Conquer Club

Gillipig wrote:

DiM wrote:i did not say his maps are shit i just said they are poorer and poorer compared to the foundry standards. basically his skill and technique have only slightly improved from 4-5 years ago and in my opinion they did not keep up with how the foundry should be. if his graphics were considered good in 2007 decent in 2009 i clearly think they are sub-par in 2012.

Are you saying that maps like Pot Mosbi and New Zealand aren't up to par for 2012? I think they're two of the best looking maps in the foundry, and they're obviously not sub par maps regardless of how you slice it! Spanish Armada is a fugly map, if all his maps were like that I'd agree with you but that just isn't the case.

i have not posted in pot mosbi or newzeeland i posted in the rail map for a reason
also i never said all maps i just said most maps.


edit// just checked those 2 maps. while pot mosbi does look ok it still has some pretty nasty aspects that will hopefully be solved in the graphics stage.
however new zeeland is completely sub-par. nothing is textured, the outer border is made of a horrible brush/clipart pasted again and again, the mountains are made of the same image copy pasted dozens of times, these are things that could have passed as decent years ago. at this time i actually expect the map makers to bother making different mountains not copy pasting one all over the place.
yeah sure, at a first glance it looks like an ok image, but once you really start to look at it you see tons of things that are wrong. things that most people will realize they're wrong only when they're replaced with a better alternative. for example his mountains look functional, they are clear as impassables and they do their job. a non-foundry regular or even one with not so high standards will say the map is fine. but take out those mountains insert properly drawn ones and you'll never want to go back to the current ones.
it's like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. you can eat a simple peanut butter sandwich just fine but once you taste it with jelly you'll never go back ever again.

OK, now we're going off topic, back on track

thenobodies80 wrote:Personally, the only thing i personally "dislike" is the title...if I look at the map it pops out too much and I'm forced to look at it every 5 seconds. Don't know if this is a good thing while people is playing the map. But maybe it's just me.

thenobodies80 wrote:btw, cairnswk could you please make more visible the connections between BTK-KTP and the one between OSA-TYO?

thenobodies80 wrote:OK, now we're going off topic, back on track

yeah sure, back on track. i assume properly designing the map is out of the question at this point so let's look into improving what you got right now:

1. white spot that does not belong:

2. black lines/dots in the title (look at the L or R)

3. inconsistent lines in almost all of the train stations (army boxes). the line above MBA is clean and crisp while the line above CHN is blurry and thick. a lot of the stations have the blurry line problem (khi, thr, mhd, dhk etc.)

4. for some reason the outline is lighter than the middle.

5. pixelization in some places but most annoying in the big stations (dsh and tbs)
6. the legend text is inconsistent. some names have a glow while others don't and those that do have a glow have different hues. find a neutral colour that fits all the names and apply it consistently.
7. move further apart the following stations so that the connection is easier to see: thr-mhd, kbl-isl (plus those that tnb80 mentioned)
8. all the letters in the title seem to be centered on a pole/column, except for the L which is a bit to the left.
9. the facade of the train station has a nice brick texture, the dome and the horizontal beams have a sort of cement texture, but the towers don't have anything.

DiM wrote:3. inconsistent lines in almost all of the train stations (army boxes).

I noted this before, it's because the vectors are not properly hinted. I haven't really used vector-graphics softwares much, but I would assume that any worthwhile vector software would have some function for hinting, ie. aligning them to the pixel grid?

To explain what I mean:

show: exposition

Updated images will be posted later this week.

Do your best with this fellas!..before i post the large.
All issues raised above have been addressed.

The little black dots are still visible on the title, and I didn't zoom in to see them.

isaiah40 wrote:The little black dots are still visible on the title, and I didn't zoom in to see them.

Please refresh isaiah40, those black dots are gone because i have changed the treatment of the backdrop of the title.
The problem aparently was arising because of the font being extruded & image translation to .png on my computer.
Rather than change the font which i have already battled over, i changed the brackdrop treatment.
Problem should now be solved.

Okay, title looks good.

Some of the stations still have that blurry line; DHK, CHN, HKG, HAN, BKK, KAL, HCM, KAG, SHA, ZHZ (the "F" needs to come down a couple pixels as well), LHW, SAP, IRK, TAY and AST.

