Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics
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#1: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: mooxe,  PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 1:01 am
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They have never been in mods or rereleases for one simple reason. Its too hard to draw the 3D'ish sides of the vehicles and buildings. The ones we do see in the mods and rereleases are taken from the originals by Atomic.

There are a few advantages to having them.
- You can tell when a vehicle is on a slope and may be unable to fire back you
- You will notice your vehicle is on a steep angle without checking the status
- You can see the entry points on atleast one or two sides of a building
- Having these graphics is more visually appealing for both

The advantages of not having them.
- Mods and rereleases would theoretically be released faster

Should the next version of Close Combat from Matrix/S3T include the tilted graphics set?

Yes, why?
No, why?

Last edited by mooxe on Wed Jun 02, 2010 1:54 am; edited 1 time in total

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#2: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: vonB,  PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 1:13 am
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I think you have more or less stated the case for both Defense and Prosecution.  Nice to have but a lot of extra work especially for vehicles...
#3: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: papa_whisky,  PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 2:05 am
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I always think the tanks tended to look a bit 'wobbly'. I would prefer pure top down but with shadows changed on the vehicle as it moves and rotates rather like the shadows of the vehicle itself. The amount of extra work this creates though would probably not be worth the effort. The 3Dish sides of buildings is good on tall buildings but should be subtle. I imagine it makes for much harder artwork.
#4: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: southern_land,  PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 2:26 am
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My biggest bugbears with the angled building graphics are fourfold...

1. Far harder to produce unless you have a three d graphics package
2. The give a non-square foot print when the roof tile comes away
3. If they really "need" to be 3d then they ought tilt away below your line of sight which means you're going full 3d which isn't possible given the age of the CC engine (as far as i know anyway)
4. Far harder to rotate a building for inclusion into a map without producing a seperate render of the object
#5: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: Tejszd, Location: Canada PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 3:22 am
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The 3d affect for tanks was good but as a mod maker I would never put in the effort. Probably best to wait till there is a real 3D engine (viewed top down) to create real 3D tanks and have dynamic shadows, etc. which all come with a real 3D engine....
#6: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: squadleader_id, Location: Soerabaja PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 3:39 am
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AFAIK the vehicle graphics repacker like XTank disables the tilted graphics when repacking the files anyway...so original Atomic tank animation is not moddable.
Is there a modder tool than can reproduce the original tilting animations?
#7: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: Pzt_Kanov, Location: México PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 4:00 am
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RtB tool unpacks and repacks all 17 images.

But I agree with Tjszd, better to wait for a true 3D engine, but I guess if there was a cheap way to do it it would be awesome, be it by miniatures, other 3D games etc. When looking for those to try and do a vehicle of my own, I found out that they actually sell some 3D models of tanks alone, the cheaper ones where like 15$. Btw talking about 3D games, has anyone tried taking pictures of say, EYSA or CM vehicles? can their vehicles be pre-visualized like on an editor or something so as to not load the game and prntscrn?

Also, I wanted to say that I've regained a lot more respect for the guys who can actually mod the vehicles and all the graphics, having spent like 16hrs doing one and coming up with a tank that looks like a cardboard cut out haha, it looks funny but it will always have a special place in my heart as my first vehicle.
#8: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: squadleader_id, Location: Soerabaja PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 4:18 am
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RtBTool does everything! Thanks for the heads-up, Kanov!
You can take pics of vehicles from Faces Of War and Blitzkrieg (1&2) while in the world builder/editor.  Probably Company of Heroes too...but the problem with 3D models are the blurry textures...nowhere near the quality needed for CC...so manual panting is still a must.
#9: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: Pzt_Kanov, Location: México PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 4:52 am
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squadleader_id wrote (View Post):
RtBTool does everything!


No kidding, kind of like the wonder tool, the swiss knife of CC.

I didn't notice 3D models were no good, So I guess maybe miniatures and drawings could be better?
#10: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: mooxe,  PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 5:06 am
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I think Atomic modelled the vehicles in 3ds Max and then extracted 2D imagest. Now this is a decade ago now. I think the only difficulty in doing this is learning how to use the right program. The art work would probably come easy to some people around here. The next step would be having a good technique to do it en masse.

GIJoe did it...

http://www.closecombatseries.net/CCS/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=thumbnails&album=117
 

Waiting for a 3D engine... well thats not coming. The focus is on making these games better.
#11: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: Pzt_Kanov, Location: México PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 6:02 am
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One way of accelerating the process, it occurs to me that you would only need to do half the images then flip them horizontally to have the effect from the other side.
#12: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: schrecken, Location: Sydney, Australia PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 6:06 am
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nope - they are generally asymetrical
#13: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: Pzt_Kanov, Location: México PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 6:27 am
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schrecken wrote (View Post):
nope - they are generally asymetrical


You could do half the images tilted to one side, then flip them to the other side adjusting the graphic where needed to take into account things that are in one side but not in other, like AA guns or bow machine guns. You could do the tilted graphics with a simple hull drawing for example, and then add the details later, much better than drawing all of them I think.

