Hey people, this weeks topic is about the 2d art, everyone's favourite yay! Let me start by introducing myself, I'm Mats Virtanen, aka Sideburnout, I´ve done most of the 2d art in the game, from the cover, loading screens, interfaces, icons down to the smallest land battle modifier (only made a handful of the portraits though). I´m a classic forum lurker so I seldom post stuff, but rest assured i read as much as I can, the forum is always a good place to check out if I need references, a good laugh or just inspiration.

So, how do you go about to create the graphical profile of Hearts of Iron 4. First of, get in the mood. Glenn Miller is always a nice start ;) Since the beginning i´ve watched countless documentaries, war movies, series like band of brothers etc. Other ww2 games ofc and the team itself! I love the 30-40ies music and wartime posters so these were a natural inspiration too.

So, we knew that HoI3 was a bit... clunky when it came to accessibility and frankly a bit daunting for many because of that. Changing this was our first priority when we started out. With lots of good lessons learned from EU4 and with a UX designer aboard from the start for the first time, a lot has changed compared to HoI3. We skipped the fullscreens and went for smaller windows instead for example, this way you can still keep an eye on the map and it´s really needed in MP. As in EU4 we went for the icon+tooltip solution instead of excel-sheets filled with text. In general we have tried to streamline the interface, ranging from less clicks to reach important screens, trying to show more info from the map itself, using alerts etc, making it easier for the player to play the game and not fumbling around in the UI. One problem we had in EU4 was window sizes in higher resolutions, forcing us to painstakingly recreate bigger sizes of most of the main windows so players would benefit from higher res, ie showing longer lists etc. In HoI4 we solved this by creating all main windows with a tiling background as a basis.

Another change from hoi3 is a more detailed and decorated look and feel, the general windows have this gritty and dark look so the more saturated or detailed icons will pop out more! Speaking about icons, since we skipped the photos this time we knew there would be a lot of them but i was never prepared on the scale of it. The game kept growing and growing and HoI4 now has over 1200 tech, idea and focus icons combined. Over 420 leader portraits and over like 1600 or something different UI elements.




Here is some early concepts of the ui panels, at this stage we were only trying to catch a general feeling.


When it comes to making historically accurate tanks, equipment, leader portraits etc we use all kinds of references. Thankfully the second world war is thoroughly documented with blueprints of basically every kind of equipment used or not-used in the war and it can quite easily be found online. We however take it a bit longer and try to depict how tanks that never even reach the concept-stage would look, ie fantasy-tanks :D Here we tried to follow the look and feel of the tanks that were actually built, besides searching online for absurd ideas etc, we found some neat references i the forums as well.

We faced numerous problems here and there during the process of making the game obviously but the text would be lengthy if i got into the details, instead i´ll try to answer as many questions as i can in the thread, and maybe we can set up a separate thread with tips n tricks for 2d mods.

Anyway, here's some tanks!



[SIZE=5]2D Modding[/size]
Ok, time for some technical stuff. Another priority we've had since the beginning is to make the game more mod friendly than ever. For this we've created some tools and new tech which has been extremely helpful. For example we use a new gui-windowtype called "containerWindowType" which basically uses a tiling background (can use a fixed one aswell ofc) and is vastly superior to our older windowtypes. In this type of gui-element you can set the size in either pixels, or just let it fill a certain % amount of the screen. You can also use overlaying tiling backgrounds, add icons that are centered in a tiling window and so on, you can ofc create containerwindows inside other containerwindows. There is an assortment of tiling backgrounds and overlays ready for use in the game btw. Another new and very nifty thing we use is the gridbox, gone is the days with our old clunky listtypes. The gridbox is tied to a containertype window and works as a gridbox, you can set size in pixels or %amount of parent window, you can set max amount of entries to be shown vertically or horizontally. Ofc the containerwin uses automagic scrollbars, making life a bit simpler :)

All country specific equipment has a country tag so it's easy to add new equipment, for example "GFX_USA_tactical_bomber2_medium" = "GFX_countrytag_equipmentname_medium", just by adding the country tag before the equipment name the game will automagically place your pic in the relevant techtree and every other place the equipment icon is used. When it comes to leaders you'll just have to go into the script files and change the path to the asset said leader uses.

You can also add generic leaders to the list of portraits this country will use when generating new ones. The file is located in \common\portraits Also you will no longer have to search through the gui files for certain elements, we now shift+alt right click on a object and choose open in a small popup to get you directly to the line in the gui where the element is placed. Most changes you make in the gui will automatically reload the interface so no need to manually go in and reload like in our older games. I could go into detail with this for hours but i´ll cut it with this ugly pic instead.

