Mon Général! While the core team pushes on with the campaign layer, the art team tackles the battle layer, improving the visuals and historical authenticity, starting with the soldiers.
Full notes
Full Grand Tactician: Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815) update
Read the full published notes in a cleaner layout. The original post stays linked below.
What changed
0 fixes3 additions7 changes0 removals
Gameplay
Performance
Maps
UI and audio
addedThe initial artwork, as seen in the announcement video, Steam screenshots and other places, is being developed further. With more experience under our belt using the new development tools available in the GT2 engine, we’ve been able to optimize the 3D soldier models. At the same time, the models have many adjustments, like more correct hats and bayonets for the muskets. The animations are better synchronized with realistic movement speeds and cadences, making them look more lively in general, with musket lowering before firing, and other minor touches here and there..
changedThe uniform logic on units has been changed from soldier specific to unit specific. This helps a lot with data handling, but also with ease of modding. Now a single texture file contains all textures used for a battalion. With some cunning use of UV mapping and material use, the units will show a lot more variety in uniforms with no impact on performance (especially VRAM use.) This is a nice addition especially to the Revolutionary era French, with the still quite ad hoc nature of clothing their units. Even though national uniforms are already in use and issued during the Italian campaign of 1796-97, there is not enough materials for all the units formed through mass conscription, especially in the secondary theater of Italy. The updated French have that rag-tag look from the renowned painter Keith Rocco ’s famous works (that are used in the game!)
addedWhen the roster is ready, 3D modelling will focus on adding entrenchment elements, improving the look of the trees in battle, as well as creating the required Italian theater buildings. All this combined, the battle layer will look even better - and run better, even if the average FPS is currently around ~60 (or more when no fighting is taking place.) Also contributing, is a change in the heightmap data format, providing better looks on the campaign map, and more detail for battle maps.
changedSteam post image Revolutionary French updated units and uniforms. In the foreground, a battalion of Chasseurs in their predominantly blue uniforms with green plumes and epaulettes. Behind them, battalions of Fusiliers and Carabiniers, followed by Grenadiers - who are now also physically taller than the average soldiers.
changedWhile the 3D battlefields look already quite nice, we’re still working to improve the terrain visuals in multiple ways. Further work is put into the ground textures themselves, including seasonal changes and dynamic snow coverage. For some extra atmosphere, the map surroundings are also augmented with terrain seemingly continuing beyond the map’s limits with a few technical approaches.
changedHaving mentioned the improved textures for our 3D soldiers, the same continues with the soldiers in the UI. The unit portraits shown in unit panels and management are receiving a facelift with more variety and further historical accuracy in the uniforms. The different visual elements of units, from Rocco ’s paintings to 2D portraits and 3D soldiers’ textures, will share similar historical details.
Grand Tactician: Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815) changes
addedThe initial artwork, as seen in the announcement video, Steam screenshots and other places, is being developed further. With more experience under our belt using the new development tools available in the GT2 engine, we’ve been able to optimize the 3D soldier models. At the same time, the models have many adjustments, like more correct hats and bayonets for the muskets. The animations are better synchronized with realistic movement speeds and cadences, making them look more lively in general, with musket lowering before firing, and other minor touches here and there..
changedThe uniform logic on units has been changed from soldier specific to unit specific. This helps a lot with data handling, but also with ease of modding. Now a single texture file contains all textures used for a battalion. With some cunning use of UV mapping and material use, the units will show a lot more variety in uniforms with no impact on performance (especially VRAM use.) This is a nice addition especially to the Revolutionary era French, with the still quite ad hoc nature of clothing their units. Even though national uniforms are already in use and issued during the Italian campaign of 1796-97, there is not enough materials for all the units formed through mass conscription, especially in the secondary theater of Italy. The updated French have that rag-tag look from the renowned painter Keith Rocco ’s famous works (that are used in the game!)
addedWhen the roster is ready, 3D modelling will focus on adding entrenchment elements, improving the look of the trees in battle, as well as creating the required Italian theater buildings. All this combined, the battle layer will look even better - and run better, even if the average FPS is currently around ~60 (or more when no fighting is taking place.) Also contributing, is a change in the heightmap data format, providing better looks on the campaign map, and more detail for battle maps.
changedSteam post image Revolutionary French updated units and uniforms. In the foreground, a battalion of Chasseurs in their predominantly blue uniforms with green plumes and epaulettes. Behind them, battalions of Fusiliers and Carabiniers, followed by Grenadiers - who are now also physically taller than the average soldiers.
changedWhile the 3D battlefields look already quite nice, we’re still working to improve the terrain visuals in multiple ways. Further work is put into the ground textures themselves, including seasonal changes and dynamic snow coverage. For some extra atmosphere, the map surroundings are also augmented with terrain seemingly continuing beyond the map’s limits with a few technical approaches.
