RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (Full Version)

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Mziln -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/12/2006 6:22:08 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

I would so rather you change Japan color to the YELLOW (Rishing SUN <~~~ yellow) and China to a Light color or red or something. It just don't seem right Japan being RED....China should be RED as in RED CHINA that we know today. ;) Just my 2 cents.



The color of the "Rising Sun" on the Japaneese flag is red not yellow.

What about Nationalist China? The majority of the units are Nationalist at start while "Red" or Communist China atarts with very few. Nationalist Chinas flag is Red, Blue, and White[:D]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/12/2006 9:02:09 PM)

The high resolution bitmaps for the air and naval units are now in production. Rob Armstrong and I (with help from Patrice) have identified which versions of which counter sheets to use and a process by which they are taken from ADG data files and transformed into coutner you will see in the game.

Here are two screen shots from counter sheet 7, Planes in Flames, which has been completed.

I have to do some fine tuning on image placement (vertical) within the counter frame, and this screen shot was my first pass. I will use it to adjust how I cut the images and place them.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/4ACC89A122834099B2AA471BAE2930C3.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/12/2006 9:09:38 PM)

Actually, I had to split the screen shot I am working with into 2 parts because of limitations on file uploads. Here is the bottom half.

This includes all the Italian and Chinese units from counter sheet 7. Hmmm, now that's not right either. I have yet to add the lend lease planes.

Most of the adjustments needed here are to move the images vertically within the frame. I might have to hyphenate 2 or 3 names too.

Notice that the camouflage (finally got the spelling right) now matches the WIF FE counters.


[image]local://upfiles/16701/2A6B0F4D16EA4E67B343863F37CB842A.jpg[/image]



mlees -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/12/2006 9:31:29 PM)

Will the final "lend lease" units (like the Chinese P-40 unit) have the stripe of the lending power? (In this example, the American Green stripe.) I think you stated some time ago that they would...

It just occured to me that, with a PC version of the game, I can't pick up my favorite air units, and "fly" them around the dinner table (with the appropriate "sound effects" and spittle, of course!). [:(]



Froonp -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/12/2006 10:52:38 PM)

quote:

Notice that the camouflage (finally got the spelling right) now matches the WIF FE counters.

Sure I notice !!!!
Those are now looking very very good, much better than the first zebra like camouflage patterns I saw on the P-40 & F2A.
It's great !!!!



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/12/2006 11:20:48 PM)

Here is the first in a series of 5 screen shots. These are for the USA air units from counter sheet 7 (Planes in Flames).
There might be a few other old ones mixed in (I haven't checked for that rigorously.
These all look like finished product to me.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/FF1FB6A1064748F2A50225A2724EC583.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/12/2006 11:24:01 PM)

Only one to fix here - the Hellcat image (F6F-5) needs to be raised 4 pixels or so. I especially like the Twin Mustang in the lower right corner.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/572842D39CE84F37B8CFD11B6FE3E646.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/12/2006 11:27:37 PM)

Almost half of these will need some adjustment.

Typically, a whole row of units is lower (or higher) than the other rows. Since I process these by rows, it is easy to move them all up (or down) at once. To process the entire counter sheet (200 units) takes me about 15 minutes.

Rob says it takes him about 2 hours to extract all the images and convert them to bitmaps.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/BCA1EDFF7B5147CE901B848B0DB61C78.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/12/2006 11:34:15 PM)

More that need adjustment. Sigh. But the great thing about computers is that I do this once and it is done forever.[:D]

That is based on the premise that everything about this procedure is correct: ADG counter sheet version, image extraction, background color for the major power, names are correct, placement of all the numbers and names is correct, ...

Once again I am under the illusion that all these component parts of the process are working correctly. To say that programmers are optimists understates the case quite a bit. Instead, I would say that "programmers are rabidly optimistic to the point of being delusional" - that's a little closer to the mark.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/B1612AC7712A4BD08D9AEFC16A635FD2.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/12/2006 11:40:43 PM)

Last in the series. Here are those missing halves (for those who were worry about such things).

I will remove the range from the A-Bomb and make major changes to the Skymaster range and large transport indicator.

The abbreviations look okay here, though I probably need to abbreviate Commando.

The USA sure has a lot of planes. Only a little over 100 are shown in these screen shots. There are at least that many remaining for the USA alone.

I think Germany had some planes in WW II too (?).