Here´s a quick 3 min "mod" of the diplo win, im using our "guibounds" tool here that shows the size of the element i'm currently hovering over, also seen is the shift+alt right click popup that takes me directly to the right line in the correct gui-file. All i did was resized the windows, the decorative elements and entries are fixed sizes though so here it looks fuggly :), you need to make new art or photoshop the ingame assets (old school style) to make it good looking, but i think that there is a lot to choose from ingame if you want to fiddle with ui mods! This is just a super quick mini example of how the new windows works.




I'm really looking forward to see how you'll mod the game, would love to see some badass total conversions.

Anyways, since i didn't give you any new gameplay info in this DD i thought i´ll give you two huge wallpapers instead :p 'ere you go:




It's been a really fun yet sometimes bumpy road but we're nearing release now :D Can't wait for it! Keep the sand out of your weapons, keep those actions clear. I'll see you on the beach.

Original post with better images

Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Hey people, this weeks topic is about the 2d art, everyone's favourite yay! Let me start by introducing myself, I'm Mats Virtanen, aka Sideburnout, I´ve done most of the 2d art in the game, from the cover, loading screens, interfaces, icons down to the smallest land battle modifier (only made a handful of the portraits though). I´m a classic forum lurker so I seldom post stuff, but rest assured i read as much as I can, the forum is always a good place to check out if I need references, a good laugh or just inspiration.

So, how do you go about to create the graphical profile of Hearts of Iron 4. First of, get in the mood. Glenn Miller is always a nice start ;) Since the beginning i´ve watched countless documentaries, war movies, series like band of brothers etc. Other ww2 games ofc and the team itself! I love the 30-40ies music and wartime posters so these were a natural inspiration too.

So, we knew that HoI3 was a bit... clunky when it came to accessibility and frankly a bit daunting for many because of that. Changing this was our first priority when we started out. With lots of good lessons learned from EU4 and with a UX designer aboard from the start for the first time, a lot has changed compared to HoI3. We skipped the fullscreens and went for smaller windows instead for example, this way you can still keep an eye on the map and it´s really needed in MP. As in EU4 we went for the icon+tooltip solution instead of excel-sheets filled with text. In general we have tried to streamline the interface, ranging from less clicks to reach important screens, trying to show more info from the map itself, using alerts etc, making it easier for the player to play the game and not fumbling around in the UI. One problem we had in EU4 was window sizes in higher resolutions, forcing us to painstakingly recreate bigger sizes of most of the main windows so players would benefit from higher res, ie showing longer lists etc. In HoI4 we solved this by creating all main windows with a tiling background as a basis.

Another change from hoi3 is a more detailed and decorated look and feel, the general windows have this gritty and dark look so the more saturated or detailed icons will pop out more! Speaking about icons, since we skipped the photos this time we knew there would be a lot of them but i was never prepared on the scale of it. The game kept growing and growing and HoI4 now has over 1200 tech, idea and focus icons combined. Over 420 leader portraits and over like 1600 or something different UI elements.




Here is some early concepts of the ui panels, at this stage we were only trying to catch a general feeling.


When it comes to making historically accurate tanks, equipment, leader portraits etc we use all kinds of references. Thankfully the second world war is thoroughly documented with blueprints of basically every kind of equipment used or not-used in the war and it can quite easily be found online. We however take it a bit longer and try to depict how tanks that never even reach the concept-stage would look, ie fantasy-tanks :D Here we tried to follow the look and feel of the tanks that were actually built, besides searching online for absurd ideas etc, we found some neat references i the forums as well.

We faced numerous problems here and there during the process of making the game obviously but the text would be lengthy if i got into the details, instead i´ll try to answer as many questions as i can in the thread, and maybe we can set up a separate thread with tips n tricks for 2d mods.

Anyway, here's some tanks!



[SIZE=5]2D Modding[/size]
Ok, time for some technical stuff. Another priority we've had since the beginning is to make the game more mod friendly than ever. For this we've created some tools and new tech which has been extremely helpful. For example we use a new gui-windowtype called "containerWindowType" which basically uses a tiling background (can use a fixed one aswell ofc) and is vastly superior to our older windowtypes. In this type of gui-element you can set the size in either pixels, or just let it fill a certain % amount of the screen. You can also use overlaying tiling backgrounds, add icons that are centered in a tiling window and so on, you can ofc create containerwindows inside other containerwindows. There is an assortment of tiling backgrounds and overlays ready for use in the game btw. Another new and very nifty thing we use is the gridbox, gone is the days with our old clunky listtypes. The gridbox is tied to a containertype window and works as a gridbox, you can set size in pixels or %amount of parent window, you can set max amount of entries to be shown vertically or horizontally. Ofc the containerwin uses automagic scrollbars, making life a bit simpler :)

All country specific equipment has a country tag so it's easy to add new equipment, for example "GFX_USA_tactical_bomber2_medium" = "GFX_countrytag_equipmentname_medium", just by adding the country tag before the equipment name the game will automagically place your pic in the relevant techtree and every other place the equipment icon is used. When it comes to leaders you'll just have to go into the script files and change the path to the asset said leader uses.

