Altering counters

[uxbridge]

Tried to change/better the looks of the rather plain counters, but ran into trouble. If I change them in Photoshop, and simply save, it all goes well. But if I remake them in Illustrator and then export them to Photoshop and save them to .pgn from there, the white area of the counters becomes visible in the game. The colour tone of the light area of the image is exactly the same. Why this difference? Any ideas?

I rather use Illustrator than Photoshop, the latter being much more clumsy to do this work with.

[IainMcNeil]

You need to set up the alpha layer in the png. Any areas that are black will not appear, white appears completely and shades of grey are semi transparent.

[uxbridge]

Afraid that doesn't tell me anything! What is Alpha layer? Since I can mod the files in Photoshop, but not if I start in Illustrator, I suspect it's something that the files already have, but which is removed by use with the latter application. Can I somehow set it up again in Photoshop or what?

[IainMcNeil]

There will be an RGB channel and an alpha channel. I'm not sure how you go about adding one in if it is not already there. Maybe someone more PS savy will be able to help.

In the alpha layer black is transaprent, white fully opaque and shades of grey are varying degrees of transparency.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Afraid that doesn't tell me anything! What is Alpha layer? Since I can mod the files in Photoshop, but not if I start in Illustrator, I suspect it's something that the files already have, but which is removed by use with the latter application. Can I somehow set it up again in Photoshop or what?

What he is talking about is what's called Alpha Channel in Painshop Pro and probably Photoshop too. It's the mask that has be placed
on top of the PNG file to tell which parts are shown or not. Black is transparent and white is fully opaque. Any gray tone is semiopaque.

I opened the PNG files for the games and edited the mask so the counter part of the PNG file (32x32 pixels in the n64 file and 16x16
pixels in the n32 file) was drawn fully white instead partly grey with the symbol in the middle. I added these new masks to every counter
which had n32 or n64 in the name. This way I can redraw every counter to my liking.

I downloaded the game yesterday and managed to redraw the land units so they look like NATO symbols usually used in wargames. Today
I will look into the naval and air units.

The "NATO" symbols used for the game were confusing to me so I changed to the following. All units land unit symbols are now drawn
within a square box.

Armor: An ellipse within the box (so the change is that I added the box and made the ellipse a bit smaller)

Infantry Corps: A cross from each corner within the box (similar to the old motorized symbol)

Motorized Corps: A cross from each corner within the box with the addition of 2 dots just above the lower horizontal line of the box

Garrison Corps: Just the box with no symbol within. This is often used for Static Corps in wargames. The garrison Corps is just a
weak Infantry Corps with less movement points. So I believe it's similar to a Static Corps. I confused the old symbol with a smaller
cross with the Infantry Corps. By changing this I noticed most of the Russian units at the border are Static Corps and not regular
Infantry Corps. So I feel the new symbol works.

Next I will have a look at the naval and air units to change their symbols to silhouettes you see in wargames. E. g. single engine
for fighters, twin-engire for tactical bomber and 4-engines for strategical bombers. I will experiment a little with this a see how
it looks.

I also wondered to change the color of the Italians to light green so they are not confused with the UK forced. I also think about
changing the color of the Neutrals from black to something lighter (maybe orange) because I always think of black counters as
German SS units.

It took awhile to understand how the counter symbols in the game were made, but after I noticed the mask then it was easy to
get the result I wanted. So I believe you can do the same too. Just look for the mask function in your game. Save the game
that is in one of the existing counters to the harddisk. Open the mask file and edit it so the unit symbol within the mask is
removed. Save the mask again and load it to the alpha channel for every counter. Remember to save to the alpha channel
after you loaded it from the file so it's stored in the counters you want to replace the mask for.

[uxbridge]

This sounds marvellous, Stauffenberg! Exactly what I had in mind myself, but I got frustrated and lost interest.

I have stopped playing the game for the time being, mostly because of graphic problems. I have a wide screen. The game doesn't support this, so everything is slightly blurry. This makes the illustrated units hard to distinguish, and it's also irritating for the eyes since they try to focus on something that isn't clear to begin with. Usually I prefer counters anyway, but as you said, they were very confusing as they didn't comply with more orthodox symbology. The blurriness of it all didn't help.

I'm very eager to see what you have come up with. I don't suppose you could mail me the counters, could you? If so my adress is:

(mail adress now removed)

My mailbox can handle up to 10MB

Cheers
Mike

[Peter Stauffenberg]

This sounds marvellous, Stauffenberg! Exactly what I had in mind myself, but I got frustrated and lost interest.
I'm very eager to see what you have come up with. I don't suppose you could mail me the counters, could you? If so my adress is:

Cheers
Mike

Hi. I just finished my work with the counters and have sent you a ZIP file with all my work. Please have a look and give me
your comments, especially what you feel can be improved. I would gladly distribute this ZIP file to others as well. But until
someone tells me where to place the files then I propose you send me a PM with your email address and then I will send it to
you. The ZIP file is just 200k so it's not very big.

I have changed the colors of several of the countries so they are easier to distinguish from each other. I also removed the
semitransparent effect from the counters because that made the colors blurry and even harder to distinguish from each other.

I've used standard wargame symbols for all the counters so if you have played old wargames then you will have no problems
to recognize the counters. For the air units I've used airplane silhouettes. Fighters have a single engine, tactical bombers twin-
engines and strategical bombers 4 engines. For the naval units I've used symbols similar to what was used for WIF5, ETO, etc.
For the land units I've used standard NATO symbols so they should be easy to recognize.

I also noticed a bug in the game. Every new game starts with the mode where the photo similar symbols for the units are shown
regardless of whether I have checked Counters in the Options or not. If counters are checked then I have to uncheck it and
then recheck it in order to see the NATO type counters. I hope that will be fixed in the next version.

[IanF1966]

Is there any chance of sharing this online? Sounds cool!

[uxbridge]

Stauffenberg mailed me the counters and they were a great improvement!

It's now much easier to distinguish between nations, since they have coulors often used in the old boardgames, and the symbology is clearer, with proper NATO for infantry and armour and ships/planes for naval and air units.

Great work!

A big applause for Stauffenberg. I now feel inclined to begin play again!

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Is there any chance of sharing this online? Sounds cool!

I would love to do that if anyone could tell me where I can place files so others can retrieve them online.
If you send me a PM with your email address then I can send my files to you directly. At least I can do that
until I find place to share the files.

[uxbridge]

I could place them temporarily on my website. I have a limited amount of traffic available, but one or two days would do for the most eager players to download.