Mega New Elk WIP

[Black_Elk]

@beelee Interesting it seems like it definitely needs a sharpening pass, I suspect this is an issue with the font scaling/ui vs map display, or maybe cause I edited the images on that 1440/1600p display laptop in GIMP. Or maybe the image attachment to the boards, cause I think I swiped a couple from other threads from a while back. I was trying to check for the upscales (like font at 125% or 150% what that does to the images inside the tripleA UI). I think this happened once before when I was doing the heads for the commanders, where like all the Italians suddenly had different interpolation applied when downscaled/upscaled. To me the rising sun/small ussr alt small flag roundels also appear to be larger in px tall/wide than some of the others, by like 1 px difference, but it's noticeable to me at 20px. This happens a bit when I check the stats screen/stats bars where the graphic will rescale slightly depending on how compressed the windows are there. Basically the roundel image sorta floating. Sunburst design also had a different crop from the left, rather than the OOB roundel which clips the sun at the halfway point and has fewer rays. Probably just needs to be a less involved design so it holds up resolution wise. I think I recall the same when trying to put the label graphics for the other one at those different sizes, so it wouldn't go jank like either jagged and pixely, or extra blursy blurs hehe.

I think I have to get a set for those flags in the roundel style that are all keyed together at 1080p. It's easier to use a single transformation from larger images to the downscaled/upscaled final size. I tried 20px initially but 22 or 18 might work better. I think I'll just have to do them more manually instead of with the batch resizing from the old GIMP/BIMP. I couldn't get Batcher to install into GIMP 3.0. So probably not too tough. It's just kinda funny cause the purpose of doing the higher resolution map or upscale with larger graphics images for units and such, but then for the UI and all the rest tripleA is sorta 1080 at the tops regardless lol.

The Bung's work alright for this purpose at 1080p maybe, the only issue there is that with the upscales or using a larger version (the bung roundel size large say) it will introduce an additional color into the image from the black borderline that is on all those images. Means that when you go up or down in size, and interpolation is applied, that black tends to drift into neighboring pixels and changes the color information a lot in the border areas between pixel colors. Then, because the OG roundels are cropped to content (right to the edge of the visible canvas), this will bunch up pixels near the edges, making the roundels appear more geometric - or like an octagon basically instead of a circle, from the black added around the perimeter of the roundel. At scale that line was more 1px, but when reduced it becomes a series of grays, so needs to be drawn in after scaling or it will sorta bork out. I was hoping to just get away with removing the black line entirely. But it's a similar sort of thing for the edges of some of those colors.

So like where the final pixel of the circle is touching the edge of the canvas, that tends to go flatter when downscaled/upscaled, whereas if I leave that pixel blank it will scale better. Sometimes I've seen the same on units, if I don't leave that 1px gap. But when there are only like 12 or 20 px to work with gets harder. It might be that the 18px image on a 20px field ends up displaying better than trying to max it to the edge, in GIMP I mean when I save out the images.

I'll try it later tonight and switch my display to 1080/1200 to see what's going on there. At 1440/1600 seemed clean, but maybe it's just off slightly because at that resolution the blur applies a little bit differently to the very tiny images. Especially for the shapes that are more rounded, or right on the edge of a curve. Even a straight line like the cross in the German roundel seems to have just more fuzz than it should. The standard G40 smalls would probably be almost good enough for units there in the regular UHD if running it at a lower res screen. It's been a minute since I tried that, since we first switched over the vanilla stuff into that package. I mean they may show smaller, but would probably look sharper on the final display, than these which appear slightly larger but sorta blurred out.

