Adding more Colours

[NizzyStorm]

Can you add colours like Black, white, teal, magenta. etc etc etc. I'd like to see a lot more colours than the standard 8 colours. 

[Chandler]

You're not the first to suggest this:

https://forums.cncnet.org/topic/6192-suggestions-more-players-in-one-number-slot-more-team-colours-to-choose-from/#comment-49021 

[NizzyStorm]

I may not be but it's getting boring now with just the 8 standered colours. Please add like a thousand more colours add all the colours they're are heehee. 

[[CC] RaVaGe]

.... A colour picker like on OpenRA would be nice.

[Iran]

Problem with  that is that the colors in the C&C games define a gradient of different colors. say the color 'red' has 10 different red colors to define the red color. In OpenRA a color is applied to the whole color scheme (instead of 10 different color gradients for the same color) which makes the colors look ugly and smudged.

See how it's done for Red Alert here:

https://github.com/Iran/ra303p-iran/blob/master/src/loading.asm#L782

 

 

[Rampastring]

On 20.8.2017 at 3:08 PM, Iran said:

Problem with  that is that the colors in the C&C games define a gradient of different colors. say the color 'red' has 10 different red colors to define the red color. In OpenRA a color is applied to the whole color scheme (instead of 10 different color gradients for the same color) which makes the colors look ugly and smudged.

See how it's done for Red Alert here:

https://github.com/Iran/ra303p-iran/blob/master/src/loading.asm#L782

In TS/RA2 you can just edit the colors in the [Colors] section of Rules.ini, where each color just has a single HSV value. So an OpenRA-style color picker would be doable, although because the game (at least TS) can't load colors from multiplayer maps, the client would have to edit Rules.ini for it which is kinda bad.

Edited August 23, 2017 by Rampastring

[[CC] RaVaGe]

Why would it be bad? Just make sure the changes are synced between all players in a game lobby and you're good to go?

[[AuF]Mindwar]

On 8/14/2017 at 4:49 PM, Chandler said:

You're not the first to suggest this:

https://forums.cncnet.org/topic/6192-suggestions-more-players-in-one-number-slot-more-team-colours-to-choose-from/#comment-49021 

Filthy red coat.

 

[Marsh]

just curious

 

but in ra2 campaign the soviet army is black, would that be possible?

[Rampastring]

On 23.8.2017 at 8:32 PM, FReQuEnZy said:

Why would it be bad? Just make sure the changes are synced between all players in a game lobby and you're good to go?

Yeah, it'd work that way but it still feels a bit 'hacky' to me.

3 hours ago, Marsh said:

but in ra2 campaign the soviet army is black, would that be possible?

It's technically possible, but you don't want black as a multiplayer color because if you're black, your chat is (almost) invisible to others.

[nonName]

Im fine with brown color in multiplayer

[ZiGZaG]

On 14/08/2017 at 8:35 PM, rossnisbe said:

Can you add colours like Black, white, teal, magenta. etc etc etc. I'd like to see a lot more colours than the standard 8 colours. 

I have played an online game vs a white opponent once. Not entirely sure what happened but it was a qm on XWIS years ago vs tim on dune patrol, he randomly started the game with a white mcv.

[ore_truck]

On 15/08/2017 at 3:35 AM, rossnisbe said:

Can you add colours like Black, white, teal, magenta. etc etc etc. I'd like to see a lot more colours than the standard 8 colours. 

Black can be a problem in the radar and superweapon/power offline timer because of the black timer background.

White is for neutral units if playing on maps with pre-placed neutral/civilian units.

Teal (assuming you're talking about the SP allies in some missions) are really confusing with sky blue and green (e.g. in Operation Mirage, the three border outposts (teal) look almost the same as Einstein's base (green)),

Magenta - if you're talking about Yuri's second house colour in SP, then it's obvious it is  confusing with his standard purple.

You forgot to mention Brown - can be confusing with Orange at night.

[[CC] RaVaGe]

On 26/08/2017 at 9:17 PM, Rampastring said:

Yeah, it'd work that way but it still feels a bit 'hacky' to me.

It's technically possible, but you don't want black as a multiplayer color because if you're black, your chat is (almost) invisible to others.