On MHD, the "J" can come down a pixel or two.

Looking at the station bonuses, I'm thinking you might not need the outer glow.

isaiah40 wrote:Okay, title looks good.

Some of the stations still have that blurry line; DHK, CHN, HKG, HAN, BKK, KAL, HCM, KAG, SHA, ZHZ (the "F" needs to come down a couple pixels as well), LHW, SAP, IRK, TAY and AST.

On MHD, the "J" can come down a pixel or two.

Looking at the station bonuses, I'm thinking you might not need the outer glow.

isaiash40. the things that are out of alignment i am happy to fix.

for the blurry lines, i have to question this, because if i zoom in at 240-300%, they are all bloody blurry. so is a player going to even notice this anyway. i mean can you notice this at normal 100% vision, because i can't.
i have been through and fixed all the stations as per natty's request above and grided the bounding boxes. that took over 6 hours to redo all the stations.

i disagree with the outer glow comment, if it wasn't needed in the first place i wouldn't have put it there and gone to the trouble of finding a solution for the flatness. Some of those colours are not very visible on that karchi-gray background, which is why it is there to lift them.

i would also ask, that if this map still has graphics issues, then the graphics and xml stamps needs to be withdrawn as it seems it was handed out prematurely.

cairnswk wrote:if i zoom in at 240-300%, they are all bloody blurry.

If you zoom bitmaps at other than even 100 percentages, they show up as blurry.

cairnswk wrote:i would also ask, that if this map still has graphics issues, then the graphics and xml stamps needs to be withdrawn as it seems it was handed out prematurely.

When the gfx stamp is given, the CA usually tells you that the stamp does not mean the map is done, and that you will be expected to make any changes that come up in the final forge. This map is far from the first one that has received the graphics stamp and then still had to do significant graphical updates in the forge...

natty dread wrote:

cairnswk wrote:if i zoom in at 240-300%, they are all bloody blurry.

If you zoom bitmaps at other than even 100 percentages, they show up as blurry.

Thank you natty.

cairnswk wrote:i would also ask, that if this map still has graphics issues, then the graphics and xml stamps needs to be withdrawn as it seems it was handed out prematurely.

When the gfx stamp is given, the CA usually tells you that the stamp does not mean the map is done, and that you will be expected to make any changes that come up in the final forge. This map is far from the first one that has received the graphics stamp and then still had to do significant graphical updates in the forge...

natty, OK i can cope with that, but sometimes i wonder if that is not a cop out for the job not being done properly in the first place.

i mean i remember a couple of years ago, every map was thoroughly scrutinised like is being done right now with this, before the graphics stamp was issued.
I think the graphics stamp if issued before all the bits and pieces have been attended to is totally useless tbh. It provides false hope and false encouragement to any mapmaker to do that to them.

so natty, apart from your 2c worth on that, is there any other issues that need to be attended to on this map?

cairnswk wrote:natty, OK i can cope with that, but sometimes i wonder if that is not a cop out for the job not being done properly in the first place.

i mean i remember a couple of years ago, every map was thoroughly scrutinised like is being done right now with this, before the graphics stamp was issued.
I think the graphics stamp if issued before all the bits and pieces have been attended to is totally useless tbh. It provides false hope and false encouragement to any mapmaker to do that to them.

Hey, I agree. Ideally, all maps would have all graphical issues solved before the graphics stamp was issued. But we don't live in a perfect world... and sometimes, things aren't always noticed until the Final Forge.

I agree it's frustrating to the mapmaker, but we have to remember the foundry is not a perfect system, and it's all run by humans - insignificant, imperfect humans. When we are all replaced by superior, sentient computer AI:s, I'm sure the foundry will run much smoother.

natty dread wrote:...
Hey, I agree. Ideally, all maps would have all graphical issues solved before the graphics stamp was issued. But we don't live in a perfect world... and sometimes, things aren't always noticed until the Final Forge.

