RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (Full Version)

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Plainian -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (5/13/2007 3:34:45 AM)

Sorry but I still don't follow the CBV colour scheme thing?

Why doesn't the Calcutta/INA units have the blue CW colour as an insert?

Rome/Naples unit have the light green Italian colour?

Manila unit have the US green?




Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (5/13/2007 3:44:08 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Plain Ian

Sorry but I still don't follow the CBV colour scheme thing?

Why doesn't the Calcutta/INA units have the blue CW colour as an insert?

Rome/Naples unit have the light green Italian colour?

Manila unit have the US green?

The Rome/Naples does have the Italian green interior. See post #934 in this thread to see a typical Italian unit.

Indian units, when controlled by the CW, have a blue exterior and a green and red interior (red outline). Since the Japanese control the CBV units from Calcutta and INA, I changed the interior colors to green and black. That's because when I used the green and red, the outline disappeared into the Japanese red, creating a mess. This way the symbol in the interior is legible.



Jimm -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (5/13/2007 12:55:40 PM)


quote:


The problem is that many different units (basically the all the naval units) can be captured by many different major powers. This in combination with the bitmap graphics being drawn specifically for each naval unit creates the difficulty in doing what you suggest. We would need each naval unit to be drawn for each major power (different color), or ~6000 new bitmaps for the naval units.

As shown here, the new color (red for Japanese) is placed such that it does not touch the original bitmap. The same is true for the lend leased air units and any 'loaned' units that occur during game play.

I am not too worried about these being misunderstood. Captured units are quite rare, are always naval units, and the country of the captured unit rarely has any remaining naval units. [Though keeping Free French versus Vichy French units straight does cause me some concern.]


Fair enough. I appreciate it is a relatively rare event. Could you not retain the bitmap untouched with a horizontal band across the unit with the original colour- in fact as per lend lease counters in WIFFE?

The point on the Free French/Vichy units is also a good one. COuld you mark the units with an icon- cross of Lorraine for FF and Francisca for Vichy- or maybe alternate colours for one or the other perhaps?



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (5/13/2007 8:47:04 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jimm
quote:


The problem is that many different units (basically the all the naval units) can be captured by many different major powers. This in combination with the bitmap graphics being drawn specifically for each naval unit creates the difficulty in doing what you suggest. We would need each naval unit to be drawn for each major power (different color), or ~6000 new bitmaps for the naval units.

As shown here, the new color (red for Japanese) is placed such that it does not touch the original bitmap. The same is true for the lend leased air units and any 'loaned' units that occur during game play.

I am not too worried about these being misunderstood. Captured units are quite rare, are always naval units, and the country of the captured unit rarely has any remaining naval units. [Though keeping Free French versus Vichy French units straight does cause me some concern.]


Fair enough. I appreciate it is a relatively rare event. Could you not retain the bitmap untouched with a horizontal band across the unit with the original colour- in fact as per lend lease counters in WIFFE?

The point on the Free French/Vichy units is also a good one. COuld you mark the units with an icon- cross of Lorraine for FF and Francisca for Vichy- or maybe alternate colours for one or the other perhaps?

It is the bitmap portion of the graphic that has to be left untouched. For the naval units that is a smaller area that for air units (usually) but still dominates the center fo the counter and extends all the way across the counter. This leaves the top and bottom left to play with. There are 3 stripes denoting 3 different country control modifications. The lend lease stripe across the bottom numbers, the captured unit stripe across the top numbers (which extends all the way to the top), and the loaned unit stripe which covers the bottom, below the numbers. I believe that uses up all the available real estate on the counter.

I am going to reread the Vichy creation/setup rules and write quasi-code for implementing that while in Europe (Patrice informs me that there were problems with those rules in CWIF). I will try to come up with a way of displaying the counters so the Free French and the Vichy French can be readily differentiated. Probably that will mean different 'icons' for land, naval, and air units - perhaps merely a different placement of a single icon for each branch of service. But first I want to understand completely, in detail, the difference (in terms of rules) between Free France and Vichy France. Right now there are a few fuzzy areas for me - primarily because the rules have changed over the last 20 years since I started playing WIF.



