New Panzer Campaign Graphics

[Strela]

Well Kareil beat me to the punch!




We have posted a heap of information on this significant change to the game series here; Link to WDS Blog Post

We have moved from this;




To this;











Please note that the colours are a little washed out (I can see it in the divisional markings), this is due to the compression posting these as JPG images. It looks great in real life.

David

[ComradeP]

I'm getting used to the more "painting" like ground colours of FWWC, which are similar to the "washed out" version of the terrain screenshots in the update.

New (optional) graphics for obstacles and mines are fine as long as the player has the option to easily switch graphics around. This is a pretty major step fairly shortly after the "porting" of Panzer Battles graphics to PzC.

For now, I do have one suggestion: don't change the colour scheme used for infrastructure too much. "Swapping" the primary road and rail colours at a glance might not be desirable.

-

Having said all that, you might've heard me shout with joy in Singapore as I spy Zhitomir in one of the screenshots. It matches the city layout you posted years ago.

https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...#pid386816

Looking forward to the battles for the central/western Ukraine 1943-1944!

Thanks David (and team)! I've been hoping there would be a game covering Zhitomir since I first bought a PzC title.

[von Fagan]

Looks amazing. Great job!!

[Halsey74]

Introducing the Panzer Battles extended toolbar in panzer campaigns would be a huge upgrade.
It is much more comfortable.

[Xaver]

Not very impresed, in certain areas i think are a step back and not forward.

Nap series:

I never like ACW new way to show bridade colours, in nap serie what i see made me feel worst, same not very visible way to show the info.

Painted maps... i dont play in 3D and here i dont need new maps that are going to use more HD space.

NATO with letters... i like the idea but the NATO icons are to small, is true that counters are bigger now but i think a bigger NATO symbol is needed, here in general i prefer volcanoman NATO mod because use the NATO symbol to cover the counter and change form with formation, i like it because is very visual and looks great in map.

I dont dislike new 2D art, at least here i feel it ok.


PzC:

New NATO counters is a good idea BUT you need made them more visible because when you activate divisional colours sometimes is hard see well NATO symbols.

I dont like the defensive icons... round, square... they are not very visible and things like Jision small counters with colours for me are better solution apart when they are empty the round and square icons made map looks a little... weird. I did my own mod for PzB with a letter to diference between defensive works BUT i used a bigger letter in a more visible area with easy to see colours.

2D map... are things i like and others not... in general i still prefer Jison art.

And when we are going to have black SS counters and grey for regular army units?

New title looks.... interesting, i think is an early war title, maybe Barbarrossa in north or center (Kiev???) because are SS units (grey...) and scens show germans attacking with swamps... but the russian guard units.... not a lot present in pics BUT made me think in a later period because soviets are using tank brigades... 1942 maybe? soviets have a cavalry recon unit in infantry divisions... i feel it more 1942 no 1943 or 1944.... but i think ComradeP scored the big hit over new title to come.

Of course interest in Schletd44 is hot as usual and cant wait next blog post.

PD: dont understand me bad, you are doing a great job with Tiller series, you revive them!!!! the job you are doing with new zoom levels and similar is great but art part for maps, counters .... i dont see a improvement over Jison works.

[Compass Rose]

Thanks David for taking so much time to put together such a great update, as it is easy to see it took alot of time and effort to put it all together.

I am very impressed with all that is going on and the revamp of the graphics is most impressive, as a whole.


For the Nap series, I really like the proposed new division colors which will for sure be a asset to the gamer.

From day number one, I have always played JTS games in 2D as the 3D was so hard to play in.

If WDS goes through all the trouble of redoing the 3D Nap maps for select titles, I hope you would be willing to release a 3D version of the units that do not show shadows on the ground especially for the cavalry units, supply wagons, etc.

I would also hope we can see nice looking 3D units and have nice looking unit bases to go along with the nice new maps.

It would not make much sense to go through all the trouble to create new maps if the units displayed, look poorly (cheap) on them.



As for the new proposed PzC map graphics, those are really nice and the shading of the embankments, escarpments, and cliffs will be a big asset to game players.

The only item I am concerned about is the current trial version of icons used to represent entrenchments and movement impediment like obstacles and mines on map.

I think I am "safe" to assume that the majority of JTS game owners are over 50 years old and the older we get, the worse our eye sight is.

I for one, always run 1920x1080 resolution on my wide screen notebook screen.

