Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Ballista

FWIW, I think it would be nice- but not at the cost of time better spent elsewhere....

Wot Ballista said... OK?

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets


It is trivial for me to do by changing the 3 shades of blue I am using for the rivers and lakes.

Maybe you could post a map section with all three river shades for everyone to consider...like you did with anchors and whatnot.

Peter

ORIGINAL: pak19652002

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
It is trivial for me to do by changing the 3 shades of blue I am using for the rivers and lakes.

Maybe you could post a map section with all three river shades for everyone to consider...like you did with anchors and whatnot.

Peter

I have changed the colors for the inland rivers, while the coastal rivers are the old color - they mathc the paper maps. You should be able to see the difference most clearly when the Elbe enters the hex Hamburg is in. The Oder flows from a forest hex to a clear terrain hex so the visual difference there is partly due to the change in the river color and partly due to the change in terrain. Compare the river in the hex southeast of Stettin with the ones near Leipzig and Dresden. I also got a bit of the rivers running through the mountains in this screen shot - at the bottom.

Here is one for the rivers in France. I have not changed the interior color of the rivers, because it is the same as for the lakes. I could go for a tint that is a closer match to that of the lightest blue where the ocean meets the coast line. They don't quite match presently.

The last in the series. Here you can see that besides the rivers becoming more forceful, the lakes do too. This screen shot shows the rivers running through the swamps. Again, the color of blue for the lakes matches the interior blue of the rivers. I tried going with a solid dark blue, and the lakes looked like blue ink blots.

Would it be possible to see this at a higher level (e.g. like the posting of Spain earlier a few pages back- it was the one where it seems the rivers were not visible enough and kind of brought out my concerns) ? They seem fine close up- but at higher levels it might make a difference...

I realized, I should be showing these to you at differnet zoom levels. The previous oines were all at level 8 (max).

Here is level 6.

Here is level 5 zoom.

Lastly, here is level 4 zoom (the same as CWIF's 100%)

The original color sets for the rivers appear best to me, though the ugliness of the current images might be due to jpg color conversion (the darker blue seems to clash with the background colors on occasion, the lines also seem too thick (which is a natural effect of raising the contrast level)).

I like the darker river outlines a lot. Anything to increase the contrast, particularly at lower zoom levels.

Peter

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

The last in the series. Here you can see that besides the rivers becoming more forceful, the lakes do too. This screen shot shows the rivers running through the swamps. Again, the color of blue for the lakes matches the interior blue of the rivers. I tried going with a solid dark blue, and the lakes looked like blue ink blots.

I like the lakes better like this.

River colour changes are fine for version 2.6! I am sure you have other things to do and even us colour blind types have no issue with them.

At the zooom level 4 as shown, the rivers are clearly visible and an improvement on the CWiF rivers I think.

Ar least from my experience most of CWiF play did occur at this zoom level and I would expect that to remain so for the MWiF program.

Perhaps the resource markers could be made larger or more contrasting though.

Lars

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

At the zooom level 4 as shown, the rivers are clearly visible and an improvement on the CWiF rivers I think.

Ar least from my experience most of CWiF play did occur at this zoom level and I would expect that to remain so for the MWiF program.

Perhaps the resource markers could be made larger or more contrasting though.

Lars

Better resource markers are on their way, along with all the other map icons. Hopefully I'll have them in my hot little hands in the next couple of days.

-----------------------

Changing the rivers to a darker blue will only take an hour or so - at most. I figure I might as well get them the way most of the players will want them. This is just a little side issue for me. I focus most of my energy on more important (and difficult) things.

I notice that the hex overlay is on top of the rivers. Is that:

A. Intentional?
B. Standard practice in wargames?
C. The best solution?
D. Shut up Greyshaft. You ask too many questions!

I prefer the darker blue rivers. IMO, this makes the rivers stand out from the background, even at the lower zoom levels - which I prefer, as rivers are quite important features for the gameplay (I did miss some rivers now and then in CWIF and on the paper maps).

Keep up the good work!

- Asger

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

I notice that the hex overlay is on top of the rivers. Is that:

A. Intentional?
B. Standard practice in wargames?
C. The best solution?
D. Shut up Greyshaft. You ask too many questions!

Underlying terrain .... wait for it .... underlies everything else! Rivers are bitmaps superimposed on the underlying terrain.

Next the rail lines are drawn on top, then the hexside/grid and the finally the icons. The units are placed/drawn on top of the map. When I get the graphics for the alpine hexsides, they will replace the regular hexside/grid for the hexsides they cover.

It's not really practical to have the hex grid under the rivers for then I would have to insert the hex grid into the coastal bitmaps when they are preprocessed. Hmmm, I'm drifting into techincal stuff here. Let's just leave it as "not really practical".

Well, the darker rivers show better, but on these screenshots they seem to smudge (I picked this word in the dictionary). I mean that the dark blue line on each sie of the inside of the river seem to smudge over the hex terrain. The lighter color had not this.
Why not have the clear terrain lighter ?
Oh, anyway that's not a big deal, darker or as they were at just before is fine, just it would be better if the color did not smudge.

Cheers !
Patrice

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft
I notice that the hex overlay is on top of the rivers. Is that:
A. Intentional?
B. Standard practice in wargames?
C. The best solution?
D. Shut up Greyshaft. You ask too many questions!

I think this is standard practice.
And don't shut up [;)]