[Mod] Herald Banner's mod

[Olive]

Edit :

Hi,

This mod replaces national banners by heraldic ones. It tries to respect its rules in most cases... but not always. It comes in two flavors which are compatible.

Thanks Jurri for the support .

The "normal" release :
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/monsith/dom2...nners1.0_s.zip

A release with bigger pics, clearer on the map, but with some minor and imo not annoying glitches in the charts/message listing :
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/monsith/dom2...Banners1.0.zip

Hope you'll like it .



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Hi,

I'm making a mod changing the nation's flags by heraldic ones (more or less compliants). For the code part, I basically copied an old release of Jurri's Emblems code (nice work ). But there are two things I can't do :

- How to replace the independents flag ? (tried selectnation -1 or 17 and it doesn't work )

- If I make little .tga pics (32*64), It's OK in the charts/messages, but the display of flags is blurred on the map. If I try bigger ones, they are clear on the map, but it's not shrunk in the charts/messages list.

Can I force the pics to be shrunk in the messages/charts ? Or maybe use two pics, a small for the menus and a big for the map ? Excepted from what I've seen in other mods, I've no dom2 code syntax concept .

Any ideas ?

[Jurri]

You can't change the independents flag.

You can't use different size flags for different purposes, as far as I know, either. I don't quite understand the problem, but you could check how I, or Unwise for that matter, made the flags: you'll note that the tgas are much higher than they are wide (yeah, I'm not home so I can't check the exact dimensions), and most of the upper portion is black. I think you should make the pictures in that exact same size, as then they won't be scretched or shrunk by the program. That way they look just fine (at least to me).

Can't wait to see your work!

[Olive]

Thanks for your answer .

I took your .tga for model (32*64). Using this size, it's OK in the menus : (picture here), using 48*96, it's clearer on the map, but becomes weird (but still OK imo) (picture here) .

Anyway, if there's nothing to do, I'll have time to design again some banners .

Current releases are here for the small banners version and here for the big one .

[Jurri]

Hey, these look totally sweet! I don't think it's worth it to make them bigger, as it will indeed both clutter the messagescreen/graphs, and look nasty on maps with small provinces. The latter can be fixed by fiddling with defaultmapzoom for the .map-file, but I'm not sure it's worth it... To me, these smaller ones look great already. Oh, yeah, and if the flags are much bigger, they'll look humongous in comparison to the other symbols nearby; the fort and such.

Hey, make some GUIs to go with the coats of arms, while you're at it!

[Olive]

I'm Happy you like it .

There's still some changes to do (like changing the Mictlan's one), but most are finished .

For the GUIs, well, actually I'm using an heraldry software, the first tries with gimp were terrible ( and took much more work ). I'm afraid I'm not skilled enough for making such a thing...

[Jurri]

Hey, maybe Ulm could have that dark blue background they got on their shields, what do you think? I understand that would break something in the Ermor one, but those blacks could be dark blues, too, if necessary.

Also, the T'ien C'hi one looks very Russian to me, for some reason... Maybe it's just me. Anyway, I would rather see a kamon or whatever the Chinese equivalent is

I don't quite get the R'lyeh one, but it looks cool, so. Other than those minor things, these look awesome. Competition is getting tougher, it seems (Not that anyone ever uses cosmetic mods, but still )

What sort of software is that? Sounds pretty specialized!

[Olive]

Jurri said:
Hey, maybe Ulm could have that dark blue background they got on their shields, what do you think? I understand that would break something in the Ermor one, but those blacks could be dark blues, too, if necessary.

Don't know, I had initially the same idea for the dark blue, but it's not used in heraldry. I have to give it a try.

For Ermor, I'm still unsatisfied with it, I have tried different ones. I liked this one, but it fits more to a pirate crew than to an ancient empire :

Jurri said:
Also, the T'ien C'hi one looks very Russian to me, for some reason... Maybe it's just me. Anyway, I would rather see a kamon or whatever the Chinese equivalent is

Hehe, not far from Russia. A member of a french dom2 board suggested to take inspiration from the flag of Mongolia. Quite thematic for barbarian kings .

Jurri said:
I don't quite get the R'lyeh one, but it looks cool, so. Other than those minor things, these look awesome. Competition is getting tougher, it seems (Not that anyone ever uses cosmetic mods, but still )

What sort of software is that? Sounds pretty specialized!

For R'lyeh, it's an octopus.

And I'm non looking for competition, I use your mod for a long time . But I discovered heraldic a little time ago and wanted to try making banners respecting (more or less) it's rules for dom 2. It's a good way to learn a little and to give an "historical" feel at the game .

The soft (in french but basic to use) is called "Ma�tre d'Armes" and can be downloaded here .

[Endoperez]

As far as I understand, Ulm could have "a silver (white) crescent on azure (blue) background", but the shades wouldn't be changable. As this is a hobby project, it would be quite easy to edit the Ulm flag's color into that kind of blue.

[Jurri]

Hey, kidding about the competing, of course!

I really like that Ermor design; it's not too piratey to me. Even if it was, pirates are cool! Yarrr...

I should think it would be worth the trouble to fix the Ulm color in a different program. I'll do it for ya, if you want. Of course, that would miss half the point, as then it wouldn't be classical heraldics anymore; maybe it could be the color the French coat of arms is, the lighter blue. (Is that that azure Endo is talking about?)

[Olive]

OK, changed the Ulm's color. There's the "legal" blue ( yes, it's called azure - last one was sable (black) ) and a dark blue from Ulm's shields. Dark blue looks better, at least more ulmish.

Also tried to redesign the Mictlan's one. I prefer the - meant to be fallen - angel.