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HOI4 Dev Diary - Art and Music

Hello, and welcome back to another Dev Diary for the Man the Guns expansion. The dev team are all deep in testing and fixing at the moment so today we will be handing over the rains to the Art and Music teams so they get to show what they have been up to to fill MTG with both new music, 3d models and 2d art to ramp up its awesomeness ;)

3D Art
With the focus of Man the Guns being on Britain and the US as well as on naval combat, we decided that we wanted to give both countries some of their historical ships as 3d models.
us_ships.png


The US already had a modern battleship model from the Famous Battleship pack that was rolled into the base game with Waking the Tiger due to...reasons, so we decided to give you a model for your older battleships, represented here by USS New Mexico, joined by USS Pensacola for the Heavy Cruisers (owners of the Famous Heavy Cruiser Pack get that model at higher tech levels), USS Brooklyn for the Light Cruisers, and USS Fletcher for the Destroyers.

british_ships.png


The same basic consideration applies to Britain, which will have HMS Nelson representing early Battleships, as well as the County-Class Heavy Cruiser, Leander-Class Light Cruiser, and Tribal-Class Destroyer for its smaller ships.

amphib_tanks.png


Another big source of new 3d Art were the amphibious landing vehicles. We tried to have a good spread covering as many majors as possible with the Cromwell DD (never left the drawing board), the Schwimmpanzer II and the Type 2 Ka-Mi (a converted Ha-Go light tank) as well as the Soviet T-40 and the American LVT-1(A).

amtracs.png


Accompanying the amphibious tanks are the amphibious mechanized vehicles, with the British Terrapin cheekily shuffling in despite having wheels instead of tracks. Beside it are the American LVT-1 standing in as the generic amphibious tractor, the German Land-Wasser-Schlepper, the Japanese Type 4 Ka-Tsu (with its torpedoes removed for safety reasons) and finally the American LVT-2 as the unique American Amtrac.

mexico.png


Our new countries have also gotten the usual new 3d models. Mexico has its indigenously produced Zeus and Azcarate planes as well as the famous Mondragon self-loading rifle (the first semi-automatic combat rifle adopted as a universal service rifle...and also the first semi-automatic universal service rifle retired after very short service for cost reasons).

dutch.png


The Dutch are represented with the Fokker D.XXI and the Fokker T.V, the DAF truck and equipped with the M41 Johnson rifle and the MP28. Since a lot of the gameplay revolves around the colonies in the East Indies, they also have a model for colonial troops recruited there.


Music
Start by kicking off this clip with samples and art in it while you read:

With Man the Guns I wanted to try having more distinct music even within one nation and I felt USA with its possibilities for civil wars would be perfect to test this. The expansion will come with 4 new songs to help us enable that.

  • General Democratic song appropriate for UK/USA that is quite upbeat
  • A Communist America song that takes a lot of inspiration from soviet propaganda and folk music even to set the vibe. I personally love this one :)
  • A Confederate America song that tries to walk the line between a sombre military mood, southern nostalgia and american tunes.
  • A General Democratic song that is a lot darker and more ominous. Fitting either for a nation under a lot of pressure (we were thinking submarines here) or something like where UK’s monarchy has taken a turn towards… evil.
So for example we have set things up so the Confederate song plays as the players nation starts drifting from democracy. Likewise the communist tune plays as the player changes that direction. Of the above songs the absolute hardest to get right was the confederate song. We weren't quite sure how to get it to sound like we envisioned, but our composer tried a lot of different ways until we (I think on the 4th try) got something that really clicked. You can hear small parts of it in the video above.

2D Art
When it comes to 2d art we have been fleshing out each of the new nations with a ton of portraits. Here are some samples:
new_portraits_mtg (1).jpg


We have also been adding more generics for admirals across the world as many nations had a need of them.
Png all navy.png


Finally we have been updating the naval tech icons to get unique levels for each ship type. A pet peeve of mine since release :)
naval_new_devdiary.jpg


See you all next week for another update!

