deanco

OK folks, it's done and ready to download at my site: http://mapage.cybercable.fr/deanco/ I think it's a lot better this way, and it was worth the extra time doing it. New screens and a list of changes are up at the site. Now if you'll excuse me, I never want to see Photoshop again for the rest of my life! DeanCo-- Oh, yes, I'll be mailing all the usual suspects soon if they want to host this mod. And the guys at Appui-Feu, the French site, are gonna translate it. Thanks all.

Howdy all, Well, I've finished the Unit and Battle screens. I took a long hard look at what was important to know from the interface and how to get that across with light and color. So now if everything's OK you will have a more subdued screen, and the bright colors will come on only when something is wrong or about to go wrong. I pretty much redid the whole color scheme, once again to make important facts stand out. Plus I subdued everything, across the board, a little bit. I never thought that subduing the colors would make it look better, but it sure as heck did. You'll see. The white background for the red cross is in, and y'all were right, it looks way better that way. I took the 3D effect off of everything in the interface. "AMMO" is less bright. There is some stuff I completely missed first time around, too, like the special weapon icons. Now to get to work on the front end. DeanCo--

Hi y'all, Just checking in. I want to thank everybody who posted. For those who liked my mod, I want to say that the words of appreciation and encouragement mean a lot to me. It makes me realize that I am not working in a vacuum, that I have added that fraction of a percentage point that makes this fantastic game that tiny bit better. For those who posted constructive criticsm, thank you for helping me distance myself from my work. OK, I spent 3 days on it and I tend to think that after all that effort it oughta be great. I think that's just human nature. So without your feedback, I probably would consider this mod finished. As it is... Yep, Iconoclast got me thinking about all those people running the game in high resolutions. So I'm gonna redo it again as a "Hi-Vis" version. I have an idea for a workaround that should make the letters bolder. If it works, I will be able to make the colors a bit dimmer than they are now with no loss in readability. This, and getting rid of the 3D effect, should help matters somewhat. OK, off to work. The folks who want me to do the Map Editor will have to wait, this takes precedence. I'll let ya know when the Hi-Vis version is done. Bye now. DeanCo--

Hi gang, OK, this is good. It seems like all the negative comments seem to be focused in one area, that is, visual contrast. Of course I didn't think of the fact that people will be looking at my mod in all resolutions and a bunch of different video cards and different sized screens. So I can see that my mod isn't for everybody at this point, but that's OK, I figured there would be some bugs. I'm just glad all the comments focus on one area. I have a big meeting right now but when I get back I will start working on some of the issues that y'all have brought up. Some are fixable, some are not, but I'm looking at another day's work at least. Fixing the files isn't so hard per se, the most time is spent organizing the changes and making sure I don't copy file A onto file B by mistake . Thanks for your comments, I'm hoping they will help make my mod even better. DeanCo--

Hi Iconoclast, Thanks for taking the time to post. This is the kinda feedback I need. The 3D fonts I can dig, the red background I can understand too, but do you find the lettering in the main unit info area hard on the eyes too? Thanks. I will look at the 3D font thing and the red background again. Thanks for the feedback. It's hard to distance yourself from your work, and see what's right and what's not. DeanCo--

Colin, I clicked on your link to your site, it gave me a file not found error. Sure I'll let you put it up if you get your site running!! :=)) DeanCo--

Thanks you guys. I figure if you're like me, any change is a refreshing change after all the hours I spent looking at that interface! The eye just craves something new... DeanCo--

Hi all, Thanks for your kind words. I'm happy to put something into this community because I think for the most part y'all are a bunch of fine people. If you get pleasure out of something I made, great. I'm happy. Madmatt, I would be honored if you would host my mod. And I'm very happy you like it. I will send it to you after posting this. TankDawg, no it doesn't. It's concieved to be used as a whole package. DeanCo-- [This message has been edited by deanco (edited 09-26-2000).]

Hi folks, For all you mod hungry people out there, I've redone almost all of the user interface graphics (except the Map Editor) and am releasing them as a complete package. What you get are new front end screens, new cool buttons, and a compete overhaul of the Unit and Battle info screens. The changes are too numerous to mention here, so I made a website where you can check out some screens first and download it from there after reading about it. http://mapage.cybercable.fr/deanco/ I'm looking forward to your reactions. DeanCo--

Hmmm...when you do it like you said, the unit will start shooting as soon as it sees the target, yer right. I would say, tell him to go to location A and order him to Hide when he gets there. I would combine that with a Crawl or Sneak order to make sure he gets into position without being seen. If he's seen, he's liable to return fire. On the next turn, UnHide him and target the enemy unit. He will start shooting at your target next turn (normally, unless a much greater threat comes into view). To ambush, manually target the enemy unit, then give him a hide order. This assumes that he is already in the ambush spot. He will wait until the enemy is close before opening fire (usually). Hope this helps. DeanCo-- [This message has been edited by deanco (edited 09-24-2000).]

bump.