[image]local://upfiles/16701/16E24710442E48B3921DA34282F557FB.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 12:01:07 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mlees

Will the final "lend lease" units (like the Chinese P-40 unit) have the stripe of the lending power? (In this example, the American Green stripe.) I think you stated some time ago that they would...

It just occured to me that, with a PC version of the game, I can't pick up my favorite air units, and "fly" them around the dinner table (with the appropriate "sound effects" and spittle, of course!). [:(]


Yipes, stripes![X(]

I have been wondering what to do about that recently.[&:] Previously we had a system worked out but I can't implement it now.

What has changed is that the graphics artist is using anti-aliasing to make the images of the planes and ships clearer to the human eye. This means that I cannot change the color behind the bitmap image. Indeed, Rob is using RGB values for the country background colors that I provided to him so that all the unit types (air, naval and land) will have the same color background for each country.

What I can do is run a stripe across the bottom of the unit - provided I am careful to not place it so high that it runs into the bitmap image.

Now there are 3 things we want to communicate here:

1 - Lend lease: only applicable to air units

2 - Captured units: only applicable to naval units. An example is a French sub captured by Italy when Vichy is declared.

3 - Units on loan: for example, Italian units lent to Germany for operations in Russia, or German units lent to Italy for operations in North Africa.

I am thinking of using a big stripe for #2. That will indicate that the unit has been captured and is now controlled by the major power indicated by the color of the stripe. The original unit's color will remain unchanged for the top 3/4 of the unit.

For lend lease, I am thinking of a narrow stripe that is elevated (not on the bottom of the counter) and runs through the numbers et al on the bottom of the unit.

Units on loan are problemmatical. My current best idea is to use a narrow stripe that runs across the bottom of the counter.

What makes me uncertain about all of this is getting the contrast high enough so the numebrs and letters are legible. For example, the Belgian naval unit has a black background (for Belgium) with red text. If the stripe is dark blue for the Commonwealth, will the numbers be legible? [For this example it doesn't really matter since the illegible numbers are both zeroes.]



Froonp -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 12:08:39 AM)

quote:

Here is the first in a series of 5 screen shots. These are for the USA air units from counter sheet 7 (Planes in Flames).
There might be a few other old ones mixed in (I haven't checked for that rigorously.

Yes, there is a zebra P-40C here.
Not good this one [:-].



lomyrin -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 1:25:22 AM)

Will you limit the lendleasable planes to the same types as in WiFFE? In CWiF there was no such limit but I think that limit should be observed.

Lars



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 1:57:57 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

Will you limit the lendleasable planes to the same types as in WiFFE? In CWiF there was no such limit but I think that limit should be observed.

Lars

Yes. MWIF will have the same rules as WIF FE for lend leased air units.

Besides the obvious reason for that, the WIF FE units for lend leased planes change the numbers occasionally. I guess that reflects that the foreign nations had slightly different versions of the planes, or the pilots weren't as good, or the ground crews, or ...

In any event, I want to duplicate WIF FE combat factors for lend leased air units.

What I intend to do is have a fairly simple form that shows all the lend leaseable air units with the different counters that represent each air unit in a line. Only one of the counters will be 'active' at a time. So, if the USA lend leases an air unit to the Chinese, then the associated USA air unit will not be available in the USA force pool (i.e., 'inactive'). The controlling player simply clicks on which nationality counter is active for the air unit. No muss, no fuss.

There are sticky points if the original owner wants the unit back, but I'll follow the WIF FE rules for designing the interface on how to implement that (a future bridge to cross).

Is the coloring/striping scheme ok?



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 1:59:18 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

quote:

Here is the first in a series of 5 screen shots. These are for the USA air units from counter sheet 7 (Planes in Flames).
There might be a few other old ones mixed in (I haven't checked for that rigorously.

Yes, there is a zebra P-40C here.
Not good this one [:-].

It's from counter sheet 1, row 8. When Rob send me the bitmaps for counter sheet 1, it will be relpaced.



Mziln -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 2:33:17 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: mlees
It just occured to me that, with a PC version of the game, I can't pick up my favorite air units, and "fly" them around the dinner table (with the appropriate "sound effects" and spittle, of course!). [:(]


But you could pick up the unit with the cursor and move it arround the screen and make the noises [:D]

I have a friend who makes the noises for every piece and evey move.

"Here comes a tank CLANK,CLANK, CLANK! ".[sm=tank2-39.gif]



mlees -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 8:40:01 AM)

quote:

But you could pick up the unit with the cursor and move it arround the screen and make the noises


Somehow, it just doesnt seem the same. *Sigh*

Well, what I can do is to buy a small toy Tiger tank or B-25, and play with that when the impulse strikes...