The client already feels 'hacky', there's a huge delay in sending chat messages to other players in a hosted game lobby, kicking and banning players often takes 30 seconds.

The fonts look blurred on standard HD reso with windows scaling set to 100% and even more so on 125% on a 2K display. The user experience design side of things is lacking, with some options missing in spots wherer they would be expected, I could give a thorough analysis of what could be improved to make the client more pleasant to use.

Wouldn't it be possible to override the chat colour for black and have it default to grey?

[Rampastring]

1 hour ago, FReQuEnZy said:

The client already feels 'hacky'

Not to me, and even if it did, it's no reason to add more hacky solutions.

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there's a huge delay in sending chat messages to other players in a hosted game lobby

It's not a client issue but it's caused by GameSurge's very strict bandwidth limitations. We can't do anything about that.

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kicking and banning players often takes 30 seconds.

Based on how I know my own code I can say with confidence that you're exaggerating. But I could still make kicking and banning instant, so this is valid criticism.

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The fonts look blurred on standard HD reso with windows scaling set to 100%

It might depend on the client resolution. With too high resolutions the client will render at a lower resolution and then upscale the image, and with too low resolutions it'll render at a higher resolution and then downscale the image. I can't remember how the YR client is set up (tomsons26 or Grant probably know), but the DTA client for example is designed for 1280x768 / 1280x800. Using the client with those resolutions and scaling at 100%, it doesn't look blurry. Not to me, and based on public feedback, not to others either. Graphically the client has actually got a lot of praise.

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and even more so on 125% on a 2K display

125% DPI might cause blur by itself already, and again, it might depend on the client resolution. I also have to say that I own only basic 1080p displays so I haven't been able to test 2K.

Quote

The user experience design side of things is lacking, with some options missing in spots wherer they would be expected, I could give a thorough analysis of what could be improved to make the client more pleasant to use.

Some of the menu layouts have been changed in CnCNet YR compared to my original DTA client (which means that changing them would be up to Grant), others are original design by the DTA team. If you could make a thorough analysis, we could see what our staff (at DTA and at CnCNet) thinks of them and possibly implement changes that we determine to be helpful. Just saying that "it's lacking" naturally doesn't help at all.

Quote

Wouldn't it be possible to override the chat colour for black and have it default to grey?

Maybe by hacking the game.

[Marsh]

On ‎8‎/‎26‎/‎2017 at 4:17 PM, Rampastring said:

 

It's technically possible, but you don't want black as a multiplayer color because if you're black, your chat is (almost) invisible to others.

then we shall just used discord!

I never thought of that, it's a good point thanks for response

[[CC] RaVaGe]

4 hours ago, Rampastring said:

It's not a client issue but it's caused by GameSurge's very strict bandwidth limitations. We can't do anything about that.

3

How much bandwidth do IRC messages take?  
Could use an alternative server(s) in that case.

 

Based on how I know my own code I can say with confidence that you're exaggerating. But I could still make kicking and banning instant, so this is valid criticism.

3

There was actually a game I had hosted where I was able to set a player to be kicked & banned, then all the players were able to ready up for a match and we started, to the end of the loading (screen) process, I heard the player leaving sound which upon my return to lobby was actually from the player finally being kicked.

I can with confidence say that the delay is not always so great, but I'm unfortunately not exaggerating.

 

It might depend on the client resolution. With too high resolutions the client will render at a lower resolution and then upscale the image, and with too low resolutions it'll render at a higher resolution and then downscale the image. I can't remember how the YR client is set up (tomsons26 or Grant probably know), but the DTA client for example is designed for 1280x768 / 1280x800. Using the client with those resolutions and scaling at 100%, it doesn't look blurry. Not to me, and based on public feedback, not to others either. Graphically the client has actually got a lot of praise.

125% DPI might cause blur by itself already, and again, it might depend on the client resolution. I also have to say that I own only basic 1080p displays so I haven't been able to test 2K.

3

My old monitor ran at it's native 1680 x 1050 and my new one runs at it's native 2560x1440.
The game client is set at 2048x1152 as it's the highest full-screen resolution supported, while the spawner can use the full native resolution.

