Unit Depictions on Screen

[c92nichj]

And the software for converting BMP directly to JPEG is?

I usually end up using paint which comes with Windows, just open a picture as bitmap amd save it as jpeg.

[c92nichj]

Off on the horizon is the issue of the status boxes, the choice of their colors and other manipulations to convey come of the items you mentioned.

Talking about the status boxes are they slightly larger than the counter itself? To me it looks like there is an extra pixel on each side of the counter. Is that intentional or could you use that extra pixel to add a tiny 3-D effect to the counters.

[c92nichj]

White print numbers with white NATO interiors for all elite units should be be enough to distinguish them from their regular army counterparts. It is only the Commonwealth member nations that present a problem and that is because several of you would like to make their NATO interiors match what is on the counter sheets (a good and noble thing to do since the counter sheet versions are beautiful). I am trying to accommodate that desire but these past couple of dozen posts should give you an idea of what all the contraints there are in choosing colors.

Minors do also have white print units how would for example my avatar look like the Mannerheim HQ?
Like a German HQ? What would happend to the blue finish interior? Would it be white?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj

And the software for converting BMP directly to JPEG is?

I usually end up using paint which comes with Windows, just open a picture as bitmap amd save it as jpeg.

Thanks, I'll try that.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj

Off on the horizon is the issue of the status boxes, the choice of their colors and other manipulations to convey come of the items you mentioned.

Talking about the status boxes are they slightly larger than the counter itself? To me it looks like there is an extra pixel on each side of the counter. Is that intentional or could you use that extra pixel to add a tiny 3-D effect to the counters.

Yes, the status boxes are 2 pixels wider than the unit depiction proper. The unit depiction proper fits inside the hexagon perfectly. The status boxes overhang at the top and there can be up to 4 of them, each above the other: 1 full height and 3 half height. They also have a number appended to their top that indicates the number of units in the hex. For naval stacks that number can get quite large.

The reason the status boxes are wider is that I (and Chris before me) want each box the same width. 96/6 = 16 pixels wide per status box. But there has to be room for the dividing lines and there are 5 dividing lines plus the 2 end lines so we are up to 103 pixels wide (the unit box is 96). Trimming the status box width to 15 gives us 97 - arrgh. Chris let the last pixel overhang at the right which I thought looked lopsided. So I changed the last box to 16 wide and shoved the whole mess 1 to the right so it would be symmetrical.

Using the 2 pixels for shadowing would also require using another 1 or 2 at the bottom. I didn't (and still don't) think the gain is worth it. It looks cleaner when the units fit in the hex.

Here is your avatar. I want to add FIN to the right at 90 degrees.

[stretch]

ha I didn't even notice the status box overhang in that shot until i ready your description of it. Now that I see it, I notice it all the time, but the fact that I didn't notice at first should mean that it isn't a big deal , yah?

that pic looks nice, less loss of clarity in the conversion I guess. Lookin good.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: stretch
that pic looks nice, less loss of clarity in the conversion I guess. Lookin good.

Yeah, I cut out the CorelDraw middle man. Here's a revisit of the German SS

[stretch]

Nice. I love that 12-5 SS Arm. I have always had an uncanny ability to never draw it from the force pool. Argh. I swear it could be the only counter left in the pool and I'd reach in and magically pull out something else.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: stretch
Nice. I love that 12-5 SS Arm. I have always had an uncanny ability to never draw it from the force pool. Argh. I swear it could be the only counter left in the pool and I'd reach in and magically pull out something else.

My mother would never let me draw my own tiles in Scrabble (from out of an opaque bag) - she accused me (her very own son![X(]) of feeling the blank tiles with my fingertips. [:D] I guess I had it coming, when we use to draw tiles that were placed face down on the table, I could tell from their backs which were the blanks. In fact that is why we started using an opaque bag, now that I think of it.

My advice is that practice makes perfect when drawing counters.[;)]

[c92nichj]

My advice is that practice makes perfect when drawing counters

And how can we apply this in MWIF, will practice get me to draw better units there aswell?

[stretch]

I'm hoping that the unbiased computer will overpower my bad luck when drawing from a bag (or cup, or whatever). I hereby offer my services to beta test the effects of bad karma on a random number generator.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj

My advice is that practice makes perfect when drawing counters

And how can we apply this in MWIF, will practice get me to draw better units there aswell?

It's all in the fingertips.

About the Finnish counters. We have been discussing using the same gray unit color that the Germans have for Germnay's aligned countries. That would make the Finns look more like the board game counter sheets.

