Matrix Games Forums

I darkened my Alt_Naval fleet sides a little to try to make them blend in with Big B, TomLabel and JWE's sides a little better. Anyone who wants to download them just click on the .zip link below.

NOTE: I've only done sides and shils for the standardized gray versions of the ships so far. No color ones yet. Sorry.

http://www.geocities.com/garychildress4 ... _Fleet.zip

And here's the preview.

Another "never-was" ship. This ship is off of Wolf's Shipyard alternative fleet page and is a hypothetical CVE conversion of the Omaha class CL. Just right click and save picture as to get the art but you will have to do a little cut and paste to get the side and shil for the game from it. [:)]

In 1918 the last of the Hawkins class cruisers Vindictive was converted into a carrier. This is historical fact.

Here's a pic of her as a carrier before she was converted back into a cruiser in 1924:



What if the British had held onto Vindictive as a CVL, improving her in the 1930s. And what if the 3 other cruisers of the Hawkins class had been converted into CVLs as well? Below are three different rebuilds of the Hawkins cruisers. Each one is a little different.



NOTE: Just right click and "save picture as" to get the art. Some cutting and pasting required to make them work in game.

Hello, I am new and many things are new to me that everybody else understands so I must ask questions.

What does it mean to be standardized art. I like your ships best and many others are also standardized and not the same. I have a question too about the Nieu Amsterdam. Is there a picture of it somewhere that I can see. I ask because I think your arts are amazing and I think i see your heart in the passenger ships.

MO

Hello MO, and on behalf of all the artists, thank you very much.

Nothing magic about standard art. A long time ago Matrix wanted some updated art work for the stock and CHS games. I think it was in anticipation of the AE system soon to come.

All that standard means is that the ships and the backgrounds have a consistent scale factor and that both of these have consistent color vectors; things must not only fit against the backgrounds, they must also fit against combat screens, and everything must be consistent as a package, for a commercial product.

It does not mean everything must be a uniform ugly gray (without hue). In fact, there is so much color in the art that it must be in 24k bitmaps. This “gray” business is quite irrelevant, and only came about because the game designers did want the art details obscured by high contrast dazzle paint jobs. So the nominal art was described as “gray”. Unfortunate and misdescriptive, but understandable. There’s gray, and blue, and greenish, and azulish, and rusty hulls, and every combination in between.

Standard is just scale, color vector, and background; everything unified and playing together.

Ciao. John

In answer to your other question, no, not really. Way the game works is once a ship is in theater, it stays there, so the original paradigm would not allow for some nifty boats that only showed up for a month or so – too many opportunities for gamey doo doo.

AE, on the other hand has intro and withdrawal options on a ship-by-ship basis, so we can utilize a few early war ‘monsters’ that we could not accommodate in WiTP-1.

Given the dates, Nieu Amsterdam ain’t in the box. But … yeah, I do like Dutch ships; I came to America on the Maasdam. I can do a Nieu Amsterdam for you. It’s gonna have to fit into the art files and the class and ship files so it won’t be easy, but send me an email and I’ll make the art and show you how to make it happen.

Ciao. John

Thank you very much jwe I think I understand now.
My grand uncle served on Nieu Amsterdam and talked about how the Pacific was just as hot and wet and buggy as the Caribbean but the plants were strange. Since he was there I thought his ship maybe too. Can I ask you to make me a Nieu Amsterdam and take your time. I was on Maasdam to go to university!!! and you sail on Maasdam to America, are you Dutch?

MO

ORIGINAL: Osterhaut
Can I ask you to make me a Nieu Amsterdam and take your time. I was on Maasdam to go to university!!! and you sail on Maasdam to America, are you Dutch?

Yes, I will. I will send an email, glad to do it.

I'm not Dutch. Father was an American, Mother was a German "war bride". Took a while for politics to settle out. They both had some push, but it took 5 years to get us to America. Still have the pictures of Maasdam in the album and the passenger card and my first US passport.

Used to ride the shoulders of the purser and bang out the calls on his glockenspiel. It was January, the seas were big, the ship was rolling, and I was maybe the only passenger that wasn't puking. There was a Brit couple that were really nice and a Dutch and a Belgian gentleman that were right hard seamen and took an interest in a 5 year old boy. Got pictures of them too in the album.

Yes, I would love to do pix of the Dutchness. They can't be in the game, but you asked so nicely, I will comply.

Ciao. John

I thank you very much. I sent you the email. I am always amazed at the differnt people who come here. I will look for you jwe in the future and I thank you.

OMG!!! I have the arts. I am speechless !! Thank you, thank you, thank you. [&o][&o][&o][&o][&o]

small update: complete set of jptops available for CHS (should also work reasonable well for stock). In the plane downloads section.

Absolutely beautiful Cathartes! You are the king of aircraft art by far! I look forward to some Allied tops, as well as tops for AE! Keep up the great work! [&o][&o][&o][&o]

Cathartes is in a class by himself as far as I care.[&o][&o][&o]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

Absolutely beautiful Cathartes! You are the king of aircraft art by far! I look forward to some Allied tops, as well as tops for AE! Keep up the great work! [&o][&o][&o][&o]

ORIGINAL: Big B

Cathartes is in a class by himself as far as I care.[&o][&o][&o]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

Absolutely beautiful Cathartes! You are the king of aircraft art by far! I look forward to some Allied tops, as well as tops for AE! Keep up the great work! [&o][&o][&o][&o]

Couldn't agree more!!!!!![&o][&o][&o]

out of curiosity - if you scaled the planes so that a fighter was its true size next to a bomber would the image get sharper and possible to add more detail - or would the image be too small

ORIGINAL: undercovergeek

out of curiosity - if you scaled the planes so that a fighter was its true size next to a bomber would the image get sharper and possible to add more detail - or would the image be too small

If fighters were their true size next to a B-29 plane side obviously there will be a loss in detail. Bigger is always better when it comes to detail. Personally I don't think scaled plane art would be worth the trouble.

I agree with Gary. These planes are already minuscule. Scaling them properly is maddening, and you would be looking at some fighters with a wingspan of 12 pixels or less--impossible to show reasonable detail.

All of it is a matter of taste and philosophy: I get that scale is more of a realism/immersion factor for some than the actual appearance of the art. If/when there's a WITP II that supports higher screen resolutions proper scale and more detailed art could be used for aircraft.

ORIGINAL: Cathartes

I agree with Gary. These planes are already minuscule. Scaling them properly is maddening, and you would be looking at some fighters with a wingspan of 12 pixels or less--impossible to show reasonable detail.

All of it is a matter of taste and philosophy: I get that scale is more of a realism/immersion factor for some than the actual appearance of the art. If/when there's a WITP II that supports higher screen resolutions proper scale and more detailed art could be used for aircraft.

I'd agree with that more or less. What I tend do do is have 4E planes use the entire 'box', 2E and single engine bombers take up less and fighters are smaller than those. I tend to apply that to both sides and any tops I've done. That way there's some indication of scale without any actual tiny aeroplanes [:D]

Anyone still here? If so I'm looking for the background art used for making the shipbacks and shils??? If anyone could send them to me I'd be entirely grateful [:)][:D][&o][&o]