New Panzer Campaign Graphics

[Strela]

Hi,

The light bulb has essentially been toned down. it was only in the new zoom level and the existing '100' level. The zoomed out level shown above has no light bulb, hex outline or slope hexes included by default. It gives the best look overall. This also drives the jump map, so we're trying to keep it clean.

As far as roads/railways. this is a hard one. It's 'easy' to do curvy rivers and streams as it is essentially eight pieces of artwork. For roads, we're having to work with the following. There are 63 different configurations and if they don't align pixel to pixel it looks completely off. Add the cross hatching on railways and there is a massive exercise to get striping that is even and aligned. Transport network graphics are not for the faint hearted...





Sometimes the transport network looks fine if not laid out in dead straight lines. The following image is on the maximum zoom out from the same map above. You can see the railway twisting through the higher ground. When we lay out a map, we have an overlay of the source map and follow the actual road/railway. In many cases they are straight. These straight lines are less of an issue on the other two zoom levels as you're seeing less of the map.





The other little test that I have done is to see what adjusting the hex colours for the maps used in Scheldt. Here are some examples for comparison.

This first shot is the 'standard' hex colours as shown previously (all images can be right clicked for full size);






Here is exactly the same shot, but using the colour palette three colours 'up';




It is quite a marked difference, definitely brighter and completely changes the look of polder and marsh hexes and other features.

Here is another comparison using mud ground state. This first shot uses the current standard colours;




And here is the 'three' colours up look;




You will notice in both series of shots that the light bulb effect is much more evident in the darker terrain - much less so in the comparative shots.

I'm yet to decide which version is the better one for Scheldt '44, but with very few terrain altitude changes, we need the easiest on the eye as there are vast areas that are the same colour.

I hope this is starting to give you all some idea what we and the modders have to consider as we tweak, change and update graphics.

David