Iconography

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RoyalBengalTiger
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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.
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randowe
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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.
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RoyalBengalTiger
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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
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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?

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randowe
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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.
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RoyalBengalTiger
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Re: Iconography

Post by RoyalBengalTiger »

Found it! Thanks.

Time to add a bunch of things to the EquipIcons.
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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.
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RoyalBengalTiger
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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.
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Re: Iconography

Post by RoyalBengalTiger »

Image

Greetings all.
How to fix this up?
:huh

This is probably the last thing I can't figure out to get everything working.
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randowe
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Re: Iconography

Post by randowe »

Could you please post the png file of the icon in question. There might be some transparent ghost pixels. I think I reported this before in an other thread of yours. But I don't remember.
If you post the icon, we can find out :yes
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Re: Iconography

Post by sympatyk »

As Randowe says - saving icons must be "hygienic"
You can use 24bit space, but there can't be an alpha channel --> saving 8bit per channel + 8bit for alpha - definitely out
There should be no other information in the image save - e.g. about the transparency color
The game itself sets the transparency color according to the first pixel of the image
It is safest to use 8bit save, because it has backward compatibility with PG2, and the OG engine supports saves from PG2

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Tak, jak mówi Randowe - zapis ikon musi być "higieniczny"
Można używać przestrzeni 24bit, ale nie może być tam kanału alfa --> zapis 8bit na kanał + 8bit na alfa - zdecydowanie odpada
Nie powinno w zapisie obrazka być też innych informacji - np. o kolorze przeźroczystości
Gra sama ustala kolor przeźroczystości w/g pierwszego piksela obrazka
Najbezpieczniej stosować zapis 8bit, bo taki ma wsteczną kompatybilność z PG2, a silnik OG obsługuje zapisy z PG2
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Re: Iconography

Post by RoyalBengalTiger »

Gaaaah, of course they have an alpha channel.

I'll be back when I remove it...
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Re: Iconography

Post by RoyalBengalTiger »

Don't want to start a new topic over this, but I have prototypes with 0 transport weight getting a transport attached.
My last one that popped up was a tracked tank destroyer proto which got a half-track transport assigned.

How to guarantee that this won't happen? I thought having zero set will mean the game won't give any transport options...
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Re: Iconography

Post by randowe »

RoyalBengalTiger wrote: 2025-07-03 02:35, Thursday Don't want to start a new topic over this, but I have prototypes with 0 transport weight getting a transport attached.
My last one that popped up was a tracked tank destroyer proto which got a half-track transport assigned.

How to guarantee that this won't happen? I thought having zero set will mean the game won't give any transport options...
This should not happen for tracked units but without looking into the files it is hard to tell what is the problem.
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Re: Iconography

Post by LuisGuzman »

RoyalBengalTiger wrote: 2025-07-03 02:35, Thursday How to guarantee that this won't happen? I thought having zero set will mean the game won't give any transport options...
:no Weight zero means unit can use any transport ... Watch the tooltip when you put the mouse over any check-box :howdy
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Re: Iconography

Post by randowe »

LuisGuzman wrote: 2025-07-03 16:33, Thursday
RoyalBengalTiger wrote: 2025-07-03 02:35, Thursday How to guarantee that this won't happen? I thought having zero set will mean the game won't give any transport options...
:no Weight zero means unit can use any transport ... Watch the tooltip when you put the mouse over any check-box :howdy
Yes, that's what I thought too, but in case of a tracked unit, it can not have a transport at all, no?
See the picture. I have a tracked AT. None of the boxes can be checked, they are greyed out and the transport weight is zero.

This is different from a unit that for example uses leg movement. Then in fact zero transport weight means all transports are available.

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RoyalBengalTiger
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Re: Iconography

Post by RoyalBengalTiger »

I have the same config...

:dunno
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Re: Iconography

Post by LuisGuzman »

RoyalBengalTiger wrote: 2025-07-03 02:35, Thursday Don't want to start a new topic over this, but I have prototypes with 0 transport weight getting a transport attached.
My last one that popped up was a tracked tank destroyer proto which got a half-track transport assigned.

How to guarantee that this won't happen? I thought having zero set will mean the game won't give any transport options...
Can I have a savegame before and after raising the proto to check how is that configured ?
You are talking about a proto raised after a BV result, not a proto raised by a trigger hex, right ?
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Re: Iconography

Post by RoyalBengalTiger »

I'm building the campaign as I'm going, so I don't have the before/after save.
The EFile itself is under construction too at this point....

And yes, it's a prototype that is as a reward for a BV.

P.S. How does one attach files on the forum anyways?
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