Development Thread #02 - Inside look at counter art

[Crossroads]

To keep things going, I will - in the coming days and weeks - post here about the counter art as how it is implemented in the game.

I will briefly look at the available views:

[*] 2D Zoom-In,
[*] 2D Normal,
[*] 2D Zoom-Out, and
[*] 2D Extreme Zoom-Out,

and what purposes they may play.

I'll also discuss the counters themselves, in two modes:

[*] Standard counters, and
[*] Alternate Counters.

Then, a look at how counter unit graphics are available, again in two modes:

[*] NATO unit symbols or
[*] 2D Unit Graphics.

Finally: For sure this is a topic with different tastes for different folks. For this reason we've made sure there's plenty of room for modding. I'll touch this in detail as well, latest as the game comes out. What you see is what you can mod, in most cases.

In the meanwhile, if you've got any questions regarding map board counters shoot here. We'll make sure to try to answer them all.

English is not my native language so please excuse any grammar errors. I also often put in typos like no other. Anything you don't understand just ask [:)]

Til later!

[Crossroads]

OK so let us get started here.

First, something to keep in mind: Everything shown here is still work in progress though, so things are subject to change.

I am trying to keep the screenies reasonable sized. I have a 1920x1080 monitor so I am resizing the game window a bit smaller. Screenshots posted in this thread are all in actual size.

What you see here is the 2D Zoom-in View, which for me is the view I do play battle secuences for most part. This is from Into Africa, from Yom Kippur War, and what you see here is my little Israeli battle group already west of Suez canal, ie. 'in Africa':



I have opted for:

[*] Standard counters, and
[*] NATO symbols.

I mostly play with NATO symbols and as I've stated in another thread there's some 420 individual NATO unit symbols at the moment, to provide the detailed needed in this platoon sized game.

All NATO symbols are in a dedicated graphics file, so if you want to see some other military symbols this would be the one file to mod. The colors in NATO symbols remain true to the original Campaign Series color, so yellow for infantry, orange for engineers, brown for Anti-tank, pink for armor, green for artillery and so forth. If you'd like to see all white NATO symbols instead, I am considering chucking in a mod with white symbols only.

I however prefer to use the colored ones, for obvious reason of being able to tell what type of units I have in my command.

With counters we are opting for a simple and crisp design. We are not even putting any gloss effects into them, only the edges have the shadows with them. If you want to see something else instead, each nation has a dedicated graphics file for their counters, very easy to modify if you so want. Many of us in the Dev team are boardgame geeks, so at least for me the more everything looks like a boardgame the better [8D]

What else? Not about counters as such, but perhaps worth mentioning:

[*] On the right you see the Hex Info Box, with details of the selected hex, including all units there.
[*] Thermometers are ON, they can be toggled to show either Action points, Morale, or Strength.
[*] Map names are ON, they can be toggled ON/OFF.

Also, I have the Display menu open. As you can see we've put in place a lot of short-key commands! Almost everyone key combo is in use, so once you become familiar with the game series there's no need for a click fest we hope. And even when using the mouse, the Toolbar in the bottom replicates most often used commands as icons, so no need to open up various menu levels.

[*] Toolbar too can be opted OFF, if you prefer not to see it (If you prefer to see larger icons, that is possible as well. I've set it on 'Small')

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads
I am trying to keep the screenies reasonable sized. I have a 1920x1080 monitor so I am resizing the game window a bit smaller. What you see in this thread are all in actual size.

Nope, that is not real size. [:(] I am hosting the screenies in my Photobucket account for now, that seems to mess things up. Once we can attach larger file sizes here I'll edit the post and put in real size instead.


EDIT: Fixed.

[Crossroads]

As an alternative to Standard counters, we offer, err..., Alternative counters.

Here's a screenshot of 'Long Road Home', with Alt counters in place.

This is also a 2D Zoom-in View. I opted to turn off the Toolbar since I don't much use it as I have the short keys well memorized by now.



