Campaign summary/Journal

[Zyxpsilon]

Next in the sequence of countries --

 

#2) NE_India(1024x512_WG) ... Scale == 1/1:33 -- Clip Range... T=590 L=2560 B=974 R=3328 (( The source image was 768x384 ))

 

 

 

http://s10.postimg.org/5pxmp7v89/NE_India_1024x512_WG.png

 

 

 

I finally decided not to use any Shadow layer(s) as it was somehow too obstructive to detect surrounding "areas" no matter how dark or light the transparency tricks were created with. A simple contrast or wider white glow is enough, i think.

Edited July 16, 2015 by Zyxpsilon

[tracktwo]

Right. Scaleform lets you "play" a flash movie basically as a texture on a surface. In this case, a plane. You can observe this by looking closely as you click on the situation room. It goes from the "bright" 2d map on the wall to the "darker" version with the additional gui elements from the flash movie dropped on top and on the sides of the map, and you can see this as the camera zooms in to focus on the full situation room. The camera is locked at this point, but if you could move it around you should see the ui elements correctly move around as they're attached to the situation room model.

 

My initial trials didn't attach the movie to a rendering target texture, it just displayed it directly on the screen. This mode is useful for huds that should remain fixed as the camera moves around (eg the tactical HUD and the menu system in the strategy game). But since this mod is trying to reuse the situation room models it'll need to be attached too. I think this may explain the lack of resize operations in the standard situation room flash - the resizing is actually handled by the engine to display properly on the texture?

 

I'll investigate this more tonight when I can look at the upks again.

[Zyxpsilon]

And, as a bonus today we now also have... :wink:

 

#3) NE_Brazil(1024x512_WG) ... Scale == 1/1 -- just like Australia. CLIP-Box range... T=920 L=960 B=1432 R=1984.

 

 

 

http://s18.postimg.org/cg7jmypy1/NE_Brazil_1024x512_WG.png

 

 

 

Three down - lucky 13 still on the multi-tasking drawing table.

Edited July 16, 2015 by Zyxpsilon

[tracktwo]

Cool stuff. I managed to get the "main map" displaying attached to the situation room map panel model today. It's taking a little bit of guesswork to get it positioned correctly, but it's getting closer. I scaled the map to a fixed size of 513x350 and moved it around until I got it pretty close to the right spot.

 

Here's what it looked like on my first attempt, with the raw 1024x512 image

 

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/YPCsCO8.jpg

 

 

 

Weird, huh?

 

Here's after some manual resizing (to 513x350) and fiddling with the location on the flash stage:

 

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/GuTO7NI.jpg

 

 

 

It's not quite perfect - the map is slightly too large and sticks out a bit on the left. You can't really see it from this perspective, but if you move the ant farm to the left and then start it up, you can see it sticking out beyond that left divider panel thing between the map and the left-side country list as the camera pans over to center the view.

 

I had assumed that the map panel UV map was a very simple one, but that doesn't appear to be the case judging by the weird effects in the first screenshot. It looks like that original 1024x512 texture spilled over the UV map associated with the main map into the areas for the country panels (which have a different X and Y scale) and the bottom piece, which I'm not sure what it's used for at the moment.

 

If we can extract the UV map from the Static_SituationRoom.upk we can easily get the map and other assets pixel perfect. Otherwise it'll take a lot of trial and error to get everything lined up right.

 

EDIT: I figured out the precise positioning for the world map area of the texture: Position at (399.5, 95) with size (481x350). You can figure this out by inspecting the layout in JPEXS, for example.The same will need to be done for the other elements for the country boxes.

Edited July 14, 2015 by tracktwo

[Zyxpsilon]

The second attempt looks fine! Except, as you stated... New-Zealand and Siberia peninsulae are just off-screen!

 

Extracting the UV map (( you mean the internal "values" of sizing, right? )) should be relatively easy... as every UPK structures contain a lot of specific details on how these models get assembled - which asset goes where and in what way.

 

Note also that the default map (sharp cyan) seems to have an extra layer that adds the glowing bands on the top and bottom... i suspect we could also use this extra "file" to create variations in the hue or contrast scales. Thus allowing the default to remain there but with different visual feels as (or if) need be.

 

(( BUT, rationalizing further... i feel the animations would somehow interfere with all of our tiny circles (in a blink of an eye, it doesn't take much to defeat the purpose). Sooooo, it might be preferable to stick with the whole static picture set as designed. Up to you. ))

 

Of course, the other 16 countries will have to use the above process though.