Probably I just need to rerun them all through the GIMP 3.0 and make sure something didn't weird out on me when I saved em initially or zipped em up. Got distracted last day or so, haven't had much time, but I can probably get it sorta this weekend

ps. Did you have any luck with the blends stuff? I was messing with that a bit as well under a couple monitor settings, to see what help up. Even 2F still felt a bit chalky to me for alpha channel, but could just be cause I've been looking at the high saturation version forever now lol. Something 1f to like between 1 and 2 might work better. I had a tough time deciding. It basically switches the contrast units to background, from something where the saturation is more backgrounded and the units pop because of the lower saturation, whereas blends is effectively the opposite of that. But I think it holds up ok. Just sorta depends on how the player prefers their contrast usually. Standard Units are pretty high saturation, I think just because the colorizer defaults to a more high sat/high chroma HEX. Not sure what's best, but I think as long as there is a more low contrast version (lighter colored for the background) for a blend, should be serviceable.

[beelee]

@black_elk

sorry brother but my mind just disintegrated reading this

I took the large JPN and shrunk it to 20 no halo.

Made separate folder for old one.

I'll try and regroup and reread. Mind going blank recently lol

Edit
Oh yea got the blends dialed

I'll make screenshots in Game Notes. I still dig the neon but I can see why some might not

[Black_Elk]

hehe sorry for the technical gimp digression. It's basically just a display rez issue, because I'll be editing in GIMP with a higher resolution monitor, and then launching the game to confirm the display, trying to do this at the two main resolutions 1080p and 1440p, to see how the units will display on screen at each size. TripleA to run at 1440p and up will want to rescale the font of the display by default to 125% or 150%, but when it does this the UI images enlarge as well by the same scale. Thing is, unlike with the font, or images/icons in say windows, in tripleA UI somehow upscales the images with a really rough interpolation. It's not applying the blur evenly or in a way that creates the right sorta visual but will be a little jagged, a little too blurry, etc when switching between those displays. I think I just need to like make an image set for 1080, rather than trying to make it for both, cause it's effectively like trying to edit and image to look good with glasses, and another image that looks good when a person has no glasses and astigmatism or something lol. Like that's what tripleA is doing at the high res, it's just not keyed up to upscale to the higher display really, so it sorta janks out for me there. But then I was trying to get the jank out to look ok enough, but comparing screens with what you posted, I think I gotta just make sure the 1080 will work lol

[Black_Elk]

Ok just saving these here, cause I have them scattered everywhere. At 96px and 24px

I have been trying to create some upscales that would work with the larger unit sets or the UHD

This has been done a thousand times probably, but I'm a stickler I guess lol. I have included some alternative variants, just for completion and since some of the traditional OOB designs are invented or anachronistic, I took some similar liberties. Examples would be like for Anzac, since I recall that old thread with the clutch quotes https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/24984/was-there-an-anzac-roundel

Since it wasn't like a separate air force or anything in WW2, sorta just went the invention route here. The film Gallipoli came out in 1981 so maybe that sorta hit around the time that A&A did in the States, who knows? I wanted to put the Kiwi see if I could make him ride on the Kangaroos back wearing a crown but that doesn't really show up very well hehe.

Instead I put the Kiwi inside the Kangaroo's heart, where it doesn't show up, but bounces together in spirit I guess lol

Anyway the RAF night roundel or the RAF type C with the thinner yellow border seemed to make sense for Pacific forces, after they ditched red inside to avoid confusion with the Japanese red sun hinomaru. The modern Kangaroo by itself worked alright I thought I just sorta mashed em together. Included both just in case anyone want's to try something different. Did the same for some others like Italy, or to give an Alt for I had laying around.

[RogerCooper]

@black_elk The kangaroo symbol for Australia only goes back to 1956 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Australian_Air_Force_Ensign, but it so cute that it should be used. The kiwi flag for New Zealand is not historical at all but it is a nice symbol.

[Black_Elk]

Yeah I tend to agree, sometimes we have to make little compromises for the vibes hehe.

This is the earliest example I could find from around the era... although it's pretty clearly from after the War, since they know the end date1941-45 haha. Probably a remembrance deal there...

