes.
[ February 25, 2002: Message edited by: Dogfish ]</p>
When you're wounded and left
on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out
to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Kipling
------------------
on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out
to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Kipling
------------------
-
David boutwell
- Posts: 347
- Joined: Sun May 28, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: Haymarket, Virginia, USA
Hey David:
I'll email you some stuff tomorrow. I just finished an SHP palette for Painshop (see my post on flash cycle), and I'm turning in. Since your working with SHP's I'll send you a .pal also.
I'll email you some stuff tomorrow. I just finished an SHP palette for Painshop (see my post on flash cycle), and I'm turning in. Since your working with SHP's I'll send you a .pal also.
When you're wounded and left
on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out
to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Kipling
------------------
on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out
to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Kipling
------------------
-
RockinHarry
- Posts: 2344
- Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 10:00 am
- Location: Germany
- Contact:
hi
I did take a look at shp61 file again yesterday and yes...they´re not properly centered. That causes some empty hexes to be shown as stone buildings and vice versa. Someone seemed to be a bit sloppy... <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">
No big problem for me as I don´t use these buildings much. Only few exceptions..f.e in "Probing Stalin line" I used the single water tower (?) emplacement and corrected the empty/non-empty hexes in Freds MapEditor.
_________
Harry
I did take a look at shp61 file again yesterday and yes...they´re not properly centered. That causes some empty hexes to be shown as stone buildings and vice versa. Someone seemed to be a bit sloppy... <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">
No big problem for me as I don´t use these buildings much. Only few exceptions..f.e in "Probing Stalin line" I used the single water tower (?) emplacement and corrected the empty/non-empty hexes in Freds MapEditor.
_________
Harry
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David boutwell
- Posts: 347
- Joined: Sun May 28, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: Haymarket, Virginia, USA
Thanks, Dogfish!
If I may claim ignorance here for a moment..why would I need a new .pal file?
Harry,
There are some nice warehouses and factories in that file that would be great for a Stalingrad map, etc., and add diversity to any other city- type map. I would definitely use them if they were corrected to scale and centered.
I believe, but could be wrong, that these icons may have come from SPWW2. Does the creator of the multihex rowhouses or any other new multihex buildings frequent this forum? Wouldn't they have some idea as to how to fix this problem?
Weren't the "user" terrain files placed in the game so that we can contribute custom icons? If someone can help us out here, I'd love to return the favor by doing my part. One obstacle that I've run into, however is those darn shadows! It is easy enough to cut and paste a building to create bew ones, but it is another to make the shadows correct! <img src="frown.gif" border="0">
Regards,
David Boutwell
If I may claim ignorance here for a moment..why would I need a new .pal file?
Harry,
There are some nice warehouses and factories in that file that would be great for a Stalingrad map, etc., and add diversity to any other city- type map. I would definitely use them if they were corrected to scale and centered.
I believe, but could be wrong, that these icons may have come from SPWW2. Does the creator of the multihex rowhouses or any other new multihex buildings frequent this forum? Wouldn't they have some idea as to how to fix this problem?
Weren't the "user" terrain files placed in the game so that we can contribute custom icons? If someone can help us out here, I'd love to return the favor by doing my part. One obstacle that I've run into, however is those darn shadows! It is easy enough to cut and paste a building to create bew ones, but it is another to make the shadows correct! <img src="frown.gif" border="0">
Regards,
David Boutwell
Hey David:
Check your Email. When I was making icons, I would send the BMP file through SHPED, not knowing how it would be interpreted into 256 colors. I would work blind so to speak. Then make changes and try again. It reminded me of punched card programming.
You may have had an SHP.pal for Painshop. I never did. Now I can see exactly what my SHP will look like while it is still a BMP.
What started this was wanting to know the cycle of flashing colors of the SHP's. Included in the Email is what I've found so far.
There are about 45 colors that flash. The cycle
is maybe 12-15 cycles long. Some colors have one alternate and some have 4-5. I'm working on getting a chart of what color is in what cycle for all the cycles.
I'll send you some icons and stuff.
