AAR Mode

[Dancing Bear]

It was either Jimmer or myself,b ut doesn't really matter. It would be a good feature. Has anyone found the equation for making a curved line through three points yet? Am I going to have to pull out a text book?

[NeverMan]

A curve through three points is VERY VERY VERY VERY BASIC OpenGL stuff... this should NOT be difficult (I don't know a thing about DirectX so I can't speak for that if that's what Marshall/Matrix has used).

[gazfun]

I think the concept is good and is succesfull in providing the AAR you mentioned

[Marshall Ellis]

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

A curve through three points is VERY VERY VERY VERY BASIC OpenGL stuff... this should NOT be difficult (I don't know a thing about DirectX so I can't speak for that if that's what Marshall/Matrix has used).

It's not really the curve that is difficult but the curve may have to go through 6 points in ANY direction and you need to know the final direction in degrees in order to draw the head. Arrows by themselves are simply 7 point polygons BUT you must know how to point them!

[Edfactor]

ORIGINAL: Dancing Bear

Actually I think with a tuned down colour, a thinner arrow, and perhaps an archaic type arrow, it would look pretty good. (What type of arrow would someone have drawn in the 18th Century, is anyone here a history major and can provide an example?). Like Eske says, this is a prototype. I’m all for the idea, so let’s get it out and improve it as we go.

For the future, Marshall, does the map work on Cartesian (X and Y) coordinates? Because if so, you could program the 3 separate arrows to appear a single curve passing through the point you have selected for each territory. This would generate a single smooth curve, which is more or less unique for each route, instead of three separate straight arrows (you might add dots where the curve passes through each territory, and save the arrow head for the end). This would make the map look like a map I imagine you might see in a WW1 general’s headquarters. Somebody on this site must be able to give you the formula for a parabola passing through one to three points.

I don't think they had arrows back then, just straight lines. I believe arrows were invented by John Q. Mapmaker in 1874

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis
I'm playing with it a bit to see what works best. They look better without going through the screen paint JPEG conversion but they are manually drawn arrows. I need to find an arrow drawing tool kit to make it look the time (Lines simply weren't that straight in the 19th century). I see what you're saying though. If there are a ton of moves then it could become a bit confusing in the ALL mode but I haven't seen that yet. It's a a start. I believe Jimmer had this idea a while ago???

I don't recall having it, but now that it's on the table:

The curves can go from one space to the next only, with a new arrow starting up at each node. It would have much the same effect as a continuous arrow, but still be segmented.

NOTE: It doesn't bother me at all to have straight arrows. However, I would start and end them in the "middle" of the area, not from the hotspot for the corps counters. Perhaps have the start and end spaces be the position of the forage value number?

Also, I would have them be translucent, not opaque (or, allow the option). They could overlap with a corps at some point (for example, if the corps in question moved NE instead of SE in your example picture), and you would want the ability to still get to the corps and see them.

[Marshall Ellis]

Sorry about accusing you of that idea I swore it was you??? So then who was it? DB?

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Sorry about accusing you of that idea I swore it was you??? So then who was it? DB?

Oh, I just said I didn't recall it. It could have been me, but I don't remember.

They say memory is the second thing to go.

[obsidiandrag]

we forget whats first...

[Dancing Bear]

It was my fault.

I really liked the AAR image on the other thread (well maybe not the searing colours, but the straight lines looked ok)

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Sorry about accusing you of that idea I swore it was you??? So then who was it? DB?

[Marshall Ellis]

Sorry about the lack of mem on my part DB!
Thanks for the idea! I liked it!
I like these civil threads where ideas are brought up and coding is done without someone getting mad

[Dancing Bear]

Sometimes it works. But, as you know, there is only one you, and the real arguments are not over which things should be fixed, but over which should be fixed first. Thanks for putting in the AAR, its a good feature, and keep up the good work.

[Marshall Ellis]

Thanks DB!