Mziln -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (5/13/2007 8:56:32 PM)

[:D]  Here is an interesting link to a picture of a "1/10 scale model" that shows some Japanese just have too much time on their hands. Maybe its silhouette could be used for one of the counters. [:D]



Neilster -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (5/15/2007 5:51:40 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mziln

[:D] Here is an interesting link to a picture of a "1/10 scale model" that shows some Japanese just have too much time on their hands. Maybe its silhouette could be used for one of the counters. [:D]

It could probably still take out a minesweeper or something [:'(]

Cheers, Neilster



Dunedain -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (6/1/2007 10:54:06 PM)

Wow!! That is the most awesome ship model ever! :)



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/13/2007 10:00:19 PM)

It has been a while since I posted any screen shots of units on the map. So here is one, to whet your appetite.

The most recent addition is the new graphics for saved oil points. I still need to clean up the dirty edges but otherwise it's looking good (graphics from Patrice).

This is from the Decline and Fall scenario so the Yamato is here and so are some nice fighters. You can also see a City Based Volunteer (Saigon), an ASW Carrier, and the captured Ping Hai.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/4261B83B1C9B4492A9CD6261B83298E5.jpg[/image]



Froonp -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/13/2007 10:08:35 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
The most recent addition is the new graphics for saved oil points. I still need to clean up the dirty edges but otherwise it's looking good (graphics from Patrice).

I'd rather say graphic from ADG's WiF FE, that I extracted from Hi Res files.



Arron69 -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/13/2007 11:02:46 PM)

THIS LOOKS TOTALLY AWESOME...[&o][&o][&o][&o]

But to my eyes the captured ship look like a chinese ship to me, that they captured from them japs. I know the counters look like this on the sheet, but it has allways borthered me, im i alone on this? Colurs should be the other way round, or half and half, just MO.

And the saved oil looks great.

Andi.

edit: typoes.



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/13/2007 11:44:55 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Graf Zeppelin

THIS LOOKS TOTALLY AWESOME...[&o][&o][&o][&o]

But to my eyes the captured ship look like a chinese ship to me, that they captured from them japs. I know the counters look like this on the sheet, but it has allways borthered me, im i alone on this? Colurs should be the other way round, or half and half, just MO.

And the saved oil looks great.

Andi.

edit: typoes.

Thanks.

The graphics for the naval counters are anti-aliased, which means that to change the color around the ship graphic would require another complete graphic of the ship. That's not really feasiable given that any naval unit can be captured by any major power (for example, the Germans end up controlling some Italian naval units after the fall of Italy). The math is # of naval unit bitmaps * 8.

I can change the colors above and below. In fact, I do that for lend leased air units by adding a stripe across the bottom numbers.

For units that are loaned from one player to another, I am using the very bottom of the counter - changed to the color of the major power borrowing the unit. So, if the US lets the CW player position all their convoy units where ever he wants, the US convoys will be green with a small horizontal blue stripe across the bottom. This indicates that the program expects the CW (and not the US) to decide about moves et al for these units.



Arron69 -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 12:06:34 AM)

Okey, well IMO a change to mostly red would be less confusing...

Andi



jchastain -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 12:23:14 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I can change the colors above and below. In fact, I do that for lend leased air units by adding a stripe across the bottom numbers.



I like that option - with the silhouette being the color of the original producer and the "stats" aboves and below being the color of the current owner/controller.



bredsjomagnus -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 1:10:09 AM)

quote:

But to my eyes the captured ship look like a chinese ship to me, that they captured from them japs. I know the counters look like this on the sheet, but it has allways borthered me, im i alone on this?

No. We are at least two with that opinion.

/Magnus



brian brian -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 3:34:59 AM)

lookin goood!