On both monitors the fonts look poor, on my old one they looked pixellated and on the new one they look blurry (stretched), my guess would be that the YR client doesn't have font/dpi scaling implemented so it's looks crap.

 

Some of the menu layouts have been changed in CnCNet YR compared to my original DTA client (which means that changing them would be up to Grant), others are original design by the DTA team. If you could make a thorough analysis, we could see what our staff (at DTA and at CnCNet) thinks of them and possibly implement changes that we determine to be helpful. Just saying that "it's lacking" naturally doesn't help at all.

3

I know it doesn't help, I just didn't want to spam the thread. 

Some suggestions would be...

1. Being able to mute/ignore players from the main lobby through the context menu that appears when selecting a player from the list and right clicking. Also being able to do the same in the players list in the messages & all players menus (the ones under the F4 shortcut).

2. Being able to remove friends from the friends list through a context menu or a button, at the time being one would have to find the friend in the players list in the main lobby and then use the context menu option there, which is a rather weird (unexpected) place to find it.

3. Adding the option to invite players to a game from the friends' list and from the main lobby players list. 

4. Keyboard shortcuts options are missing from the options menu.

 

I'll let you know when I think/remember of more, the first two did make me think WTF though.

[Rampastring]

8 hours ago, FReQuEnZy said:

How much bandwidth do IRC messages take?  
Could use an alternative server(s) in that case.

All of CnCNet uses GameSurge. CnCNet used to have its own IRC server that didn't have such limitations, but repeated DDOS attacks forced us to move to GameSurge.

8 hours ago, FReQuEnZy said:

There was actually a game I had hosted where I was able to set a player to be kicked & banned, then all the players were able to ready up for a match and we started, to the end of the loading (screen) process, I heard the player leaving sound which upon my return to lobby was actually from the player finally being kicked.

If the players all ready up one-by-one they could actually generate a delay of over 20 seconds for the kick command (the ready commands take priority over kicking for some technical reasons). But it should be a rare case. It is however the most common complaint for the current client so I've planned to make kicking and banning instant, but I'm not sure if I'll have time for it soon.

8 hours ago, FReQuEnZy said:

The game client is set at 2048x1152 as it's the highest full-screen resolution supported, while the spawner can use the full native resolution.

Looks like 1600x900 is the maximum rendering resolution for the YR client. Unless you really want the client window to be as large as possible, you should give 1600x900 a try.

The lack of font scaling is a result of the client using MonoGame / XNA, which uses sprite fonts instead of regular scalable vector fonts for performance reasons. I knew that it's not a perfect platform for building a client on, but using it has saved me quite a lot of time, enough so that the client probably wouldn't exist if I had taken a more low-level approach where I had more control over it. It could be said that I intentionally sacrificed font scaling to reduce development time.

8 hours ago, FReQuEnZy said:

1. Being able to mute/ignore players from the main lobby through the context menu that appears when selecting a player from the list and right clicking. Also being able to do the same in the players list in the messages & all players menus (the ones under the F4 shortcut).

The ignore list is an YR addition so it's up to Grant.

8 hours ago, FReQuEnZy said:

2. Being able to remove friends from the friends list through a context menu or a button, at the time being one would have to find the friend in the players list in the main lobby and then use the context menu option there, which is a rather weird (unexpected) place to find it.

I'll see if I can find the time to implement this. I had planned to add it back when the client was first released, but I kinda forgot about it since then.

8 hours ago, FReQuEnZy said:

3. Adding the option to invite players to a game from the friends' list and from the main lobby players list.

I don't think it'd be much (read: so much that it's worth investing development time on) better than just sending them a PM. Particularly when it doesn't really matter for the games that I focus on

8 hours ago, FReQuEnZy said:

4. Keyboard shortcuts options are missing from the options menu.

I've actually been working on this lately and will likely have the keyboard configuration menu finished within the next few weeks. The link is a (very) WIP screenshot from DTA, but YR will get it as well.

Edited August 30, 2017 by Rampastring

[[CC] RaVaGe]

Thanks, Rampa, great post +1<3.
See you on Dust 2.