Matrix Games Forums

Too Cool!


I'll take it for a spin.

thks for your efforts R2



MM

Thanks about new palette[:)]. Btw, what comes that SPMBT/WW2-thing, I have nothing against "default" palette but I came to think if Riitaoja has already made any "experimental" (maybe even better than default) alternative palette... If not, it's ok[:'(]. Case closed.

Well, the palette is really nice, thanks R2.

But if there's no interest in an icon update for the units I suggested, I'm not going to do it.

Not to sound like a snob. But I spent several years of my free time on a Civil War mod for another SP derivative, and released it.. and alas, there was no interest.

So I've learned my lesson.

Major Mess, any word?

Matt, if I may give my two cents. I personaly edit SPWAW only for my own use and then if I think I have done something interesting I release it for others too. So I would suggest that you only edit the icons if you are going to use them and enjoy them yourself. This way you will never feel burnt-out or unsatisfied. [:)]

ORIGINAL: Matt R

But if there's no interest in an icon update for the units I suggested, I'm not going to do it.

Major Mess, any word?

Matt:

Gosh, I sure don't want to stop you from plinking away at that, your work is wonderful - In this Genre I consider you an artist. [:'(]
But, and like a Kardashian .... this is a big but ......... I had not really given much thought to further refine the game until R2 presented his wonderful palette.

I also wouldn't want you to spend much time on what is supposedly a dead-end project. (though not to be too disrespectful to anyone reading this, the many fans of ASL/SPWaW and Matrix have been down this path ... how many times now?? Past performances indicate that we could be playing SPWaW for the next 10 - 20 years before a certain Gaming Company gets off their collective duffs).

I dunno.

My attentions have been elsewhere.........
It took a tonne of time and energy to get it to this point, TBH I thought when I first put out the first version of the game that I was done, my mission was completed but that was not to be. And that was a good thing, we got some like-minded people together and fixed a whole bunch of stuff to let the game work as it is supposed to.
My vision complete!! [:)]

I've been devoting as much time as I can lately trying to see if we can sort out this Artillery bug once and for all. It's the last big hurdle.
I've finally got an account at sourceforge and I'm in the process of cranking out a letter to the dev of the DxWnd program. Using just his app we can get dual-core, and i5 processors to work kinda seamlessly. I'm hoping that once he sees what we're up against, he can advise as to what settings we should use, and more importantly maybe I can convince him to see if he can develop a true fix for this.
He's constantly updating his prog, and seems to truly take on any challenge presented to him.

It's a shot in the dark, but what the hell, it might just work for us.
If not, as far as I can tell (keep in mind this is coming from someone that doesn't really know what he's doing ) the next step would be to have the mech.exe torn apart and looked at by someone that Does know what he/she is doing. I'm not sure what that all entails, but, one thing at a time.
That's where my focus has been lately.




Having typed all of that ......... if you're into it, I'm into it [:)].
Those Icons look awesome.
You make 'em, I'll distribute them in a package.
How's that??

Matt, if you could send me a copy of your work so far, I'll plug it into my test bed and check them out (tho I already know how good they'll be).
thks.

Now, without getting too far ahead of ourselves ...... requests on what to tackle next tank icon-wise.
Alby was talking to me about his angst towards, and undying unhappiness concerning all the various Stuart tank icons. Could that be a future project??
Can we keep Alby in bliss and contentment?




HEY MATT!!!!!!
I just had a thought that I wanna mention right now. Yeah ... ha ha ha, don't hurt yourself Geoff.
This project was for way down the road, after I had done everything else LOL.
One of my pet peeves about the game is the scale presented to the player. What I mean is that the god-damned roads are waaaaaay to clunky for my likings. To my eye they somewhat inhibit the imagination due to their largeness.

What I would like to see (for starters) is the set of dirt road icons reduced in width by half.
Is that doable by a dufus such as myself? I've tried in the past to fart around with this, but I was in way over my head and nothing came of it. There was an umpteen amount of steps to take to adjust the road icons, I wonder if a program like AutoHotKey could simplify the process.
Could you give me a lesson, or steer me towards a tutorial or something. [&o]
Does anyone else want to get their hands dirty?

After the dirt roads, then the hiways, and then .... then we could ..... oh boy, I gotta stop.

I tell ya, if I can pull this one off, I'll be cranking out updates left and right.




OK, I'm stopping this convo for now cuz I should surface back up into the real world for a while.


cheers to you all


MM

ORIGINAL: Major Mess
I've finally got an account at sourceforge and I'm in the process of cranking out a letter to the dev of the DxWnd program. Using just his app we can get dual-core, and i5 processors to work kinda seamlessly. I'm hoping that once he sees what we're up against, he can advise as to what settings we should use, and more importantly maybe I can convince him to see if he can develop a true fix for this.
He's constantly updating his prog, and seems to truly take on any challenge presented to him.

