DLV symbol and GUI pack (now in > BB 4.01)

[Tokus*Maximus]

Special Tokoid GUI~Jesusday release b3ta...
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6aurx5
...to spice up your festive strat campaign.

General stars visible again (and sharper) - thanks to Shadrach
New Strat map symbols
New GUI symbol set
New strat banner shape and ship sails
New crusade strat symbol
New jihad strat symbol

Okay, there's the working beta beaten into shape. For the North Europeans and Greek (not all factions) at this time - I tersted them on Bzy and England factions first. I'm still thinking about their look and style - and are not totally happy with the new lot. I liked the unique sheild shapes that I have for each faction in DLV 6.2 you see. Maybe what I need to do is use the new symbols but on the old shields. Oh, and put the disc in behind the shields again. They were good. Anyhoo... See what you chaps think. This lot are still worth trying - they totally match the new strat map symbols (which has always been my aim - to do a united super styled symbol set throughout DLV.

Any changes? Please advise.

-- Tok

[cedric37]

Thanks for the Xmas gift !!

Fantastic job Tokus

I have installed your nice symbols and woooww, i like them very much.
Continue your great work!

Cheers,
Cedric.

[Baron Vlad Felix]

hi Tokus
Is this save-game compatible whit 6.2 and mini-mod?

[Taiji]

It's great, Tokus. A really substantial improvement and it goes very nicely with the rest of the UI stuff. Well done!

[kela]

Hi, TOKUS,

Your mod is great, don't stop your job, please.

[Violator]

Well done Tokus!! +rep

[TMSKILZ]

Tokus great stuff, thanks a bunch for all your work/creations over the yrs.

Looks really great, especially the french Banners so much better now.

Quick question Tokus or anyone else who can answer, I noticed that Norway, Aztecs & Desert Tribes don't have their respective symbol/banners on the campaign map up top & also in the "Diplomacy" window, in each scenario it shows the default Rebels sysmbol/banners. Any fix for this? How can I fix it myself? Thanks in advance.

[Tokus*Maximus]

@ Cedric37
You are most welcome, it was fun!

@ Baron Vlad Felix
I edited the data\descr_standards.txt file to bring the stars back (thanks to Shadrach for that knowledge and help). Should conflist with any other mods (as long as they don't affect that file!)

@ Taiji
Aye, they all fit together a bit more - but I'm still wondering if each unique shield shape I did beforehand was better.

@ Kela
Thanks - enjoy!

@ Nikiforos Fokas
Thx for your rep!

@ TMSKILZ
There may be room on the respective .tga graphic files to bring the missing banners of Norway and the Desert Tribes into the game (who don't have their respective symbol / banners in the GUI or in the "Diplomacy" window; instead they show the default Rebel symbol. Shadrach helped pin-point what was the matter with the general stars and I hoping that he (with help from the gang) may be able to bring these symbols back by plotting their coordinates on the GUI .tga files. Alas, I am merely a one-trick 2D pony and struggle with script and code (never my strong point). Wouldn't have been able to bring back the general stars without Shadrach's suggestions.

Right, I'm off to start a new 6.2 German campaign with Taiji's new BB icing on top! These GUI symbols are not totally finished yet. Any more changes and suggestions to any of the symbols? Please adivse.

Tokus

[Shadrach]

I've been looking into the logo textures for Norway, Desert Tribes and Aztecs, and I'll probably have a solution to this pretty soon - I have a working "prototype" but it needs a lot of tweaking to get it right, especially since I need to place 3 new logos into already pretty crammed TGA files and try to avoid overlap etc.

I need Sir Tokus to create for me Large and Small versions of these three logos that are the same size as the ones from the stratpage and sharedpage files - not sure which size they are so Toker have a look at the files please and just create new ones same size from your new sets?

To be honest this system is a mess since there have been several attempts over the years of adding factions so it needs a clean up. What I'll propose for the long run is creating a separate TGA file for faction logos and removing them from being interwoven with other UI elements. It would then be much easier to change. I'm sure it's possible but will have to test

[Tokus*Maximus]

Here's our current missing symbols DLVers...

Good luck Shadrach in knitting the .tgas into action!