I thought about trying to use that design for the Roo the, but just seemed simpler to go with the more formalized shape from later on. Of course there's bound to be lag between say first appearance and official adoption, so I suppose it's possible it could go back to WW1 or whatever. Also when like google image search/Wikipedia become the primary way to hunt stuff down, and then trying to match expectations from other games. I think people just get used to seeing the anachronisms and then assume they must be accurate, when usually it's some sort of novel design. Also like once we go with one invention, and pandora's box is already opened.

You know like if we're already going there for Germany and Italy, might as well go for broke and try to get the colors to play well with each other haha. Between the OOBs from A&A or the HBG decal sets, I can usually get a sense for what works or what's floating around, and then just try to recreate whatever motif from similar materials. I also enjoy it when stuff leans historical, but only to an extent. I feel like boardgames and computer games are not really in the same category as say an Encyclopedia Britannica or some illustrated history tome to be read by adults and academics. Ages 12+ or 14+ suggests to me that things need to be a bit more Saturday morning cartoon style sometimes. Even if it makes the history buffs grumble, we gotta tow the line there I think. My rubric to follow is basically old Hollywood flicks from the Golden Age of the Silver Screen, plastic army men and GI Joe. I feel like that's generally the way to go for this stuff. Customizers can always customize to their tastes, but long as it works for the basic thrust of the thing with the default package.

[Black_Elk]

Ran another quickie Hard AI vs itself. Felt pretty solid

I think Axis stabilize pretty well in the midgame. Computer USA foot drags it a bit into N. Africa, but I think juicing them any more at the outset would probably just make it too easy for computer Allies to get a leg up right away, while also making things rather less interesting when playing as Allies vs computer Axis. Overall not too shabby for a split by teams from rounds 5-8 or thereabouts when things start to either swing towards one side or settle into more of a stalemate. In this one France did pretty well by hanging on Syria and then using it as a resistance wedge to stall Axis convergence. Seemed like Computer Japan was poised to secure East Africa for them, but then India cracked back and ejected them from Bombay. Pretty fun to watch from the peanut gallery.

I think instead of tweaking the opener much more, I'd just go with income modifier for the computer, something like 10%-15% to the enemy team for a challenge, maybe up to like 125% if controlling the whole side Axis or Allies. I think that prob takes care of the lower income powers getting bombed off the board, since the income cushion sorta takes care of that, and pad the transports buys a bit.

I'm sure I'll be playing BG3 for the foreseeable future, so probably could just roll this for now and see how it pans out.

I think probably at this point we could noodle the place again for the visual on launch. I couldn't decide on which roundels I preferred, I ended up using the 1943 roundel for USA, and switched a few others just to see which ones felt cool. I think most of them held up pretty well, so more down to flavor preference I guess, or whatever seems easier to distinguish at a glance.

Save and a couple screens from that last bout into round 10 spectating hehe

2025-4-19-UHD-WIP-1940-45.tsvg

For me the UI displays like so at the 1600p default Font 150%. Still has some jank with the interpolation applied there, but not too bad. I think should be serviceable

[beelee]

@black_elk

I'll get back to this soon. Or hopefully I will. So, just need the new flags then ? Don't worry about the units ? Or should I use the new ones as default and put the others in a separate folder for folks to swap if they want ?

[Black_Elk]

@beelee Yeah I say do what you feel, whichever ones look best to you

I tried my hand at the Ironman, USA vs computer Axis with 125% income boost to the machine. Didn't quite get there lol

2025-4-21-UHD-WIP-1940-45_USA_vs_Axis_125_Round_11.tsvg

Mostly KJF plan with what felt like a moderate press vs the Med. G went pretty monster with the extra money! I didn't think we'd quite have the juice to liberate France with our computer pals pursuing their own agenda, but we did make a little blast vs the Balkans over there which had us feeling like we made a contribution. Although perhaps not enough to keep the Soviets in it to win it lol.

Japan has been fighting tooth and nail for the home island. It was pretty entertaining on the water hehe

[Black_Elk]

Just in case we ever get a UI wizard on the dev team, I think it would be interesting to try for something like this in a display...