I agree it's frustrating to the mapmaker, but we have to remember the foundry is not a perfect system, and it's all run by humans - insignificant, imperfect humans. When we are all replaced by superior, sentient computer AI:s, I'm sure the foundry will run much smoother.

natty, if you are pulling a map to pieces graphically then is not your process outcome idealistic since you are trying to get the artist to achieve your standard?

natty, I am not saying that all graphical issues are going to be 100% solved for everyone before FF since some will have subjective preferences and some will obviously chose to ignore/not comment on a map in development to annouce whether they have any issues or not. This has always been a time management issue that i have had problems with since the word dot.
My first map, a nameless person came in late in the process and wanted legend and bottom picture changes made.
I'm sorry, but these are really big aspects that should be brought up in the early stages of a map's development. I since then have had problems with others who have left this place because of my unwillingness to cowtow to their requests for changes at late development stages after maps had been sitting for a while. Not only late changes but also insulting ones and delivered in that manner. i did the xml centering for one so called good mapmakers at one stage, and he refused to fix the army circles, yet i proved they were far from perfect. This was before the current system of stamping came in.

It's not good project management and causes us mapmakers who volunteer our time - many hours of frustration which is often spent trying to get things correct since we're not all fantastics artists like some and all have different standards and skills and we can't produce award winning maps in two hours.

But there should be a list of things, similar to the process that i have been going through with ian and others in gameplay in some of my maps, where aspects are defined and ticked off on before stamping.
These might include -
* background suitability, eg land/sea textures
* coordination of lines and borders including any pixelation issues with borders/lines
* styles of paths and icons and their suitability
* coordinated colours
* suitability of terrain features
* font styles for clarity/legibility on both the map and legend
* design borders i.e. frames around the map
* suitability and inclusion or not of the army holders
* corrections to texts, wording, other editing that can be improved.
* any obvious pixelation issues anywhere such as dim just found in this map

The same could be (and was expected a while ago), for the xml stamp.
* it had to be correct with all technical aspects
* all coordinates had to be centered\
* two maps had to be produced to show the centering also.

Just my 2c worth...now back to topic. Sorry but i had to get that out.

cairnswk wrote:for the blurry lines, i have to question this, because if i zoom in at 240-300%, they are all bloody blurry. so is a player going to even notice this anyway. i mean can you notice this at normal 100% vision, because i can't.

i can notice them at 100% zoom on your small map and my eyes aren't what they used to be.
i merely put zoomed in images for people to know what i'm talking about.

here is a non-zoomed image:


look at the line above KBL. it is clean and crisp no blur whatsoever. it's perfect. and there are several more like it.
now compare it with the line:
-bellow khi
-bellow and above ker
-bellow isl
-between j and k

see what i mean?

DiM wrote:

cairnswk wrote:for the blurry lines, i have to question this, because if i zoom in at 240-300%, they are all bloody blurry. so is a player going to even notice this anyway. i mean can you notice this at normal 100% vision, because i can't.

i can notice them at 100% zoom on your small map and my eyes aren't what they used to be.
i merely put zoomed in images for people to know what i'm talking about.

here is a non-zoomed image:


look at the line above KBL. it is clean and crisp no blur whatsoever. it's perfect. and there are several more like it.
now compare it with the line:
-bellow khi
-bellow and above ker
-bellow isl
-between j and k

see what i mean?

No Dim, i can't see what you're seeing. The lines in the software are perfectly straight and as i said it must be in the translation if you say they are there. My eyes aren't what they used to be either!
Unfortunately i have no answer for how to fix this.
PS: if i turn the anti-aliasing off when exporting the image, it makes the lines more vector-like, but also everything else becomes pixelated and jaggered, and i'm sure we wouldn't want that.

Apparently from what i've just found out, my version Coreldraw X4 doesn't have object hinting as a feature, but X5 does.
Anyone got an extra $300 they want to part with to fix the export issue here because unfortunately i don't have it.
So it will have to remain an issue and proceed without it.

cairnswk wrote:Apparently from what i've just found out, my version Coreldraw X4 doesn't have object hinting as a feature, but X5 does.
Anyone got an extra $300 they want to part with to fix the export issue here because unfortunately i don't have it.
So it will have to remain an issue and proceed without it.

anyone has an extra $999 so i can get cs5 extended?
apparently my mspaint doesn't have any of the features found in photoshop.
oh well, it will have to remain an issue and i'll have to make maps in mspaint.

that's what your post sounds like. you don't need hinting you just need patience, zooming and the moving tool. simply zoom in at a pixel level and move your boxes until they're perfectly aligned.

if there's a solution (even if it's not the easiest) then you can surely do it.