* - don't all ASW counters have either a pink or red factor in the top left? obviously a challenge for the Japanese pieces, I think cardborad WiF solves this with a colored box?

the captured ships work OK for me as shown above, whatever is easiest and keeps the ball rolling. but perhaps the original MP color can be left as only a stripe across the ship silhouette? (sounds easy from the description of how the graphic works?)

edit - duhh - in other words, what jchastain said.

at WiFCon a US player put together a colorful task force of only ex-Axis ships, iirc it contained the Richelieu, the Yamato, and an Italian BB amongst a multi-hued cruiser horde.



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 3:42:55 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

lookin goood!

* - don't all ASW counters have either a pink or red factor in the top left? obviously a challenge for the Japanese pieces, I think cardborad WiF solves this with a colored box?

the captured ships work OK for me as shown above, whatever is easiest and keeps the ball rolling. but perhaps the original MP color can be left as only a stripe across the ship silhouette? (sounds easy from the description of how the graphic works?)

edit - duhh - in other words, what jchastain said.

at WiFCon a US player put together a colorful task force of only ex-Axis ships, iirc it contained the Richelieu, the Yamato, and an Italian BB amongst a multi-hued cruiser horde.

Ah, yes. There is s red rectangle around the ASW number in the upper left corner. I'll see what I can do to make it more obvious - I did something already for the tank busters I know.
===========
About changing the depiction of captured units. I doubt that I will do anything more - I messed around with different options way back when [you can see the history in this thread if you are really interested] and this seems a reasonable choice. I am 'keeping' the color changes at the bottom to denote 'friendly' control: lend lease and loaned units. If I were to make the captured units use a different color in both the top and the bottom space available, I believe it might confuse players even more.



Hortlund -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 11:09:09 AM)

Why the japanese names instead of the more commonly known US names for them.

Who knows what a Reisen is? Who knows what a Zero is?
Who knows what a Hayabusa is? Who knows what an Oscar is?

Etc...



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 11:12:42 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

Why the japanese names instead of the more commonly known US names for them.

Who knows what a Reisen is? Who knows what a Zero is?
Who knows what a Hayabusa is? Who knows what an Oscar is?

Etc...

The names are straight from WIF FE. The write ups on the air units give both the Japanese names and the names given by the US.




Neilster -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 2:21:34 PM)

There's a growing movement to use the Japanese nomenclature when describing their WW2 military equipment. The American nicknames are seen as less and less appropriate with time, especially as they initially selected Hillbilly names. This might be of interest...

The code name system for Japanese aircraft originated in the Southwest
Pacific theatre in the second half of 1942. Before Pearl Harbor, very
little was known about Japanese military aircraft of any type, and it was
widely assumed that most Japanese military aircraft were second-rate copies
of obsolescent Western designs. It goes without saying that the first
six months of the Pacific War showed just how wrong that view was!

The Allies were thus faced with a desperate need for accurate, up-to-date
intelligence on the Japanese aircraft which were at that time riding
roughshod over the entire Pacific theatre of operations. In June, 1942
Captain Frank T. McCoy of Nashville, Tennessee became head of the Material
Section of the Directorate of Intelligence of the allied air forces in the
entire Southwest Pacific area. His team was assigned the task of identifying
and classifying Japanese aircraft.

Since Captain McCoy was from Tennessee, he initially assigned hillbilly names
such as ZEKE, RUFE, NATE, and JAKE to Japanese aircraft--chosen so that they
were short, simple, unusual, and easy to remember. 75 code names were assigned
the first month. By September 1942, these names were in wide use throughout
the entire Southwest Pacific. Shortly thereafter, they went into use
throughout the entire Pacific.

These odd-sounding code names soon attracted attention from high-ranking
military brass. Captain McCoy assigned to what later turned out to be a
modified Zero the code name HAP, the nickname of General Henry H. ("Hap")
Arnold, USAAF Chief of Staff. The General was NOT amused, and had Capt
McCoy summoned before General MacArthur's chief of operations to explain
what he was up to. Captain McCoy seems to have gotten himself out of this
particular jam, but the name HAP was quietly changed to HAMP.

