quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson on 03-27-2001 10:42 PM Personally I think Fiera's stuff is really good, and am not worried about trying to do refinements yet. We really only need 4 units for demo 5, and we basically have them now, at least close to the level we'll need them at. (I hope that's ok with you Fiera )

Yes, it's absolutely OK with me, but which are these 4 units? I assume the Horde, the Phalanx, the Light Horse unit and a Trirreme? If so, I still want to improve the Horsemen unit a bit before it's ready for making it into the demo.

quote: Another thing to try is a massed battle with a front as occurred in WWII. This will put lots of TFs from each side together, and we need to be sure our overall spec can handle that situation.

I'm not sure I understand you here. You mean a long line of squares with two Task Forces inside each of them, or you mean that some squares are going to have more than TFs fighting within?

quote: What does everyone think about this proposal for how to proceed? I'm sure I've missed some things, but I think its the right general direction to go in...

Yes, I too think that's the right general direction to go, but I think we must set the different sizes of PCs that we want to have. I have no problem to work on that, and I think I finally understood what you wanted. A set of six circles, with a diameter of 9 pixels for the first one, a diameter of 12 for the second, 15 for the third, and so on until the sixth one wich will have a diameter of 27 pixels, will be fine, I guess. But they've to be drawn, and we have to see if we can really tell them apart from each other.

quote: Like I said above, I think the battle with reduced/silouette units basically works. But IMO its not quite exciting enough. Maybe something as simple as showing the TFs each in the respective player's colors would work. I just have the general feeling that guys in potential combat should be more exciting than what you have now. But I give you credit that the basic idea works! And I think with some refinement it will do quite well.

Well, I've made a mix of both ideas: now they're shown in the player's color, but still have black borders so the final result is not too confusing. I think you'll find it better this way. Check it out here:
http://www.geocities.com/fiera_com/graphics.html

As for making the battle more "exciting", we can always use animated gifs, as in Civ2. Whenever a unit attacked an enemy unit, there was something like an animated "dust cloud". Some authors improved this animation and got very nice results. We could something as two lightnings colliding, or something, which went together well with the concept of "Clash of Civilizations". If you like the idea, I can try to put together a demo.

quote: BTW those ships are great. I think our ships may need to be a little smaller compared to our tile size because of the need to show the power circle. Perhaps we could use that guy's ships directly if he doesn't mind and if they look ok next to your TFs... What do you think?

Well, I know Bernd and I think he wouldn't mind giving us permission to use some of his ships. Maybe we could take one ofthe Trirremes for the demo. However, I again think those ships have too much Civ2 flavour to be our final graphics. Bernd is well known for making graphics that fit perfectly with the original Civ2 units. Furthermore, those graphics are limited to the Civ2 palette, while we can design new and even more atractive units with a wider range of colors.

As for how they'll deal with the PCs, maybe we should throw away that kind of isometric perspective, that tends to "fill" the tile and try with a more "frontal" view, as in the Tank I've used for the demos and in my Chariot graphic.

quote: If PCs are color coded for size I think we'd lose something. I think its important for the player to see the map colored in their color.

I had initially listed a different 4 units, but the ones you state should work OK. I will encourage Laurent to come by this thread, since he knows best what TF icons are most important for where he envisions taking the military model in the near future. On the world war II thing what I had in mind was something like a double line of squares (as will frequently happen with an angled front) with two task forces inside each of them. That is just to make sure that things don't look incredibly congested under those circumstances.

On PC sizes, I at least had never intended to really have them be in discreet steps, but to vary in a continuous range generated by the computer. Now in practice, people will only be able to really distinguish about six size scales unless the circles are right on top of each other. That's where my comment about six sizes came from. It may be that the computer-generated ellipses will be too ugly, in which case we may return to your hand-made circles idea. Sorry I wasn't explicit before.

I like the colors with black borders pretty well! I think the horde unit looks really good in the color, although the chariot looks a little weird with that big expanse of red in the middle. You can try the animation demos if you like, but I have to tell you that I am almost certain not to like it, because I really don't like animations of any sort in my strategy games. I am too easily distracted by such things, and I Always shut them off . But just because I don't like it doesn't mean our players won't. I think what you tried worked well enough that we can be fairly sure that something of the sort will work. What does everyone think?

