Unit Depictions on Screen

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I have no opinion on the nomeclature of naming the Japanese units, but if you are looking for excellent additional historical material to spruce up the game presentation, I would suggest a re-hash of one of my favorite wargaming articles ever. This was a piece in the General in the 1980s for use with the excellent Avalon Hill game Victory in the Pacific (to which WiF owes quite a lot, and I would love to play on a computer), it was a short one page list of all the major Japanese combat ships and how to pronounce them phonetically. I learned most of them pretty well and this has been pretty nice while gaming over the years. Perhaps the ship write-ups already have this?

Where is this list available now ? I'm interested.
I've got my own "French" pronunciation for the Zuikaku, Shokaku, Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu, Soryu, Kongo, Mogami, etc.... and would love to see the phonetic pronunciation.

[brian brian]

Sadly I no longer have my collection of "The General." I'd wager it was in the issue with VitP on the cover but perhaps not.

Here is an example I can recall fairly well I think - Zuikaku = ZWEE kah koo (I hope I got that right, caps for the prime syllable)

[Jimm]

Looking good Steve.

I prefer the Japanese names; unfortunately WiFFE is not consistent as I recall, and uses a predominence of the US nomenclature, with a smattering of the native names.

One nitpicky on the unit appearance, for "Imperial Guard" (and other Guard units), "Gd" looks better as an abbreviation than "Gau."

The oil marker looks good.

[composer99]

I would agree with Jimm: "Gd." looks better than "Gau" (A term used in the Third Reich for political sub-units of territorial organization, alternatively "Gaul" with a letter missing or a charcter from the Squaresoft game Final Fantasy VI) or "Gua" (no idea what the heck that is... Guam? Guano? Guadaloupe?). [:D][:D][:'(]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: composer99

I would agree with Jimm: "Gd." looks better than "Gau" (A term used in the Third Reich for political sub-units of territorial organization, alternatively "Gaul" with a letter missing or a charcter from the Squaresoft game Final Fantasy VI) or "Gua" (no idea what the heck that is... Guam? Guano? Guadaloupe?). [:D][:D][:'(]

When a unit's name is too long the program calculates the maximum # of characters that will fit, chops off the rest and then throws in a period. Elsewhere the full name of the unit appears (e.g., in the unit write up, the unit data panel, etc.).

[composer99]

Would it be too much trouble to arrange it so that "Guard", if it must be shortened or cut down, is "Gd." instead of some other form? Small detail, so if it requires any more than fifteen seconds' work, don't think about it.

[doctormm]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: composer99

I would agree with Jimm: "Gd." looks better than "Gau" (A term used in the Third Reich for political sub-units of territorial organization, alternatively "Gaul" with a letter missing or a charcter from the Squaresoft game Final Fantasy VI) or "Gua" (no idea what the heck that is... Guam? Guano? Guadaloupe?). [:D][:D][:'(]

When a unit's name is too long the program calculates the maximum # of characters that will fit, chops off the rest and then throws in a period. Elsewhere the full name of the unit appears (e.g., in the unit write up, the unit data panel, etc.).

So, is this something to add to the test plan:

Determine that the computer doesn't truncate names into things that would be "inappropriate" (such as certain three or four letter words).

???

(and a smiley just in case)
[;)]

[dale1066]

Do the captured units have to have their colours changed on a horizontal basis? is it possible to have a vertical bar added down a side? or even a corner flashed in the different colour?

[jchastain]

ORIGINAL: dale1066

Do the captured units have to have their colours changed on a horizontal basis? is it possible to have a vertical bar added down a side? or even a corner flashed in the different colour?

I believe, based on Shannon's earlier post, that the base counter will be in the original owners color.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

The graphics for the naval counters are anti-aliased, which means that to change the color around the ship graphic would require another complete graphic of the ship. That's not really feasiable given that any naval unit can be captured by any major power (for example, the Germans end up controlling some Italian naval units after the fall of Italy). The math is # of naval unit bitmaps * 8.

You can likely do various modifications from there. Since the numbers are "known" to the program, I suspect you can change any of the edges and then just draw the numbers onto the counter. But the graphic cannot be overwritten.

I suspect it likely would be possible to do a verticle stripe, but the problem is the graphics are of different size. Look at the Yamato counter in the image above. It stretches nearly to the edge. So any verticle stripe would only be able to be at the very edge of the counter to ensure it could accomodate any image.