With Alt counters, we opted for a larger size. Still, we kept a quite basic look with them. They have a neat border, and as a little playing aid, they replicate the NATO symbol color of the unit type in a little colored bar in the bottom. Quite handy with stacked hexes.

If you don't like how they look, very easy to put something else in place instead, as they share the same nation specific graphics file with Std counters [:)]

Instead of NATO symbols, what you see here are the 2D Unit Graphics toggled ON. French unit graphics are yet to go through a second review, vehicles at least are likely to be drawn somewhat larger still. We started with smaller counters originally, but especially as Unit graphics and Alt counters are sort of expected to be used together, there's more space available here so the 2D Unit Graphics got bigger. They still just fit the Std counters too though.

2D Unit graphics are also kept in a dedicated nation specific graphics file, so if you want to put something else in place instead, that would be the place to do it. I have for instance toyed with a neat little Avalon Hill Arab-Israeli Wars boardgame mod, showing some cardboard game counter art instead [;)]

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

... Unit graphics and Alt counters are sort of expected to be used together, there's more space available here.

Having said that, my preferred playing option is Alt counters with NATO symbols. Something like this:



So even with Thermometers toggled ON, you can still see what types of units each stack contains.

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads
So even with Thermometers on, you can still see what types of units each stack contains.

Well not with these image shares you can't. Hopefully I can replace the images with real jpg files soon... EDIT: Fixed!

This is it for now. Any questions or comments let me know!

[Crossroads]

That's the 2D Zoom-in view sorted, I think.

To recap: regarding counters the relevant graphics files in 2D Zoom-in view are:

[*] Icons7d.bmp <- NATO unit symbols, where 7d is the abbreviation for graphics files for 2D Zoom-In view.
[*] Icons7d##.bmp <- Nation specific Unit Graphics, where ## is the Nation ID, for instance 30 for Algeria.
[*] Counters7d##.bmp <- Nation specific counters, with the file including both Std and Alt counters.

Next, let us look at those files one at a time.

[Crossroads]

COUNTERS7D##.BMP <- 2D UNIT COUNTER STD AND ALT SETS

All the counters visible in the map are drawn in two phases, first the counters themselves, then the content within the counters.

Let us look at the Counters7d30.bmp, the counter set for Algeria.

[*] Included in the file are both the Standard and Alternate sets of counters.
[*] The standard file format is four rows of twelve counters for both Std and Alt variants, resulting in a total of 48 individual counters per set.
[*] Each counter off-set (position in the set) is then referred by each unit in their unit parameters.

So here's the Algerian counters as they currently are. As you can see, we've kept the design really nice and simple. You want to see gloss, 3D forms, symbols, this would be the place to mod the counter art.



The colored bars that mark the unit type, especially helpful with stacked counters to find out who's who;

From left to right (as they are at the time of writing this):

[*] Armor
[*] Artillery, including Self Propelled Artillery and Assault Guns
[*] Infantry
[*] Anti-Tank, including Tank Destroyers, anti-tank missile teams, etc
[*] Miscellaneous, including Supplies, factories, what have you
[*] Engineers and Infantry Support, including LMG, HMG, RCLR, RPG squads and platoons
[*] Recce
[*] Helicopters, including other on-map aircraft too, for instance spotter airplanes
[*] Anti-Aircraft, including for instance MANPAD armed squads and platoons
[*] Transports
[*] Commanders
[*] Headquarters

Again, something that can be easily modified to meet ones ideas.

[Crossroads]

ICONS7d##.BMP <- 2D UNIT GRAPHICS

Counters themselves don't have unit data in them, that comes from different files. The 2D Unit Graphics come from nation specific files. Here's a corresponding Algerian Icons7d30.bmp, and its last row.

Again, rows of 12 cells, as many rows as required, referenced by unit parameters in each unit.

Want to see something else as unit graphics in counters, like real pictures or what not, this would be the place to mod.

[Crossroads]

ICONS7D.BMP - NATO UNIT ICONS

Alternatively, one can choose to play the game with NATO unit icons instead. As NATO symbols are the same for each unit type, there's only one file per zoom level.

