Modding slopes graphics?

[-72-]

Have you tried my mod "Ferraris Map"? The slope is seen much more clearly.

I've been following your "old map" mod (even when I don't own any of the applicable games) for a while now and I think it looks absolutely stunning. Indeed the slopes are easier to see, especially in non-clear terrain.

However I'm looking for a less stylized design, something close to the stock 3D mode but keeping map readability at the forefront - kind of a sweet spot between realism and cleanliness.

Found this screenshot from a previous version of Seven Years War:


I can instantly get a clear sense of the elevations involved here, but the tradeoff is clear in the schematic simplicity of the graphics. As we move away from the clean "board game" look towards something more organic, some compromises have to be made. I will see if increasing the depth of the shadows and enhancing the 3D effect for the hexsides does the trick. Changing the ground colors looks to be more difficult.

Wow that *is* old (well sorta old) - those elevation changes go back to when they were first introduced into anything - then later they evolved into a variation of what I think David Freer did himself or at least what they were using in Civil War Battles at the time.   What they did was provide a sort of spoke effect.

They're using a variation of that in their newest material, but I like what they'd used before. 

But - I appreciate your having noticed the 'boardgame look' - that's exactly what I was going for - (it's also why I never turned off hexes when doing screenshots) ... the idea being it might make things a little more relatable for someone more familiar with those.   The way I figured it, the 3D could take care of the miniature look (if done right) - so I actually did go about things to make it plainer.

And WDS did a really nice job with their last round of 3D graphics.  I might still go in and swap some around -for instance I think that maybe the Civil War series is using more hex shaped fields, and I might maybe try to swap them around with the more rectangular look from Napoleonic Battles.

I don't really know that depth of shadows is really going to be worth the effort - only in so far as say if WDS does at some point get programming to work with transparency layers -it would save cleaning things up to use true shading.  Just my take as to why someone might not want to ... but, by all means ... go for it :)

Telling apart elevations is really a big deal at this scale -so when I was doing work (like work that was going to be published) - I wanted to make it obvious. Ok - I might have done some of the artwork in that screenshot ... so I guess I need to put that into context. Sometimes I forget that part. :)