EHM The Blue Line

B. Stinson wrote:I have to admit, though - I'm not too fond of the rinks used in the matches, and am especially dissapointed that we can't change them. I was really looking forward to remaking my high-detail rinks and seeing them all the time now that we can watch all of our games without coaching.

You could rework the graphics that make up the rinks, maybe I can look into creating one with more of a scratched up ice look... there is only one deafult sheet of ice tough. All the lines and circles and other elements are other files. You can also change the colors of the lines via the .col file I believe but I haven't test any of that yet.

Additionally there are five areas of customization; under each faceoff circle at each end and under the center ice circle. All are independent images and you can designate one or more for use. It's just a different system from last year; though the same manner of editing for ices last year will work this year but only for the displays that use the old-style rinks menaing the shot charts etc.

I've got instructions for ice image editing direct from Riz that I'll be posting in the Graphics forum soon, I didn't know what they were going to do about that element for the release, in testing they had an SI logo at mid ice and 'SEGA' and the new EHM 2007 logo under the in-zone faceoff dots... but that was just testing, I guess the release version 2d rinks are blank right?

In my game, they have those large logos in all the faceoff circles, which I quickly "turned off." They also have white creases, which I found kind of suprising... especially because I mentioned it to Riz after the first batch of screenshots.

I think I'll end up keeping the deafult rinks, though. I'm not a big fan of "blind editing" with numbers in config files to determine colors and elements in a picture. I'm really only good at the old "what you see is what you get" stuff, because I can adjust and add stuff right there infront of me, and see how it will turn out... especially with the rinks I was hoping to make. The ones I made for 2005(and hoped to re-do for 2007) had completely remade nets with water bottles, official lines, faceoff circles, faceoff dots, neutral zone ads, center ice team logos in the large circle, "Sports Interactive" around the center circle like the arena names are, etc.

You could create all the elements you're talking about actually with exception of the official lines... and release them as an update of the deafult skin actually, I'd help you out with how to get the files in the right places etc too, people would switch to your skin but all the other game elements would reamin the same as the default...

Anywayss take a look in the skin folder 'ehm_default' and check out the new 'ingame' subfolder. That is where all the images are. The faceoff circles for example are a 100x100 graphic, the goals are 28x36. all of it gets laid atop the 'rink' images in that folder.

The custom images when added are for under the faceoff circles so they can be customized for each team, they would all display however under these images so you if you rework the faceoff circle image that will still display on top of any possible additions...

Thanks for pointing that 'ingame' folder out. I had no idea it was there. And although it's not everything I would like to have, it's a nice step forward from thinking there was nothing I could do about anything.

I haven't done any testing of those images or the custom team-based ones yet actually so let me know if you try something out

It's next on my list for projects but that won't be until next week I'd guess at this point. I found out about it because I emailed Graeme during testing about it and Riz emailed me back the instructions that I'm going to post in a minute to the Announce thread about 07 graphics. That literally was less than a week ago though so that's why I haven't had time to check it out yet. I know the what and where and what I've been told about the how, but that's it

Good and bad news.

Good - I was able to re-do most of the stuff on the ice to get a better looking game. In fact, I think I touched everything at least once... but I'm pretty happy with the result.

Bad - I thought I was on to something that would allow me to get my final, and best touch ot the more realistic ice - but it failed. I want to get ads in the neutral zone in front of the benches/pen-boxes like I had with 2005. I though I could make the center ice image big enough to include those sections of the ice while the game thinks it's just the center ice spot... but appearently it won't load an image at all if it exceeds the default image size. So, the best I could do was have a center ice logo with empty sides.

Today I was able to add the team logos to the ice. I am extremely pleased with how easy they've made it this year. The only downside is that the 'Large' logos are slightly too big to fit inside the circle, and the 'medium' logos are just small enough to look kind of whimpy on the ice. With that, I am debating right now whether I should break my goal for realism in favor of better looks, by eliminating the center circle and going back to the 'Large' logos.

I guess for now I'll play out a few more games to get a feel for what other team's ices look like with the smaller logos(I've only seen my team's ice so-far, and I'm with the Cyclones).

I'd love to see a screenshot of your progress Good to see that the new system is working for you though.

