22-01-2002 10:07									#1
	Unit Graphics 2 Get a bigger avatar today!

The unit graphics thread had reached its limit, so here is a continuation thread. The old thread is to be found at previous Unit Graphics threadAlthough the gifs are paletted (being gifs) the Java graphics classes convert everything to rgb colours anyway, so we do not have to worry about palette limitations. Also the transparency is handled (at least in my CorelDraw 8) as a mask rather than a colour. Again, no problem.

Cheers

	30-01-2002 04:21									#2
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Is there a "list" of what units we're going to use in Clash ?

After i'm finished with the updated terrain, i was thinking about making some units. Unless there are more pressing issues to be resolved of course.

-Stian-

	30-01-2002 16:44									#3
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Units (or elements) currently include:
Warriors, Light cavalry, archers, phalanx...
Some unit graphics that may be used right now:
A skirmisher (currently uses archer image, could use a slinger better I think) - not very important as it won't be seen unless your unit is badly damaged.
An engineer (think roman legion engineer building the roads and forts) - again, low priority since they are hardly seen.

Units we will need:
Some round boat if we manage to get boats working, which should no longer be a problem now.

Units I would like:
A catapult.

	30-01-2002 18:14									#4
	Oliphaunts! Increase the size of your Attachments

Elephants are cool!

But it's not time for them yet.

	30-03-2002 15:21									#5
	Elephants Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Elephants might come in handy now.
Since we have a Delenda scenario, and to any French Hannibal implis a notion of elephants crossing the Alps, we could use an elephant graphic for the Delenda scenario.
That would mean I would have to please Gary by providing some code to manage civ-specific units.
Any artist interested?
Gary, would the elephant be welcome in the scenario? From a player point of view, I think it would, as you would feel different playing Rome or Carthage.

	04-04-2002 12:48									#6
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About units having their own image rather than elements: It is OK with me. Indeed, the changing icon because of the wounds may be confusing.
Still noone interested in painting elephants?

	05-04-2002 02:34									#7
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quote: That would mean I would have to please Gary by providing some code to manage civ-specific units.

I don't think this is really a military model matter, rather it is a civilization matter. We do have to deal with it at some time, though.

quote: Any artist interested?

I will give it a go.

quote: Gary, would the elephant be welcome in the scenario? From a player point of view, I think it would, as you would feel different playing Rome or Carthage.

I would certainly like them.

quote: About units having their own image rather than elements: It is OK with me. Indeed, the changing icon because of the wounds may be confusing.

This is exactly the area where unit images are better than element images. Normally the elephants would have infantry support elements with them, in such numbers that the infantry image would dominate, and the fact that the unit is based on elephants is lost, so the elephant image would never be seen. Forcing the image to be an elephant one does not preclude the possibility that the unit has more infantry than elephants.

I will make this change.

Cheers

	06-04-2002 00:59									#8
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Unit images are now implemented. I am working on the elephant.

Cheers

	29-05-2002 06:43									#9
	Got spare money?

Bump so Twinge can check it out.

Twinge, the elephant got done... In addition to the transport ship I mentioned before, the d7 city icons are a bit too big for the tiles, so that is one possibility. I am not sure if we ever officially determined we need a settler image, but I think we do, so that 's another thing you could try.

Thanks for being willing to put some effort into this!

-Mark

	29-05-2002 11:57									#10
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I'd like to have a legion icon to differentiate legions from cohorts in demo7 carthago scenario. It is almost the same unit, just a bit more powerful, but it'd be nice to differentiate. I downloaded something to try to be able to generate gifs but I am not sure I can get it to work and won't have much time for during the next two weeks anyway. So if anyone's interested...

	29-05-2002 12:20									#11
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Ok, I made up a little settler/engineer/guy with a shovel pic. It's not great but it might work, dunno. Feel free to modify it of course. I haven't tested it out on the backgrounds yet. I might work on another boat design tommorow. I dig the coasts btw, should over a lot of nice variety with the beaches. We'll probably want to make a few more varietys of the basic land tiles so they can be a little more diverse, but that's obviously not a top priority.

I didn't quite understand what you were asking about with the city icons. Which ones? The town gifs, the tiny city2 gif or the big city roman gif? I suggest you download a program called irfanview for your format changing, directory browsing and image resizing needs =) Nice free program, here's a link: http://www.irfanview.com/

Attachment: shovelguy.gif
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	29-05-2002 17:00									#12
	Remove this text

Hey Twinge:

The city ones I'm worried about are the ones for the Romans in the Delenda D7 Scenario. I don't know what their name is, but you should be able to ID it in the scenario file at a guess.