I have tested the code for capturing naval units and their colors convert to the colors of the country that captured them. That was Chris' solution and I am happy enough with it to not want to spend time recoding it to do something else. I'll apply that logic to the Bearn and the Yugoslav cruiser the Italians captured, etcetera.

Right now I am leaning towards Chris' (CWIF's) solution to the various units with dual affiliations:

1 - Captured units are repainted to match the new owner.

2 - Permantently acquired units are repainted to match the new owner (e.g., Netherlands naval units, Norwegian transport, Bearn).

3 - Lend leased units get a horizontal middle stripe the color of the country from whence they came (since they are mostly owned by the controlling player, there is less of the original owning country's color).

4 - Loaned units get a horizontal bottom stripe for color of the borrowing player (mostly owned by the original player, so there is more of that color).

5 - Units from aligned minor countries are recolored to match the controlling major power. Some notable exceptions are Poland, Spain, and Turkey which are left as is. This decision primarily affects units from the Balkans, southern Asia, and South America.

[stretch]

1 - Captured units are repainted to match the new owner.

2 - Permanently acquired units are repainted to match the new owner (e.g., Netherlands naval units, Norwegian transport, Bearn).

3 - Lend leased units get a horizontal middle stripe the color of the country from whence they came (since they are mostly owned by the controlling player, there is less of the original owning country's color).

4 - Loaned units get a horizontal bottom stripe for color of the borrowing player (mostly owned by the original player, so there is more of that color).

After reading through these a couple times I don't have any immediate complaints.

5 - Units from aligned minor countries are recolored to match the controlling major power. Some notable exceptions are Poland, Spain, and Turkey which are left as is. This decision primarily affects units from the Balkans, southern Asia, and South America.

Will there be any type of info remaining that with a quick visual glance one can tell the country (other than by the unit name)? I know it doesn't really matter but it adds to the richness of the experience. Maybe something like the commonwealth units which have a center color and a letter or two showing if its canadian, indian, south african, etc. Speaking of which, I assume that is reproduced. I don't recall seeing any of them in the unit pics posted earlier in this thread.

It may be stupid but if #5 makes aligned minor units look exactly like the major powes units, I think we lose a tiny bit of aesthetic appeal. I could get over it, of course.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: stretch

5 - Units from aligned minor countries are recolored to match the controlling major power. Some notable exceptions are Poland, Spain, and Turkey which are left as is. This decision primarily affects units from the Balkans, southern Asia, and South America.

Will there be any type of info remaining that with a quick visual glance one can tell the country (other than by the unit name)? I know it doesn't really matter but it adds to the richness of the experience. Maybe something like the commonwealth units which have a center color and a letter or two showing if its canadian, indian, south african, etc. Speaking of which, I assume that is reproduced. I don't recall seeing any of them in the unit pics posted earlier in this thread.

It may be stupid but if #5 makes aligned minor units look exactly like the major powes units, I think we lose a tiny bit of aesthetic appeal. I could get over it, of course.

The piece of information you are missing, (because I haven't finished coding it yet), is that: all non-major power land units will get a letter abbreviation to the right of their NATO symbol. On the counter sheets you see this as RU, HU, PO, FI, BU, PE, AR, CH, CO, SI, CZE, SWE, SWI, GRE, NET, NEI. I am still pondering upper and lower case and whether to standardize on 3 letters or not.

[Rorgg]

Standardize on either the ISO 2-letter abbreviations or the Olympic 3-letter abbreviations, inventing to fill in where necessary. A mix is just messy.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Rorgg

Standardize on either the ISO 2-letter abbreviations or the Olympic 3-letter abbreviations, inventing to fill in where necessary. A mix is just messy.

Ok. That's sounds like a good suggestion.

Could you point me to a reference for them?

[stretch]

Possibly these ?

2 Letter ISO

3 letter olympic

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: stretch

Possibly these ?

2 Letter ISO

3 letter olympic

Oh, how lovely. [:)] I'll go with the 3 letters since they should be easier for the players to figure out.

Thank you very much Stretch and Rorgg.

[Greyshaft]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Oh, how lovely. [:)] I'll go with the 3 letters since they should be easier for the players to figure out.

You'll need a bit of poetic licence for Yugoslavia [:)]

[Frederyck]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Yeah, I cut out the CorelDraw middle man. Here's a revisit of the German SS

The counters look wonderful. Excellent job! I have one question, though. The MOTs have their small filled in circles "the wheels" only tangentially touching the rectangle above. On the real life counters, it looks like they are somewhat more overlapping. Is this an effect of the larger images on screen?