Army Painter, Unit Profiles, and Unit Identification

So one topic that has been tossed up and hasn't really fallen one way or another is the coloration and identification of units...which will then also play into the uniqueness of the models of the units.

While I certainly like the idea of being able to customize the entire model, ala DoW and other games in that expanded franchise, there comes a point where the customization becomes counter-productive from both a resources and unit management standpoint.

To address the solid points made by OrangeKnight in the suggestions thread:

Compared to TA, and what I've seen of screenshots of SupCom, the player color is more of a highlight instead of the primary color. Perhaps with the graphical style being more cell-shaded, and the edges all being visible, this will prevent the problem of the model data "blending" together and not being able to see the individual components.

With TA, the parts of the unit that are given the player color is also different from one unit to the next, so between the coloring and the profile, one can tell rather quickly both what the unit is and even what its heading is.

I am not sure if this balance works going the other direction, where the units are primarily the player color and then the highlights are the mechanical bits. Will there be enough information to tell the unit type and heading, especially when zoomed further out?

Note that this problem will exist regardless of whether the units are colored solidly or with a more complicated pattern.

This is also a good point to an extent, though some of the more intense battles can be very cluttered, especially since there are melee units. This point may also tie into how the UI represents and allows the player to control large groups, which may be a separate issue. For instance, in DoW, you have multiple units automatically grouped into a "squad", and the bottom quarter of the screen provides more information on the squad. When you select multiple squads, it shows a single icon for each individual squad.

That said, like in TA, each unit type has the pattern of color applied by the army painter. This allows the unit profile and coloration to allow quick identification, to better control the micro. In the same regard, as above, whether solid colors or patterns, the profile and graphics must support easy distinguishing between units.

So I am not sure that we'll see the sometimes massive scale differences in units like what I've found in screenshots of SupCom, or that the scale will feel as "large". In the ks video, when they zoomed out all the way it was still easy to see the units because the scale is more...cartoony? On bigger maps, will they do what I see in SupCom where the units become an icon instead of a rendered model?

What I think it boils down to are a couple main points that we can use to guide the discussion:
1) How do I identify units as mine?
2) How do I tell my own units apart from each other?
3) How do I identify units as enemy?
4) How do I tell my own units apart from enemy units?

I think this may help guide the discussion as trying to hit all of them at once may not be easy. :idea:

I didnt even read your whole post tbh, but just my 2 cents:

1) How do I identify units as mine?
They have a symbol on top of them, that is colored in my color.
2) How do I tell my own units apart from each other?
The symbols differ from each other
3) How do I identify units as enemy?
the color of enemy-units-symbols should be vastly different.
4) How do I tell my own units apart from enemy units?
again the symbols different from each other.

I think this is solved in FA just fine, with a few problems, that should be avoided:
- The standard-teamcolors had a few that made the symbols hard to decipher, a mod solved this.
- Some units used misleading symbols, i.e. the power storage and the energy generator, has been solved in some patch of faf.

The symbol should be what players look at first to identify a unit.
Also: there really needs to be an option like in FA: "Always render strategic symbols".

There is also a bit of a grain or noise added to the coloring to help give it a texture so it's not just a solid block of color.

I don't think this will be as large of an issue as you make it out to be so long as the designs are well varied and not just the same bots/tanks with different weapon barrels or other small changes that can be harder to spot. Also you have to consider HOW the secondary(Or just every colour other than the Team Colour) is placed around the model, basically how it's used is more important than how much is used.

I still feel a pattern(which is basically camouflage really) would make it tougher because it can really blur the edges and make it harder to see the shape, as you said above the highlighted edges help us see the shapes, it's by hard to outline the edge on a pattern.

I think it kinda ended up that because the game was built around the squad mechanics it help make the Army Painter feasible, It should also be noted that the different races(from what I recall, I didn't play all the expansions) had strong distinguishable silhouettes from each other.

I wasn't referring so much the scale of the units as much of the scale how many units can be on the screen at once. It is true that after a certain zoom level the units are replaced by Icons, but up until that point you are zoomed out way more than most(or even all?) other RTSs let you, so in bigger battles you will be able to see more units on screen at once than most/all other RTSs.

Also while talking about Strat. Icons, they can be a crutch to make unit identification easier when more zoomed out, but they can be a double edged sword depending on the implementation. For example in SupCom the Cybran Faction has two Tier 2 Tanks, the Rhino, a short ranged Beam tank good against T1 units and the Wagner, an Amphibious, armed with a decently front loaded Electron Bolter and a secondary Missile weapon(Both Anti Ground), up close they are easily distinguishable from each other but when they get replaced by Icons, they both end up with the Same Icon, as they're both tanks.

That can work if you always stay zoomed out enough, but you won't always be that zoomed out, and see above for the "double edged sword depending on implementation" point.

Mike

Actually it does work always at any level of zoom. I am playing like that since years.
The double edged sword is one of the weaknesses of FA, the symbols should differ more, i.e. put in a symbol for amphibious units and hovering units.
Even so, I often hover over a symbol with the mouse to see the unit type in case I know the symbol can have different meanings.
I really could play FA mostly without 3d models. Of course, having 3d models is a very good and nice thing

One problem with FA was that for some reason they allowed the player colour black, making the icons very difficult to read. Obviously this problem is easily solved from many angles, but only if you recognise the problem first.

