Mega New Elk WIP

[beelee]

Eastern Front getting a little crowded, but sometimes you're just gonna have a little bit of that

[beelee]

well I was gonna try and not spam out the thread but I guess I already have lol

4 more and mainland europe will be done for the reich. Silesia turned out nicely

Start on the commies next. Actually, I guess I should do those fascist bastards in Italy as long as I'm in Europe. Gotta do Scandanavia too.

Well, I guess it doesn't matter what order it gets done in lol

[wc_sumpton]

@beelee

Looking good!

I would think about commenting out unitInitialize section while doing this to get a cleaner look at the map.

Cheers...

[beelee]

@wc_sumpton

hee hee East Prussia last one for mainland G. I'll update to git so I don't get to far in front of my skis.

Snowmobile the way to go anyway. That's still a workout though

I was gonna be a pit dude on the ALCAN 200 for this guy but he punked out lol.

Sorry roads closed. Wtf ? Snowmachine race. Had to fry at the KPI in Haines Junction lol

They don't like outsiders

[beelee]

got G done for mainland europe. I'll upload to git in a bit

@VictoryFirst here's how your G start looks now

[beelee]

hmm .. maybe Danzig PU should go a bit higher
well w/e lol

[Black_Elk]

Looking cool! I would just call those marshes Pripet for simplicity, might have been a typo when flying to knock out that original key.

I wish I could offer more guidance on the labels, but I think short and sweet makes sense, since the space is at a premium. There is some awkwardness in that Hepster's initial draft (that I built from) alternated between regional labels and then metro labels. So sometimes you'd have one territory named for say a province or a state, other times for a major city or geographical feature, and it's not terribly consistent there. I also wasn't considering the actual display in GCD, since we knew there that they'd only display during the mouse over with the cursor. Then there are some instances where it seemed to make sense to use a more generic name, like North X, East X, South X, West, Central X, whatever, just to try and be more catch-all and since those were easier to simplify N.W.S.E. Cen. Though I'll admit I find that a bit lackluster at times, since it's rather less useful as an educational tool or as an aid to memory. I feel like it's just this endless can of worms though, where it's pretty hard to find a satisfactory compromise, and people will of course have opinions on it all. On the one hand there's some definite jingoism in defaulting to English conventions, but I feel like this is unavoidable if we want it feel consistent across the board, or especially if using Abbreviations for stuff. Anyhow, if something seems questionable, I would default to whatever seems most familiar to you. We can always go back and make adjustments for that stuff later on. Whatever is easy

Nice work!

[beelee]

@black_elk

heh heh yea I'm just kinda winging it on the names. Figure if I can undertand it, most others can.

It's a pretty low bar

Well gonna git and then Scandanavia. Still need N Africa but w/e it can wait lol

Gotta reup back in a few

Edit
Updated to git https://github.com/beelee1/mega_new_elk/pull/15

[beelee]

Struggled hard with Bergen-Vestland lol took an hour lol

It'd be nice to move the Names. Well, we can deal with it in the future

[wc_sumpton]

@beelee said in Mega New Elk:

It'd be nice to move the Names. Well, we can deal with it in the future

Create a new folder called "territoryNames". Select "Map Creator Tools" and set the map folder. Next select "Step 2: Map Utilities". Then select "Run The Decoration Placer" and select pu_place to start, after the PUs are loaded on the screen select "Save Current and Keep Them On The Map and Load New File" and select name_place for the next file. Make sure you select "Text File Full of Points" because the default will be "Folder Full of Images". It should load a default "TerritoryName" image. This will show you where all the territory name are being printed on the map and also where you place the PUs marker. Move the names at your leisure. Do not reload the PUs because things will start getting confusing. Save, quit then reload. If you want to do PUs, load territory names first and then load PUs.

Hope this is helpful.

Cheers...

[beelee]

@wc_sumpton said in Mega New Elk:

"Text File Full of Points" because the default

hmm ... I'm not familiar with that. Will check it out

[wc_sumpton]

@beelee

When you created the pu_place "Text File Full of Points" was the default selection. You are creating the name_place the same way, just creating a text file with points. Without the png for all the names the xml/stored text name will be used at the selected location.

Take your time, since both files can be loaded, you can compare the location of both. Just remember that only the last selection can be moved on the map. That is why I advise saving and exiting before changing the locations of PUs/Territory Names.