 

I really like how it looks on the HUD... great progress. As long as you can find the most optimal solution(s) for easy encoding of our basic (complex at times) features -- count on me to supply whatever else you may ask for. :wink:

 

PS; Btw... about that drop-down menu. I soooooo wish that there would be a direct way to attach it to the left-side Button corner instead of the right. It could allow the whole European & Asia panel to show up without "Obstructions". Possible to fix?

Edited July 14, 2015 by Zyxpsilon

[Zyxpsilon]

Btw, had some free time this evening to make two more...

 

#4) NE_China(1024x512_WG) ... Scale == 1/1 -- ClipRange... T=400 L=2640 B=912 R=3664

 

 

 

http://s30.postimg.org/hhhowoeap/NE_China_1024x512_WG.png

 

PS; Those Himalayans are crisp and clear. That's a cool touch, i think.

 

 

 

#5) NE_Mexico(1024x512_WG) ... Scale == 1/1.33 -- ClipRange... T=590 L=590 B=974 R=1358 (source image was 768x384)

 

 

 

http://s22.postimg.org/rehtfom75/NE_Mexico_1024x512_WG.png

 

PS; I really wanted that special region to include the Carribeans and all of central America. Up north we can glimpse at San-Francisco Bay & the tip of Delaware. The final result is visually balanced, AFAIC.

 

 

 

5 / 16 completed.

 

Tomorrow, i plan on finishing up Canada (this one was tricky since i had to find a custom Great-Lakes(+) layer for the cyan NE format) and then, tackling... Argentina + Japan.

 

While i'll process the rest in "Trios" (for scaling patterns)... 1) Egypt + Nigeria + South Africa & 2) UK + France + Germany.

 

I'm keeping the very best for last; USA (It really needs to be 1280x640 to fit Alaska + Hawaii with a 1.25/1 DOWN_Scale) & Russia (most probably squished x2) !! :wink:

Edited July 16, 2015 by Zyxpsilon

[tracktwo]

Excellent stuff on these country maps. I hope to get some of them integrated soon, but I'm still looking more at the big picture stuff and trying to figure out how best to get this working.

 

I do plan to disable the sitroom submenu while in summary mode so it won't interfere with the ui. I need to work out how and if I can pull in the standard xcom widgets to get a 'back' button on there.

[Zyxpsilon]

The "Pending Request" instance (as do others) might give you hints on disabling the menu and dropping options since it's off once we open that screen while the basic "Holo-Map" and empty side panels are also displayed in their default state.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Zyxpsilon

[Zyxpsilon]

First daily map... NE_Canada(1024x512_WG) -- Scale == 1/1 -- Clip range... T=78 L=440 B=590 R=1464

 

** EDIT; That version was deprecated by a more optimally sized version in another post further below!!

 

NOTE; Its white glowing effect needed to be less intense since the northern group of islands do grab up a tricky large screen area.

 

Secondly...

That went rather well actually. The good news is -- it really didn't make any rational sense to impose an extra (ONE more only for a single element) encoding concern upon you, just because i would have preferred if the silly tip of Antarctica was presented by that map. Thus, it will *NOT* need a 90 degree shift after all. There's wide ocean floors both left & right but i guess it's quite alright and does add a bit of visual diversity to the package.

 

As long as Chile (its entire length) & Paraguay could somehow be detectable --

 

Resulting in...

 

#6) NE_Argentina(1024x512_WG) ... Scale == 1/1 -- Clip range... T=1220 L=880 B=1732 R=1904

 

 

 

http://s24.postimg.org/p2sh46d05/NE_Argentina_1024x512_WG.png

 

 

 

Thirdly...

J-A-P-A-N, the mini land of the rising sun.. Tora! Tora! Tora!

This was a wild ride of precious BiCubic interpolation fine-tunings. We have to double the source size (from 512x256 -- i predict the European trio will use that too) and without sharpening a few gimmicky areas, the visual impacts would have turned quite ugly. But, looks good to me.

 

Cool stuff nevertheless for...

 

#7) NE_Japan(1024X512_WG) ... Scale == 2/1 -- Clip range... T=460 L=3350 B=716 R=3862

 

 

 

http://s22.postimg.org/badn6gvcx/NE_Japan_1024_X512_WG.png

 

 

 

7 / 16 -- done... we're half-way there!

 

I'm going to enjoy a Safari in Africa next - no Aliens within sight. :smile:

Edited July 16, 2015 by Zyxpsilon

[Krazyguy75]

Are you just universally applying the same highlights? If so, you could darken the areas where there are more lines to make it easier to look at.