You can also add generic leaders to the list of portraits this country will use when generating new ones. The file is located in \common\portraits Also you will no longer have to search through the gui files for certain elements, we now shift+alt right click on a object and choose open in a small popup to get you directly to the line in the gui where the element is placed. Most changes you make in the gui will automatically reload the interface so no need to manually go in and reload like in our older games. I could go into detail with this for hours but i´ll cut it with this ugly pic instead.

Here´s a quick 3 min "mod" of the diplo win, im using our "guibounds" tool here that shows the size of the element i'm currently hovering over, also seen is the shift+alt right click popup that takes me directly to the right line in the correct gui-file. All i did was resized the windows, the decorative elements and entries are fixed sizes though so here it looks fuggly :), you need to make new art or photoshop the ingame assets (old school style) to make it good looking, but i think that there is a lot to choose from ingame if you want to fiddle with ui mods! This is just a super quick mini example of how the new windows works.




I'm really looking forward to see how you'll mod the game, would love to see some badass total conversions.

Anyways, since i didn't give you any new gameplay info in this DD i thought i´ll give you two huge wallpapers instead :p 'ere you go:




It's been a really fun yet sometimes bumpy road but we're nearing release now :D Can't wait for it! Keep the sand out of your weapons, keep those actions clear. I'll see you on the beach.

Original post with better images

Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Hi everyone, this weeks diary is going to get really technical! We will be talking modding and improvements we have made for the modders in HOI4. This is also going to be a very long one :)

When starting out we decided we wanted to make HOI4 our most moddable game yet. That meant not hard coding things (HOI3 had a lot of hard coded logic and references to certain nations). In HOI4 all these things are in soft code, or part of scenario script setups making it a much better platform for cool mods. We have also decided to include the tool we use (more further down), and while it is provided as-is and not really polished compared to the real game its very useful. The game is also much better at letting you know when you have made mistakes and everything that can go wrong will usually let you know with logs etc.

Tools and Getting Started
Getting started with the creation of mods are now easier than ever before!
Using the launchers mod tool will allow you to create an empty mod for the game without any hassle and without even starting the game.


Then starting the game with the “--debug” flag will enable the “modder mode” that adds some extra sanity checks and enabling tools useful for modifying the game.
For example the in game Nudger tool that provides a simple interface to modify the properties of the map.


Here I created the awesome state of Östergötland by redistributing some provinces from Småland and tweaked the positions of the buildings.
The Nudger tool will then validate my changes and save them to the appropriate files for me and my mod, just in a few mouse clicks.

These files are of course human readable and can easily be edited with your favorite text editor for more advanced scripting or making smaller changes, most of the files (like state history setup) also have the option to be opened with a external program from the Nudger so you do not even need to find them in the filesystem.


Another nice tool is the instant feedback system aka “Error Dawg” appearing in the lower right corner that will give you instant feedback about scripting errors and oddities during gameplay. Clicking on it will of course open the error log for you, painfully reminding you about things you have forgotten or otherwise faulty scripted.


When satisfied with your mod and fixed all the errors you are just one click away from sharing it with the rest of the HoI4 community by uploading it to the steam workshop with the Mod tool.


Another thing we have put a lot of effort into is reloadability. You can reload interfaces (even automatically as the game will check if files are modified and you will see changes instantly ingame) as well as several game systems. For example focus trees will reload with your changes making it really quick and easy to work with making them and not forcing you to restart the game all the time.

Scripting & Language Improvements
One of the small help functions we’ve put in is the console command “trigger_docs”. This will print a list of all the triggers and effects we have in the game along with a small description of how they are used. We hope this can be a useful tool for new modders to find what they’re looking for and old modders to discover hidden possibilities. We of course still have the beloved debug dog to bark at you when something is wrong.

We’re continuously trying to improve the user-friendliness in our script language itself. Therefore we try to take the good practices that has been introduced in our other games and integrate them to all of our titles. One of the later additions that we’ve ported over is scripted effects and triggers which function is that you can basically macro that can be referenced in the various script files of the game that will execute a whole block of an effect or a trigger respectively.