Here's the first rows of Icons7d.bmp. The color codes are the same as they were in JTCS series of games; West Front, East Front, Rising Sun. Also as you can see, the colored bar in Alt counters match the unit type colors here.

If you prefer to see all white NATO symbols instead, I am planning to chuck in an all-white Icons7d.bmp NATO icon file too.

[Crossroads]

So again:

[*] Counters themselves, in two variants
[*] 2D Unit Graphics, as many as you need
[*] NATO symbols, ca 420 and counting, as many as you need.

Let us now tie everything together.

[Crossroads]

Those familiar with JTCS already know Arkady's Unit Viewer, the tool you want to use when browsing the all-text unit database. Good news, it is being readied to be Middle East compliant, so here's a look at the Algerian units available in the OoB at the time of writing this.

Inside the red rectangular you can observe the two sets of counters, where the Alt counter shows the relevant Unit Graphic, and Std counter the relevant NATO icon.

The two numbers you see underneath the counters point to the respective cell positions in the two Icons* files, first the NATO symbol offset 140 and then the Unit Graphic offset 87.

Not visible here are the parameters that point to counter offsets, in this case the counter offset would be 17, pointing to the 18th counter within the counter sets (the first position is 0, not 1).

Unit parameters are encrypted, an important feature for Play-by-email, so you can't mess with say assault values or attack / defence values. However, for playing vs AI, there's an option to launch the game in a manner it reads the nonecrypted text files instead, so you can mod the units to your heart's content as well [:)]

Again, I will post more specific modding guidelines once the game is out.

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: dsawan

Hi, eagerly awaiting this. Played talonsofts version eons ago. Two questions and hope ya can post a screenie. Will the icons have actual photos or B and W images for the infantry like in the matrix games edition for east and west front? What music types will be in this version? Thx.

To answer the unit picture question here: no, we won't be able to fill in comprehensive unit pictures, just not enought time or resources to do it now. But if you want to add pictures yourself, it is possible, just name each picture per the unit id, and it would show both here and in the F2 Unit Info Dialog. If no unit specific picture found, the game reverts to a nation specific placeholder, like here.

[Crossroads]

So I talked a lot about modding, but don't just take my word for it. This is what I accomplished in some 30 minutes one rainy day, when I wanted to see whether I can chuck in some Avalon Hill Arab-Israeli War boardgame counters in. Terrain if course moddable as well, so putting in cardboard game map art is possible as well.

This is just a quick mock-up, nothing more, but was fun to try it. Had to scale it down a bit too in order to meet the file size limit here.

Many of us in the team are old boardgame geeks, so looking forward to seeing mods like this coming out soon right [:)]

[budd]

those are nice, put them in the game[;)]. Anticipating release day. Thanks to you all.

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

COUNTERS7D##.BMP - ""D UNIT COUNTER STD AND ALT SETS

All the counters visible in the map are drawn in two phases, first the counters themselves, then the content within the counters.

Let us look at the Counters7d30.bmp, the counter set for Algeria. Included in the file are both the Standard and Alternate sets of counters. The standard file format is four rows of twelve counters for both Std and Alt variants, resulting in a total of 48 individual counters per set. Each counter off-set (position in the set) is then referred by each unit in their unit parameters.

So here's the Algerian counters as they currently are. As you can see, we've kept the design really nice and simple. You want to see gloss, 3D forms, symbols, this would be the place to mod the counter art.

So here for an instance is a little mod with French counters, with a little NATO icon per unit type, and the French tricolor in the background.

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: **budd**

those are nice, put them in the game[;)]

Well I need to leave something for you guys too, right [:D]

[berto]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

We have added proper shorelines since that screenshot was taken.

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: berto
We have added proper shorelines since that screenshot was taken.

Oh that's right, also the old cropped picture looks not too sharp. I'll post another one later today. I'll also post a few examples as what the rows of twelve counters can actually achieve.

[Crossroads]

So how's this for a quick mod on basic 2D unit counters. It is from the same scenario as in the opening post, Long Road Home '56, with French vs FLN (Algeria):