Philippeatbay
Posts: 855
Joined: 12/3/2014 Status: offline
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Other Peoples' Mods version 1.3 The purpose of this mod is to create a package of easily installed improved textures for people who don't enjoy poking around inside the game and figuring out which mods made for other games will work with DC: Barbarossa and/or what you need to do to make them work. None of my own work is included. This is a selection of textures that work well with each other and with Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa. These textures are mostly mapboard utility graphics, and should be compatible with any present and future mods for DC: Barbarossa that eventually come into being. This mod does not include any textures that change anything that in other games might be referred to as grass textures. Grass textures are very much a matter of personal taste, and consequently I prefer to put together a mod selection that should be able to work with just about anything anyone comes up with. And this mod does NOT include my flag mod. That has to be downloaded and installed separately. The OPM mod consists of four parts. 1) A new hexgrid 2) Lighter fog of war 3) Less cluttered border demarcation between areas under German and Soviet control 4) Alternate logistics symbols The hexgrid comes from Kiddytoto's Colors of the East mod for Decisive Campaigns: Case Blue. I have not included any selected hex symbols because I haven't seen any that I considered to be an improvement over the vanilla graphics. Kiddytoto's contribution to this mod is only one modded texture, but it's a very important texture. The fog of war graphics are lighter than the original and come from Krupp_88mm's Krupp's RRRH-Sr Graphix mod V.2 for Decisive Campaigns: Case Blue. If you make the fog of war too light when it is turned on, you run the risk of not noticing when you're moving outside the 'known' area, not that you neccessarily have complete knowledge of what's in the unfogged area. If you make it too dark (as in the original version) it's not only oppressive but makes the hexgrid stand out in an unsightly fashion when it's turned on. The border demarcation between controlled areas comes from Krupp_88mm's Krupp's RRRH-Sr Graphix mod v.2 for Decisive Campaigns: Case Blue. It features a three pip per hexside border rather than a five pip per hexside border, so the pips along the border alternate with blank spaces of approximately equal size. If I were going to think about modding anything in this mod it might be to play around with making the colors of the pips less saturated or vibrant, but I'm not convinced that the end result justifies the effort of firing up Photoshop that many times, so I'm leaving well enough alone. As I understand it, Vic commissioned several sets of textures from Frederic Genot. This is a set of logistics symbols from the zoomed-in and middle zoom settings of the map that Vic didn't use in the official release. I prefer the barge silhouette in the alternate textures, the halftrack HQ symbol, and the more easily identifiable currently used airfield symbol. Vic's set didn't include the smallest textures, so I filled in the gap by resizing the largest set. I've also hollowed out the potential airfield symbol to make it look more potential. To get a better sense of what this mod does, take a look at these four pairs of screenshots showing the modded and un- modded features. In the un-modded version the fog of war is darker, the lines of the hexgrid are thicker, and the borders between sides are more prominent with five instead of three pips. Zoomed-in hexgrid, modded and unmodded. Hexgrid on middle setting, modded and unmodded. Zoomed out hexgrid, modded and unmodded. In Frederic Genot's alternate graphics for logistics the currently used airbase is easier to distinguish from the potential airbases, the Panzer group headquarters symbol is a halftrack instead of a plain disk in the zoomed in and middle settings, and sea-borne logistics uses a different ship. The non-Steam version of the mod can be downloaded here: https://app.box.com/s/3hesglfp7gufnop8az1igzcp35c9fjpv My box account sometimes runs out of bandwidth towards the end of the month. If that happens you can wait until the next month, or use this link to Vic's website: http://www.vrdesigns.net/scenario.php?nr=234 I would advise making a copy of the version of the graphics folder that you are using before you install this mod. You may decide that you hate the mod and want to revert to the original version, or, if you're into tinkering, you may want to use some parts of this mod and not others. Be sure to unzip this mod to a nice safe empty folder that you can put you hands on easily. After you unzip it, read the instructions text file (HOW TO USE THIS MOD) and be sure you're comfortable with what you're supposed to do next.
< Message edited by Philippe at bay -- 6/28/2016 10:30:24 PM >
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