Couldn't you basically split the difference and scale down the Large logos? I say scale down as things tend to look better when starting with sources too large than ones that are too small.

I've only got one shot so-far, but the only difference between this one and the rest would be the mid ice team logos.

Flyers vs Penguins

P.S. While playing around som more with team logos, I found out that the Medium sized ones fit well into the mid-ice circle. It was just the one I first saw that looked small, but when I had a game in Wheeling, their logo fit perfectly. So, as of right now, I have all the default Medium sized logos thrown into my Rinks>faceoff folder. My only concern left is that I noticed some teams' Medium sized logos got as small as 45x45, which is the same as the default 2005 logos... so I'm hoping they don't appear rediculously small on the ice, because I'm hoping to preserve the ease of simply adding a logo to the Faceoff folder, and having it show-up on ice... without any individual customization like 2005 needed.

Looks good.

I dig it Never have been a fan of the solid redlines... was one of the first things I changed for my template.

A few things I figured out with the projects I've done for 2005 that may/may not be helfpull:

The logos will look more like they're 'under' the ice if you lower the opacity of the level down usually around 65% I think it was... forgot to ask what you are using for your image editing? However all you'd have to do is open them (if they do fit) and lower their opacity and resave them.

You could open one of the rink 'pieces' to get the ice color and make that a background layer to test against. You can then hide that layer before you do a 'save for the web' (or your program's equivalent).

Also for the lines and circles often a light gaussian blur can help make the lines look more like they are under the ice than drawn on top of it.

Those are some things I have been looking to do. The logos don't have any fade at all yet, since I have just been looking to see how the sizes work out. Now that I'm generally happy with 'em, I'll probably get to the transperency tomorrow.

As for the lines, I already have them faded, but from the beginning I haven't been 100% sure it's enough. To me, they look a little too "sharp" right now. So I'll probably try blurring them a little like you said.

I'm using Photoshop CS2 for all my image work, so 99% of it is pretty easy. The way I've been doing most of it so-far is I load the line or marking, and add a white layer over it... then set the white layer's opacity to 35%. But now that I think of it, just lowering the elements opacity would probably work just the same.

Almost midnight here, so I think tomorrow I'll get to all this... and maybe I'll post another screen for an update.

Ah good to know that we're both working on Photoshop so I can be more specific about things. If you try the Gaussian blur see what you think of the look at like .2 or .3 for example.

Let me know how you're progressing.

I was playing around today with those new ideas, but I didn't have much success. That blurring really only worked on the faceoff circles. The other lines are only a few pixels in size, and mostly solid, so they couldn't/didn't show any blur, and the ones that did didn't stand out too much. So right now, I've decided to go back to the lines I had, and instead start making faded logos for the ice.

Unfortunately so-far, I've spent more time editing the rinks than actually playing the game... so I think I'm gonna take a break for a little and get some good playing time in before I sart playing with rink markings again. the logos are probably the only ting I'll be doing for now besides playing.

Now that I've seen a few more logos in action on the rinks, it looks like some work really well, and others come up really small(eventhough they're all from the Medium logos folder). So it looks like there will need to be quite a bit of individual care given to a lot of logos... which I'm not sure I have the patience for. So, I guess I may just settle with the default Medium sizes, and leave the hand logo-work to someone with a little more expertice.

I can tweak a logo set for ya, it's on my to-do list actually. The actual ice image changes from within the skin folders when you are happy with you can release liek I did with my reworked 'interface' elements, as a download that people could swap out their deafult folders for your new ices

As for the lines yeah just remembered they are replicated form chunks like 4 pixels long this year, was thinking of last year when they were more graphic. You way have to just lower the transparency level on them if they are still dispalyying too 'sharp' for you, that will allow some of the ice background to show through and mute the overall look down a bit; probably start with like 85% and see what it looks like and tweak from there.

Speaking of developing instead of playing I know the feeling... I actually haven't played any actual games since mid last week been keeping up to date with the boards and working on projects too much!

For a quick fix in my game I copied the "huge" logos to a "working" folder. I then took paintshop pro and resized the huge logos down to 100x100 and put them in the faceoff folder. If they were odd sized I let PS keep the ratio of the logo so they weren't stretced or scrunched. Unfortunatly I don't have the skills to do anything else but they are better than a blank circle or the SI logo at center ice.