Mon Général!
While the core team pushes on with the campaign layer, the art team tackles the battle layer, improving the visuals and historical authenticity, starting with the soldiers.
Models and Animations
The initial artwork, as seen in the announcement video, Steam screenshots and other places, is being developed further. With more experience under our belt using the new development tools available in the GT2 engine, we’ve been able to optimize the 3D soldier models. At the same time, the models have many adjustments, like more correct hats and bayonets for the muskets. The animations are better synchronized with realistic movement speeds and cadences, making them look more lively in general, with musket lowering before firing, and other minor touches here and there..
The uniform logic on units has been changed from soldier specific to unit specific. This helps a lot with data handling, but also with ease of modding. Now a single texture file contains all textures used for a battalion. With some cunning use of UV mapping and material use, the units will show a lot more variety in uniforms with no impact on performance (especially VRAM use.) This is a nice addition especially to the Revolutionary era French, with the still quite ad hoc nature of clothing their units. Even though national uniforms are already in use and issued during the Italian campaign of 1796-97, there is not enough materials for all the units formed through mass conscription, especially in the secondary theater of Italy. The updated French have that rag-tag look from the renowned painter Keith Rocco ’s famous works (that are used in the game!)
When the roster is ready, 3D modelling will focus on adding entrenchment elements, improving the look of the trees in battle, as well as creating the required Italian theater buildings. All this combined, the battle layer will look even better - and run better, even if the average FPS is currently around ~60 (or more when no fighting is taking place.) Also contributing, is a change in the heightmap data format, providing better looks on the campaign map, and more detail for battle maps.
Steam post image Revolutionary French updated units and uniforms. In the foreground, a battalion of Chasseurs in their predominantly blue uniforms with green plumes and epaulettes. Behind them, battalions of Fusiliers and Carabiniers, followed by Grenadiers - who are now also physically taller than the average soldiers.
2D Artwork
While the 3D battlefields look already quite nice, we’re still working to improve the terrain visuals in multiple ways. Further work is put into the ground textures themselves, including seasonal changes and dynamic snow coverage. For some extra atmosphere, the map surroundings are also augmented with terrain seemingly continuing beyond the map’s limits with a few technical approaches.
Having mentioned the improved textures for our 3D soldiers, the same continues with the soldiers in the UI. The unit portraits shown in unit panels and management are receiving a facelift with more variety and further historical accuracy in the uniforms. The different visual elements of units, from Rocco ’s paintings to 2D portraits and 3D soldiers’ textures, will share similar historical details.
While a minor detail, in the UI we’ve implemented many of the numeric stats with colour-coding, so players can quickly see what requires their attention. For example, when morale goes down, the value goes from green through to yellow and orange to red, alerting players that things are not going well for the unit.
When we changed from hand crafted maps to dynamically generated, we also wanted to maintain the papermap feature from GT1. This created a lot of issues at first, but we’ve been able to tackle some of the main ones, and the end result starts to look quite nice, even if the whole is built from a set of standard visual elements. Going for a mid-battle look on the map (as if the staff is tracking the development “live” according to received reports,) the units are presented as wooden blocks instead of drawn symbols. This brings a subtle “kriegsspiel-ish” vibe:
You’re right, when this May’s devblog is released, it’s already June. We’ve been really busy with the artwork updates, but also with re-designing the management screen known from GT1. While the main idea remains mostly the same, the UI layer is hopefully a lot more intuitive, lowering the learning curve. We’ve also added a sip of Whiskey & Lemons to management, in the form of staff officers and decorations and titles that can be awarded to commanders, among other things.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – we’ll return to management a bit later! In the meanwhile, we’ll be dropping a bit more videos on our YouTube channel, including highlighting the above mentioned visual improvements.