An example of this could be that you might want to show one event option for Germany's neighbors that they are not in a faction with and a different event option for the rest of the world. This could be a common occurrence for all of your events and this would require all of those event options to have the following trigger:

This could instead be created as a scripted trigger which we would define in the scripted_triggers folder in the game files as the following:

Which could then be referenced in the different event option triggers as a one-line trigger (is_neighbor_not_in_german_faction = yes) in place of the multiple lines previously required.

As commonly used combinations of triggers and effects grow increasingly complex this script feature has two big functions. Firstly in that it decreases the amount of code duplication that would otherwise have been needed. And secondly it will also make the code easier to maintain since when you find yourself in the position that you have to change something in your common conditions for your events you could just add it inside the scripted trigger and just have to update one place instead of having to find all of the different places that would need to be updated.

Another great addition to the script language is the functionality of defining a particular scope as an event target inside an event or event chain, this feature has seen great usage in the script language of Crusader Kings II which always had an overload of scope changes.

The event targets makes it easier to reference different provinces and nations in the event text and execute effects on the correct targets without the need to have a huge amount of hidden bounce events to get the event scopes to evaluate correctly and keep track of different actors or locations. And if you want to get really creative you can try to combine these two script features and define event targets which you then use inside your scripted trigger or effect to have it act as a sort of sub-routine.

The AI
The AI in HOI3 was run though Lua scripts, but we decided to abandon these for several reasons in HOI4 (lack of lua knowledge at the company and low performance was the big ones). The AI is still however very moddable and has a lot of scripts to modify. I think its best to wait and talk about that in the dedicated dev diary on AI stuff I'll make SteelVolt write before release though :)

Next week we'll have Sideburnout talk about all things 2D art and interface for HOI4. See you then!

p.s whoever makes a Battletech mod first will forever live on in my heart.

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Hi everyone, this weeks diary is going to get really technical! We will be talking modding and improvements we have made for the modders in HOI4. This is also going to be a very long one :)

When starting out we decided we wanted to make HOI4 our most moddable game yet. That meant not hard coding things (HOI3 had a lot of hard coded logic and references to certain nations). In HOI4 all these things are in soft code, or part of scenario script setups making it a much better platform for cool mods. We have also decided to include the tool we use (more further down), and while it is provided as-is and not really polished compared to the real game its very useful. The game is also much better at letting you know when you have made mistakes and everything that can go wrong will usually let you know with logs etc.

Tools and Getting Started
Getting started with the creation of mods are now easier than ever before!
Using the launchers mod tool will allow you to create an empty mod for the game without any hassle and without even starting the game.


Then starting the game with the “--debug” flag will enable the “modder mode” that adds some extra sanity checks and enabling tools useful for modifying the game.
For example the in game Nudger tool that provides a simple interface to modify the properties of the map.


Here I created the awesome state of Östergötland by redistributing some provinces from Småland and tweaked the positions of the buildings.
The Nudger tool will then validate my changes and save them to the appropriate files for me and my mod, just in a few mouse clicks.

These files are of course human readable and can easily be edited with your favorite text editor for more advanced scripting or making smaller changes, most of the files (like state history setup) also have the option to be opened with a external program from the Nudger so you do not even need to find them in the filesystem.


Another nice tool is the instant feedback system aka “Error Dawg” appearing in the lower right corner that will give you instant feedback about scripting errors and oddities during gameplay. Clicking on it will of course open the error log for you, painfully reminding you about things you have forgotten or otherwise faulty scripted.


When satisfied with your mod and fixed all the errors you are just one click away from sharing it with the rest of the HoI4 community by uploading it to the steam workshop with the Mod tool.


Another thing we have put a lot of effort into is reloadability. You can reload interfaces (even automatically as the game will check if files are modified and you will see changes instantly ingame) as well as several game systems. For example focus trees will reload with your changes making it really quick and easy to work with making them and not forcing you to restart the game all the time.

Scripting & Language Improvements
One of the small help functions we’ve put in is the console command “trigger_docs”. This will print a list of all the triggers and effects we have in the game along with a small description of how they are used. We hope this can be a useful tool for new modders to find what they’re looking for and old modders to discover hidden possibilities. We of course still have the beloved debug dog to bark at you when something is wrong.

We’re continuously trying to improve the user-friendliness in our script language itself. Therefore we try to take the good practices that has been introduced in our other games and integrate them to all of our titles. One of the later additions that we’ve ported over is scripted effects and triggers which function is that you can basically macro that can be referenced in the various script files of the game that will execute a whole block of an effect or a trigger respectively.