Check your Email. When I was making icons, I would send the BMP file through SHPED, not knowing how it would be interpreted into 256 colors. I would work blind so to speak. Then make changes and try again. It reminded me of punched card programming.
You may have had an SHP.pal for Painshop. I never did. Now I can see exactly what my SHP will look like while it is still a BMP.
What started this was wanting to know the cycle of flashing colors of the SHP's. Included in the Email is what I've found so far.
There are about 45 colors that flash. The cycle
is maybe 12-15 cycles long. Some colors have one alternate and some have 4-5. I'm working on getting a chart of what color is in what cycle for all the cycles.
I'll send you some icons and stuff.
When you're wounded and left
on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out
to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Kipling
------------------
on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out
to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Kipling
------------------
-
RockinHarry
- Posts: 2344
- Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 10:00 am
- Location: Germany
- Contact:
Hi all,
Sorry ...my last posting was a bit brief and inaccurate on the matter and I´ve not read all postings in this thread for beeing in a hurry at that time.
After additional reading this thread and investigating more time into the Terrain 61 matter, I can only confirm what David and also Dogfish stated earlier. Not just the centering of the shapes is non-existent, the second zoom level (80%) is the same as the first (100%)! Also following zoom levels are not as they should be, they seem to be larger than 35% and 60%! (confirm David) I can only guess, that the original shape file designer (?) wasn´t able to complete his work for unknown reason. (Combat Leader?)
David...yes you´re right with the SP-Fix feature, it has some unusual behavior with the crosshairs, but some time ago I found some trick to get it working! I don´t know exactly what each shape needs as centering pixel, I usually shift as long with the up/down buttons until I find a satisfactory value and compare it either with SPWAW map editor or better...with Freds Map Editor. I don´t care about exact pixel, I usually shift until it "looks" right. Would still be interesting and time saving to find some exact formula, though. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
Nevertheless...sometimes you need negative values ( "-" ) in the "left" and/or "up" data boxes of SP-Fix windows and for some reason that don´t always work with the "up/down" or "left/right" button and I think this simply is some limitation of this program. Fred Chlanda somewhere mentioned that SP-Fix was still experimental in his latest versions of SHP-Edit. Ok...
I found out,...if you need a negative value in one of the data boxes and you can´t get it right with the crosshair buttons, then at least shift with the buttons to the correspondent postive value first.
Example: We take shape Nr2 (large industrial building) from Terrain61 file and you need in "left" box of SP-Fix a "-25" (minus 25) instead of a "25" ( or +25), then ..if you didn´t do it already,...push the left/right button until the data box shows "25", then push the "Write" button and the data is written directly to the to be worked on shape file (Ter61z4.shp).
Now press the "show" button to see (and update data in computer memory) the shifted crosshair.
Now make a left mouse click directly into the "left" data box and enter a "-" (minus) sign with your keyboard in front of the "25", to make it "-25" and again...push the "write" button. Push "show" button and you´ll see that the crosshair is still shown at the same location as before, but...internally is shifted by 50 ( 25-(-25)) pixels and written to the shape file (Terrain61)! To get the proof, close the "SP-Fix" window and push the "show image#" button in SHP Edit main window. It´s the blue button in upper row, second from left. Now you see that the building shape seems to be aligned with the left edge of the shape window.
This seems also to be the "secret" of some shapes in Ter61 to be not properly aligned! The "left" box in SP-Fix needs a minus sign to make the value corectly negative! I tried it with various shapes in Ter61z4 file and it solved the centering problem for some of the shapes, but not all. Several shapes need to be aligned with completely different values, than shown in SP-Fix. Nonetheless...Ter61 shape file seem to have an additional problem: The shape segments (178x214 pixels) seem to be generally too large for their contents! Most graphics hardly fill up 50% of the allocated shape size and this seem to cause some problems in the shape file data structure.(?) Somehow if there´s too much overlap of non used pixels from shape to shape internally then the SP-Fix centering feature has problems to write correct data to the file.
Remains theory for now....