Guess, I agree we should probably stick with a more frontal view as you've established so far in the graphics.

quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson on 03-28-2001 07:21 PM I had initially listed a different 4 units, but the ones you state should work OK. I will encourage Laurent to come by this thread, since he knows best what TF icons are most important for where he envisions taking the military model in the near future.

It's alright for me either way. Maybe you were planning a light spearmen unit, as in Demo4? There's no problem for me, I can try and draw it if you like, as well as anything else you planned to include in the new demo.

quote: On the world war II thing what I had in mind was something like a double line of squares (as will frequently happen with an angled front) with two task forces inside each of them. That is just to make sure that things don't look incredibly congested under those circumstances.

OK, I'll work on it. Something like, say, 8 squares will be alright?

quote: On PC sizes, I at least had never intended to really have them be in discreet steps, but to vary in a continuous range generated by the computer. Now in practice, people will only be able to really distinguish about six size scales unless the circles are right on top of each other. That's where my comment about six sizes came from. It may be that the computer-generated ellipses will be too ugly, in which case we may return to your hand-made circles idea. Sorry I wasn't explicit before.

Ah, good then. It's relieving knowing that the PCs are going to be generated by the computer, I was beginning to go mad trying to draw them!

quote: I like the colors with black borders pretty well! I think the horde unit looks really good in the color, although the chariot looks a little weird with that big expanse of red in the middle.

Look at the pic #15 at my ]graphics page. More black and less red.

quote: You can try the animation demos if you like, but I have to tell you that I am almost certain not to like it, because I really don't like animations of any sort in my strategy games. I am too easily distracted by such things, and I Always shut them off . But just because I don't like it doesn't mean our players won't. I think what you tried worked well enough that we can be fairly sure that something of the sort will work. What does everyone think?

I'm not particulary fond of animations either, I just suggested them just in case you didn't find the battle demo exciting enough. Now I've come up with a very simple effect (pic #16): what if the units blinked whenever they were receiving damage? That way you'd have a visual and quick perception on who's winning and who's losing the battle. However, as I don't fully understand the military system you're implementing, this might be out of place. Just a suggestion.

quote: I think it's pretty clear PCs are going to be rings. I did some experiments with demo 4,and for fairly zoomed-in graphics filled circles look really strange. You can try it yourself if you like, and see what you think. However, as you get down to around 30 or less pixels across the tile, it starts to look good with filled circles. And that lower resolutions I showed just the circles, which is about all you can do anyway. So I'm fairly sure that what I've outlined is a good way to go if we keep the power circles.

On world war II, something like eight squares should work OK I think. I like your new approach to the chariot unit, but the problem I foresee is it can't be done in as automated fashion as the previous type. The beauty of what you had before is that the computer could do it automatically at what ever size scale is needed. But it would be way too much work to have it smart enough to outline the horses correctly. And if we can't do it automatically, then it's a bunch more work for you, since you need to do it for several different reduced sizes.

Also, what did you think of the blinking animations?

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 03-28-2001 10:26 PM I'm afraid that I really don't like the colored silhouette and the blinking. If you include it, please let the player turn it off. I think that if we want to put two armies in the same square, there should be an option to do it with the small icons.

Well, can you give a demo of what you think the two-armies thing should look like? Options are right now maybes for the future. Once we get all the important stuff implemented a single way, then we'll look at options. Of course, if you want to do the mods yourself, it can happen much faster . It shouldn't be that much work though, maybe 5 hours or so, to implement your option. Unless of course there are unforseen complications.

quote: How will the pictures be put into the game? Will there be an editor, or will it be a formatted file like in Civ2?

quote: I've come to like my plan for units, and I'd like the option to put them in and play with them. There is nothing wrong with Fiera's units; I simply like the density of information that the small icons give. I can see the entire composition of the unit, and it allows many, many possible units to be built.

Fiera:

Zoomed-in views... Lots are possible, but we could certainly work with about three main ones. Others could just be supported by scaling with a loss of beauty in the graphics.

Blinking: Same as all animations, I would turn them off But something that happens during turn execution to show battle progress is a good idea, and I'm sure we'll try to follow up on it at least as an option sometime in the future.

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I am going to be working on the military unit renderers, PC and TFBox stuff this weekend. (They need to be moved over to the new code from the d4 old style architecture.

