Africa Bitmaps

[Shannon V. OKeets]

The bitmaps for the coastal hexes and rivers/lakes for southern Africa are in. This is just a tease.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Patrice did the drafts for the coast lines and Rob Armstrong did the final versions.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is the upper half of the southern Africa map segment. I'll zoom in on the east and west parts of this next.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

The western part of the upper half of southern Africa - Huh?[&:]

If you look closely at the hexes in the upper left corner, you can see that the row above the top row does not have a correct coastline.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

And the eastern part which has the lakes. The inaccuracies with how the lakes look is data: a couple missing lake hexsides and a couple of RLS hexes. An RLS hex is a hex that has river/lake bitmap but no rivers/lake that affect game play - they are the tips of the lake hexsides. For example, the hex that the word Blantyre is in should be an RLS hex so the lake above it is complete.

[Froonp]

Wow, even if I did the drafts, I'm impressed with the in-game results.

About the rivers (from these screenshots and from those oof Scandinavia), I have the feeling in seeing them, that they are too thin. They seem thinner than the European Rivers.

[Incy]

Some hexes that I suspect are designated as coastal but should not be:

-2 SE of Walvis Bay
-2 SW of Leopoldville
-SW W of Loepoldville

[Incy]

btw, I figured out how you could fix the "inconsistant blue all-land hexsides" problem without extra processing:

-Make the background colour blue(I assume it is?)
-Align hexes 1 pixel apart as now, but draw all 6 sides of all non-coastal hexsides

This will cause most brown hexside pixels to be drawn twice (which should hardly be an extra strain for the graphics engine?). Blue hexsides will not be drawn, but will be the background color. All all-land hexsides will be brown, all all-or-partial ocean hexsides will be blue.

OK, I know this was settled before and I'm supposed to shut up about this, but couldn't help myself *runs for cover*
(will not be upset if you throw away this idea)

Incy

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Incy

Some hexes that I suspect are designated as coastal but should not be:

-2 SE of Walvis Bay
-2 SW of Leopoldville
-SW W of Loepoldville

Unfortunately, it is too late to review the coastlines, you should have said it in the African Review thread. Now that the Graphist has drawn the coastal hexsides, I think it is too late to change them.

But, anyway, why are you saying that ??? I do not see the coast where you say it is ?!? Is it because of the blue hexsides ??? I'm checking in game.

Well, indeed you're right !!!!!
I'll correct the CSV data.

[Froonp]

But, anyway, why are you saying that ??? I do not see the coast where you say it is ?!? Is it because of the blue hexsides ??? I'm checking in game.

Well, indeed you're right !!!!!
I'll correct the CSV data.

Steve, would it be possible to make some signal (say a large blue dot) appear in hexes that are coastal hexes (by the CSV files) when the game is launched, say, in developper mode ? Some kind of MWiF /dev command line, or I don't know what.

It is a pain to check for wrong coastal (CSV) hexes. Incy spotted 2, I don't know how, but I for one completely overlooked them [:D].

[Incy]

look at the left and two top hexsides. If they are blue, the hex is coastal in the CSV data.

Incy

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

But, anyway, why are you saying that ??? I do not see the coast where you say it is ?!? Is it because of the blue hexsides ??? I'm checking in game.

Well, indeed you're right !!!!!
I'll correct the CSV data.

Steve, would it be possible to make some signal (say a large blue dot) appear in hexes that are coastal hexes (by the CSV files) when the game is launched, say, in developper mode ? Some kind of MWiF /dev command line, or I don't know what.

It is a pain to check for wrong coastal (CSV) hexes. Incy spotted 2, I don't know how, but I for one completely overlooked them [:D].

Given his other post, I would hazard a guess that he saw the blue hex outline and knew from that that the data had the hex as coastal.

So, we look for blue hex boundaries in the interior of the continents?

[Froonp]

So, we look for blue hex boundaries in the interior of the continents?

Yes [:D]
But it would be simpler, and fairer to my tired eyes, to search for big blue dots [:D] [:D] [:D]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Incy
look at the left and two top hexsides. If they are blue, the hex is coastal in the CSV data.

Incy

So, I was right. But, Incy, I for one do not have such excellent vision! Quick, which of these hexsides have blue grid lines instead of black? I feel like I'm a blind man by comparison.

[Incy]

The trick is a hugely bright 24 incher from Dell

[Froonp]

Well, I find that the rivers are not visible enough. My guess is that they are not thick enough.
Are you sure they are equally thick as the european ones ?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Well, I find that the rivers are not visible enough. My guess is that they are not thick enough.
Are you sure they are equally thick as the european ones ?

I'll check, but I believe you are right. They also follow the hexgrid too closely. When a country border is superimposed on top of them, the rivers are too difficult to see.

But let's fix all that we can before going back to Rob with a corrections list.

[Froonp]

They also follow the hexgrid too closely. When a country border is superimposed on top of them, the rivers are too difficult to see.

I felt that the Scandinavian Rivers were better than the South African ones, they seemed not to follow the hexgrid so closely. The Scandinavian ones are really good IIRC. I don't know if Rob used an atlas for inspiration for those, and not for the African ones.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

The rest of the African coastal and river/lake bitmaps have arrived. It is going to take a lot of screen shots to show these.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

There are a few corrections needed. The most important one will be to make the rivers thicker and with less overlap with the hexgrid. I would like the rivers to parallel and cross over the hexgrid rather than follow it so closely. That's partially aesthetics but since rivers often form country boundaries, I want both the rivers and the country borders visible (i.e., not on top of each other).