Cheers...

[beelee]

@wc_sumpton said in Mega New Elk:

That is why I advise saving and exiting before changing the locations of PUs/Territory Names.

yea that's how I'm doing it. Struggling in Scandinavia

Thanks for the help

[Black_Elk]

Love it!

This is surely the hardest part for me honestly. Carving up the board is entertainment, but then working up the coordinates in the place is like the stuff of mini nightmares hehe.

Hopefully gets somewhat easier the more it gets it blocked in. Upside is that I made this one more or less in the following sequence, over the course of about 10 years or so: Great War, Domination with surtur, v3 with zero pilot etc, then that same projection again for PoP 1914 with hepps, then reworked for the GCD 1941 with the dog, but the basic projection is very similar. So by making all the little tile blocks across a couple timelines for the contours it becomes easier for me to sorta ballpark where everything might go.

I mean they're all very comparable in the sweep and so stuff can sorta slot in or break apart along similar lines. Takes a small eternity to actually assign all the connections and rework the place though, like when the overall dimensions of the board change in each upscale, say from like v3 or the Dom, to something larger/taller/longer in terms of the overall pixel count, then the place has to be entirely redone each time. This latest iteration is at the very high end for a display resolution, meaning about as large as I could manage in GIMP, and based on the unit size somewhat wider 54 tall up to about twice the width of the standard 48px square at 96px for say the longer ships. I think it's a decent scale for a board that's pretty carved up with units at that size. I mean of course it's easier to add in new divisions and such once something is in place and sorta rocking along.

I still like the idea of eventually getting around to another WW1 themed map, or an interwar type map maybe. Also cold war 1950's ish, since it's not too hard to get there from something like this. Or to something that might work for other periods as well. But I mean who knows where it ends up when all is said and done. I think UFO's and such could be a winning angle too or zombies for the afterlife lol

If someone wanted to try WW1 style labeling or divisions they could key it off the PoP 1914 which was the Hepster take on the Dom project. Similar sweep for the map projection there, but different time period.

But yeah, sorta the idea just to have a framework for a similarly carved up beast, except with a more late 30s into the 40s or beyond type board. Could probably service a HBG style 1936-9 vibe as well, following a similar warp. I can see a few different options there, but in any case hopefully fairly adaptive for different purposes.

I can tap back in when we get to the point where map or graphics type tweaks are required for whatever else, or just to tool around with the scenarios and riff.

Nice work

Have a blast!

ps. Just fired it up what was on the GIT. Killer!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1chi-BgJJhbJ54Vl3cr1HbGw2sHJlBrW1/view?usp=sharing

[TheDog]

@beelee
On your eastern front & GCD, it is very crowded and to speed up the AIs first turn I put all/most of the move 2+ units back one TT from the front line.

Also early on in GCD development I decided not to show TT / SZ names, to reduce map clutter.

I also wanted NOT to show PU values in a TT, but Black_Elk persuaded me to show them. (Im a bit of a minimalist as both are on the status bar)

Keep up the good work! :thumbs_up:

[beelee]

@thedog

yea that's a good idea on the M2 dudes. Victory did the setup mostly. And Elk a little bit. I gave the capitals some dudes when I started. I just try and make the dudes show up without running in to each other.

Your work on GCD is definitely a godsend. It's basically the blueprint

[beelee]

Yea the white names look better. Idk if I can make it a default. Gotta change it under "View" map font and color.

Forgot Wallachia. Never heard of it. Not real familiar with eastern euro

[beelee]

Got Wallachia dialed in. Thought they could pull a fast one on the reich. That's not how they roll though. Everybody has got to be in line lol

[Black_Elk]

Cool digs

I think it should be something in the map.properties. Saying something like text color = 00000 (for black) where you'd want it to say color = FFFFFF (for white) not sure what to type out, or if it'd need to be added in, or maybe under some other heading.

The hex colors for the national colors are usually at the top, but I'd guess that would go somewhere near the bottom. I wouldn't know what I'm looking for though, other than the Hex colors there. For that # 00000 is 100% black, # FFFFFF is 100% white and something like font or text or territory name

[Black_Elk]

For the amount of elbow grease it will take I might try to ballpark it by first removing the PU folder and the PU_place txt. Or you can just rename them with something like "PU_backup" or "PU_place_backup." Then launch the map to see how that presents.

