Upcoming Mod - New Generals, 7 day turns & Other Hotness!

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Confederate naval addition, James Waddell.

[Pocus]

I'm curious what would happen if you gave a photo to an AI text-to-image program, asking for a clean-up and overhaul... I think it can do a good job of creating portraits very close to the original, yet different. Imagine the generals we know, but with a different posture than in the photos we are accustomed to, this would be awesome. Alternatively, a photo "identical, but the character is 10 years younger, etc." for photos taken post-war.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

I'm curious what would happen if you gave a photo to an AI text-to-image program, asking for a clean-up and overhaul... I think it can do a good job of creating portraits very close to the original, yet different. Imagine the generals we know, but with a different posture than in the photos we are accustomed to, this would be awesome. Alternatively, a photo "identical, but the character is 10 years younger, etc." for photos taken post-war.

I think there will lots of exciting options in the near future with what we can do with the portraits and such. As it is there's already a few interesting options, if it can be put that way
I put a photos of Confederate general Henry Hopkins Sibley (whom I chose purely because of his incredibly expressive face) through a 'picture to illustration' program just for a laugh and the results are kind of like Sibley 15 years younger + a rather flamboyant looking uniform. See for yourself

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

As it is, I still think I prefer my rather rough hewn colorisations using only the freest of free programs though I wouldn't discount the possibility of paying for an upgraded program in the near future as I quite enjoy the work

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Union naval addition, Henry Haywood Bell.

[JDwoody]

Hey I'd love to help out! I have no modding experience with this game (I've been learning) but I've been compiling in a Google Doc plans for my own overhaul mod I was planning to make once I learned how to make it! Would you be interested in working together? I was going to start my scenario with Week 3 of December, 1860, starting with South Carolina's secession from the Union and going from there, with the CSA slowly gaining more states as the early turns progress!

[JDwoody]

Hey so quick update on my self-taught modding experience: Yesterday, after 2+ hours of rigorous and exhaustive coding, enduring numerous crashes and re-launches just to crash again, and otherwise endurance-testing frustrations, I successfully modded in a new naval unit into the game! I felt like Thomas Edison after getting the lightbulb to come on after a million unsuccessful tries! If you need help with modding units, models, leaders, etc...now that I've done it once I've been able to replicate my success so I can definitely help you out with coding and modding now! Let me know if you'd be interested in working together!
- Jonathan

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Hey so quick update on my self-taught modding experience: Yesterday, after 2+ hours of rigorous and exhaustive coding, enduring numerous crashes and re-launches just to crash again, and otherwise endurance-testing frustrations, I successfully modded in a new naval unit into the game! I felt like Thomas Edison after getting the lightbulb to come on after a million unsuccessful tries! If you need help with modding units, models, leaders, etc...now that I've done it once I've been able to replicate my success so I can definitely help you out with coding and modding now! Let me know if you'd be interested in working together!
- Jonathan

I think we have everything pretty well covered for now but we might need some assistance in the near future if such a thing would interest you? Whatever the case, your offer of help is greatly appreciated

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

1864 CSA generals addition, Pierce M. B. Young.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Another Union general to be included in the mod, Philip St. George Cooke.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Your feedback is more than welcome

[StatboyVT]

Your feedback is more than welcome

The pics look great, and 7-day turns would be fantastic if everything is balanced. My main question is: what is the other "new hotness?"

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Your feedback is more than welcome

The pics look great, and 7-day turns would be fantastic if everything is balanced. My main question is: what is the other "new hotness?"

The pics you see here are just a few of what will be included in the mod. There are lots more that have yet to be seen, and before final release, there will be a few pics that get a bit of extra spit and polish while others will likely be replaced with better versions. I also have plans to photoshop a uniform onto those generals whose only available photographs are sans uniform so that they don't look out of place but whether I use them or not will depend entirely upon how good they end up looking. Whatever the case, we're pretty happy with how most of them have turned out.

Regarding 7-day turns; that hasn't skipped a beat yet under testing and I don't anticipate that changing. @Altaris has worked wonders there - the man is a bona fide wizard.