DiM wrote:

cairnswk wrote:Apparently from what i've just found out, my version Coreldraw X4 doesn't have object hinting as a feature, but X5 does.
Anyone got an extra $300 they want to part with to fix the export issue here because unfortunately i don't have it.
So it will have to remain an issue and proceed without it.

...
simply zoom in at a pixel level and move your boxes until they're perfectly aligned.
...

and i am sorry Dim, but i have already done that with the griding suggested by natty.
object hinting does fix the problem for straight lines only, but i am not going to spend any more time trying to fix some small blurry lines that probably won't even be noticed simply because my software doesn't have a facility that is more modern.
You'll just have to get over it.

cairnswk wrote:

DiM wrote:

cairnswk wrote:Apparently from what i've just found out, my version Coreldraw X4 doesn't have object hinting as a feature, but X5 does.
Anyone got an extra $300 they want to part with to fix the export issue here because unfortunately i don't have it.
So it will have to remain an issue and proceed without it.

...
simply zoom in at a pixel level and move your boxes until they're perfectly aligned.
...

and i am sorry Dim, but i have already done that with the griding suggested by natty.
object hinting does fix the problem for straight lines only, but i am not going to spend any more time trying to fix some small blurry lines that probably won't even be noticed simply because my software doesn't have a facility that is more modern.
You'll just have to get over it.

no cairns i won't have to get over it.
it's written clearly in the rules that pixelation/blur is unacceptable. just because you haven't found a solution is not a reason to ignore the rules.
not only will this set a bad precedent but it will also give a crappy lesson to all new map makers who are supposed to look at the veterans and learn.

what would the lesson be here? if you can't do something just ignore the rules and tell people to get over it?

DiM wrote:

cairnswk wrote:

DiM wrote:

cairnswk wrote:Apparently from what i've just found out, my version Coreldraw X4 doesn't have object hinting as a feature, but X5 does.
Anyone got an extra $300 they want to part with to fix the export issue here because unfortunately i don't have it.
So it will have to remain an issue and proceed without it.

...
simply zoom in at a pixel level and move your boxes until they're perfectly aligned.
...

and i am sorry Dim, but i have already done that with the griding suggested by natty.
object hinting does fix the problem for straight lines only, but i am not going to spend any more time trying to fix some small blurry lines that probably won't even be noticed simply because my software doesn't have a facility that is more modern.
You'll just have to get over it.

no cairns i won't have to get over it.
it's written clearly in the rules that pixelation/blur is unacceptable. just because you haven't found a solution is not a reason to ignore the rules.
not only will this set a bad precedent but it will also give a crappy lesson to all new map makers who are supposed to look at the veterans and learn.

what would the lesson be here? if you can't do something just ignore the rules and tell people to get over it?

most likely new mapmakers wouldn't even find this issue you're on about, since if my maps are so unpopular as you pronounce, they wouldn't come in here to look for "issues"
i will ignore the rules when the rules don't provide for situations such as this, where i have made an attempt to correct the issue, but the problem remains in the translation in the software.
as i said get over it, and move on, but most likely you'll not move on, I seem to really bug you, dim don't i.
Because you can't stand to lose an argument.
you know that every map is not perfect, even your own pieces of tripe that you roll out.
as i said got over and move on.
btw, you are now on ignore foe, so please don't bother posting as i won't be reading them.

cairnswk wrote:btw, you are now on ignore foe, so please don't bother posting as i won't be reading them.

great. another priceless lesson for all mapmakers.
when somebody posts something you don't like put him on ignore and you're fine.
good strategy. if you pair this with ignoring the rules cause you can't find a method to fix the graphical issues you got yourself the easiest way to make maps.

something is wrong with the map and doesn't follow the rules? no problem i'll ignore the rulles and tell people to get over it.
they won't get over it? again, no problem. i'll just put them on foe and ignore their post.

Files deleted and re-posted below.

it looks like you fixed some but messed up others:

the line above CHN is crisp, while the one above MBA is blurry

Version 29.

All stations have been redone yet again.

...

Files deleted and moved next page.