I just wanna say that the faces look MUCH better in the game (well, I do have FSAA running). The screenshots don't do 'em justice IMHO. Very nice job David. I like 'em just the way they are. DeanCo--

If I understood it, it must be well written. It takes very little for granted so newbies can get some good out of it too. Good article. Now to try it out... DeanCo--

Maybe this is a good place for an idea I had. Say like, if you have no unit selected and you hit the plus key, it takes you to the first unit, OK? A-0 or B-0 or whatever. My idea is, have other buttons that will take you directly to T-1 (teams) and V-1 (vehicules). This a compromise solution to not having a r***er but using this idea in conjunction with the plus key should allow you to get to any unit rather quickly. As it is now, when I want to find a lost 60mm mortar I find a team, ANY team, click on him, and go + and - from there. This idea would simply be a button that would take you directly to the first one in the 'class'. From there you would just hit + until you found him. Whaddya think? DeanCo--

ahhhh...too late, as usual. DeanCo--

OK, why do VG's find the game fun? Because the drama in whether the zook team can ambush the tank is exactly the same to the VGer, it doesn't matter to him if the zook team is called an "Enforcer" and the tank is colored bright red. He probably would prefer it that way. I know I would. The innovation (for VG's we're talkin here ) in CM is uniting: 1) a realistic, dynamic reaction set for human beings in high stress situations on a battlefield in WWII (TacAI) 2) the wego system. I'm firmly convinced that if the TacAI hadn't been as good as it is, CM would have enjoyed much less success than it did. The point is, you can trust your men during those 60 seconds to behave realistically. Otherwise, give me real time, I'll click on him myself. The wego provides the tension. Instead of, "I can't click fast enough" the tension is, "Have I thought of everything? Am I sure I've made the best decisions possible?". Since in most cases the answers to those questions are no and no, tension is assured. It's in the AI's hands now (which I can trust implicitly 99% of the time don't forget). It's these two aspects (TacAI and wego) that I wish BTS would license out so us VG'ers could have our own beer and pretzels version... and maybe even our own forum. DeanCo--

Heh heh heh...I remember when I was a kid, 1000 points was the biggest battle you could play...Heh. These young kids nowadays got no notion of points anymore... it's nothin for them to make 3 or 4000 point battles... well .... let 'em have their fun, I guess.... heh .................. (snore) DeanCo--

I still haven't gotten a decent answer yet, only speculation, so I'm sending it to the top. Why did he fire Area Fire smoke? DeanCo--

Oh, come on, Abbott. It's a legitimate topic, and the curse words are to emphasize that he's happy about the game. OK, he could have said it differently but I'm ready to overlook it because it's a legit topic and not an effort to start a flame war or blatantly offend someone by their use. If you were offended than I'm sorry but I think you need to judge this sort of stuff by it's percieved intentions and not the actual words used, that is to say, on a case-by-case basis. DeanCo--

Hi everybody, Ummm...let's say, it sounds like a vastly simplfied Frank Zappa tune, with a celestial choir singing the "Combat Mission" part and a distorted 70's rythym guitar, and drums and bass that sound kinda like "Sex Machine" and a kind of crooning low voice (mine) singing the lead vocal. Let's put it this way, it *doesn't* have "hit" written all over it. No mp3's, sorry, the whole thing is under lock and key, I can't even listen to it myself. Not that I want to, I musta heard it 60 times today during the mix and quite frankly, I'm sick of it. I'll post the lyrics later though, too tired now. DeanCo--

Well, I just got back from the studio where we have finished the basic tracks for an original song I wrote (today, in the studio, in 1 1/2 hours) called "Combat Mission". As far as I know it WILL be released someday, somewhere, somehow... maybe... but I prefer to wait before giving more details because, in the music business, you haven't done the gig until you get paid. When I have the CD in my grubby little hands I will believe it, and share it with y'all. BTW, the song talks about war, and not about the game, and there are no references to the game in it at all. Only the initiated will know the true inspiration ....that's y'all. Like I said, don't hold your breath to hear it....if things work out (always doubtful in this biz) I'll let you know. DeanCo--

I have been watching Pham911's posts since he started posting here. When he first started posting, he had some really funny posts. I got a big kick out of them. Then, to paraphrase Joseph Heller, Something Happened. He's got a bone to pick now, the funny posts are no more. I'm not saying who's right or who caused it, I'm just saying, Something Happened. Pham911, forget your vendetta. It's not worth it man, life is too short. I prefer to think of you as the guy with the funny posts. No forum, no SITUATION, is worth getting worked up like this. DeanCo--

bump...anyone else? DeanCo--

Hi TeAcH, I was able to capture film of the game by using HyperCam. It's a bit tricky to get something decent though. You have to adjust the capture size and the number of frames per second to match the processing speed of your computer, and this will take some trial and error. Don't expect to capture the whole screen, my celeron 500 was able to capture a 320x240 film at 5 frames a sec without dropping frames. Once you get your raw footage you will have to splice them together...this is a whole nother topic. It's a long, time consuming, but fun thing to do. As far as file sizes go, if you want to share something on internet, keep your film about a minute long. Most people don't wanna dl a 25 mega film they're gonna watch maybe once. If this is for your own pleasure, count on lots and lots and LOTS of mega for your project. Hope this helps. DeanCo--

Allow me to compliment you on your very nice looking site. It DOES take quite a while to load though (and I have a cable connection) but I guess that's the price to pay for all those rollover buttons ans sounds. I like everything about your splash screens except the "WWII Tactical Combat Simulation". I KNOW that already. I can understand putting it on the CD cover, because someone might pick it up and say, "Hey, what's this?" and he would have the answer written right there. But to my mind it just clutters up the screen. Just a suggestion, I still use your splash screen because I really like the wood buttons. Thanks. DeanCo--