Wiggum's "Battles of Normandy" Artwork Mod

[wiggum]

Thank you both !

Just updated the mod to v1.2, i reworked the indicators for CARRYING and BROKEN units and fixed some minor stuff.

[Gray Nemesis]

Wiggum's "Battles of Normandy" Artwork Mod

Hi !

Here it is, the first artwork mod for "Battles of Normandy" !
It was my goal to give the game a more modern, mature and clean look.
I also added many small artwork improvements like a outline for minefields or better indicators for Broken and passengers carrying units.

Features:
- Redone GUI artwork with 4 different Blankbox artworks (one of them shown below) and fitting navigation elements
- New Unitbox artwork in uniform-fabric style for each nation + new way to show a selected unit (see screenshot below)
- New counter artwork matching the Unitbox style
- Many small artwork improvements (outline for mines + new icon for "unidentified contacts" -> see screenshot below)
- Slightly desaturated Terrain for a more aesthetic look
- New Turnbox artwork (modified from Jison's work)
- New, more aesthetic, icon for your desktop shortcut featuring the insignia of the famous 29th Infantry Division.
- Modular -> use only the stuff you like !

New in v1.1:
- New artwork to indicate a CARRYING unit that gives you the information even if the unit is not on top of a stack
- New artwork to indicate BROKEN units that gives you the information even if the unit is not on top of a stack
- New smoke artwork that looks more natural and less like cotton balls (6 different shapes, only one show in the screenshot because they get used randomly)
- New better looking "movement-arrow" artwork
- New artwork to show bridge damage
- Tweaked road artwork to make primary roads easier to spot
- Tweaked artwork for zoomed out view
- New artwork for deception units

New in v1.2:
- Reworked artwork to indicate a CARRYING unit that gives you the information even if the unit is not on top of a stack (green bar bottom left)
- Reworked artwork to indicate BROKEN units that gives you the information even if the unit is not on top of a stack (red bar bottom left)
- Fixed Canadian artwork

Installation:
Just copy into your "Battles of Normandy" folder and overwrite the existing files.
Make sure you have a backup !

Download:
v1.2
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dusncd89a2q45r...2.zip?dl=0

Very nice, by chance have you done one for Kursk SF?

[wiggum]

@ Gray Nemesis

No, sorry.
I dont own the Kursk game otherwise i now could most likely create a mod for it in under one hour because there would be only a few things to change.

[phoenix]

Any chance you could mod the files with the buildings, villages, towns and forests, orchards etc, Wiggum, so as to produce images that were closer to scale - ie smaller everything (rather like the images used for these things in Jison's mod for Panzer Campaigns)? Worth asking, anyway....

Peter

[wiggum]

Scaling everything down is no problem, you can just take the artwork from the 50% view and apply it to the 100% view.
Problem is you also need to multiple the graphics so that instead of one tree there are two, instead of one building two, instead of one orchard 4...
Thats a huge amount of work to do and a quick test i did suggests it will not look that nice.
You would need all new artworks most likely.

[Strela]

Any chance you could mod the files with the buildings, villages, towns and forests, orchards etc, Wiggum, so as to produce images that were closer to scale - ie smaller everything (rather like the images used for these things in Jison's mod for Panzer Campaigns)? Worth asking, anyway....

Peter

I tried a quick & dirty experiment using the 50 size graphic as a base  - interesting outcome. I have adjusted buildings, forest, brush and bocage.

For comparison - Default graphics at the top, shrunk graphics below. The last pair is from an actual scenario to show what it's like with units in game;


























Happy for any comments,

David

[phoenix]

Wow. I really like it, David. Thanks. It's certainly a start. It's somehow clearer for me too (I think mainly because the bocage hedge edges are thinner). See the roads easier in the clutter too. I much prefer it. It's that easy to do? What do I do to get it into my copy? Do I simply remove the 100 sheet, then copy and rename the 50 graphics as 100? Did you double the number of buildings though? I would have thought you would need to double the number of buildings in each image, as Wiggum suggested? Yet it looks fine as is in your pics above. Would be better if some of the building concentrations were denser, but it still looks better, I think, as more accurately scaled. If I can just copy that over I would do it, then, I think, add some black highlights/shadows to each individual building graphic (I did this for my PC games and it didn't take too long), just to bring the buildings out more.

I guess the bunkers look a bit large now? Obstacles still ok, I think. Maybe bridges should be reduced too? Maybe not, need to see them clearly.

But it's certainly much more 'to scale', no?

Could you please post these files for me, David? Be easy enough for me to re-do the bunkers smaller, I'm guessing. Maybe even easy enough for me to add in a few more buildings myself, to make town/village concentrations denser.

Peter

[Strela]

Wow. I really like it, David. Thanks. It's certainly a start. It's somehow clearer for me too (I think mainly because the bocage hedge edges are thinner). See the roads easier in the clutter too. I much prefer it. It's that easy to do? What do I do to get it into my copy? Do I simply remove the 100 sheet, then copy and rename the 50 graphics as 100? Did you double the number of buildings though? I would have thought you would need to double the number of buildings in each image, as Wiggum suggested? Yet it looks fine as is in your pics above. Would be better if some of the building concentrations were denser, but it still looks better, I think, as more accurately scaled. If I can just copy that over I would do it, then, I think, add some black highlights/shadows to each individual building graphic (I did this for my PC games and it didn't take too long), just to bring the buildings out more.

I guess the bunkers look a bit large now? Obstacles still ok, I think. Maybe bridges should be reduced too? Maybe not, need to see them clearly.

But it's certainly much more 'to scale', no?

Could you please post these files for me, David? Be easy enough for me to re-do the bunkers smaller, I'm guessing. Maybe even easy enough for me to add in a few more buildings myself, to make town/village concentrations denser.

Peter

Hi Peter,

These are all custom - whatever you do, do not replace your 100 size with the 50.

I did double some graphics up to get more density but this is a first pass and I'll tweak these to make more sense. Please note that there are village hexes and scattered. Scattered usually only has two buildings while villages will have four or more in this version.

It's definitely cleaner as you say, but it loses the 'density' that is Normandy bocage country. I'll try a few things.

As far as bridges etc - I'll look at some options, but I think they need to be oversized to stand out - particularly their type.

More to follow, but I'll post the files up once I have them done.

David

[wiggum]

Hey that looks great Strela.
I did not think about the hexsides at all but they clearly need to be resized too.

A few more multiplied buildings for village and town hexes and maybe multiply the orchards x 3 or x4 per hex.
I think phoenix was right, it makes much more sense that way and the scale looks closer to real life size.
Especially with the smaller hedgerow hexsides it looks less cluttered and clearer.

What would need a rework/size too are the railroads, primary and secondary roads.
With the resized terrain features the secondary roads and the railroads look way to prominent.

Especially the secondary roads look to big compared to the primary roads so it almost looks like the secondary roads are more prominent then the primary roads.

Thanks, i too would like to have the files once you are done, even if you think they are not 100% perfect.

[Strela]

Hi,

Redoing the railways etc would probably be the most difficult and frustrating thing. It is ultra difficult getting each component lined up. Have a spare couple of days if you want to try it,

I caution trying to make everything to small. With higher resolution screens the hexes even at maximum zoom is small and you will struggle to pick our terrain with counter clutter.

That said this does look cleaner and I'll continue to tweak it.

Here is orchards mark II (rough attempt again) and more importantly my simple solution for bridges. Putting a roadway across them stopped them looking too big/out of place. You can see all the different types and directions in this one shot...