An example of this could be that you might want to show one event option for Germany's neighbors that they are not in a faction with and a different event option for the rest of the world. This could be a common occurrence for all of your events and this would require all of those event options to have the following trigger:

This could instead be created as a scripted trigger which we would define in the scripted_triggers folder in the game files as the following:

Which could then be referenced in the different event option triggers as a one-line trigger (is_neighbor_not_in_german_faction = yes) in place of the multiple lines previously required.

As commonly used combinations of triggers and effects grow increasingly complex this script feature has two big functions. Firstly in that it decreases the amount of code duplication that would otherwise have been needed. And secondly it will also make the code easier to maintain since when you find yourself in the position that you have to change something in your common conditions for your events you could just add it inside the scripted trigger and just have to update one place instead of having to find all of the different places that would need to be updated.

Another great addition to the script language is the functionality of defining a particular scope as an event target inside an event or event chain, this feature has seen great usage in the script language of Crusader Kings II which always had an overload of scope changes.

The event targets makes it easier to reference different provinces and nations in the event text and execute effects on the correct targets without the need to have a huge amount of hidden bounce events to get the event scopes to evaluate correctly and keep track of different actors or locations. And if you want to get really creative you can try to combine these two script features and define event targets which you then use inside your scripted trigger or effect to have it act as a sort of sub-routine.

The AI
The AI in HOI3 was run though Lua scripts, but we decided to abandon these for several reasons in HOI4 (lack of lua knowledge at the company and low performance was the big ones). The AI is still however very moddable and has a lot of scripts to modify. I think its best to wait and talk about that in the dedicated dev diary on AI stuff I'll make SteelVolt write before release though :)

Next week we'll have Sideburnout talk about all things 2D art and interface for HOI4. See you then!

p.s whoever makes a Battletech mod first will forever live on in my heart.

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Line up soldiers!

Welcome the 51th DD and for this week we will talk (mostly) about the music and sound design:

Music:


Hi, my name is Andreas “Jazzhole” Waldetoft and I am the music composer at Paradox.

Now, I have done a few Hearts of Iron’s by now (HoI2 and HoI3) so let’s just say that I didn’t need to research Second World War as much this time around.

However, Hearts of Iron series is the one that is very close to my heart indeed. It was the first game I had scored.

Back when HoI2 was being developed, Fred Wester handled the music (among a lot of other things I presume, as we were not as many people at paradox back then). Fred was kind enough to take me in for HoI2 and let me do the music even though I was still in university with only a few short-films and orchestration jobs under my belt and the rest I guess is history for me… well until I did Stellaris to be fair.

Anyway, As I said, we had some ground laid out music wise from the past games in the series. I have tried to build on that and sometimes reprised a few of the themes from those earlier HoI’s to get the feeling that this is the same game. Only bigger and better I hope.

I am an orchestral composer so being able to write for a large orchestra was the first thing I requested for HoI4.

Funny story though, I went down to record with Brandenburg State Orchestra which is a German orchestra. Same one we used for EUIV main theme. When I came to the music hall, the orchestra leader told me to maybe... not tell the players what the music was for. I guess “don’t mention the war” still holds true in some parts of Germany? We were doing Axis, Allied and Comintern inspired music so I do however think the orchestra knew exactly what was going on. They did a great job in my opinion.

This video is a recording from a sample of one the Axis tracks. It’s not the Main Theme for HOI IV mind you.

And no that is not me conducting the orchestra, that is the brilliant Bernt Ruf. I was supervising it from the studio so I could hear everything more clearly, and I would tell the orchestra through the conductor if something was not how I wanted it.
[MEDIA=youtube]u1PCcKC9_DU[/media]


The chromatic violin line is my way of trying to give that german-panzer-on-tracks-going-forward feeling. It is used quite a few times in the soundtrack, especially for Axis music. The Tenor and later Bass Trombone’s are playing the theme and snuck in there is also a chromatic passage that references the violins. I tried to orchestrate it in style of German composers that comes to mind from that era.


Sound Design:


Hi guys! If you don’t know I’m Metal King aka The Audio Director here at Paradox. Usually if you work with audio / sound design you tend to be involved with all the projects that are being developed.

For this DD I thought that I should show you guys some “behind the scene” pictures and talk about some the sound effects that I’m pleased with in Heart of Iron 4:

Propeller / Airplanes:


When I started working on Heart of Iron 4 we were missing some decent sound effects for all the airplane animations. While I was looking for good audio resources, like actually recordings of aircrafts from the era, but I wanted to have a good placeholder sound so that the team would get a better “feeling” of how it could end up.

Then I noticed this beauty in the “Engine Room”! More know as model “FD-40KI” or as I call it “Metalcraft-666”.