When viewing the images of the new trial icons, I literally have to lean forward so much towards my screen, that my chin is almost above the edge of my notebook keyboard, which is connected to my screen, to be able to see the letters that are displayed on the left side.

The displayed words spelling out the different impediments, located within the hex, are also difficult to read as the font color is too dark and blends in too much with the background map colors.

From my point of view, in its current state, these icons are not gamer friendly and I too, feel that currently there are much better 3rd party art mod files currently available that represent these impediments much easier and are so much clearer to read on the map.

Below is a very good example:

http://www.mapmod.se/maplegend_markers.htm

and here:




To be gamer friendly, they need to be very easily seen on the map; the proposed trial version is not.


Thanks again for you and all your team's efforts.

Can't wait to see the next update.

Thanks

[2-81 Armor]

For the most part I really like these changes and I'm looking forward to them.

I do however have a few nit picks and reservations:

The PzC obstacle/entrenchment proposal while a decent idea looks (to me at least) to be too hard to read and tell the difference between things at a quick glance. I much prefer the style Phillipe uses in his mods, or even the Jison style.

More contrast is needed between PzC primary and secondary roads, and I prefer the black/white "dashed line" style railroads myself, because they are easier to pick out.

I really like the fact that the Niehorster symbols are being adopted as standard.

I agree with Xavier that something should be done about the German counters. Gray or gray-green for the Heer, and darker gray for the SS are my preferences. (I'd like to see black/white SS myself, but I do understand that white symbols would be hard if not impossible to do without provision for another "symbols" file.) Months back I asked a question as to why every Tiller game shows Germans in a blue-gray/light blue shade, and nobody seemed to know. Just tradition I guess. Easily modded anyway.

All in all though, I'm really looking forward to the graphic changes. It's really good to see that things are still evolving in a positive way. In the end it looks like anything we don't like the looks of will be able to be modded to our individual tastes, and that's a good and thoughtful thing too.

[Strela]

For the most part I really like these changes and I'm looking forward to them.

I do however have a few nit picks and reservations:

The PzC obstacle/entrenchment proposal while a decent idea looks (to me at least) to be too hard to read and tell the difference between things at a quick glance. I much prefer the style Phillipe uses in his mods, or even the Jison style.

More contrast is needed between PzC primary and secondary roads, and I prefer the black/white "dashed line" style railroads myself, because they are easier to pick out.

I really like the fact that the Niehorster symbols are being adopted as standard.

I agree with Xavier that something should be done about the German counters. Gray or gray-green for the Heer, and darker gray for the SS are my preferences. (I'd like to see black/white SS myself, but I do understand that white symbols would be hard if not impossible to do without provision for another "symbols" file.) Months back I asked a question as to why every Tiller game shows Germans in a blue-gray/light blue shade, and nobody seemed to know. Just tradition I guess. Easily modded anyway.

All in all though, I'm really looking forward to the graphic changes. It's really good to see that things are still evolving in a positive way. In the end it looks like anything we don't like the looks of will be able to be modded to our individual tastes, and that's a good and thoughtful thing too.

Guys,

I'm taking note of everything, but wanted tackle the 'I want my SS on black counters' request now.

All icons NATO or Graphical comes from the 2DSymbolsXXX file. Currently the NATO Icons are black in colour. This symbol set is overlaid over ALL counters. If someone can suggest another colour that will work I'm all ears, but if you look at traditional wargames the SS are normally printed with white fonts and nearly every other nationality is black.

As they say a picture tells a thousand stories. See below (right click for full size);


Screens 1 & 2 are the existing colour template showing with divisional marking on and off. Screens 3 & 4 are with SS 'Black' counters and the icon font left black. Screens 5 & 6 are using white font that essentially doesn't work with anything (to my eyes).

For those wondering where the Wehrmacht colour that JTS has traditionally used was sourced I believe from the blue/green in the Europa series, but I may be wrong there.

For those hoping that we might get two different 2DSymbolsXXX files, I don't expect that to happen when we have alternatives such as using a grey rather than a black counter for the SS.

Sorry for sounding negative on this, but after a decade of trying to work within some pretty tight restrictions in terms of colour palettes that give the widest range of outcomes, I will look to enterprising modders to give the SS their rightful colours.

I will respond to the other questions and criticisms in due time.

Thanks,

David  

PS Also note I have posted this image as a PNG file and it should be clearer than the ones in the blog post that were compressed JPG files.

