Image Icons

Frostion

Maybe a forced change to only display resource icons during purchase (if the map folder even has its own resource icons available) is a bit drastic for some veteran players. Could it be an engine option? Like with the unit flags?

I agree with the removal of the "x" btw.

redrum

@frostion Its an option. Though given that 95% of maps have really just 1 resource (PUs) not sure that the average/veteran player will be impacted much. And I think maps that do have multiple resources would almost all benefit from moving to icons. My thought is drive at making resource icons the default and then if necessary provide an option for displaying text if enough folks want it.

General_Zod

@redrum Optional text sounds good.

Hepps

Kind tooling around. Kinda neat being able to foresee simplified versions for resources as well.

0_1519011617816_Simplified resources.png

Frostion

@Hepps Could you make the dollar Yellow? For gold and reserve the green for food? (like an Apple)
If you made a new icon set it could maybe be an optional download or something to use in future maps? I kind of like the small drawings better, although these round ones are pretty distinct.
Edit: And have you tried with black instead of white as outline inside the pictures?

Hepps

@frostion Just tooling around. I can make any adjustments. The idea was just to generate some idea's.

The current one's we have are pretty detailed, so I thought if we could get a very basic set done to be included with the game... it'd give map makers at least a set to work with to implement quickly and easily.

Yah I can switch the green out for food. No biggy. I'm just having some fun.

redrum

@hepps Yeah, distinctiveness is good. But they seem to conflict with the general style of TripleA. I think probably that they are too white or something.

Hepps

@redrum Yah I haven't really toyed with them all that much other than to draw them and merge them into an example.

Hepps

@redrum I am just trying to keep the creative side on pace with the developmental side.

General_Zod

@hepps I like the idea of icons/symbols instead of images. As long as they don't clash too much with existing styles.

Hepps

@general_zod said in Image Icons:

@hepps I like the idea of icons/symbols instead of images. As long as they don't clash too much with existing styles.

Agreed. As I said... this is just me.... being me. I tend to take a feature and then dink around while it is in development to get some idea's as to how to use this down the road. In this case I just figured I'd post some of my artistic meanderings as it really costs us nothing. If we end up with something we can use as a basic package (which we could then include into the POS 2 game) then we come out ahead with a tool just to show people what can be done. Normally all of these experimental designs never see the light of day.

Hepps

@frostion

Frostion

@redrum
Will you change the picture pulling of the bottom bar, and make the bar pull the non-"_large.png" images?

I tested a pre-release, and right now it seems that the bottom bar uses the same _large.png images as the purchase screen. It would make little sence to have the bar pull pictures called something like PUs_large.png, as those bar icons would actually be small pictures, and at the same time have the purchase window pull large icons and have these not be called large.

I would suggest having the large icons used by the purchase window be called PUs_large.png (Approximately 48x48 pixels)

And have the smaller bar icons be called PUs_small.png or just PUs.png (Approximately 24x24 pixels)

And if we would ever think about using the images to display prices in the purchase screen (as @Hepps showed us), then have these icons be called PUs_tiny.png or PUs_small.png (Approximately 12x12 pixels)

Hepps

@frostion We had discussed making 3 image sizes for the resource folder. Small medium and large.... for exactly what you just mentioned.

redrum

@hepps @frostion Yeah, I'm thinking along the same lines that we need probably 3 different resource image sizes:

Large (*_large.png) - used anywhere that the resource is used for unit images (purchase/place/etc), can be up to the size of the unit images
Normal/Medium (*.png or *_medium.png) - used for resource bar either 24x24 or 32x32
Small (*_small.png) - used for areas that is aligned with text like purchase costs 12x12

If we have general agreement on that then I can update the resource bar to pull *.png instead of *_large.png. And I'll probably just take the default images already included in TripleA and rename the 12x12 to *_small.png and duplicate the *_large.png to be both the *.png and *_large.png for now. Then we can modify these as we work through icons.

Frostion

@Hepps and @redrum That sounds like a good plan

General_Zod

@redrum Just curious as to plan for the economy tab, since we have the info on bar. If we are keeping it, then maybe the "resource_small.png" can be used the in place of text. Similar to the tech sections flags on stats tab. But tooltip should work there if so.

redrum

@general_zod No hard plan but that would fall most likely into the "Small" category. Anywhere we have resource text today in theory could be replaced with small resource icons. I definitely think economy tab has value since you can see everyone's resources though many of the tabs on the right panel, I'd argue would be better as pop ups like diplomacy as the right panel should really just be actions IMO and the rest should be factored into other areas of the UI or into popups.

wc_sumpton

@redrum So the plan for a *_small.png, *_medium.png, *_large.png and just *.png but the unit sized one's are called 'large'. I think changing it that way causes more confusion down the road. Normal size IMOA would be called *.png and small 12x12, medium 24x24 and large 32x32 are use elsewhere.

But that's my 2 cents...

Cheers...

Frostion

@wc_sumpton
But the 24x24 and 32x32 size pictures are the same. It is just that 24x24 looks to be a good size for the pictures used in the bar, but they could in theory be as large as 32 high without being too high for the bar. So there are just 3 sizes atm.