New Alpha Graphics Mod

[damezzi]

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[damezzi]

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[damezzi]

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[Josh]

I don't own the game yet, waiting for the patch release, but I must say: most impressive indeed, exceptionally well done. How long have you been working on this if I may ask?

[desert]

Incredible. I have steered well clear of every graphics mod to date but this is something else.

 
Indeed. I might actually try this one out.
 
Good work.

[BigDuke66]

Looks just great!
But what about the hexes can we turn them off?

[erichswafford]

I N C R E D I B L E

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: BigDuke66

Looks just great!
But what about the hexes can we turn them off?

If you mean the hex outline, then yes, there's a switch to do that. You could also mod them to make them almost transparent very easily with something like Paint.Net (freeware), I'll probably do that for my personal use. I like hexes, but I also like the map without hexes, so I am going to try a compromise. I'll probalby hate it, but...

Ralph

[Bulldog1]

Thanks for posting the winter pics. Now I see the snow. I like it.
 
Just wondering if its possible to (lets use post 43 as example) to touch up the hex sides of the inland lakes to look frozen. I think this would enhance the image of winter.
 
AGAIN THANKS FOR THE EXCELLENT WORK!

[Menschenfresser]

Ralph, I hope that, given the overwhelming support here, this mod will come with the patch and have a conversion option from the start menu like TOAW3 and CLASSIC graphics.
 
Unless this isn't planned and adding it would delay things.

[laska2k8]

hope to play with this soon....

[damezzi]

Bulldog, I can`t make the hex overlay react to what`s underneath. It only has some transparency to it, so that you can distinguish some features below.

Ralph idea is a good one and since I prefer the look of the mod with hex outline on (I too preferred the original Toaw graphics without the hex outline, but not this one... yet, that`s a very personal matter) and some may think it`s too visible, I`ll make available a version with less opacity. The `official` one will be the one above, but an alternative file will be present, so it`s just a question of renaming. Also, it`s very easy to tweak the file opacity in any painting software (I really can`t consider windows paint a painting software). The shape is a little tricky.

[damezzi]

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[damezzi]

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[damezzi]

Josh, it took me about one month (when I had some extra spare time available) to do most of it. The last month I`ve been adding some details, while Ralph was tweaking the engine and making it possible to use all features.

[Bulldog1]

Damezzi, thanks for your reply. It will be like playing a new game! Awesome!

[comte]

Wow Those graphics look amazing [:)]

[Panama]

Yeah, looks great.

In the huge view numbers are good. Can they be made less fuzzy and more sharp in the zoomed out view? Old age is a curse for the eyes. Happens to almost all of us. [:(]

[X.ray]

This is fabulous!! Thanks damezzi!
One thing that was on my wishlist - would it be possible to show the direction the unit is currently facing? Pariticularly easy to be forgettable in a PBEM game and then you may suffer the flank punishment!

[damezzi]

Panama, I've already changed the fonts to make it cleaner in the normal view. I'll not say it isn't possible to make it still more readable using only black pixels and displaying jaggy edges, but the difference would be very, very small and not worth it. The problem here is the size (in terms of resolution); if you open the numbers.bmp file, you'll see it. I think that the huge view will be used more frequently now, not necessarily because of better graphics resolution, but also because Ralph did a nice job making zoom faster. The first time we zoom in takes a while, but then the zoom becomes much faster and one can zoom in and out with a lot of ease.
An easily accessible keyboard hotkey would make things yet more easy. Ralph has already set the space bar to hide and show units, which is something very helpful. Well planed hotkeys are a really nice substitute to a graphical interface. Anyone who learns to work well with hotkeys in any software package will tell you the investment in time (some packages can present a huge number of hotkeys) was worth and some aspects of the graphical interface becomes obsolete.

X.ray, showing units facing is an engine change. I don't know if Ralph plans doing it.