It's a shot in the dark, but what the hell, it might just work for us.
If not, as far as I can tell (keep in mind this is coming from someone that doesn't really know what he's doing ) the next step would be to have the mech.exe torn apart and looked at by someone that Does know what he/she is doing. I'm not sure what that all entails, but, one thing at a time.
That's where my focus has been lately.

Contacting the DxWnd guy is an interesting idea. He seems to know alot about the inner workings of DirectDraw/DirectX and old games. If he could create a new fix for the artillery issue that would be great indeed.


I have been thinking about another way to fix the artillery screen that involves running the game through a virtual pc. To my understanding SPWAW should run fine with Oracle Virtual Box or similar virtual pc emulator however I think the largest issue there is that it needs another working copy of Windows. I imagine not everyone has an old copy of Windows 98 or WinXP lying around to use for that.

Now I have been keeping an eye on ReactOS which claims to be a Free clone of Windows 2000/XP. The idea ofcourse is that with a combination of Virtual Box (or VMWare Player) and ReactOS one would have a fully functioning emulated PC that could run SPWAW without any issues. I have not tested this yet but I am going to give it a try when I get the time and report back on my findings.

ORIGINAL: Riitaoja2

Matt, if I may give my two cents. I personaly edit SPWAW only for my own use and then if I think I have done something interesting I release it for others too.

I hear you, bro. I don't play it enough to want to mod it for my own use, but I always have the itch to draw something, and I want the community to have something.. it's a revolving door.

Thanks R2, I do value your input.

ORIGINAL: Riitaoja2


Contacting the DxWnd guy is an interesting idea. He seems to know alot about the inner workings of DirectDraw/DirectX and old games. If he could create a new fix for the artillery issue that would be great indeed.


I have been thinking about another way to fix the artillery screen that involves running the game through a virtual pc. To my understanding SPWAW should run fine with Oracle Virtual Box or similar virtual pc emulator however I think the largest issue there is that it needs another working copy of Windows. I imagine not everyone has an old copy of Windows 98 or WinXP lying around to use for that.

Now I have been keeping an eye on ReactOS which claims to be a Free clone of Windows 2000/XP. The idea ofcourse is that with a combination of Virtual Box (or VMWare Player) and ReactOS one would have a fully functioning emulated PC that could run SPWAW without any issues. I have not tested this yet but I am going to give it a try when I get the time and report back on my findings.

IMHO, you're going to be promoted to R3 in no time at all. [:'(]



That's interesting, I hadn't heard about ReactOS. I've got to take a look at that.

I do seem to remember someone, somewhere, probably during the Dark Days when Win 7 Ruled Supreme trying to run the game in a VM (I can't recall any of the details, and my Google Fu is failing me ATM [:@]).
IIRC there were issues.
I want to say the game had serious lag, I can't remember.


Doesn't Matter!
We have a new avenue to explore.
Better Gear!, Newer Tech!, ............... how can this go wrong?
Don't answer that. [:-]

This is p cool R2.
I'm looking forward to your findings.


Cheers


Major Mess

ORIGINAL: Matt R

ORIGINAL: Riitaoja2

Matt, if I may give my two cents. I personaly edit SPWAW only for my own use and then if I think I have done something interesting I release it for others too.

I hear you, bro. I don't play it enough to want to mod it for my own use, but I always have the itch to draw something, and I want the community to have something.. it's a revolving door.

Thanks R2, I do value your input.

If this game was not stuck and the doors were opened for doing something with it.Then your work would be appreciated because these boards would be full of posters interested in playing SPWAW re-done.

I just wanted you guys, especially Major Mess, know that I truly appreciate your efforts.

I have yet to see a tactical war-game that can compare to "the old gray lady." (nickname of old Chicago Stadium). Some, perhaps even many, think that there have been better games. I don't believe it, especially in the area of the Pacific theater.

Until that day comes, make mine SPWAW.

Ah.. there you are, Geoff [8D]

ORIGINAL: Major Mess
I also wouldn't want you to spend much time on what is supposedly a dead-end project.

Meh. I don't play it anywhere near what I used to, but it's still MY GAME [:)]

ORIGINAL: Major Mess
You make 'em, I'll distribute them in a package.
How's that??

That's really what I wanted to hear. Now I do feel bad about my last post. I tried to keep my Civil War mod a secret because I wanted to approach the certain-somebodies of the other SP game with a request for a few code changes after I had done as much as I could. Talks began to taking it in another direction, I was delighted, talks fell through, and after posting the mod as it was.. not quite a hundred downloads and three or four people offering feedback. Needless to say, I was very disappointed.

It's no one's fault, it's just that the interest wasn't there when I assumed it would be. No one to be mad at. But still disappointed. So as you might imagine, I'm a little on guard when it comes to mods now. Soooo.. in penance for my presumptuousness and arrogance, I shall slap myself silly for ten minutes. That should do the trick.

ORIGINAL: Major Mess
Matt, if you could send me a copy of your work so far, I'll plug it into my test bed and check them out (tho I already know how good they'll be).
thks.