Usually I don´t work on existing shape files, instead I try on new combinations or variations and attach them to other existing shapes (f.e winter building variations). Some time ago I discovered another little trick, used by the maker of the MegaCam special shapes in Ter86 shape file (aircraft and abandoned tanks). He generally aligned and fit the shape graphics to a 7-hexagon template/layer (the green blobs!) in his graphic application and put a single non-pink (255/225/225 RGB) pixel at position 0,0 (upper left corner)! Importing this modified BMP file back into SHP-Edit and then centering it, works much better then. I still don´t know the theory behind this, but I think if a non-transparent (non-pink) pixel is at x-y position 0,0 then centering works much better!!
Another issue of Ter61 shape file (and others) is that simply many building graphics don´t fit into the 7-Hex Multihex building template. In other words: They only fill 2 or 3 of the 7 hexes graphically. That means that the remaining empty hexes are still treated as "stone building", which causes problems most of the times. (..as already mentioned by mosh, David and Redleg) Also some buildings are irregularily shaped and only fill half-hexes or less. This is how the Multihex buildings work in general: All or nothing!
Usually I treat any below-half hexes as different terrain and delete the hex with a clear terrain click in SPWAW map editor. (Must not be the center Multi hex!!) Although this replaces the "stone building" in these hexes with "clear/mixed" terrain, the LOS blocking value of the deleted "stone building" stays! Check LOS through these hexes in SPWAW unit deploy screen and you´ll see! To get these hexes right, you need to delete the LOS-blocking byte in Freds Map Editor. It´s S8/Byte8 and needs to be changed from value 131 to 0!
Theorethically you can build other multihex buildings than that of the 7-Hex style. For example you can put graphics into the single hex building shape files (Ter26/27/80/82 and 83) that actually cover 2 or more hexes with building graphics, but the problem is how to place them on the map? If put into the single hex building shape files (see above), then a left click on the map in SPWAW map editor places only in one hex the "stone building" terrain type, even if the shape graphic covers more than this single hex! Here Freds Map Editor steps in again. In the "inspection Window" make a copy/paste of the "stone building" hex S8 Bytes into the appropriate adjacent hex. But that´s only half the truth to get it working! In order to make the new/additional "stone building" hex working, it NEEDS some kind of graphic file information in S29 layer section in "Inspection window"! Stone building graphics go to layer 5 (sec5) and even a blank (a shape with just the pink color transparent information) does the trick! In fact this is exactly how the Multihex buildings in SPWAW work: The center hex holds the oversized building graphic, while the surrounding 6 hexes hold a blank! Usually it´s Shape 73 of Ter26 shape file, but it might be possible that any "Blank" shape works. Not tried yet...
Another topic of the Steel Panthers terrain is the Hex/Pixel ratio! Dogfish already had some interesting statements about this. In fact, the 50 yards (or meters) hexes have a 50 Pixel resolution, what means that the smallest terrain feature that can be graphically displayed is in fact as large as 1 yard/meter in size! To remind myself on this, I play most of the time with unit icon size 3 (preferences screens setting) which displays unit icons at the smallest possible size in SPWAW. Even at this size=3 I think vehicles/units are displayed still at least twice as large as in reality! This all needs to be considered, when planning to add "micro" details to the SPWAW terrain! <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> Many terrains in SPWAW are already "oversized" (walls=9 Pixels!....)
Other topic: Artificial Light source that makes some terrain classes (buildings, trees, bridges..) casting a 3-4 pixel deep shadow. Light source: ~1:00-2:00 PM.
Means: DON´T paint shadows at the outline of your to be created shapes if of the above listed types! SPWAW does this for you. Only inside features need to be considered!
Off topic here but worth to mention: Wood/Tree terrain hexes gain more "depth", if not directly placed on the common green grass tiles. My preference is using darker underground for wooded hexes. Mixed terrain from either Rough- or Jungle-TILESET works well. As one of my other hobbies is "treasure hunting" means that I´m very much often outdors in woods ect. I found only light woods have mostly green grass on the ground while the "thicker" types and "coniferous" forests have some very dark floor. (more shadows, brown leaves ect.) Anything else looks more like a "golf course" to me! <img src="eek.gif" border="0">
Have fun <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
BTW: David...Ter85 shape file also has some nice warehouses and other factory stuff. IIRC it´s USE 1 or USE 2 from Multihex building menu in SPWAW map editor.
