Bucks
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Joined: 7/27/2006
From: Melbourne, Australia
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quote:
ORIGINAL: jdkbph
OK thanks. That's what I wanted to know... it's not me doing something stupid.
And I can appreciate the effort it must take to locate the thousands of pictures needed.
So my next question then:
Is there a way for users to add pictures?
Is it possible to create "picture packs" for personal use and perhaps sharing with the community... like mods and scenarios are shared?
Thanks.
JD
JD,
Thanks for the kind words in relation to the "photo library" effort. Tony has covered a lot of the detail, I'll chime in here and attempt to explain the rest...
As Tony pointed out, the primary concern we had was to find images we could use without having to pay an unknown amount of precious development funds on what was for owners of the games a free update. Luckily for everyone, the United States Government has a policy of making photos taken by Military personnel pass into the Public Domain. You guys pay taxes that fund the military and in effect they are the property of the US tax payer. In Australia like most Commonwealth countries, such photos have to be at least 50 or 55 years old before they fall into the public domain. They are what we call Crown Copyright and I wasn't about to drop Queen Elizabeth a line asking if she'd let me add some photos to the Harpoon family of games...
My first effort had been to resize the original Harpoon 2 images and insert new photos into the existing PCX file type display. Within a short period of time AGSI was able to secure a deal with the US Naval Institute to release a special USNI version of ANW. Don Gilman asked if I could find enough photos to add to the new (at the time) Harpoon Media Viewer for the USNI version of ANW. Once I read about the Public Domain status of the US Dept of Defense images I took the decision my Grandfather had told me not to (Volunteers take one step forward...). The platform images you have access to in ANW and I believe HCE are based on a listing I was presented with that, matched the special USNI scenarios and what was considered "important". In case you hadn't guessed, Submarines were not a priority...
Now I know I'm missing a lot of photos from the platforms available in the HUD3. Have I stopped compiling and collecting them? No. In fact before I saw your post I was adding some more photos to the library. The "in work" version of the HUD3 currently has 781 Ship Classes of which, 308 are missing an image or have not had a photo index number applied. The ANW Database uses a simple numbering system to select the image from those available in the Resource folder. Now I'm a little behind in keeping track of what is shipped by default with the game. However this is a listing of the total number of image sets I have completed here for use with the HUD3:
Ships: 472 of 781 Classes
Submarines: 97 of 126 Classes
Aircraft: 519 of 580 Types
I haven't been able to update the available photo sets as yet due to the size of the collection and a lack of webspace access. I'd also like somebody to let me know how many folders each of the image directories has. For a default installation the folders can be found here:
C:\Matrix Games\Harpoon 3 Advanced Naval Warfare\Resource\DBPics\Plane - 340 Folders\299MB
C:\Matrix Games\Harpoon 3 Advanced Naval Warfare\Resource\DBPics\Ship - 324 Folders\190MB
C:\Matrix Games\Harpoon 3 Advanced Naval Warfare\Resource\DBPics\Sub - 69 Folders\37.5MB
I've also added additional HUD3 only images from those distributed with the game. AGSI has also been able to add the larger "Military Artwork" images since the original project was completed.
Now for the answers to your specific questions JD.
Q:Is there a way for users to add pictures?
Yes, anyone can add pictures to their own collection or make additional pictures available to the community. If you're going to release these you'd need to abide by any Copyright obligations, as I have been offered images that I had to reject due to possible infringement issues. I've added at least one photo I've taken at the biannual Australian International Airshow (Singaporean A-4S Skyhawk), and plan on hitting it again in March for some new original material. If you wish to add to the collection for community usage and you wish to keep the current numbering system, I better publish the current listings and I'm more than happy to undertake the editing of the images to fit the Media viewer.
Q: Is it possible to create "picture packs" for personal use and perhaps sharing with the community... like mods and scenarios are shared?
I've already covered part of this answer in my response to your first question. Again Copyright is the major concern with any material you intend to distribute publicly. I am happy to offer a more detailed description of the process and assign index values so the entire series (Current HUD3/ANW/HCE + User contributions) remains in sync. An example of this might be where the HUD3 has Ship image 001 assigned to the T-AKR 287 Algol class fast Sealift ship. If you added a folder and named it 001 and then placed say photos of the ANZAC class FFG, the ANZAC will be displayed in place of the Algol.
The photos are interchangeable between Databases as long as the index numbers are followed and the relevant database Editor uses the same value for the same platform. This is the reason I created an index listing, communal use of a resource. I didn't do this to force people into using the HUD3 or ANWDB since they use the same index to display images.
I've created a composite image of the Algol's images shown below. The image on the left is a copy of the original Harpoon 2 display, while the image on the right is, as luck would have it the identical image that was used in Harpoon 2 but simply edited to fit the Harpoon Media Viewer.
Cheers
Darren
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