Neilster -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 11:33:01 AM)

They look fantastic. Geez the Italians made some stylish planes. A bit underpowered though, and with pop-gun armament. Mind you, when they put the powerful Jerry engines and decent guns in them in 1943ish they were formidable.

I assume there is some reason for the duplication of some of the units such as the Macchi C.200 Saetta. I also noticed there appears to be 2 P-47Ns and 2 P-38Ls.

Cheers, Neilster



Froonp -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 12:56:17 PM)

quote:

I assume there is some reason for the duplication of some of the units such as the Macchi C.200 Saetta. I also noticed there appears to be 2 P-47Ns and 2 P-38Ls.

MC.200 Saetta : There is one from 1940 from PiF Countersheet 7 row 6 column 15 and the one from 1939 from PiF Countersheet 7 row 5 column 15. There is a third MC.200 Saetta on WiF FE Countersheet 4.
P-47N : There is one from 1944 from PiF Countersheet 7 row 6 column 5 and the one from 1945 from PiF Countersheet 7 row 5 column 6.
P-38L : There is one from 1944 from PiF Countersheet 7 row 3 column 7 and the one from 1945 from PiF Countersheet 7 row 4 column 7. There is a third P-38L on WiF FE Countersheet 1.



Neilster -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 1:12:03 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mziln


quote:

ORIGINAL: mlees
It just occured to me that, with a PC version of the game, I can't pick up my favorite air units, and "fly" them around the dinner table (with the appropriate "sound effects" and spittle, of course!). [:(]


But you could pick up the unit with the cursor and move it arround the screen and make the noises [:D]

I have a friend who makes the noises for every piece and evey move.

"Here comes a tank CLANK,CLANK, CLANK! ".[sm=tank2-39.gif]


My Dad used to get me out of bed by shouting "Stuka attack!" and then making that "horns of Jericho" diving Stuka wailing sound and "strafing" my stomach with his fingers. Either that or kicking the bedroom door open and screaming "Juden raus!, Juden raus!". He was a slightly strange dude. I tried to explain it to some German friends but they seemed a bit puzzled. Guess how I got them up when they stayed at my place? Ho ho ho. [:'(]

Actually, Dad was friendly to the point of making people suspicious. He was keen on picking up hitch-hikers because he liked to help people. One day he drove to a friend's house in a nearby town because the friend had chickens and wanted to kill a few for the table but couldn't bring himself to do it. After much hilarity (well not for the chickens I suppose) Dad used his axe to behead the birds and on the drive home he picked up a bloke who was hitch-hiking. After a couple of minutes of Dad engaging him in friendly conversation, the guy just clammed up and then said, "Ah...actually I think I'll get out just here. Yep...here". They were in the middle of nowhere and Dad said, "Are you sure? You said you wanted to go into town." "Nah..nah...here's...here's fine thanks mate" he said, staring straight ahead. It was only when Dad got home that he realised he'd left the blood-stained axe on a old towel on the back seat.

Unfortunately Dad died suddenly when I was 18 but he left some funny stories. I use a lot of his "material" and they still get a laugh. No doubt he stole those jokes anyway.

Cheers, Neilster



Manic Inertia -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 4:57:21 PM)

Hey Shannon ... I been away for a while, but am now delighted to be ogling the new MWiF graphics - utterly splendid!

Reading these recent entries on this thread about lend-lease/captured/borrowed 'stripes' being placed on counters, it struck me .. is it possible that such an arrangement might look odd on, say, flying boats that have a wide blue vertical stripe anyway? And what about a LL built plane that's subsequently lent to a third party - wouldn't it end up looking a bit psychadelic? Should I assume that changing the counter color completely to that of the new owner is out of the question?




Zorachus99 -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 7:16:46 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Manic Inertia

Hey Shannon ... I been away for a while, but am now delighted to be ogling the new MWiF graphics - utterly splendid!

Reading these recent entries on this thread about lend-lease/captured/borrowed 'stripes' being placed on counters, it struck me .. is it possible that such an arrangement might look odd on, say, flying boats that have a wide blue vertical stripe anyway? And what about a LL built plane that's subsequently lent to a third party - wouldn't it end up looking a bit psychadelic? Should I assume that changing the counter color completely to that of the new owner is out of the question?