[Shadrach]

I might as well do a status update here as well by just pasting my last msg to Tokus, since I cant be arsed to clean it up

Hey ho, I've made some progress with the symbols now, it wasn't too much work but figuring out a system for the coords was a pain in the ---

All set now though, heres what I have so far:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pjs4rp

- All symbols are now referenced in separate TGAs from shared.txt and strategy.txt
- Above files as well as descr_sm_factions.txt has been cleaned up a bit and references made more logical (logo_index strings etc), so easier for other modders
- You need Python installed to change the shared/strategy txt files since the sd files need to be created...
- There are/were some minor gfx bugs around the Sicily logo in stratpage_05.tga. Some strange lines and a pixel down and to the right. I removed most of it but still some left, have a look at it?
- Just done Northern Europe culture, so just add the two new files to the other culture folders as well and maybe change the Rebel UI logo for middle_east and/or aztecs?
- Might be an idea to also remove the old symbols from the other culture files to not confuse other people, but be careful not to overwrite the unique UIs for different cultures.
- No solution to add more rebel symbols yet, sorry but at least I think now tribals won't show as english rebels I just removed symbols8.tga from rebels_factions. See in descr_standards.txt and below.

Heres how I think Rebel flags work and why you can only have 6 different ones; they are directly related to the culture in the file descr_cultures.txt. So we have 6 cultures and can only have 6 different rebel "types", unless we start messing around with cultures, and since they are linked to regions again... not a good idea to mess with peoples culture I say

Basically the two rebels in symbols8.tga won't be used at all (maybe free space for new factions) but it would be nice if you create fitting rebels for the 6 cultures in symbols9+10.tga. Here are the different indexes (0 being top left of 1st file, then 1 to the right etc):
(explained: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=164742)

culture				southern_european
rebel_standard_index	0

culture				northern_european
rebel_standard_index	1

culture				mesoamerican
rebel_standard_index	2

culture				greek
rebel_standard_index	3

culture				eastern_european
rebel_standard_index	4

culture				middle_eastern
rebel_standard_index	5

You guys are free to play around with the files as well, try em out - you know what to do right? It should bring you the joy of seeing Norway, Desert Tribes, Aztecs and Armenia UI symbols properly. Tokus will be bringing a fuller update soonish though so dont fret if you don't know what to do with the zip

HOWEVER, we need help from some of the modding vets with the adding rebel symbols part - is it at all possible to go beyond the max of 6, one per cultural area?

-S

[cedric37]

Good news, i will wait for the last "just unzip and it's done" version to see those Norway, Aztecs etc flags display properly in the UI.

Good job!

[Tokus*Maximus]

+++ Tokus Update+++

Clean up symbols 8 plus the new cultural rebel symbols9 and 10 and PM'd to Shadrach. If they pass muster I'll make up their large GUI verisons (with banners) right away. Then ladies and gentlemen - we should be rolling! EVERYONE - +rep to Shadrach - he has made all this possible - I've just been doing the easy 2D side of things...

-- Tokus

[Tokus*Maximus]

Quiver in fear mere mortals for Shadrach and Tokus will release the DLV new EVERY SYMBOL patcher on Wed (tomorrow). The Desert Tribes, Norway and the Aztec symbol in-game (both big and mini versions). There's also new rebel symbols for the culture types too. I also touched up every faction even more, especially the banners.

Shadrash will probably fill you in further...

-- Tokus

[Shadrach]

Just some teasers from the man that gives you the Rash

Unique rebel symbols for each of the cultures, as well as Norway and Aztec symbol!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Finally Armenia (Kiliko... what?) and Desert Tribes have their symbols represented!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Full set of cute wee little faction symbols!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

What really makes this great as always is really Tokus' wonderful heraldry, I just did the twiddling of the knobs (or text files as it were) to make it fit together and show up for all factions.

Hopefully, by also separating symbols from UI elements and making the naming in the files more consistent it will be easier for future modders, for instance the symbol for Flanders is now referenced by FACTION_LOGO_FLANDERS to correspond with the naming of the faction in descr_sm_factions.txt

It really makes DLV look a lot more polished

[Tokus*Maximus]

Yeah...!

[cedric37]

Wooowww!!! Shadrash (& Tokus), i love you!

[TMSKILZ]

Tokus & Shad much appreciated, thanks for the quick responses & as always your hard work, creativity & passion!

I hope to play around more & more w/ some of the files using the numerous guides posted in the forum, so that in the future I can help contribute, & also alleviate some of the workload, from the guys like Tokus & Shad & other great Mods. Work in progress, @ a snails pace, but hopefully I'll pick things up quickly.

[Tokus*Maximus]

You'd be most welcome.

[Agis Tournas]

I feel that this mini-mod will make the DIFFERENCE!
Well done gentlemen!
CONGRATULATIONS