Rejected Titles
“Something-something-clickbait-release-date”
We finally got those Fokkers in the game
I had the Fokker in my sight, it was a Messerschmidt...
Can you say Fokker on a public stream
We didn't want to go 'overboard' with rejected titles
 
I hate to nit pick, but am I the only one who thinks the portholes are overdone on the ship models ? Seriously they look like they been shot full of holes.
Yep. This, and also general form of ships is weird as I don't even know what. Also, don't know, why they leave all that strings for flags and stuff in such scale.
 
Bring me a towel, maybe a sandwich too :D

May I ask if there's something new also for the Italian navy/amphibious branch?

lov'ya
 
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@podcat : no new aircraft carrier models ?

Yeah, if not for specific country the generic tree could use at least one more model to represent early carriers.

HMS_Argus_1918.jpg


I hate to nit pick, but am I the only one who thinks the portholes are overdone on the ship models ? Seriously they look like they been shot full of holes.

True, also some mighty planks on those decks :)
 
"Hello, and welcome back to another Dev Diary for the Man the Guns expansion. The dev team are all deep in testing and fixing at the moment so today we will be handing over the rains to the Art and Music teams so they get to show what they have been up to to fill MTG with both new music, 3d models and 2d art to ramp up its awesomeness"


A few people have suggested that the use of the word "rains" rather than "reins" is a spelling mistake.

By Podcat, the infallible? Obviously not. His mastery of English is only exceeded by his mastery of HOI4. everything he does is deliberate and meaningful.

Which leads one to query why he chose to use an incorrect version of the homophone "rains/reins/reigns". Given that this "mistake" leads the article, it must be important. And what is the most important thing on the minds of HOI4 fans at the moment? The release date.

We need to study Podcat's words to decipher the hidden meaning. Like a Roman augur studying entrails, we must try to discover the message that the gods are passing to us.

Sadly, I believe I have worked out the truth.

You may not know it, but winters in Stockholm are pretty dry. Snow of course, but little rain. Most rainfall is in late summer, August/September. So "handing over" linked with "rains" can mean only one thing.

I think that Podcat is warning us that there is still much to do with the new release, and that it may be more than 6 months (when the "the rains" arrive) before it is "handed over".
 
"Hello, and welcome back to another Dev Diary for the Man the Guns expansion. The dev team are all deep in testing and fixing at the moment so today we will be handing over the rains to the Art and Music teams so they get to show what they have been up to to fill MTG with both new music, 3d models and 2d art to ramp up its awesomeness"


A few people have suggested that the use of the word "rains" rather than "reins" is a spelling mistake.

By Podcat, the infallible? Obviously not. His mastery of English is only exceeded by his mastery of HOI4. everything he does is deliberate and meaningful.

Which leads one to query why he chose to use an incorrect version of the homophone "rains/reins/reigns". Given that this "mistake" leads the article, it must be important. And what is the most important thing on the minds of HOI4 fans at the moment? The release date.

We need to study Podcat's words to decipher the hidden meaning. Like a Roman augur studying entrails, we must try to discover the message that the gods are passing to us.

Sadly, I believe I have worked out the truth.

You may not know it, but winters in Stockholm are pretty dry. Snow of course, but little rain. Most rainfall is in late summer, August/September. So "handing over" linked with "rains" can mean only one thing.

I think that Podcat is warning us that there is still much to do with the new release, and that it may be more than 6 months (when the "the rains" arrive) before it is "handed over".
The majority of the content has been shown off already and as Podcat stated, people are working on testing and fixing. I'd say that implies we still have 1 and a half months to 2 and a half months. Worst case scenario would be 3 months. A 6 month time frame shouldn't even be in consideration. Testing and fixing doesn't take 6 months. Also, higher ups at Paradox would not be happy with a DLC taking so long to release and would most likely simply not allow the team another whole 6 months.
 
Art and Music. My favorite thing about WW2
 
I think that Podcat is warning us that there is still much to do with the new release, and that it may be more than 6 months (when the "the rains" arrive) before it is "handed over".

