Developer Diary 15

This developer diary was first posted in the M&T forum here, and team members answered some questions in the thread. It was further posted on the M&T subreddit here, and team members also commented there.

Dev Diary #15 - Buildings Interface
As I just finished with buildings UI I decided to log in on forums after many months to showcase it. Today has been a marathon of 6 hours modding/editing. I'm tired but pretty satisfied, as UI got pretty finished



In the end it took me together... idk? 24 hours I think?



This one was a bitch to say the least, but I wanted something special. I know right now it looks out of place. That is because this panel is actually hand drawn - from scratch, on paper



Drawing took about 6 hours I think? Alot of time was spent on designing parts of the image to be distinct in how they look, what they depict, but to create continous "story" thorough whole image: from the center of a city to the sea Sadly quite a bit of details were lost and I will have to revisit digital version to retouch it with two things in mind: better clarity and recoloring/darkening of alot of areas so it suits dark ui of EU4

Now let's talk my pains



I am quite aware of this gap, but it's fault of the engine, it's the same wioth the roads level: the thing is You physically CANNOT move building beyond left and top boundary. Left is obvious, that's why circle is not touching border. Top is more problematic: I cannot make top ones go higher than currently, and even with roads tier flipped to inside this part is too cramped for my liking



Overall I think I will change circles to be same as tier indicators, just to fit corners, so they will fit much better with the rest of ui

You might not believe me, but those suckers, those small circles took 4 hours of my life. every time I wanted to change even little tiny bit, move by 2 pixels, had to restart whole game... and there are still mistakes :((((



To sum up Infrastructure and maintenance part of UI 12-16 hours of work 50 new .dds files and had to restart game like 60 times

And now levies and taxation:



Wanted to make them feel separate from the rest and between themselves, but to show that they are very similar. That is why I used both horizontal lines (division between rest and themselves) and darker color (division betwen rest, but common point between themselves. And I know the lines are not perfect, should move bottom line down a bit... but I'm too lazy now :D and it's quite low priority. Icons for taxes and levies are kinda old news right? been shown on other screenshots. That's why I can't do my own DD's ;( they steal my things and show them themselves :((

And for the last... The orphan. "this guy" of buildings:



The fort. Because only this sucker can block troops. Hardcoded, end of discussion. That is why it didn't suit anywhere and had to left some empty slots so players can still "build" and as a safeguard, so if somebody adds YET ANOTHER BUILDINGS...

looks nervously at Fire and KJH

... I can still have some wiggle room.

That's the end I guess? And well come to our discord, I and other members post there teasers much more frequently than here, mostly because our own main workplace is on discord, so join in and enjoy even more goodies :D

Btw mystery circles, tiers etc will remain mystery. It's not my work, so will not spoil :)