I'll message you what I've got so far. Only the T-34/85 and T-34/76 M41, plus those two jagdpanzers, but I'll keep cranking 'em out and send them on.

ORIGINAL: Major Mess
Now, without getting too far ahead of ourselves ...... requests on what to tackle next tank icon-wise.
Alby was talking to me about his angst towards, and undying unhappiness concerning all the various Stuart tank icons. Could that be a future project?? Can we keep Alby in bliss and contentment?

Christ in Heaven, yes we must keep Alby in a good mood! I'll go in and take a look.

ORIGINAL: Major Mess
One of my pet peeves about the game is the scale presented to the player. What I mean is that the god-damned roads are waaaaaay to clunky for my likings. To my eye they somewhat inhibit the imagination due to their largeness. What I would like to see (for starters) is the set of dirt road icons reduced in width by half.

I agree, the scaling is a serious issue with the way things are. A lot of the smaller vehicles seem to be way out of scale, like the Panzer IB. The scale I was taught, and the scale I've been using, is 1 pixel in the game = 6 inches in real life. Of course, there has to be a little wiggle room with some icons, otherwise they'd be too small to see. I've attached a comparison graphic to illustrate. I'll get after the roads once I'm done with the unit icons.

ORIGINAL: Major Mess
Is that doable by a dufus such as myself? I've tried in the past to fart around with this, but I was in way over my head and nothing came of it. There was an umpteen amount of steps to take to adjust the road icons, I wonder if a program like AutoHotKey could simplify the process.

It is a SERIOUS pain in the butt to edit terrain icons. Take my word for it. It's very doable, just extremely tedious and labor-intensive. And you have to rinse and repeat for each zoom level.. though there is a trick using another game. I'll see if I can't make something happen.

Good to see that you're still leading the way, Geoff!

Done with the T-34 family, then on to the KVs and SUs.

These are all the T-34s for which SP:WaW has an icon association. Hope I got them all, I checked through each nation in the OB editor. Please let me know if I missed any.

Matt these look great[:D] Especially Finnish ones[:'(] When you are going to upload them for d/l?

I want to play around with the unit icons in the game.
In what file are they stored and how to open and edit those files?
Does anyone have a tool for me that allows access to those graphics?

ORIGINAL: sami heimola

Matt these look great[:D] Especially Finnish ones[:'(] When you are going to upload them for d/l?

Thanks buddy, I knew you'd get a kick out of the Finnish stuff [;)]
Though the Finn M43 is way too dark now that I look at it again.

I want to get everything done before I upload any SHPs.

ORIGINAL: RichardAckermann

I want to play around with the unit icons in the game.
In what file are they stored and how to open and edit those files?
Does anyone have a tool for me that allows access to those graphics?

Hi Richard -

Go to the Chlanda subfolder in the main SP:WaW directory. You'll see a program called SHPED. It's a program that converts the game's icon files, called SHPs, into BMP files that can be edited. Very, very easy to use, just takes some using to get the hang of it. I've been using it for, oh, sixteen years, so it's reflexive by now

PM me if you get hung up on it. Also PM me if you ever need any help with artwork.. I can teach you my method for the small sum of a six-pack of beer [:)]

Dem icons lookin' mighty fine mister.





MM

The finnish camouflage looks great!


By the way if I remember correctly the finnish three color camouflage (brown,green,grey) came to use in 1943. Before that the tanks were just dark green in color. Also after 1945 the colors went back to the dark green.

So an OOB designer could take this into account similary as the Germans have those grey colors until 1943 when the camoflage changes.

ORIGINAL: Matt R

ORIGINAL: Major Mess
One of my pet peeves about the game is the scale presented to the player. What I mean is that the god-damned roads are waaaaaay to clunky for my likings. To my eye they somewhat inhibit the imagination due to their largeness. What I would like to see (for starters) is the set of dirt road icons reduced in width by half.

I agree, the scaling is a serious issue with the way things are. A lot of the smaller vehicles seem to be way out of scale, like the Panzer IB. The scale I was taught, and the scale I've been using, is 1 pixel in the game = 6 inches in real life. Of course, there has to be a little wiggle room with some icons, otherwise they'd be too small to see. I've attached a comparison graphic to illustrate. I'll get after the roads once I'm done with the unit icons.

[&o] [&o] [&o] [&o]
This would be so awesome!

ORIGINAL: Riitaoja2

The finnish camouflage looks great! By the way if I remember correctly the finnish three color camouflage (brown,green,grey) came to use in 1943. Before that the tanks were just dark green in color. Also after 1945 the colors went back to the dark green.

Ah.. TCW has spoiled us! [:'(]

Apparently Matrix made unique icons for the Finnish Soviet-built armor. We're stuck with one icon for each unit for the span of the game. You could get by, by making the camo on say, a Finnish KV in green until 1943, then replace it with a camoflage KV that uses the camoflage icon from 1943 onwards. But your OB would become incomprehensibly cluttered.