I don´t think that some of the original shape designers are here around in the forum. Most likely they´re much too busy with Combat Leader...don´t know.
___________
Harry
[ March 01, 2002: Message edited by: RockinHarry ]</p>
Sorry ...my last posting was a bit brief and inaccurate on the matter and I´ve not read all postings in this thread for beeing in a hurry at that time.
After additional reading this thread and investigating more time into the Terrain 61 matter, I can only confirm what David and also Dogfish stated earlier. Not just the centering of the shapes is non-existent, the second zoom level (80%) is the same as the first (100%)! Also following zoom levels are not as they should be, they seem to be larger than 35% and 60%! (confirm David) I can only guess, that the original shape file designer (?) wasn´t able to complete his work for unknown reason. (Combat Leader?)
David...yes you´re right with the SP-Fix feature, it has some unusual behavior with the crosshairs, but some time ago I found some trick to get it working! I don´t know exactly what each shape needs as centering pixel, I usually shift as long with the up/down buttons until I find a satisfactory value and compare it either with SPWAW map editor or better...with Freds Map Editor. I don´t care about exact pixel, I usually shift until it "looks" right. Would still be interesting and time saving to find some exact formula, though. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
Nevertheless...sometimes you need negative values ( "-" ) in the "left" and/or "up" data boxes of SP-Fix windows and for some reason that don´t always work with the "up/down" or "left/right" button and I think this simply is some limitation of this program. Fred Chlanda somewhere mentioned that SP-Fix was still experimental in his latest versions of SHP-Edit. Ok...
I found out,...if you need a negative value in one of the data boxes and you can´t get it right with the crosshair buttons, then at least shift with the buttons to the correspondent postive value first.
Example: We take shape Nr2 (large industrial building) from Terrain61 file and you need in "left" box of SP-Fix a "-25" (minus 25) instead of a "25" ( or +25), then ..if you didn´t do it already,...push the left/right button until the data box shows "25", then push the "Write" button and the data is written directly to the to be worked on shape file (Ter61z4.shp).
Now press the "show" button to see (and update data in computer memory) the shifted crosshair.
Now make a left mouse click directly into the "left" data box and enter a "-" (minus) sign with your keyboard in front of the "25", to make it "-25" and again...push the "write" button. Push "show" button and you´ll see that the crosshair is still shown at the same location as before, but...internally is shifted by 50 ( 25-(-25)) pixels and written to the shape file (Terrain61)! To get the proof, close the "SP-Fix" window and push the "show image#" button in SHP Edit main window. It´s the blue button in upper row, second from left. Now you see that the building shape seems to be aligned with the left edge of the shape window.
This seems also to be the "secret" of some shapes in Ter61 to be not properly aligned! The "left" box in SP-Fix needs a minus sign to make the value corectly negative! I tried it with various shapes in Ter61z4 file and it solved the centering problem for some of the shapes, but not all. Several shapes need to be aligned with completely different values, than shown in SP-Fix. Nonetheless...Ter61 shape file seem to have an additional problem: The shape segments (178x214 pixels) seem to be generally too large for their contents! Most graphics hardly fill up 50% of the allocated shape size and this seem to cause some problems in the shape file data structure.(?) Somehow if there´s too much overlap of non used pixels from shape to shape internally then the SP-Fix centering feature has problems to write correct data to the file.
Remains theory for now....
Usually I don´t work on existing shape files, instead I try on new combinations or variations and attach them to other existing shapes (f.e winter building variations). Some time ago I discovered another little trick, used by the maker of the MegaCam special shapes in Ter86 shape file (aircraft and abandoned tanks). He generally aligned and fit the shape graphics to a 7-hexagon template/layer (the green blobs!) in his graphic application and put a single non-pink (255/225/225 RGB) pixel at position 0,0 (upper left corner)! Importing this modified BMP file back into SHP-Edit and then centering it, works much better then. I still don´t know the theory behind this, but I think if a non-transparent (non-pink) pixel is at x-y position 0,0 then centering works much better!!