There is definitely also a point of diminishing returns. Drawing a circle around the graphic and leaving the image with the original builder's color and then painting outside of that circle with the current owner's color was my first thought. But at the end of the day, that's likely a good bit of work for something that is somewhat rare and the stripe across the top and bottom seems almost as good and a heck of a lot simpler. That was my thinking anyway.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: jchastain

ORIGINAL: dale1066

Do the captured units have to have their colours changed on a horizontal basis? is it possible to have a vertical bar added down a side? or even a corner flashed in the different colour?

I believe, based on Shannon's earlier post, that the base counter will be in the original owners color.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

The graphics for the naval counters are anti-aliased, which means that to change the color around the ship graphic would require another complete graphic of the ship. That's not really feasiable given that any naval unit can be captured by any major power (for example, the Germans end up controlling some Italian naval units after the fall of Italy). The math is # of naval unit bitmaps * 8.

You can likely do various modifications from there. Since the numbers are "known" to the program, I suspect you can change any of the edges and then just draw the numbers onto the counter. But the graphic cannot be overwritten.

I suspect it likely would be possible to do a verticle stripe, but the problem is the graphics are of different size. Look at the Yamato counter in the image above. It stretches nearly to the edge. So any verticle stripe would only be able to be at the very edge of the counter to ensure it could accomodate any image.

There is definitely also a point of diminishing returns. Drawing a circle around the graphic and leaving the image with the original builder's color and then painting outside of that circle with the current owner's color was my first thought. But at the end of the day, that's likely a good bit of work for something that is somewhat rare and the stripe across the top and bottom seems almost as good and a heck of a lot simpler. That was my thinking anyway.

I agree.

EDIT: and no blinkies.[:-] They will drive a player nuts in less than 5 minutes.[:)]

[jchastain]

Only a minor point, but I notice the stripe across the top ends at the last pixel of the numbers (while the orange circle extends another 4? pixels). I think it would look better to extend the red stripe down another 2 pixels so as to had it extend slightly beyond the numbers (and make the new stripe at the bottom extend 2 pixels beyond the numbers there as well).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: jchastain

Only a minor point, but I notice the stripe across the top ends at the last pixel of the numbers (while the orange circle extends another 4? pixels). I think it would look better to extend the red stripe down another 2 pixels so as to had it extend slightly beyond the numbers (and make the new stripe at the bottom extend 2 pixels beyond the numbers there as well).

Some of the naval unit graphics intrude quite high into the line of numbers. What I have now is already a compromise. Of lesser importance, it also matches how the lend lease stripe is drawn.

[paulderynck]

I still need to clean up the dirty edges but otherwise it's looking good (graphics from Patrice).

Yeah looking good, but you do want to clip the corners on those Oil counters. We always do that to prevent them sticking to one another. There are only about 14400 corners to clip in a deluxe WiF set.[:)]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

I still need to clean up the dirty edges but otherwise it's looking good (graphics from Patrice).

Yeah looking good, but you do want to clip the corners on those Oil counters. We always do that to prevent them sticking to one another. There are only about 14400 corners to clip in a deluxe WiF set.[:)]

I have special nail clippers just for that task.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I still haven't fixed the dirty corners on some units, but I thought I would show you some of Patrice's recent work on Special unit types.

Besides the saved oil (shown previously) here are the Synthetic oil plants with revised graphics. This is taken from the scenario Decline and Fall (starts in 1944) and you can see some of Germany's nice air units. The captured Norwegian heavy cruiser is interesting. And so if the strong ASW escort.

Oh, and there are two newly constructed fortified hexsides south of Bremen.

[mldtchdog]

Part of the attraction and dedication to WiF for me has always been the artwork of the counters and map. Cwif severly dissapointed me in this aspect. I can't help but shout Hooray over how well MWif is looking! Beautiful!

[Horaf]

I couldn't agree more with Midtchdog.  The looks of the counters here are great, and the faithfulness to the board game is greatly appreciated.
 
 
Could anyone post a screen shot of the US navy pieces?  The BB North Carolina in particular?  I'd like to use it for my forum Icon. 

[Shannon V. OKeets]

There are still naval units that need writeups and we are always looking for more volunteers.

[Froonp]

Strange, look at how the North Carolina name appears on my screen.
Don't look at the color, this is because I'm China when looking at the units.

Seems there is some font problem. The text is more to the bottom on mine, and both lines seems to be very close.
What is the font used by MWiF here ? Maybe I don't have this one ?

[mavraamides]

That screen shot looks AMAZING. Much, better than CWiF which understandably uses greatly simplified graphics. Its going to be a very long 9 months waiting for this game to be released.

As long as we're posting US Navy Icons, any way I can get a screen shot of my favorite Battleship, the USS Iowa?

I want to use that as my icon!

Cheers.