I would rather it be done right than half baked, if it takes 6 months to get the AI to be a strong opponent then let it be so.
 
Cheers for the DD Podcat and the great work Team Art and Music :cool:. While my first (and I suspect second and first, but the first is the one I remember clearly) strategy game on computer was played with text sprites (good old Empire :)) ...

Empire, and later Empire Deluxe, was awesome. It was like hearts of iron, with randomized nations, and wonderful ascii graphics. Sooo DOS.
 
Empire, and later Empire Deluxe, was awesome. It was like hearts of iron, with randomized nations, and wonderful ascii graphics. Sooo DOS.

That is really going back to the Stone Ages! How no idea how I got a copy (definitely didn't buy it) but it was flogged to death on my Commodore 64 or Amstrad, whichever gaming beast I had at the time.

I can still remember the thrill I got when I found I could name my own battleships.
 
"Hello, and welcome back to another Dev Diary for the Man the Guns expansion. The dev team are all deep in testing and fixing at the moment so today we will be handing over the rains to the Art and Music teams so they get to show what they have been up to to fill MTG with both new music, 3d models and 2d art to ramp up its awesomeness"


A few people have suggested that the use of the word "rains" rather than "reins" is a spelling mistake.

By Podcat, the infallible? Obviously not. His mastery of English is only exceeded by his mastery of HOI4. everything he does is deliberate and meaningful.

Which leads one to query why he chose to use an incorrect version of the homophone "rains/reins/reigns". Given that this "mistake" leads the article, it must be important. And what is the most important thing on the minds of HOI4 fans at the moment? The release date.

We need to study Podcat's words to decipher the hidden meaning. Like a Roman augur studying entrails, we must try to discover the message that the gods are passing to us.

Sadly, I believe I have worked out the truth.

You may not know it, but winters in Stockholm are pretty dry. Snow of course, but little rain. Most rainfall is in late summer, August/September. So "handing over" linked with "rains" can mean only one thing.

I think that Podcat is warning us that there is still much to do with the new release, and that it may be more than 6 months (when the "the rains" arrive) before it is "handed over".
You're wrong, rains obviously is a reference to the new weather mapmode!:p
 
The new generic admirals clearly have some of the best facial hair in the game now.
 
@Archangel85 Great dev diary and I have a few questions for you. Which portraits are the American ones? Will you be forced to be a Fascist Confederacy or can you be a non-aligned Confederacy under the Blood Stained Banner? This is technically on topic but do you plan on redoing the Major countries’ unit models and leader portraits? I say that because now that you are doing such excellent work with these other countries the majors’ unit models and leader portraits feel out of place in the game now. One lastquestion is one of the new songs by any chance based off of “When Johnny come Marching Home” instrumental? Because it is a pretty great song and would go well withanother U.S. Civil War. Again great DD and while you haven’t yet announced the release date I know it will bevery soon since this DD was for the Art and Music so now I don’t really care about the release date (especially since it will give you better time to fix any problems and fine tunethe mechanics better before release without so much pressure due to a release date) and I appreciate the workyou fellas are putting in to make this top of the line DLC.

I did ask this earlier to @podcat but it seems as though you’re the only one answering questions Archangel85 so I thought I would ask again and see if you could answer these questions I have. I don’t want to be annoying or anything like that but I just would like for some of these questions to be answered so thank you and have a good rest of your day.
 
I hate to nit pick, but am I the only one who thinks the portholes are overdone on the ship models ? Seriously they look like they been shot full of holes.

I noticed that too. And now that you said that, I looked up some of the ships and yep, the portholes are way oversized in the models. I don't expect a lot from graphics in a game like this, but it does make the ships look a bit silly.
 
I noticed that too. And now that you said that, I looked up some of the ships and yep, the portholes are way oversized in the models. I don't expect a lot from graphics in a game like this, but it does make the ships look a bit silly.

You got it all wrong. These not be portholes, these are the rivet heads, and you need these to hold the ship together. The huger the ship is the bigger are the rivets.