[ComradeP]

New title looks.... interesting, i think is an early war title, maybe Barbarrossa in north or center (Kiev???) because are SS units (grey...) and scens show germans attacking with swamps... but the russian guard units.... not a lot present in pics BUT made me think in a later period because soviets are using tank brigades... 1942 maybe? soviets have a cavalry recon unit in infantry divisions... i feel it more 1942 no 1943 or 1944.... but i think ComradeP scored the big hit over new title to come.

There are some things we can deduce from the counters, even if we can't see the equipment.

Though I was hoping it was a title covering the battle(s) for the Zhitomir-Berdichev area in 1943-1944, I didn't compare the city to the screenshot Strela posted years ago immediately.

I knew at first glance that it wasn't a 1941 title because there are numerous Guards units and the SS unit has organic Panzer units. In 1941, the main SS units were motorized infantry units which did not receive tanks until 1942. The Soviets also have numerous corps HQ's for mobile formations, which wouldn't be the case between summer 1941 and summer 1942. There were no Guards in summer 1941 either.

The Soviets have numerous self-propelled artillery/assault gun units in some of the screenshots and the Germans have heavy self-propelled artillery (Hummels) in the second to last screenshot. That makes this at least 1943.

At that point, it became more of an intuitive thing. The German infantry units have no self-propelled AT units which I would expect for a late war campaign, there doesn't seem to be enough Soviet armour for late 1944-1945 and for a 1944-1945 game I'd expect the cavalry units to have more armour as well and to operate in cavalry-mechanized groups.

I was getting my hopes up and lo and behold, the city in one the screenshots turned out to be Zhitomir.

-

This is a bit of a tough crowd when discussing graphics updates/changes, but we all appreciate the work from the design teams and modders.

[phoenix]

I'll repeat here what I posted in WDS, more or less.

Since these JTS games have been my favourite games for a long time, I confess to being a little frightened every time you announce you’re going to change the graphics. So, with the Napoleonics, which I've played more than any, via some modding, the games all look great to me now, much preferable to the ACW series graphics, which I don’t like as much, and hence I don’t buy them.

So I’m relieved that with the PC series (and I hope the Napoleonic too?) you say the old graphics will be an option, including, I hope, the option to get keep the old graphics without the Jison-type hard hexes, which – seriously – if I had only the option to play with those things, I really would not play (or buy) any of these games. I really really do not like the Jison hexes, and I know I'm not alone in that. I know there are people out there who love them, but all they do for me is make a cluttered mess of the map, making it nothing like an actual map at all. Whilst adding nothing. What do they add, I wonder, that a simple optional hexgrid (such as already exists) does not provide?

But I hope, therefore, that there will be a version of the new title – Scheldt 44, which I was really looking forward to – which will not have either the Jison-type hexes or only the new graphics you display above. Because for me the GOLD maps are RIGHT NOW really nice (the non Jison variant). They look the closest we’ve come yet to actual maps at that scale. The towns, cities and urban areas are particularly excellent representations – and yet now, having only just come up with them, you intend, it seems, to get rid of them and have Panzer Battles type '3D' buildings as 2D towns/urban areas? But I feel a map at this scale (the PC series scale), from this period should not have little buildings representing cities as if it were drawn by a Napoleonic staff officer. It should look more like the cities you already came up with in the Gold releases. There should be an attempt to match the scale to the scale of the features – if you’re seeking a natural, normal appearance, as close as possible to an actual map. I fear that all the features – trees, buildings, hex edges etc – seem to get gradually bigger and further removed from a representation of their actual size in relation to the terrain, making all the maps look more and more like a squad level map, which they’re not.

That said, the graphics in the Scheldt pictures look very beautiful, and, indeed, if you get rid of the hex centres, amongst the least hexy stuff you’ve done – the rivers, roads, streams etc are very rounded and smooth, instead of angular, which makes a big difference. The trees are really nice – though why fill them in right to the very hex edges, as you have, which makes them into rigidly defined hex blocks of forest such as you might see on an old style board game? The polder graphic is lovely. All of the unit graphics look great.

I wonder why can’t we have different updates for game changes and graphic changes? Then anyone who didn’t go for all or some of these graphics changes could stick with what they bought and still be up to date? I have bought 38 of these JTS games and it would be nice to not have to worry about, for example, graphics changes which totally change the appearance of the game I bought, not have to worry about Jison-type hexes (or someone’s ‘top-down’ mod that I didn’t even like) being transplanted later into games which I would never have bought if they’d been in there in the first place.

As said above, we will all have our views, but certainly, we all appreciate all this effort, David. Thanks.