As for "other hotness"; we've reduced marching time between regions by quite a ways so that it isn't taking an interminable amount of time to get from one place to another (though the quicker marching times will come with the drawback of an increased cohesion loss) and we've capped the CSA entrenchment level at 2 up until 1864 whereupon it increases to 4. The aim here is that the focus in the early years of the war are of speed and rapid movement and likely far more frequent battles, which should more accurately reflect the American Civil War as it was. In our testing thus far, this has had precisely the intended effect. It all makes for a much more fast-paced and compelling game

[StatboyVT]

Sounds awesome!

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Sounds awesome!

It's an awful lot of fun to play I assure you. Gives the game a very different feel, which was the desired effect. This mod was never intended to be highly ambitious and/or far-reaching - just a few additions of new generals (actually lots!) and a few (relatively) simple changes that all combine quite nicely to enhance the CW2 playing experience. I'm really hopeful you'll play it and enjoy it as much as we do!

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

An updated portrait of Earl Van Dorn that I think will highly likely make the final cut.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

I quite like Van Dorn as a non-bleached blonde

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Also to be added, Confederate General James Henry Lane.

[Altaris]

I'm curious what would happen if you gave a photo to an AI text-to-image program, asking for a clean-up and overhaul... I think it can do a good job of creating portraits very close to the original, yet different. Imagine the generals we know, but with a different posture than in the photos we are accustomed to, this would be awesome. Alternatively, a photo "identical, but the character is 10 years younger, etc." for photos taken post-war.

I think there's some possibilities with this idea. I've gotten some interesting general portraits out of StarryAI, though sometimes it goes a bit awry, such as this 3 armed abomination it generated for Duke of Wellington!

Wellington3Arms.png (458.88 KiB) Viewed 11268 times

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

I'm curious what would happen if you gave a photo to an AI text-to-image program, asking for a clean-up and overhaul... I think it can do a good job of creating portraits very close to the original, yet different. Imagine the generals we know, but with a different posture than in the photos we are accustomed to, this would be awesome. Alternatively, a photo "identical, but the character is 10 years younger, etc." for photos taken post-war.

I think there's some possibilities with this idea. I've gotten some interesting general portraits out of StarryAI, though sometimes it goes a bit awry, such as this 3 armed abomination it generated for Duke of Wellington!

Wellington3Arms.png

We might all laugh now but wait till you see Wellington scratch his balls. No stone left unturned

[Altaris]

I'm curious what would happen if you gave a photo to an AI text-to-image program, asking for a clean-up and overhaul... I think it can do a good job of creating portraits very close to the original, yet different. Imagine the generals we know, but with a different posture than in the photos we are accustomed to, this would be awesome. Alternatively, a photo "identical, but the character is 10 years younger, etc." for photos taken post-war.

I think there's some possibilities with this idea. I've gotten some interesting general portraits out of StarryAI, though sometimes it goes a bit awry, such as this 3 armed abomination it generated for Duke of Wellington!

Wellington3Arms.png

We might all laugh now but wait till you see Wellington scratch his balls. No stone left unturned

Now that's a mental image...

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Certainly not an image we needed but an image all the same...

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Contemplating a graphics update, too

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Yet to be resized, but just to give you some idea of what I'm thinking...

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

More hotness...

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

If somebody could point me in the direction of a site or two containing some good cavalry (both Union & CSA) illustrations I'd be very grateful. There seems to be quite a few Confederate cavalry pictures to choose from but remarkably few of Union Cavalry.
Cheers!

[andrzej]

.

I made a small modification of the code and was able to add a full-fledged portrait with a background to the Leaders panel.

And thanks to this, now you don’t need to cut out the silhouette from the background image, and a pop-up biography appears when you hover over any part of the large portrait, and not just when you hover over the silhouette.

If you are interested, I am ready to provide this modification.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

@andrzej

I'll keep this in mind. Looks great and could be very useful. Thank you very much!

[andrzej]

@andrzej

I'll keep this in mind. Looks great and could be very useful. Thank you very much!

Minor corrections need to be made to the CW2\FrontEnd\GUIModelDetail.dfm file.


And also add a new portrait to the CW2\Graphics\Portraits\Leader Portraits folder with a background size of 180 by 280 pixels and an empty top line of 1 pixel.


And then you can get this result:


Download the mod "Large portrait of Leaders with background"

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

New Confederate graphics under consideration - Tennessee infantry.