Can you send me the gifs you have now by email? markeverson@mediaone.net
Please make sure they have transparent backgrounds... They don't have to be final versions, just for me to have real units to play with while I get things set up. I'll send you a screen shot when it gets to the point where it doesn't look Ghastly .

quote: Well, can you give a demo of what you think the two-armies thing should look like?

I think that making the power bar move down as the unit takes damage is good enough as an indication that there is a battle. Maybe the power bar could blink as it fell; that could be less obtrusive.

quote: Of course, if you want to do the mods yourself, it can happen much faster.

It's here: www.geocities.com/fiera_com/graphics.html

I think the result is not too confusing. Note, however, that two large icons (ie, two chariot icons) have some problems to fit together well into one square. The view of the icons over mountain terrain is not particulary good, that's one thing to have in mind too.

Mark, I'll send you that e-mail, with either the basic icons for Horde, Phalanx and Light Cavalry and their "silhouettes". LDiCesare said he had coded a warrior/militia unit and a trireme unit too, so I guess I should work on those icons now... I think I'll be able to send them to you tomorrow...

The tiles are scaled to 80 across... so once I do it right it should be fairly similar to the demo stuff.

quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson on 03-30-2001 09:24 PM Initial Graphics test. I have no artistic capacity, so the only art demos I can generate are thru software It ain't much, but its a start. The placement within the tile isn't right, but that's easy to fix.

Well, it seems great to me! I just can't wait to get my hands on the demo...

I see the terrain graphics have a different palette now. Is that the one you plan to use in the game? I ask it for I would have to make some slight modifications in the units colors, so that units and terrain don't get confused... If you accept suggestions, I'd take out the brown zones off the grassland...

quote: See Fiera, I try to give immediate gratification where possible .

Thanks much! I'm just sorry that I couldn't reply earlier to this thread, I've just come back from the countryside...

quote: Can you express an approach for getting the TF sprites placed right? If the image is w pixels wide, and h high, and if the tile has W and H, how should I do the math to figure where the image goes with respect to the tile? It is close to TF image center goes over top vertex of the tile. Can you give me a shot at what the right approach is? I know it may just be intuitive, but it would help if you can formulate it...

Yes, I used an ituitive approach for the demos, but I think it's an easy approach. I just tried to make sure that the base of the unit (not the shadow, but rather the last pixel of the unit feet) was placed in the center of the tile. I indeed think that the "TF image center over top tile vertex" is a very close approach... Anyways, you can play around with the pic and see which formula looks better...

I've already replied to your e-mails and sent you the images and units width and height. If you need something else, just ask...

I've been playing around with the palete and I must say that setting an appropriate and appealing palette is a difficult task, much tougher than just drawing units...

My goal is to get a palette that makes the terrain stay in the background, thus allowing the units to be shown as foreground objects without any confusion, but without making the terrain gloomy. I think you'll get what I mean.

But if you show me pictures I can say if I like them or not

Mark,

I can't show you any pictures yet. I'm still getting to grips with my Paint Shop color palette system, and I haven't been able to come up with anything good enough.

And sorry if my questions sounded too "specific". I'll take in mind that the best way to ask for an opinion about graphics is showing some of them.

Do you have separate GIF files for each terrain tile, such as the ones I sent you for the units? If so, could you send them to me? My work would be easier that way.

LGJ,

I guess it really depends on the unit. For human character units, i'd say go with bright colors for some things, but when using things made from metal or wood, only make the highlights bright. For ships, no (although highlights are good). They should still be moderate to contrast with both the shallow and deep sea areas. For modern units, it will depend on what they are. Planes I'd say bright/moderate and tanks and stuff. dark with highlights in moderate colors.

This allows the player to still distinquish the units without having them be overly present.

quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson on 04-07-2001 03:05 AM Hi Fiera, yes the terrain tiles are each in its own gif. That makes life much easier at the experimental stage where we are now!

Yes, but do you still keep the ones you used for Demo 4, or any terrain square GIF that I could use as a guide? I'm afraid I'm terribly stuck if the only thing I've got to start working on the terrain are the screenshots on the Clash site.

But now, some quick coments. First of all, thanks for the GIF files. They allow me for a much faster way to do my work- mainly comparing how things look before and after changes, etc. I think that I've got a lot of work to do, I definitely don't like the current colors, but we'll discuss these things later.

LGJ, thanks for your suggestions, I'll try to reply to them at the new thread, so please take a look there.