In the summer of 1944, a joint Army-Navy Air Technical Center in Washington
took over responsibility for assigning the names.

The code names were alloted according to the following system:

Male first names: Fighters and reconnaissance seaplanes
Female first names: Bombers, attack bombers, dive bombers
Reconnaissance aircraft
Flying boats
Transports (names beginning with letter T).
Tree names: Trainers
Bird names: Gliders

However, there were some exceptions to the rule. The Ki-44 Shoki single-
seat fighter was assigned the name TOJO.

Cheers, Neilster



brian brian -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 6:57:07 PM)

I have no opinion on the nomeclature of naming the Japanese units, but if you are looking for excellent additional historical material to spruce up the game presentation, I would suggest a re-hash of one of my favorite wargaming articles ever. This was a piece in the General in the 1980s for use with the excellent Avalon Hill game Victory in the Pacific (to which WiF owes quite a lot, and I would love to play on a computer), it was a short one page list of all the major Japanese combat ships and how to pronounce them phonetically. I learned most of them pretty well and this has been pretty nice while gaming over the years. Perhaps the ship write-ups already have this?



Froonp -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 6:59:43 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I have no opinion on the nomeclature of naming the Japanese units, but if you are looking for excellent additional historical material to spruce up the game presentation, I would suggest a re-hash of one of my favorite wargaming articles ever. This was a piece in the General in the 1980s for use with the excellent Avalon Hill game Victory in the Pacific (to which WiF owes quite a lot, and I would love to play on a computer), it was a short one page list of all the major Japanese combat ships and how to pronounce them phonetically. I learned most of them pretty well and this has been pretty nice while gaming over the years. Perhaps the ship write-ups already have this?

Where is this list available now ? I'm interested.
I've got my own "French" pronunciation for the Zuikaku, Shokaku, Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu, Soryu, Kongo, Mogami, etc.... and would love to see the phonetic pronunciation.



brian brian -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 7:13:28 PM)

Sadly I no longer have my collection of "The General." I'd wager it was in the issue with VitP on the cover but perhaps not.

Here is an example I can recall fairly well I think - Zuikaku = ZWEE kah koo (I hope I got that right, caps for the prime syllable)



Jimm -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 9:08:40 PM)

Looking good Steve.

I prefer the Japanese names; unfortunately WiFFE is not consistent as I recall, and uses a predominence of the US nomenclature, with a smattering of the native names.

One nitpicky on the unit appearance, for "Imperial Guard" (and other Guard units), "Gd" looks better as an abbreviation than "Gau."

The oil marker looks good.







composer99 -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 9:27:04 PM)

I would agree with Jimm: "Gd." looks better than "Gau" (A term used in the Third Reich for political sub-units of territorial organization, alternatively "Gaul" with a letter missing or a charcter from the Squaresoft game Final Fantasy VI) or "Gua" (no idea what the heck that is... Guam? Guano? Guadaloupe?). [:D][:D][:'(]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/14/2007 11:51:43 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: composer99

I would agree with Jimm: "Gd." looks better than "Gau" (A term used in the Third Reich for political sub-units of territorial organization, alternatively "Gaul" with a letter missing or a charcter from the Squaresoft game Final Fantasy VI) or "Gua" (no idea what the heck that is... Guam? Guano? Guadaloupe?). [:D][:D][:'(]

When a unit's name is too long the program calculates the maximum # of characters that will fit, chops off the rest and then throws in a period. Elsewhere the full name of the unit appears (e.g., in the unit write up, the unit data panel, etc.).



composer99 -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/15/2007 12:40:30 AM)

Would it be too much trouble to arrange it so that "Guard", if it must be shortened or cut down, is "Gd." instead of some other form? Small detail, so if it requires any more than fifteen seconds' work, don't think about it.