Something I've wished for over a long time. Keep the unit identifiers the same, but change the nationality color, so all those ships you capture become the owners color. I think this only applies in just a few instances. Capture of ships during surprize impulse, Vichy collapse, losers production spiral during conquest phase, on map units during conquest phase (this one is the complicated instance I think need to check the rules on it).

edit:

Oh yea, what about the fiddly rule that you cannot rebuld a unit that's been captured I believe.



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 7:23:16 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Manic Inertia

Hey Shannon ... I been away for a while, but am now delighted to be ogling the new MWiF graphics - utterly splendid!

Reading these recent entries on this thread about lend-lease/captured/borrowed 'stripes' being placed on counters, it struck me .. is it possible that such an arrangement might look odd on, say, flying boats that have a wide blue vertical stripe anyway? And what about a LL built plane that's subsequently lent to a third party - wouldn't it end up looking a bit psychadelic? Should I assume that changing the counter color completely to that of the new owner is out of the question?


Thanks.

Flying boats no longer have a wide vertical blue stripe. That's primarily for the reason you gave but also because I believe the new approach to be more in tune with how other things are handled in communicating information about the units.

What I do instead for flying boats is to place the air-to-sea numbers within a blue circle. You can see examples of that for the Catalinas and Mariner in posts #428 and #429 above.

You have an excellent point about the striping. It is always the intersection of concepts that produces difficulties. I had thought about the intersection of lend lease and captured units - the intersection is the null set because the former are planes and the latter are ships. But I hadn't considered ...

1 - lend lease planes that are on loan to another player, or

2 - captured ships that are on loan to another player.

There are a couple of solutions I can come up with off the top of my head:

A - do nothing about indicating which units are on loan.

B - place the loan stripe low and such that it abuts the lend lease strip immediately above it; with the captured stripe the same size as those two combined; and a captured ship that is loaned has the loan stripe superimposed on the captured stripe.

C - find a different way of indicating which units are on loan (e.g., text or symbol).

WIF FE did not worry about units on loan, because the players simply keep track of it themselves. For MWIF it is more of an issue, since the program has to know which player is expected to move which units. For example, if you are playing over the Internet, the players for Germany and Italy could be thousands of miles apart with different copies of the program running. It's essential for the program to know which units have been lent. Now, there is a separate form for lending units so the mechanics of lending units between players is in place. But that kind of begs the question of how does a player know which units he is suppose to move (other than enclosing eligible units in a green outline - as is done for all available units during a phase). The idea is that a player will want to know at a glance which units are 'his'.

Criteria that cause some of my solutions to this problem to get poor ratings: (1) don't mess up the basic unit information, (2) remember the color blind guys, (3) there are a lot of numbers and text already on the counters, (4), contrast is important for things to be legible, (5) stippling/dots might disappear at different levels of zoom.[:(]

And so it goes.[&:]




Zorachus99 -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 7:51:31 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

But that kind of begs the question of how does a player know which units he is suppose to move (other than enclosing eligible units in a green outline - as is done for all available units during a phase). The idea is that a player will want to know at a glance which units are 'his'.



This is mainly a problem with captured units only, lend-leased air units have the corrrect color of the phasing major power that built them, but simply have a stripe to indicate the original owner. This is an idea that has worked well with the WIF counterset.

Captured units are simply the wrong color. Changing border color on these units may be a good idea to help the players distinguish 'their' units.



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 9:45:38 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99
quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
But that kind of begs the question of how does a player know which units he is suppose to move (other than enclosing eligible units in a green outline - as is done for all available units during a phase). The idea is that a player will want to know at a glance which units are 'his'.


This is mainly a problem with captured units only, lend-leased air units have the corrrect color of the phasing major power that built them, but simply have a stripe to indicate the original owner. This is an idea that has worked well with the WIF counterset.

Captured units are simply the wrong color. Changing border color on these units may be a good idea to help the players distinguish 'their' units.


"Captured units are simply the wrong color. " Well, that's a matter of opinion actually.[:)] You clearly believe that the background color of a unit should reflect who currently owns it, without any need to know its ancestry. I sort of like knowing that it is a captured French sub the Italians are using to cause the British so much trouble in the Mediterranean.