I placed a microphone behind the fans and started to record and the results was so good that I actually kept to the game! Then with a combination between actual recordings of aircrafts from the same era and with my recordings it turned out to be a good sound effect:

[MEDIA=youtube]jdGu6nKaQfE[/media]

GUI:



Found a neat old typewriter at Paradox’s HQ when we had our old office. I took the opportunity to record it so that I could use some of the audio to our GUI. As you see I did couple of recordings where I placed the microphone on different angles. The recording that turned out to be the best was when I had the microphone behind the typewriter, as you see in the photograph.

"Foley":

As a former Foley Artist for Films and TV I wanted to create some audio assets for the walk animations on our troops/infantry to give more "life" to the screen. I wanted to have the sounds of walking around with heavy boots, a lot of equipments and weapons. So what I did, before we got our awesome sound studio, was to build up a “surface” with old vhs tape, cardboard paper, clothes and other “junk” while wearing a denim jacket with a bag full of “metallic stuff” in one of our meeting rooms in the old office and just walking on the same "spot" over and over. People didn't really understand from the beginng why I was walking around in "junk"..

I'll end this small part about some of the sound design with a picture of the new sound studio. Spent a lot of time in hear and mixing the game audio to make sure you will get the best sounding experince possible.




This is it for this week!

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Line up soldiers!

Welcome the 51th DD and for this week we will talk (mostly) about the music and sound design:

Music:


Hi, my name is Andreas “Jazzhole” Waldetoft and I am the music composer at Paradox.

Now, I have done a few Hearts of Iron’s by now (HoI2 and HoI3) so let’s just say that I didn’t need to research Second World War as much this time around.

However, Hearts of Iron series is the one that is very close to my heart indeed. It was the first game I had scored.

Back when HoI2 was being developed, Fred Wester handled the music (among a lot of other things I presume, as we were not as many people at paradox back then). Fred was kind enough to take me in for HoI2 and let me do the music even though I was still in university with only a few short-films and orchestration jobs under my belt and the rest I guess is history for me… well until I did Stellaris to be fair.

Anyway, As I said, we had some ground laid out music wise from the past games in the series. I have tried to build on that and sometimes reprised a few of the themes from those earlier HoI’s to get the feeling that this is the same game. Only bigger and better I hope.

I am an orchestral composer so being able to write for a large orchestra was the first thing I requested for HoI4.

Funny story though, I went down to record with Brandenburg State Orchestra which is a German orchestra. Same one we used for EUIV main theme. When I came to the music hall, the orchestra leader told me to maybe... not tell the players what the music was for. I guess “don’t mention the war” still holds true in some parts of Germany? We were doing Axis, Allied and Comintern inspired music so I do however think the orchestra knew exactly what was going on. They did a great job in my opinion.

This video is a recording from a sample of one the Axis tracks. It’s not the Main Theme for HOI IV mind you.

And no that is not me conducting the orchestra, that is the brilliant Bernt Ruf. I was supervising it from the studio so I could hear everything more clearly, and I would tell the orchestra through the conductor if something was not how I wanted it.
[MEDIA=youtube]u1PCcKC9_DU[/media]


The chromatic violin line is my way of trying to give that german-panzer-on-tracks-going-forward feeling. It is used quite a few times in the soundtrack, especially for Axis music. The Tenor and later Bass Trombone’s are playing the theme and snuck in there is also a chromatic passage that references the violins. I tried to orchestrate it in style of German composers that comes to mind from that era.


Sound Design:


Hi guys! If you don’t know I’m Metal King aka The Audio Director here at Paradox. Usually if you work with audio / sound design you tend to be involved with all the projects that are being developed.

For this DD I thought that I should show you guys some “behind the scene” pictures and talk about some the sound effects that I’m pleased with in Heart of Iron 4:

Propeller / Airplanes:


When I started working on Heart of Iron 4 we were missing some decent sound effects for all the airplane animations. While I was looking for good audio resources, like actually recordings of aircrafts from the era, but I wanted to have a good placeholder sound so that the team would get a better “feeling” of how it could end up.

Then I noticed this beauty in the “Engine Room”! More know as model “FD-40KI” or as I call it “Metalcraft-666”.


I placed a microphone behind the fans and started to record and the results was so good that I actually kept to the game! Then with a combination between actual recordings of aircrafts from the same era and with my recordings it turned out to be a good sound effect:

[MEDIA=youtube]jdGu6nKaQfE[/media]

GUI:



Found a neat old typewriter at Paradox’s HQ when we had our old office. I took the opportunity to record it so that I could use some of the audio to our GUI. As you see I did couple of recordings where I placed the microphone on different angles. The recording that turned out to be the best was when I had the microphone behind the typewriter, as you see in the photograph.