Big tanks hurt the immersion IMO because you notice more how they seem to float instead of moving more naturally.
#14: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: vonB,  PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 9:27 am
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Quote:
Big tanks hurt the immersion IMO because you notice more how they seem to float instead of moving more naturally.


and they way they sometimes move in one direction and point in another.  But that's not a graphics but an engine issue...
#15: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: -Jager-, Location: stockholm PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 12:44 pm
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I just think it's far beter to make the maps as good as possible!
In a good map you just know when the Tank is in a sharp angle
#16: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: platoon_michael, Location: Right behind you PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 3:30 pm
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For houses the taller ones look better when they are 3D.

Load up and run CCIV 4.02 and choose the Axis and the Assenios map,when watching the Tanks on slopes it does not provide a very good illustration of being on a slope while Moving.Standing still it looks good.

For 1 the Shadow doesn't change enough (if any) to help provide the effect..
And 2 it just makes the Tank look cheesy as it goes from Long to Short when moving.

I campaigned for this for a long time and Mafi put that option in the RTBTool,but once I got to messing around with it I gave up.

When you look at the graphics Atomic created for the tilting tanks there is nothing there to consider it hard to do.
I see no need for a 3D program to recreate the effect.I think one could figure it out with a newer version of Photoshop and or maybe the use of the Transformation Tool.


I do not know if the Shadow has 17 different images on top of the rotating of the vehicles images (did that make sense?)
loading it up with Mafi's VehicleShadowEdit Tool I did not see it,but I have VERY limited experiance with that Tool.Better for me to say NONE really.

As for squadleaders comment that images from other games do not have the quality needed for CC I either don't understand what he's saying or disagree completely.
The LACK of quality images Atomic created with the 17 images for the Panther along with the too small of scale the original CCIV just doesnt provide a good enough experiance for the game.

All that said I do still NOT like the current hovering none tilting effect, no matter how nice the map is drawn or shadded to depict a hill the Tank never looks like it's going up/downhill.On say Elsenborn Ridge for example how many times have you seen your Tank wont shoot and you have to view the Soldier window to see the angle is too steep?

An even better example is the WAR map Recht.
At the top of the map by the meyerode VL the elevation is a staggering 49.5m,now cruise your tank all the way down the dirt road till you get to the Crossroads VL which has a elevation of 5.5m.
The current state of Tanks within WAR creates NOTHING to depict such a staggering change in elevation.And to be honest only a very few graphics on that map depicts it,the dirt road itself surly doesnt.It looks the same all the way down,even though the road drops drastically within say what 30-40meters?
#17: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: squadleader_id, Location: Soerabaja PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 3:50 pm
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platoon_michael wrote (View Post):


As for squadleaders comment that images from other games do not have the quality needed for CC I either don't understand what he's saying or disagree completely.
The LACK of quality images Atomic created with the 17 images for the Panther along with the too small of scale the original CCIV just doesnt provide a good enough experiance for the game.



What I meant was if you take screenshots of the 3D vehicles from games like CoH, Faces of War or Blitzkrieg (preferably from the game map/world editor)...they won't be "ready to use" for CC Vehicles...the textures used for 3D vehicles tend to be blurry when the vehicles are extremely zoomed out like in CC.  Most new 3D RTS games feature close-up cams and not enough zoom-out distance...and the textures used reflect that.
#18: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: platoon_michael, Location: Right behind you PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 4:08 pm
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That I agree with.

Not even the Sprites depict elevation in CC.
When you look at the map Trois Ponts the rail road by the exit VL to LaGleize has great shading to depict that the tracks are down in a gully but the elevation change is only from 2.5m (top) to 1.5m (bottom)
I guess one could conclude that the Trees are providing all that shade down in the gully,but when you put your troops down in there the white camo suits stand out as if they aren't even in a gully.

The best that CC has to depict any type of depth is the 3D houses.And the shading of hills,unfortunately you don't see the shadow of the hill get dark enough to depict a steep change in elevation all the time or used in the right way.
And maybe when Tanks go under Trees does depict some depth.

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#19: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: CSO_Talorgan,  PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 6:23 pm
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southern_land wrote (View Post):
Far harder to produce unless you have a three d graphics package


Which 3D graphics package could fulfill the task?
#20: Re: Players Debate - Tilted/Angled Graphics Author: southern_land,  PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2010 1:36 am
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lightwave for sure, probably others too
Close Combat Series -> The Mess


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