I mean like the Harrison/Harris approach,==there's just a whole vibe there going from something like this in the 1940s... to A&A in the 80s or something like War Room more recently heheh

The tripleA default has Mercator/Equidistant etc familiar North is up maps, because that's what works well on a flat table, but a digital table top we have more options. When I look at the war room layout from kickstarter it has a whole sweep to it like that's what a UI should look like, some digital version of that.

Prob with the current tripleA presentation for that is the map zoom, since that is all keyed up for rectangular maps, moreso than the circles/squares or riffs on the Azimuthal projection. But then I was thinking maybe if it had a double view, like two hemispheres, so say that the map on the left or the mini might look like world projection we see here, and the one on the right might be more like a rectangular crop within a circular/oval which is more like a theater view?

Idea would be to have two maps that display simultaneously with redundant information but displayed differently for vibes or impact, or something like a playable mini map at say 50% and the 100% on the same board, Iron Blitz view meets G40 panned out say? So maybe one side has that pulled out global view, the other the zoomed in battle view on the curve, and the player can switch between them with a hotkey, or zoom out and see them both at once.

Like imagining the Azimuth/War Room style view would be the left square, and the square on the right would be some theater zoom view of the same with larger unit displays and such, but all on that 2:1 overall map dimension for the survey view where both show together.

I'm certain this can't really be achieved right now in tripleA, since it'd need at least 2 maps working together, but I mean like for the moonshot, would be cool if the Harrison atlas from 44 had like a grab and drag wheel for the global survey view, but then we end up with something more like a regular A&A map from the table top for the campaign/battle/tactical view. That would be fun!

[RogerCooper]

@black_elk During WW2, use of the Mercator projection was more common.

I am not sure what projection this is.

I did not find the polar projection used in War Room easy to use.

Any discussion of map projection should reference this cartoon https://xkcd.com/977/

[Black_Elk]

@rogercooper

Those are cool!

Yeah that cartoon! total Inception lol

Oh it's this dude's work...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Edes_Harrison

The challenge he faced was that most Americans, like many people at the time I guess and still today, they were so familiar and ingrained with the Mercator from schooldays and the era of the sail/naval navigation going back several centuries, that they really struggled to understand how the advent of aviation had changed the game. Or like why these faraway points were so key to the war effort. So they basically hired on a technical artist (rather than a cartagropher) to reimagine how these distances and war situations could be depicted in popular media. The maps were in mags and periodicals, so I think they're sorta Duckburg style, like fighting the war of ideas, with that sort of jingoism baked in, but it definitely anticipates stuff like GPS Satellite maps or the UI's from video games. Like I can just see it morph from that into Hearts of Iron after a couple more decades floating around.

I just think it's cool, since it sorta takes root during that period and comes to define the new look, along with commercial advertisements and pulp illustration (pin ups and such) the fonts and whatever, which is why I think it looks cool for window dressing type thing, but I'm not sure it works so well as a main map campaign view.

It would work maybe for a mini map though, or an endgame stats view thing, or just alternative style view from a hotkey. But then I have no idea how something like that could be translated into tripleA without like a total UI overhaul that can somehow use two baselines at once hehe. Hence the pipe dream.

It's to me interesting cause for Classic, the world projection there was clearly Mercator style, but then every A&A board since Revised and then later War Room, they riff more like some of those Harrison maps from the 1940s to me. Like the way some of the continents are compressed and such, or the crops that were chosen. Almost like it was a crop and swap, where the maps were tilted up from there to hammer home the idea. But then the north pole view sorta doesn't really do the telescoping on Europe and the Pacific the way the dual Theater Atlases usual show the war in the books, like with a double inset with room for many sculpts. To me the G40 is more like those, but then when I think back to Iron Blitz, it totally reminds me of those Harrison map vibes. Almost as if the one is a call back of the other. Even down to the names there, it's like a whole harris thing haha