"Foley":

As a former Foley Artist for Films and TV I wanted to create some audio assets for the walk animations on our troops/infantry to give more "life" to the screen. I wanted to have the sounds of walking around with heavy boots, a lot of equipments and weapons. So what I did, before we got our awesome sound studio, was to build up a “surface” with old vhs tape, cardboard paper, clothes and other “junk” while wearing a denim jacket with a bag full of “metallic stuff” in one of our meeting rooms in the old office and just walking on the same "spot" over and over. People didn't really understand from the beginng why I was walking around in "junk"..

I'll end this small part about some of the sound design with a picture of the new sound studio. Spent a lot of time in hear and mixing the game audio to make sure you will get the best sounding experince possible.




This is it for this week!

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

There are some really exciting stuff happening with Hearts of Iron IV at the moment which I will be announcing, but first as promised; it's time to talk about the generic focus tree.

The generic focus tree is what all nations who don't have specific trees (the major 8) will get. The design goal of the generic focus tree is flexibility and freedom, allowing a player to take the nation in any direction they chose. It also contains a lot of focuses giving extra factory slots and industry, something that is a huge boost for small nations percentage wise compared to a larger nation allowing players more freedom in taking a minor somewhere worthwhile. So, let's look at each branch in detail:




Army, Aviation and Naval Effort
Gives technology bonuses in chosen fields. We have tried to give lots of choices here so you can tailor your path depending on your nation. Naval effort for example allows a choice between trying to build up a larger fleet or focusing on submarines, convoy interdiction and smaller ships while Army Effort focuses on things like infantry and support equipment primarily which will be important for a minor nation, but does also include some bonuses to armor and mechanization if your nation's industry can sustain such choices.

Industrial Effort
Focuses on building up your nation's industry. As I mentioned earlier it's very powerful for a small nation and should make lots of smaller nations more viable for fun play compared to HOI3.

Political Effort
This tree lets you more easily alter your nation's political makeup, or further develop your current one. The initial choice is between collectivism or liberty. The Liberty track is good for neutrals or democratic nations and splits off immediately in a choice between taking a neutral stance or interventionism as your foreign policy. Result wise it basically is a choice between better defense and being able to send more volunteers to indirectly involve yourself in conflicts.

The collectivist track is split between fascism and communism where the fascist track give you access to more manpower and faster training times, while the communist track gives you more power to meddle in other nations and helping existing forces fight better with political commissars. The final step of collectivism is Ideological Fanaticism which let you set up your own faction and unlocks things like kamikaze strikes for your air force.

The generic tree is really fun and flexible and hopefully it will make you dream of stuff you can do with the country of your choice.


Now to the important announcement: Hearts of Iron will be delayed until Q1 next year. This is because after getting lots of valuable design input from DDRJake we have realized that Hearts of Iron IV as it is now is missing a crucial physical connection with its players, and it would be unfair of us to release it until this is done.
Worry not however, we have a great solution for this proposed by Jake himself - Dance Dance Revolution Mat integration! No longer are you simply a passive observer, you can instead march in real time (soundtrack will be replaced with 100% marching band music) with your soldiers towards Moscow! Not enough for you? We have also developed a revolutionary Bucket DLC System(tm) that lets you slosh through authentic pripyat swamp water*, mud and scorching hot sand (requires oven (not included)).



We believe this will revolutionize grand strategy gaming like nothing else and are super excited to take you with us on this journey!



See you next friday when we will cover exciting head to head multiplayer dance-offs used to decide conflicts in peace negotiations!


* Paradox Interactive takes no responsibility for customers suffering from trench feet or sustaining other injuries while enjoying the DDR mat experience.

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

There are some really exciting stuff happening with Hearts of Iron IV at the moment which I will be announcing, but first as promised; it's time to talk about the generic focus tree.

The generic focus tree is what all nations who don't have specific trees (the major 8) will get. The design goal of the generic focus tree is flexibility and freedom, allowing a player to take the nation in any direction they chose. It also contains a lot of focuses giving extra factory slots and industry, something that is a huge boost for small nations percentage wise compared to a larger nation allowing players more freedom in taking a minor somewhere worthwhile. So, let's look at each branch in detail:




Army, Aviation and Naval Effort
Gives technology bonuses in chosen fields. We have tried to give lots of choices here so you can tailor your path depending on your nation. Naval effort for example allows a choice between trying to build up a larger fleet or focusing on submarines, convoy interdiction and smaller ships while Army Effort focuses on things like infantry and support equipment primarily which will be important for a minor nation, but does also include some bonuses to armor and mechanization if your nation's industry can sustain such choices.