doctormm -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/15/2007 3:47:50 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets


quote:

ORIGINAL: composer99

I would agree with Jimm: "Gd." looks better than "Gau" (A term used in the Third Reich for political sub-units of territorial organization, alternatively "Gaul" with a letter missing or a charcter from the Squaresoft game Final Fantasy VI) or "Gua" (no idea what the heck that is... Guam? Guano? Guadaloupe?). [:D][:D][:'(]

When a unit's name is too long the program calculates the maximum # of characters that will fit, chops off the rest and then throws in a period. Elsewhere the full name of the unit appears (e.g., in the unit write up, the unit data panel, etc.).



So, is this something to add to the test plan:

Determine that the computer doesn't truncate names into things that would be "inappropriate" (such as certain three or four letter words).

???

(and a smiley just in case)
[;)]



dale1066 -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/17/2007 1:30:24 PM)

Do the captured units have to have their colours changed on a horizontal basis? is it possible to have a vertical bar added down a side? or even a corner flashed in the different colour?



jchastain -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/17/2007 5:52:57 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: dale1066

Do the captured units have to have their colours changed on a horizontal basis? is it possible to have a vertical bar added down a side? or even a corner flashed in the different colour?


I believe, based on Shannon's earlier post, that the base counter will be in the original owners color.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

The graphics for the naval counters are anti-aliased, which means that to change the color around the ship graphic would require another complete graphic of the ship. That's not really feasiable given that any naval unit can be captured by any major power (for example, the Germans end up controlling some Italian naval units after the fall of Italy). The math is # of naval unit bitmaps * 8.


You can likely do various modifications from there. Since the numbers are "known" to the program, I suspect you can change any of the edges and then just draw the numbers onto the counter. But the graphic cannot be overwritten.

I suspect it likely would be possible to do a verticle stripe, but the problem is the graphics are of different size. Look at the Yamato counter in the image above. It stretches nearly to the edge. So any verticle stripe would only be able to be at the very edge of the counter to ensure it could accomodate any image.

There is definitely also a point of diminishing returns. Drawing a circle around the graphic and leaving the image with the original builder's color and then painting outside of that circle with the current owner's color was my first thought. But at the end of the day, that's likely a good bit of work for something that is somewhat rare and the stripe across the top and bottom seems almost as good and a heck of a lot simpler. That was my thinking anyway.



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Bitmaps vs vectors (9/17/2007 7:34:42 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jchastain

quote:

ORIGINAL: dale1066

Do the captured units have to have their colours changed on a horizontal basis? is it possible to have a vertical bar added down a side? or even a corner flashed in the different colour?


I believe, based on Shannon's earlier post, that the base counter will be in the original owners color.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

The graphics for the naval counters are anti-aliased, which means that to change the color around the ship graphic would require another complete graphic of the ship. That's not really feasiable given that any naval unit can be captured by any major power (for example, the Germans end up controlling some Italian naval units after the fall of Italy). The math is # of naval unit bitmaps * 8.


You can likely do various modifications from there. Since the numbers are "known" to the program, I suspect you can change any of the edges and then just draw the numbers onto the counter. But the graphic cannot be overwritten.

I suspect it likely would be possible to do a verticle stripe, but the problem is the graphics are of different size. Look at the Yamato counter in the image above. It stretches nearly to the edge. So any verticle stripe would only be able to be at the very edge of the counter to ensure it could accomodate any image.

There is definitely also a point of diminishing returns. Drawing a circle around the graphic and leaving the image with the original builder's color and then painting outside of that circle with the current owner's color was my first thought. But at the end of the day, that's likely a good bit of work for something that is somewhat rare and the stripe across the top and bottom seems almost as good and a heck of a lot simpler. That was my thinking anyway.


I agree.

EDIT: and no blinkies.[:-] They will drive a player nuts in less than 5 minutes.[:)]



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