Thanks for the settler. As you say, you'll need to do some experimentation to see how he works on the terrain gfx.

I'll check out that program sometime tonight...

	29-05-2002 23:43									#13
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Thanks for the link Twinge. I had tried it but couldn't reach the server. I found another trial software, which took me 3 tries before I managed to get transparency... I'll show my legion icon here. I don't like it much because it is static, and doesn't stick out against the mostly green background. If anyone can get a better icon, I'd like it. Otherwise if you think color-tweaking would make this image acceptable, I'll try to make it better.

Attachment: legion2.gif
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	30-05-2002 00:46									#14
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Just run a search on google if you can't get it from there. Irfanview is freeware, better than shareware, and can do most of the basic graphic stuff with ease. Quite nice =)

Ok I'll look at the city when I get a chance.

	30-05-2002 01:42									#15
	Got spare money?

Well I went ahead and made a smaller town1.gif, but It's the code that makes it too big, not the graphic. The code stretches it to fot the tile, and it stretches it too much I guess =)

Here's a comparison of the 2 citys being using in game; the small city I made just looks blurrier, but it's still the same size. I can upload the small city if you still want it but I don't think you need it

Attachment: towncompare.gif
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	30-05-2002 01:45									#16
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Hi, again!

I was checking the forum to see what the current status of Clas wah, when I just remembered I did a few legion icons back then I never finally submitted you. Or I did?

Anyways, here they are. Perhaps you can use them for the Carthage scen. I've already put them over a greenish background.

Attachment: legion.gif
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	30-05-2002 01:47									#17
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Oh, the background didn't show up. Again:

Attachment: legion.gif
This has been downloaded 189 time(s).

	30-05-2002 01:50									#18
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And this one was intended to be a centurion. I didn't like it so much then, but perhaps you can find a use for it now taht you want separate icons for cohorts and legions.

Anyways, good luck with the project and keep up the good work!

Attachment: centurion.gif
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	30-05-2002 01:51									#19
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...And here's the Settler/Etc. in action:

It's not great obviously but it should work at least until someone makes something better. Anyone in graphics can easily add a shadow if they want to I'm sure.

Attachment: shovelguyinaction.gif
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	30-05-2002 02:02									#20
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Hi Fiera, that's great to see these units! . I personally like the white one with shadow. If noone complains, it and the centurion will end up soon in the game.

	30-05-2002 05:06									#21
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Hi Fiera! Good to hear from you again, and thanks for the images. If you run across any more stuff that you think might be useful that hasn't been passed on, if you could zip at all pop and posted here, that would be great. Then artists, or anybody for that matter, can mine it for stuff we can use.

Laurent, I think your guy looks good! I hate it that I'm the only one with Absolutely no artistic talent around here .

Hey Twinge, it looks like Gary is doing a resize of the graphics when they are read in. my guess is if you take your new image with the smaller city icon but leave the image size in the gif the same size as for the larger one it should work. But before you put substantial work into it, best that you hear from Gary what the official party line is. I guess that's what fuzzed out your settler image also. I think the settler demo image was really useful. I think the short skirts on the settler making looks somewhat effeminate , so I'd advise making the skirts a bit longer. Another issue is a his clothing may not fit in really well with settlers for the dawn scenario. So if you're interested in trying some generic peasant clothing that might look like it could come from a wider range of cultures and times, I think that would be a good step in the right direction. If you're not intrigued by the concept, we now at least have a Settler icon!

One other idea would be to find a Civ2 tileset whose size matches our existing tiles and images well, and asked the creator if they wouldn't mind us using/modifying them for Clash. I don't know if this is a job that would appeal to you or not, I'm just throwing it out as an idea...

	30-05-2002 06:04									#22
	Increase Your PM Length

Yeah I was kinda trying for generic peasent clothing, IE white robe or kilt, but it ended up kinda odd. (remember that anciet Civs didn't always have access to dyes for clothing; regular attire was probably often white) I made a few different versions with brown clothing and one with a bigger shovel for some comparison. Do whatever you want with the unit and use it how you will; it didn't take me too long to make so I won't get all pissed off if you don't use it =) Here's a zip of the 3, in bmp format right now:

Attachment: shovelguy.zip
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	30-05-2002 06:07									#23
	Put an end to popups!

...And here is the smaller town gif comparison. Good idea mark, that did the trick. I might need to smooth it out a little bit to give it a little more definition like the original, but it's nice and smaller =) Is this about the size you want?