This will show you where your 'Territory Name and PU' label centers are actually going by default. Currently the map Font and Color is 18 pt, and the labels are black. I would suggest changing that to white, like you did, to match the UHD.

You will notice if doing this, that the position of the Territory Name/PU label will shift position depending on the Font size chosen. The Length of the label (how many characters make up a given name) will also be a factor. Basically what it's doing is trying to center the text as best it can based on the shape or dimensions of the Polygon that the name is drawing into. I believe there is a way to lock the center though, so that the label will not jump to a totally new center when rescaled. I haven't been able to determine how to do this though. I mean in a way that still allows for the View tab Font and Color stuff to work via the players inputs there. The strongarm solution was like one size fits all, which was to set up separate PU graphics, but then those can't really be changed on the fly without an image processing application.

To me it's hella awkward from a visual design standpoint to have the Labels all moving around the board when resized in the View settings "Map Font and Color", or at least it'd be nice not to have the labels making such dramatic moves. Simply going from 18pt font to 20pt font in the View tab, that can totally change the center of a label's display coordinates to a pretty extreme degree. It may completely reposition depending on the shape of the polygon it's drawing into. Say jumping up 100 pt or more along the Y axis coordinate or whatever, in which case probably striking into a unit place that would otherwise have looked fine at a smaller Font size.

I think we'd want the label text to remain in-line with the established center, not like trying to recenter or change coordinates within the tile, based on the dimensions of the now upscaled label/font, if going from say 18pt font to 20pt font or whatever. Font at any pt, has the advantage that the player can scale this in-game via the View settings. I mean we can have defaults, but the player can tweak that with one click. People can spec it to suit their eyes, or especially for the visually impaired. If we use graphics, pngs in a folder rather than built-in font, those are locked in at whatever dimensions the PU image is set at in those folders.

If we use the built-in text it's much more modular. For example, it should be possible to use TripleA map.props settings to set an alpha.transparency for Territory Name font, so that instead of displaying at 100% white, it will show like a semi transparent number/label keying off the national Hex colors. Or displaying through those colors basically. Or similarly you could make them off-white or some kind gray, or 2 toned (Bung's Global is 2 tone White with a black border actually, though for UHD I just made the PU graphic 100% white with the circular deal going on.) Many of the things for overall color grading, say dark vs light map can also be handled that way, but for now I'd prob just be more concerned about a clean read for the info that displays by default.

GCD is using a PU graphic at dimensions 27px by 16px (they're the graphics from WOPR's update to my v3 map.) Bung's G40 uses a different set of PU graphics which are Circular/Square dimensions. I tried to replicate these for the UHD Global using graphics at 54 px which was our unit standard field. The actual image is smaller closer to 36px, but it's on a 54px field. What this all means is that the kerning for those PUs is going to look different in the PU place, than whatever was set up for the other map.

I would maybe prioritize the Label first (if intending to display them), so the territory name and PU first, along with the VCs, then the Unit place dancing around that other stuff. First units in the place I think would be the static units which never move, say Factories or Bases in the case of G40, then the units which can actually move around the board. I think that's coming from the order listed in the game files for units.

For tangents, that's just like trying to avoid a situation where two labels strike into each other, or the Territory name strikes into the PU label or graphic, or where the little dudes obstruct information (least when the map is first opened, like for the round 1 starting unit place.) Once stuff is moving around and overflow lines are involved it's a bit unavoidable, but more just to have something look nice when the player first opens the map and scans around. To me it's nice, if including stuff like labels as an aid to memory or for educational purposes, to have the kerning look nice. So more to do with the relative position of Font characters, or graphics, than the design of those graphics per se. In other words the relative position the images to each other (text in this case) is sorta more important, than the specific visual design of the images chosen. If they're spaced evenly, it's always going to make anything look better.

When tripleA auto-does it's thing, the kerning will be consistent, whereas if it's done by hand that will almost always be off by a few pixels, or could be very extreme, off by several hundred pixels. Since I'm not a graphic designer, I'd probably use the machine for it, since we know it will give consistent results there. Easier to make slight adjustments afterwards if it looks off somewhere.