Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Froonp

I was again looking at the weather graphics, and they look really good !

If there was a sound of thunder and pourring rain as ambient sound, when the map displayed on the screen is mostly under Storm, this would complete the "storm" effect very nicely, up to the point of going grap the nearest umbrella.

Storm --> sound of thunder and pourring rain.
Rain --> sound of falling rain.
Snow --> ?
Blizzard --> sound of howling wind.
Fine weather --> sound of birds singing, nature...

Those sounds would play all the time, and would cycle around at low volume to form a sound background.

What about mixing in some military sounds?

Storm --> sound of thunder, wind, and pourring rain, mixed with occational thundering artillery
Rain --> sound of falling rain, mixed with rifle shots, and occational machine gun fire
Snow --> Sound of a boots marching by in dry snow (very particular sound), distant thunder (bombs)
Blizzard --> sound of howling wind, occational single rifle shots
Fine weather --> sound of birds singing, nature, as well as tanks driving. Fighter sweeps.

Frequency of military sounds could depend on density of military units in the area watched.

ORIGINAL: wosung

I like it. Shows, how important weather is.

Perhaps a white outline (like in "Mediterranean Sea") for making the black-printed location names more visual in storm? Vice versa for white printed names in Blizzard?

Regards

Here is what that looks like. The white and maroon names have a thin black outline.

And here is the one for white shadows for the dark names

And another showing that the white shadow is not used against a rain background (e.g. Bandar Abbas). I will add blue labels to receive white shadows to the set of colors (right now it is black and maroon labels only).

4th and last in series. By comparison, here is fine weather for the previous screen shot. A single mouse click switches the weather overlays on and off.

I meant to mention that the weather overlays are 4 simple bitmaps, so if players want to change them, that's easy to do.

Great!

Location names are much more readable now.

Comes rain or shine. [8D]

Here's an idea: why not animated snow and rain faling on each hex like the snow falling on the Matrix games logo at the top of this page?[:D]

ORIGINAL: rtamesis

Here's an idea: why not animated snow and rain faling on each hex like the snow falling on the Matrix games logo at the top of this page?[:D]

I gave it some consideration but decided against it for several reasons:

1 - I didn't think the programming effort was worth the gain in glitz
2 - It could become very annoying after playing the game for an hour (the human eye is naturally drawn to moving objects)
3 - The player changes what is seen on the screen frequently, calling up forms, zooming in and out, scrolling around on the map, which makes the snow/rain effects hard to maintain. Specifically, the moving images should theoretically drift over the portion of the visible map but not continue their movement over a form that is placed on top of the map.

Which brings me back to point #1.

Here is what I have come up with for the weather zone boundary colors.

The dark blue is a sea area boundary. The light blue is also a sea area boundary but one that overlies a weather zone boundary. The white is a weather zone boundary that does nnot overlie any other boundary.

Here is another view (higher zoom level) that shows the difference between a simple sea area boundary and one that overlies a weather zone boundary. Note the the little dark blue line that runs into the Norwegian coastal hex indicates that the hex is adjacent to 2 sea areas but is wholely in one weather zone. If you look in the lower right, you'll see that when a weather zone boundary overlies a country border, I am using the color pink to indicate that. The idea is that the lighter colors (light versus dark blue and pink versus maroon) indicate the weather zone boundary (usually white) overlies another boundary.

Another example of weather zone boundaries that overlie country borders. If this looks a little confusing, that is because it is. If you are trying to determine the weather boundary, then think of the pink as being white. If you are trying to determine the country borders, then think of the pink as maroon. it takes a little practice, but it is doable.

The same area at a lower zoom level. It is pretty easy to figure out where the Arctic weather zone is, versus the temperate.

This screen shot shows the different thicknesses of the pink lines. The white weather zone boundary is always 3 pixels wide over land. The pink is either 3 or 5 pixels wide depending on the type of country border. Subcountries (e.g., Transylvania) have a thinner border line.

This screen shot shows my only real concern. Here the use of white (still only 3 pixels wide) is very forceful against the the all sea blue. While that bothers me somewhat, the strange contour of the weather zone boundary is quite important here, from a player's point of view. So, is the heightened visual image undesireable?

P.S. I just noticed that the changes I made to the code eliminated the default thin black hex grid lines. That's easy to correct. Since I have already generated the 12 screen shots for this series, I've decided to not redo them.

Here is the only zoom level where the blue weather zone boundaries are a little difficult to see. They can still be found though, and I don't think this is a serious problem.

This screen shot show the white weather zone boundary in combination with the white/closed Burma Road. This doesn't seem to be a problem. I'll probably change the color of the closed Burma Road to an off-white.

Here is one of the more confusing sea area - weather zone boundary places in the Pacific. It makes me wonder if the weather zone for the southern islands is correct.

This screen shot is at zoom level 1 (the lowest). I think the weather zone boundary colors work well here.

Another view over land, in an area where you are unlikely to be very knowledgable. It takes a little effort to determine the weather zone boundaries and the country borders, but it's not that difficult. Again, the problem is really the confusing overlap of the segmentation of the countries and the weather zones, rather than the choice of colors.