Attachment: towncompareb.gif
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	30-05-2002 06:20									#24
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Oooh,I just thought of something else that worked even better (along the same concept): I just made the empty space on the original one larger. That way We keep the original details without as much fuzziness. If the size is right, this is probably the one you want to use (I made the whitish top border a little less white since it seemed a little too offset) I can do the same for the other (as of yet) unused city pic if needed. not difficult as long as you have some simple stuff like Irfanview and paint.

Btw Mark: I have a lot of free time so doing something like this usually isn't a waste of my not-very-precious time =) Usually I do what a feel like... so if I feel like resizing it, I can since I have the time (yeah the luxuries of being a kid... I have all the time but don't appreciate it. watch that completely reverse in 15 years.)

Attachment: town1.gif
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	30-05-2002 07:13									#25
	Remove this text

Hi Twinge:

I tried to download the zip, but got an error. You can mail it to me if you like. One other good thing you could do on the art front is to get yourself a freebie web page somewhere and post everything you are working on there. Some of the other artists have done that, and it works out quite well.

The smaller towns symbol labeled new looks about the right size to me. The really small one looks sharp, but I think it would look bizarre compared to a humongous military unit. If you'd like to try it out and post the results, I think it would be useful to see. And before we make any decisions on what to go with, the other team members will no doubt let us know their opinions too . There's are more important than mine because I have very little artistic taste and by and large little squares would work OK for me. Did you ever see Demo 3? Well, I'm not quite that bad...

I think it's great that you have a lot of time! That's the one thing that most of our team members lack. Whether you're a "kid", or the pope trying to get a break from all that boring religious stuff , I don't care so long as you produce for the project. BTW, you should probably go ahead and put yourself on the Clash team page, since you certainly done enough work already to deserve that signal honor .

	30-05-2002 07:43									#26
	Tired of ads?

Didn't think I needed another in game shot since it's so similar to the other one, but here it is since it's quick to make =) It's clearer and probably a better size, although I don't know what size your aiming for.

quote: One other good thing you could do on the art front is to get yourself a freebie web page somewhere and post everything you are working on there. Some of the other artists have done that, and it works out quite well.

Yeah I have webspace avaiabole, but while I'm just showing a few mediocre sample pics for the most part attachments are working fine =)

quote: Did you ever see Demo 3?

Nope, never saw Demo 3. I first came here early Demo 5 I think.

quote: I tried to download the zip, but got an error.

I'll try it and upload it again if I need to. (Or email, if I need to ;)
Hmm It worked fine for me. Try it again and if it doesn't work I'll mail it over.

EDIT: I think someone else has to sign me up if you want me to be shown there. It just lists people and what they Do under the Join section.

	01-06-2002 02:56									#27
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

I am staggering back from overwork compounded with bronchitis. Still a bit shaky.

It is great to see all the activity in this area. Gives me the warm fuzzies!

There is one area of Clash that has never has a specific person assigned to it. I have been doing it, but don't really want to, and there are other things I can better spend my time on. That area is the custodian of the pictures (units and tiles). There should be some place where all the pictures (and the images.xml file) are in a single place, maintained by one person. If this were done properly, we could have a sort of palette of units and tiles to draw on. If anyone has a new picture they can post it and the custodian can pick it up and add it.

To aid this idea, I intend to move the images.xml file to the tiles directory, to keep it with the images, if this is agreeable.

Do I hear any volunteers, Twinge?

Cheers

	01-06-2002 03:35									#28
	Get a bigger avatar today!

quote: Originally posted by Twinge I think someone else has to sign me up if you want me to be shown there. It just lists people and what they Do under the Join section.

Sorry, Twinge, I wasn't sufficiently informative...
Please put your info in this thread. It'll then be put up on the web site team page. I have bumped up the team web page so you can see it.

So Twinge, are you game on Gary's request? Your web site would be a good place to put up all the current images available. When there's a new one, you could add it to a "New" section so people can quickly see what they have to work with.

	01-06-2002 10:58									#29
	Tired of ads?

hmmm.... I could I guess. I don't really want to, at least not yet. I'll reconsider it in a couple days

I'll get Bio info up fairly quickly as well.

	01-06-2002 16:19									#30
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Hmmm.... the #%^$#@ Team Members thread wouldn't bump up when I posted in it. Well, if you look at the format of the team member web page, and put your info up here it should work ok.

I will send out a new D7 testbed today, provided we can get a vaguely stable version . With everyone making progress its hard sometimes to have up-to-date that also works well. If worse comes to worse, I'll just fix the bugs in the version I have right now, and send it out!