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Reg -> RE: USN Fleet Carriers (5/23/2010 1:46:57 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Arkady
As JFB I'm unhappy with lack of unit emblems for Japanese airunits.
They used only tactical markings and/or specific tail or fuselage symbols on planes.
As we are now able to change pictures for planes and further change them in time, different planes pictures for each unit (with same airplane type) is nice to have feature (maybe in future).
But I believe that I found workaround.
1. create alternate plane picture, image should be rectangle filled with one solid color (= game engine draw transparent frame)
here is example, alternate picture for A6M2 Zero, J_PlaneSide0004.bmp put into ART\JapPlanes
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2. create unit patch image, size 220x60, usual place for unit crest is empty, right side of the image is used for plane picture with correct unit's marking
for proof of concept I used Akagi Kanjo Sentokitai (Akagi-1), one red stripe, and Kaga Kanjo Sentokitai(Kaga-1), two red stripes.Files AGP_0482.bmp and AGP_0486.bmp in ART\JapPatch
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3. that's all, now you can see in game different plane pictures even for groups equiped with same plane type
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Unfortunately this concept have a few cons:
- you need unit patch picture (AGP_XXXX.bmp) files for each unit equiped with selected plane - for unknown painting, generic picture should be placed into unit patch image.
- no different plane type pictures in time possible
- when group upgrade to different type, you need alter unit patch image as well
- this usage of unit patch images is even more memory expensive than normal enhancement
Japanese paintings and symbols are available in book Emblems of the Rising Sun: Imperial Japanese Army Air Force
Unit Markings 1939-1945 by Peter Scott
or for example from this site (along with other nations planes paintings)
http://www.michael-reimer.com/CFS2/CFS2_Aircraft_Profiles.html
Hi Arkady,
This a fantastic approach to individual custom air units.
If we could possibly get MichaelM to come on board to make the unit patch art rotatable (allow them to be put in the month/year folders) and overwrite existing aircraft side art, you could really be on to something here though not linking the unit image to the aircraft type (ie if you don't upgrade aircraft type on the historical date) is a serious drawback and may undermine this whole concept.
MichaelM: I assume rotating on date wouldn't be too big a programming change (Yes I know... everyone says this), but this really is only an expansion to the scope of existing code..... Linking the image to the unit aircraft type will be a whole new ballgame (with PDU on...ouch!!)
However I think you have missed the biggest problem with this approach. I found when doing the rotating side art that there are few comprehensive sources so it will be very difficult to get a set of images that cover a reasonable portion of all the game units accurately. Second is that I have found lots of units go through about 4 different stages in colour scheme/markings with about 350 aircraft types per side and there are about 4000 air units all up. The potential number of images required for all combinations is staggering and that still doesn't take PDU into account which would require images for all potential aircraft types. Think about the memory requirements for this.
I think the best you could hope for is to create images for a few select (well known) examples and just go default for the rest. Still it might be worth it for the manual management for those examples where this system does work.
Best of luck,
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