My previous plan was to do what you prefer: simply recolor a naval unit's background color to reflect any change of ownership. The bitmap images of the naval units precludes that option though. Because anti-aliasing is being used for the bitmaps, there are many gradations of the background color employed to heighten the clarity of the ship's image. I cannot achieve the same effect for any replacement background color. In fact, if I were to try to do that, the image would be instantly ugly. Rob and I played around with these possibilities a couple of months ago and decided the improved imagry for the bitmaps was worth the loss of the ability to change a unit's background color. Notice that this also means the players will be unable to change the background colors of bitmapped units (air and naval units when viewed at high resolution).

I have an improvement to my previous solution:

1 - Since only naval units can be captured, and naval unit bitmaps do not intrude up to the top of the counter, I'll place a wide horizontal stripe at the top to indicate the major power who currently owns a captured naval unit.

2 - Since only air units can be lend leased, I'll place a narrow horizontal stripe through the center of the bottom numbers of a lend leased air unit to indicate the major power who originally owned it.

3 - For units on loan from one player to another, I'll place a narrow horizontal stripe at the very bottom of the counter (underneath the numbers) to indicate the major power that is currently is moving the unit.

This results in 3 possible stripes, that will not overlap. It will be very rare for a unit to contain 2 stripes at the same time and that will never include the combination of the frst two listed above.

I'm pretty happy with this design concept, though I will have to see how it turns out in actual practice.

Your thoughts?




Froonp -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 10:14:03 PM)

Seems ok for me too.
Another idea you could use, for example for captured units : Make a zone a few pixels wide near the outline of the counter the same color as the capturing country, all around the counter.



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/13/2006 11:50:19 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Seems ok for me too.
Another idea you could use, for example for captured units : Make a zone a few pixels wide near the outline of the counter the same color as the capturing country, all around the counter.


That would not scale well through all levels of zoom unless I made the number of pixels at least 4. Then I would be running into numbers, text, and the bitmap image. Things are tight!



Zorachus99 -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/14/2006 6:40:56 AM)

units on loan? what rule(s) are you referring to? I did a quicksearch of the latest manual, and it doesn't seem to talk about loaning units (as far as I could find).

In what cases do you have loaned units that are controlled by a different phasing major power (excluding communist china w/russia)?



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/14/2006 8:15:05 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99
units on loan? what rule(s) are you referring to? I did a quicksearch of the latest manual, and it doesn't seem to talk about loaning units (as far as I could find).

In what cases do you have loaned units that are controlled by a different phasing major power (excluding communist china w/russia)?


Oh, ADG has nothing to say about loaning units. But then not again, they don't specifiy whose hand should touch each unit either.

It is common practice in over the board games for a player to 'give' a unit to another player for the purposes of deciding when to move it. Now this has no effect whatsoever on the limitations imposed by choice of Action. If it is a German unit, then using it applies against the German Activity Limits.

Besides the typical exchanges of unit control between Germany and Italy in Russia and North Africa, the USA often lets the Commonwealth player decide on positioning convoys in the Atlantic - which may involve repositioning some US convoys. Or, letting the Commonwealth decide on the use of strategic bombers. Again, the WIF FE rules are fully in effect. I am just talking about whose hand moves the unit.

So, the goal is to provide a comparable capability in MWIF. Since the computer is involved, this means formalizing the procedure and working out various particulars - such as marking the units that are on loan.



Zorachus99 -> RE: Unit Depictions on Screen (5/14/2006 6:50:12 PM)

It's great to see such an informal rule allowed. It's how play works in real life to a large degree.

However how do you deal with the limitations of the phasing player?

Example of real game:

Italy is running the Med Theatre and wants to use german air missions to fly air units to a sea area. Since the naval action comes before any land actions, Italy asks the German player if and how many air missions they can use from the German player. If the italian had four units on loan and flew all four out to sea areas, germany would have 0 air missions for their land impulse. Heck I've had the italians ask whether the German is doing a land because land moves could be limited.

Will the player with loaned units have full control of the lent units, or will they have to request permission before they use a unit that has limited activities, such as air, naval, or land units - all of which could have limits depending on the type of impulse which is declared...

When working with an italian player I often get questions on how many air missions they can have for the turn - not to mention them trying to talk me into using some sort of combined action. I envision some sort of dialogue alerting the phasing ally, whether or not a unit with a limited number of activities can be used, or better yet a request for activities that are limited (this wouldn't force the map to refocus). This both keeps your head out of a theatre you aren't paying attention to, and allows you to keep a tight grip on your activities which are so limited during a turn.

If the loaned unit is affecting activities allowed in a turn without alerting me, I would personally not have any units on loan - defeating the idea.



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