Iconography

Tips and tricks for the designers, playtests.

Moderator: Wonderdoctor

Post Reply
RoyalBengalTiger
Private First Class
Private First Class
Posts: 64
Joined: 2024-01-28 02:01, Sunday

Iconography

Post by RoyalBengalTiger »

Howdy all y'all,

I'm working on making Polish historically accurate icons (or at least more accurate than what exists right now), and I've run into a little problem...

I make an approximation of whatever I'm building in Sprocket, then I take screenshots, and then I shrink the vehicle to fit the size of existing icons of something of a similar size.

Image
This is a 25TP model, I still have some touching up to do anyways, it is just a test run, don't panic.

Image
As shown above, the shrunken render is made in a 3D perspective, rather than a 2D projection (note the sides of the original tank do not appear to get narrower towards the rear).

The big question is - I looked through a bunch of icons and every single one is without a perspective view. Should I manually touch up the pixels, or are we fine with some being a bit different than others?
Maybe there is a way to export from Sprocket and then render without perspective, so I can have a good template to look at right away?

I'd like to know the conventions before putting a lot of time into this.
I'll be making the 4TP, PzInż 130, PzInż 160 (armed with a 37mm, 47mm and 65mm), 14TP (as a tank with a 37mm and 47mm, as an AA tank with a twin 20 mm and single 40mm, as a tank destroyer with a 75mm and as a SPG with a 120mm howitzer/mortar), 25TP (tank with 75mm gun as shown on the test images, tank destroyer with a 90mm gun and SPG with a 155 mm gun).

Then I'll probably add a couple armored cars and half tracks.
Total planned = about 20 icons.

Historical accuracy note - bold = built or in the process of building, italic = designed or being worked on, underline = the chassis and gun existed or was being built, but were not combined or designed to be combined.
User avatar
randowe
Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 2953
Joined: 2019-09-20 19:02, Friday
Location: Germany

Re: Iconography

Post by randowe »

I think it is better to keep the style of the existing icons and not having 20 new icons look very much different. Personaly i would favor to use wrong icons (that i have to do anyway becasue many icons do not exist) than icons that look too different.
Image
RoyalBengalTiger
Private First Class
Private First Class
Posts: 64
Joined: 2024-01-28 02:01, Sunday

Re: Iconography

Post by RoyalBengalTiger »

Yeah that's what I was thinking too - just keep with the conventions.
It's just something that I never noticed for all these years since Panzer General 2 and now it stood out so much.

I'm sure I could stretch out the proportions accordingly. Still have a few models to figure out, so this may take a few days before I publish anything.
RoyalBengalTiger
Private First Class
Private First Class
Posts: 64
Joined: 2024-01-28 02:01, Sunday

Re: Iconography

Post by RoyalBengalTiger »

New question...

The icons have descriptions when viewing in the modding tools.

How do I add these descriptions to icons in the icon tool?

Image
User avatar
randowe
Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 2953
Joined: 2019-09-20 19:02, Friday
Location: Germany

Re: Iconography

Post by randowe »

RoyalBengalTiger wrote: 2024-10-19 18:24, Saturday New question...

The icons have descriptions when viewing in the modding tools.

How do I add these descriptions to icons in the icon tool?
The descriptions are stored in the OpenIcons.csv excel sheet.
Or in case an efile uses additional icons in the EquipIcons.csv.
Image
RoyalBengalTiger
Private First Class
Private First Class
Posts: 64
Joined: 2024-01-28 02:01, Sunday

Re: Iconography

Post by RoyalBengalTiger »

Found it! Thanks.

Time to add a bunch of things to the EquipIcons.
User avatar
randowe
Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 2953
Joined: 2019-09-20 19:02, Friday
Location: Germany

Re: Iconography

Post by randowe »

RoyalBengalTiger wrote: 2024-10-19 22:42, Saturday Found it! Thanks.

Time to add a bunch of things to the EquipIcons.
The official equipicons are not updated at the moment.
If you want to share your work, you would have to also share the icons and descriptions, otherwise people can not play the campaigns when icons are missing.
Sorry, i forgot, do you plan to modifiy an existing efile? In that case it is better to add your icons to the equipicons of that efile. EDIT: Ok, i just read that you use a modified version of the Gustlik efile. Then you can add your icons to the equipicons files of your version of the efile.
Image
RoyalBengalTiger
Private First Class
Private First Class
Posts: 64
Joined: 2024-01-28 02:01, Sunday

Re: Iconography

Post by RoyalBengalTiger »

I'm working on EquipIcons.
I found Gustlik's file already has a bunch of icons not listed on the OG icon search.
I guess it'll just have to be a whole package of the equipment file to go with the campaign.

Then all y'all can add the ones I made to the official database, and/or modify them to make them look better.
I'm personally happy with where they are, they could use a bit of hand detailing, but I'd like to get the whole mod out sooner than later.
Post Reply