Of course they don't look like they are under the ice or anything but they work for now. The only one that would casue problems in the Leafs logo, it is white with blue lettering. I googled for a Leafs logo and found a blue with white lettering. I had to have PS put a transparent background on the logo and haven't seen it in game yet so don't know if my "amature effort" is going to work.

Anyway a fairly simple fix that a novice can do until the "pro" modders release their work.

I will get Photoshop of my brother and I will have a go at making these with photoshop. I have never used it though so I will need practice.

As I am looking around on my mac and can't find anything to be able to edit the Rinks. So I will get Photshop of my brother tonight.

One question though. Do I need to email the teams asking to use there logo??

I've been using these rink elements for several games, and I think they're the ones I'm happy with for now. Obviously I haven't yet faded the mid-ice logos, but they aren't a part of the rink, so I have room to slack-off with them.

Pic: My new team in action: The Cardiff Devils

Looks great, Stinsy.

You planning on making a set for release.

They look really great You should really think of doing an EIHL set (there's not many teams).

Try making the logo slightly transparent (like around 75% opacity) - it should give it a bit of an "under ice" look.

I'd definately be willing to release these elements to you guys, since I have bummed so many files off of you's.

As for the logos, I'm still working on weeding through them all and finding which ones fit the circle the best. Once I play the 2D games and confirm each logo as a decent fit at ceter ice, I'll get to it's transperency(I'm doing it this way because I 'faded' every logo in the game from A to G, only to realize that a lot were too small, and had room for a bigger one... while others from the same 'Medium' logos folder were a good fit).

Although, I probably won't release any logos with my rink stuff, since they are actually seperate from the rink itself - They're added to the rinks simply by placing your logo of choice in the data>pictures>rink>faceoff folder.

Hopefully though, sometime down the road I'll have the correct sized logos figured out, and I can release them with the transperency. Then people can add them to their faceoff folder to show up on their rinks. If I am able to do this, the EIHL should be the first league done, since that's where I'm playing... meaning I'll get to "confirm" the correct sizing of the logos when I play each team.

B. Stinson wrote:I'd definately be willing to release these elements to you guys, since I have bummed so many files off of you's.

As for the logos, I'm still working on weeding through them all and finding which ones fit the circle the best. Once I play the 2D games and confirm each logo as a decent fit at ceter ice, I'll get to it's transperency(I'm doing it this way because I 'faded' every logo in the game from A to G, only to realize that a lot were too small, and had room for a bigger one... while others from the same 'Medium' logos folder were a good fit).

Although, I probably won't release any logos with my rink stuff, since they are actually seperate from the rink itself - They're added to the rinks simply by placing your logo of choice in the data>pictures>rink>faceoff folder.

Hopefully though, sometime down the road I'll have the correct sized logos figured out, and I can release them with the transperency. Then people can add them to their faceoff folder to show up on their rinks. If I am able to do this, the EIHL should be the first league done, since that's where I'm playing... meaning I'll get to "confirm" the correct sizing of the logos when I play each team.

Really like your red\white center line, very nice.

With regard to "confirming" your logo sizes, if your leagues are enhanced (or whatever they call it) you can go to the game highlights and quickly check out all the rinks in your league by simply queing up a goal highlight. Doing it this way with my set of NHL logos I believe I've seen each one within the first week of the season.

With regard to "confirming" your logo sizes, if your leagues are enhanced (or whatever they call it) you can go to the game highlights and quickly check out all the rinks in your league by simply queing up a goal highlight. Doing it this way with my set of NHL logos I believe I've seen each one within the first week of the season.

Thanks a million for that tip. Watching just a highlight didn't even cross my mind. I was thinking I would have to watch each game for each team to be able to see how the logo turned out. Thanks again for that!

archibalduk wrote:They look really great You should really think of doing an EIHL set (there's not many teams).

Try making the logo slightly transparent (like around 75% opacity) - it should give it a bit of an "under ice" look.

I was thinkin of foing EIHL when I can post a goodone up which people like. Got a few more images to show. One which was like last year which Shadd said to have a go at.