Industrial Effort
Focuses on building up your nation's industry. As I mentioned earlier it's very powerful for a small nation and should make lots of smaller nations more viable for fun play compared to HOI3.

Political Effort
This tree lets you more easily alter your nation's political makeup, or further develop your current one. The initial choice is between collectivism or liberty. The Liberty track is good for neutrals or democratic nations and splits off immediately in a choice between taking a neutral stance or interventionism as your foreign policy. Result wise it basically is a choice between better defense and being able to send more volunteers to indirectly involve yourself in conflicts.

The collectivist track is split between fascism and communism where the fascist track give you access to more manpower and faster training times, while the communist track gives you more power to meddle in other nations and helping existing forces fight better with political commissars. The final step of collectivism is Ideological Fanaticism which let you set up your own faction and unlocks things like kamikaze strikes for your air force.

The generic tree is really fun and flexible and hopefully it will make you dream of stuff you can do with the country of your choice.


Now to the important announcement: Hearts of Iron will be delayed until Q1 next year. This is because after getting lots of valuable design input from DDRJake we have realized that Hearts of Iron IV as it is now is missing a crucial physical connection with its players, and it would be unfair of us to release it until this is done.
Worry not however, we have a great solution for this proposed by Jake himself - Dance Dance Revolution Mat integration! No longer are you simply a passive observer, you can instead march in real time (soundtrack will be replaced with 100% marching band music) with your soldiers towards Moscow! Not enough for you? We have also developed a revolutionary Bucket DLC System(tm) that lets you slosh through authentic pripyat swamp water*, mud and scorching hot sand (requires oven (not included)).



We believe this will revolutionize grand strategy gaming like nothing else and are super excited to take you with us on this journey!



See you next friday when we will cover exciting head to head multiplayer dance-offs used to decide conflicts in peace negotiations!


* Paradox Interactive takes no responsibility for customers suffering from trench feet or sustaining other injuries while enjoying the DDR mat experience.

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Today's topic is an explosive one (heh) - nukes!

Nuclear weapons are a late game tech and there are several steps to acquire one. First up is researching Atomic Research (1940), Reactors (1943), and finally Nuclear Weapons (1945). To actually produce nuclear bombs you need to construct Reactors which will slowly churn out the weapons. The more reactors the faster you can produce nukes (note that reactors compete for space with industry in states). Many majors have national focuses that let them focus on the nuclear research program and speed things up.



To launch a nuke you need to have strategic bombers in range of the target and air superiority.

This is early days yet, so nukes, while incredibly powerful are not the massive world destroyers of the cold war. However they can still do serious damage, and other effects:

• Hits national unity making the target nation more likely to surrender (amount depends on victory point worth and infrastructure level, so you cant just nuke some island they don't care about). This is really their primary use: to force surrender on a stubborn enemy.
  
• Damages building. Everything from forts to naval bases to factories.
  
• Damages any units in the province, including airplanes stationed in bases.

Oh btw, in case someone missed the announcement HOI4 now has a release date set for 6th of June!
Next week we will be off for Easter, but the week after we taking a look at the Generic Focus tree that all non-majors use. If you get the HOI craving next week there is still the World War Wednesday stream where I believe Daniel and Jake have started to take on China as Japan.

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive

Today's topic is an explosive one (heh) - nukes!

Nuclear weapons are a late game tech and there are several steps to acquire one. First up is researching Atomic Research (1940), Reactors (1943), and finally Nuclear Weapons (1945). To actually produce nuclear bombs you need to construct Reactors which will slowly churn out the weapons. The more reactors the faster you can produce nukes (note that reactors compete for space with industry in states). Many majors have national focuses that let them focus on the nuclear research program and speed things up.



To launch a nuke you need to have strategic bombers in range of the target and air superiority.

This is early days yet, so nukes, while incredibly powerful are not the massive world destroyers of the cold war. However they can still do serious damage, and other effects:

• Hits national unity making the target nation more likely to surrender (amount depends on victory point worth and infrastructure level, so you cant just nuke some island they don't care about). This is really their primary use: to force surrender on a stubborn enemy.
  
• Damages building. Everything from forts to naval bases to factories.
  
• Damages any units in the province, including airplanes stationed in bases.

Oh btw, in case someone missed the announcement HOI4 now has a release date set for 6th of June!
Next week we will be off for Easter, but the week after we taking a look at the Generic Focus tree that all non-majors use. If you get the HOI craving next week there is still the World War Wednesday stream where I believe Daniel and Jake have started to take on China as Japan.

Read original post with larger images

Useful links
Official Website
Hearts of Iron IV Wiki
Development Diary Archives
World War Wednesday Stream archive