Another issue of Ter61 shape file (and others) is that simply many building graphics don´t fit into the 7-Hex Multihex building template. In other words: They only fill 2 or 3 of the 7 hexes graphically. That means that the remaining empty hexes are still treated as "stone building", which causes problems most of the times. (..as already mentioned by mosh, David and Redleg) Also some buildings are irregularily shaped and only fill half-hexes or less. This is how the Multihex buildings work in general: All or nothing!
Usually I treat any below-half hexes as different terrain and delete the hex with a clear terrain click in SPWAW map editor. (Must not be the center Multi hex!!) Although this replaces the "stone building" in these hexes with "clear/mixed" terrain, the LOS blocking value of the deleted "stone building" stays! Check LOS through these hexes in SPWAW unit deploy screen and you´ll see! To get these hexes right, you need to delete the LOS-blocking byte in Freds Map Editor. It´s S8/Byte8 and needs to be changed from value 131 to 0!
Theorethically you can build other multihex buildings than that of the 7-Hex style. For example you can put graphics into the single hex building shape files (Ter26/27/80/82 and 83) that actually cover 2 or more hexes with building graphics, but the problem is how to place them on the map? If put into the single hex building shape files (see above), then a left click on the map in SPWAW map editor places only in one hex the "stone building" terrain type, even if the shape graphic covers more than this single hex! Here Freds Map Editor steps in again. In the "inspection Window" make a copy/paste of the "stone building" hex S8 Bytes into the appropriate adjacent hex. But that´s only half the truth to get it working! In order to make the new/additional "stone building" hex working, it NEEDS some kind of graphic file information in S29 layer section in "Inspection window"! Stone building graphics go to layer 5 (sec5) and even a blank (a shape with just the pink color transparent information) does the trick! In fact this is exactly how the Multihex buildings in SPWAW work: The center hex holds the oversized building graphic, while the surrounding 6 hexes hold a blank! Usually it´s Shape 73 of Ter26 shape file, but it might be possible that any "Blank" shape works. Not tried yet...
Another topic of the Steel Panthers terrain is the Hex/Pixel ratio! Dogfish already had some interesting statements about this. In fact, the 50 yards (or meters) hexes have a 50 Pixel resolution, what means that the smallest terrain feature that can be graphically displayed is in fact as large as 1 yard/meter in size! To remind myself on this, I play most of the time with unit icon size 3 (preferences screens setting) which displays unit icons at the smallest possible size in SPWAW. Even at this size=3 I think vehicles/units are displayed still at least twice as large as in reality! This all needs to be considered, when planning to add "micro" details to the SPWAW terrain! <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> Many terrains in SPWAW are already "oversized" (walls=9 Pixels!....)
Other topic: Artificial Light source that makes some terrain classes (buildings, trees, bridges..) casting a 3-4 pixel deep shadow. Light source: ~1:00-2:00 PM.
Means: DON´T paint shadows at the outline of your to be created shapes if of the above listed types! SPWAW does this for you. Only inside features need to be considered!
Off topic here but worth to mention: Wood/Tree terrain hexes gain more "depth", if not directly placed on the common green grass tiles. My preference is using darker underground for wooded hexes. Mixed terrain from either Rough- or Jungle-TILESET works well. As one of my other hobbies is "treasure hunting" means that I´m very much often outdors in woods ect. I found only light woods have mostly green grass on the ground while the "thicker" types and "coniferous" forests have some very dark floor. (more shadows, brown leaves ect.) Anything else looks more like a "golf course" to me! <img src="eek.gif" border="0">
Have fun <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
BTW: David...Ter85 shape file also has some nice warehouses and other factory stuff. IIRC it´s USE 1 or USE 2 from Multihex building menu in SPWAW map editor.
I don´t think that some of the original shape designers are here around in the forum. Most likely they´re much too busy with Combat Leader...don´t know.
___________
Harry
[ March 01, 2002: Message edited by: RockinHarry ]</p>