True, there is a basic texture. Though for the demo video it doesn't appear there was, so at points like 35 seconds in where the yellow/orange dudes are fighting the red dudes, as the camera zooms out we quickly lose some of the ability to distinguish between units, let alone the geometry of a single unit, even in HD. The saving grace is that there are only two units on display in that little skirmish.

Well, I guess the only evidence I can provide is that the tanks in the demo video are featuring more metal textures than the robots, so it's pretty easy to distinguish between them and the robots.

Agreed. If the edge lines on the robots in the demo video were harder, I think it would be a lot easier to see their shape and be able to tell them apart even when zoomed out more. A pattern with no discernible edge would cause the model to blend into itself.

Pretty much. The game was certainly more in-the-trenches, and instead of explosions all the time they also had gore and blood, units interacting with each other (picking guys up, crushing them, impaling them, etc) and so on so it was very resource heavy in spite of being smaller-scaled. I guess I assumed that at some level this would free up resources to handle more units, but I don't know anything about how that stuff scales.

I wonder then if we'll ever see a "truer" scaled planet. With the smaller planetoid in the video, there doesn't seem to be enough terrain to support thousands of units, so I it may not be possible to get a good sense for the scales. I think that if we have units that are ten times larger than others, that the ability to control all of them effectively will be difficult...but perhaps that's assuming too much micro?

Interesting. I wonder then if the unit design should be able to be represented by an 8-bit icon being the silhouette of the unit. That would mean that from any level each unit could be uniquely identified. From what I am seeing, and what you are saying, they did not use very complicated icons for SupCom. Perhaps when there are multiple units in an area, the icon representation would show a "stack" instead of hundreds of the same icon? Would simplify the representation a lot to show a total quantity at the center of mass of a strike force.

Perhaps that could even work into being able to assign formations to the units?

Similarly, if on an all-water planet, how would blue look? If on a grass planet, how would green look?

I'd again vote for the 8-bit silhouette icon to represent the unit, a unique icon for each unit, and that stacks when similar units are close together with respect to camera viewpoint. The icon would have outer border of black a pixel wide, an inner border of white a pixel wide, and then the player color being solid inside the white. I think that would distinguish the icon enough on any background color, give enough detail to tell what a unit was, and also communicate when going from planet to planet both what the composition of the army is *and* what buildings you have in your base.

The icons could then also be selected individually if you wanted to order just a specific type of unit in a pack. Would make it possible to exist at most any level and still control the overall scheme of things, at least in my mind.

I didn't mean the icon was hard to spot, what i meant was:



Can you read the black at a glance? Its a great and stylish colour but... design oversight with its icons.

silhouettes aren't the best idea because you have to learn each individual units icon and what it means, and with modders adding new units they also have to add new icons. Sup com's system allowed for easily distinguishing exactly what the unit was from several angles.

the right side is the result of using a gamecolors-mod, which solves it just fine.
Will be harder to do in really big games, though.

As i said, easily solved if you realise its a problem. as for a 40 player match... one of the few legitimate arguments for player icons instead of colours, despite all the other problems they raise.

It might be a wise idea to generally draw the inner part of the symbol in some "inverse" color to the outer part. Might look ugly, but whatever ...

I can't distinguish the middle ones (blue / fuchsia) or what ever it is.

Gamecolors mod is okay if you are not color vision impaired (15% of all males).

maybe how some FPS games allow you to choose the type of crosshair, there should be different options for strategic icons, ranging from simplistic (standard) to more complicated icon sets that are usable by the less colourfull amongst us (not quite expecting one for my friends... she can only see blue). I dont imagine its the type of thing thats hard although design always takes a bit of time, then again this is the type of thing that can be outsourced to free labour (strategic icon design i mean, not the coding).

of course there are a lot of assumptions in what i just said. like assuming strategic icons.

XOR drawing mode ftw. Except, actually, FTL. Bitwise inverses in RGB space suck. :mrgreen:

You may want to try the HSL or HSV complement but your eyes would probably implode with cancer.

Hello guys,
I am new on this forum and here you have my thoughts on customisation.
[I know this Topic is 1 Year old, but anyways]

I think an army painter or customizing in general has a huge potential,
especially when it goes into "detail", with "detail" i mean simple images (e.g.skulls,flames,lightningbolts) or complicated patterns in various colours on tanks or structures.
Adding this feature creates the possibility to make themed packages for your Clan or even sharing your selfmade-theme with members of the community.

Problems:
So I read through 90% of the posts here and the problems some of you guys spoke of were mainly:

A: losing overview
B: Camouflage

My solution:
Integrate a option to allow or deny the usage of customization of friendly/enemy units.The game is server-sided, so it shouldn´t be a technical problem to use the original painting of your enemy, since it is still saved on the server.

What do you guys think? does the option >>to disable/enable custom painting<<
(via menu)solve these problems?

PS: I am sry, if i made some mistakes but my english is not perfect, since I´m from germany.