I should be able to make a pictogram sprites set for in the tenjiku-set-view, on short term. From looking at your sample1 it appears coloring the eyes is enough distinction for indicating non-promotability. On pieces that never promote (such as Queen and Lion in Chu Shogi) I would prefer not make that distinction. But that would work only if we also do not do it in the kanji tiles. For Tenjiku we would also have promotable Queens and Lions. In the case of the Queen I would color the dots at the tips of the crown rather than a band near the bottom; these look more like eyes. The new 2d images for the crowned pieces look better than the old, (I thought in particular the old Crowned Rook was bad), and also have an 'eye' in their crown, which can be colored.
I would not work with upside-down pieces. These cause problems in flip view, and this isn't really a mnemonic piece set. I like the General symbols I made better than those in sample1, which remind me too much on something a Jester would hold. I also think my Phoenix better fits in with the Wikipedia set than any of the possibilities shown in sample1. The two pieces just before Leopard would make very nice Kirins, though; the leftmost probably fits better with the set (but the outline would have to be fattened).The other is too detailed. The 'pumpkin' is a Fire Demon? The Lance gives too much suggestion of a diagonal move, IMO.
I very much like the symbol for Go Between, and perhaps something similar should be used for Reverse Chariot. Was this the idea of having it in two sizes? There is not much risk of confusion, as they can never leave their file. Perhaps vertical stretching would give a better distinction; the eye is more sensitive to shape than to size.
As an aside, some of these piece names are really strange; the Reverse Chariot is not really reverse but bidirectional. Non-Japanese Chu-Shogi players have shown very little imagination in making English names. They don't hesitate to replace Fragrant Chariot and Angle mover by Lance and Bishop, (no doubt western regular Shogi players must be credited for that), but then they insist in calling an obvious Queen 'Free King' instead. I would have called the Reverse Chariot a Streetcar (which is something confined to its track). And the Vertical and Side Mover a Climber and a Sweeper. (The latter as a soccer analogy, where this is the term for the last defender.)
The Ox and Boar are nice (although the latter needs some fattening), but I still wonder whether it would not be better to use pieces with mnemonic value like a narrowed Queen's crown. People need to be reminded of the move, not so much of the name. And I think in a huge game like Chu Shogi they need all the help they can get; it really overwhelms the orthodox-Chess player. For 4-fold-symmetric pieces mnemonic value does not need flipping of the symbols. Perhaps we should reserve the Ox/Bull and Boar symbols for Dai Shogi, where there are a Violent Ox and Angry Boar.
I am not sure if there is any particular way in which I should order the pieces. I have not yet studied these dual-skin examples. Is it essential that all the alternative skins use the same ordering of sprites? I don't think we already have a 'bare kanji' sprites file for Chu/Tenjiku Shogi like we have for regular Shogi. So I suppose we can use any order of the pieces in teh sprite file, as long as the tenjiku-set-view points to the correct cutouts. Problem is that I forgot how I did make this shogi-sprites file. I suppose it must have been with GIMP on Linux, as MS Paint doesn't support transparency.
I should be able to make a pictogram sprites set for in the tenjiku-set-view, on short term. From looking at your sample1 it appears coloring the eyes is enough distinction for indicating non-promotability. On pieces that never promote (such as Queen and Lion in Chu Shogi) I would prefer not make that distinction. But that would work only if we also do not do it in the kanji tiles. For Tenjiku we would also have promotable Queens and Lions. In the case of the Queen I would color the dots at the tips of the crown rather than a band near the bottom; these look more like eyes. The new 2d images for the crowned pieces look better than the old, (I thought in particular the old Crowned Rook was bad), and also have an 'eye' in their crown, which can be colored.
I would not work with upside-down pieces. These cause problems in flip view, and this isn't really a mnemonic piece set. I like the General symbols I made better than those in sample1, which remind me too much on something a Jester would hold. I also think my Phoenix better fits in with the Wikipedia set than any of the possibilities shown in sample1. The two pieces just before Leopard would make very nice Kirins, though; the leftmost probably fits better with the set (but the outline would have to be fattened).The other is too detailed. The 'pumpkin' is a Fire Demon? The Lance gives too much suggestion of a diagonal move, IMO.
I very much like the symbol for Go Between, and perhaps something similar should be used for Reverse Chariot. Was this the idea of having it in two sizes? There is not much risk of confusion, as they can never leave their file. Perhaps vertical stretching would give a better distinction; the eye is more sensitive to shape than to size.
As an aside, some of these piece names are really strange; the Reverse Chariot is not really reverse but bidirectional. Non-Japanese Chu-Shogi players have shown very little imagination in making English names. They don't hesitate to replace Fragrant Chariot and Angle mover by Lance and Bishop, (no doubt western regular Shogi players must be credited for that), but then they insist in calling an obvious Queen 'Free King' instead. I would have called the Reverse Chariot a Streetcar (which is something confined to its track). And the Vertical and Side Mover a Climber and a Sweeper. (The latter as a soccer analogy, where this is the term for the last defender.)
The Ox and Boar are nice (although the latter needs some fattening), but I still wonder whether it would not be better to use pieces with mnemonic value like a narrowed Queen's crown. People need to be reminded of the move, not so much of the name. And I think in a huge game like Chu Shogi they need all the help they can get; it really overwhelms the orthodox-Chess player. For 4-fold-symmetric pieces mnemonic value does not need flipping of the symbols. Perhaps we should reserve the Ox/Bull and Boar symbols for Dai Shogi, where there are a Violent Ox and Angry Boar.
I am not sure if there is any particular way in which I should order the pieces. I have not yet studied these dual-skin examples. Is it essential that all the alternative skins use the same ordering of sprites? I don't think we already have a 'bare kanji' sprites file for Chu/Tenjiku Shogi like we have for regular Shogi. So I suppose we can use any order of the pieces in teh sprite file, as long as the tenjiku-set-view points to the correct cutouts. Problem is that I forgot how I did make this shogi-sprites file. I suppose it must have been with GIMP on Linux, as MS Paint doesn't support transparency.