Gordon

Ok, as requested, Digital Arctic Digital Desert Digital Woodland

But that's my point, it's not simply a camo overlay like you would drape a camouflage cloth over the object. The digital camouflage is actually three separate disruptive layers applied over the base color layer (which some sections patched to account for weird stretching in the 3D model), and the splinter camouflage was all hand drawn and matched across sections of the vehicle skin). So, to make a long story short, it won't be as simple as me publishing one BMP file of the digital camouflage pattern.

Hello all, I've just been made aware of this thread, and I'm the sap who was conned into doing all the camo jobs for the original textures. I can try to put together a package of information on how I did the original camo and destroyed vehicle effects so that folks can better integrate new vehicles with the existing designs. Disclaimer: I am not an artist, graphical designer or any such what not, and I haven't even played them on TV. I'm just a software engineer who learned how to perform a few simple tricks in Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, so the way I did all this is probably not the best way, but it got the job done for me, and your mileage may vary. Due to real-life I don't know how quickly I can get stuff put together, but hopefully it won't take too long. I'll probably start a new topic announcing when the information is available so that any questions or updates to it can be kept in a common thread.

Yeah, but the BFC "drivers" seem more accomplished at shifting gears.

Where's the snow?

Depends on the range. The 240 Watt Bulbs are only good out to a few feet in the desert. Or are you talking about Humvees with the cool neon "gangsta" lights along the bottom? That adds a little contrast to shadows at close range. It also changes the lighting effect when the insurgents are lit up. Hope that answers your question! Steve </font>

Ok, obviously a "hasty" scheme.

Must be the weight of their depleted uranium skivies.

Shot hole stickers. Just like you can buy for your car. Cool. But just wait till the grogs start whining about how the holes are correct for the 7.5cm KwK L/48 AP/HE, but not for the 8.8cm PaK43. And just wait for the shattered armor doesn't look right discussions.

No. The 45 second command delay doesn't simulate the slowing down due to staying in cover ... It simulates your men sitting around on their asses, smoking a cig or pissing while they should be moving to the end of the gully. Making a gully out of rough terrain that slows movement down simulates the slowing down due to staying in cover ... that you refer to.

Philippe, Some excellent ideas. Your "Gully problem" is an especially vexing issue. Sending a squad down to the end of a gully, or 120 meters down a gully to flank an enemy shouldn't impose a 45 second command delay penalty because it requires 10 waypoints to keep your men in the gully. I'm not sure if this can be solved (if at all) by better waypoints or better AI.

No idea. As far as I know, Zaloga's a pretty thorough researcher, but there's only half a page of text in the "Italian" section of the book. Those are the only formations listed as having significant numbers of tanks and no mention is made of later repainting. I haven't looked at the referenced threads to see what's being discussed, but if you like green Italian vehicles, go for it. When it was time for doing the artwork for the CMBB Italian vehicles the Zaloga book was our reference.

Well, it may or may not be definitive, but according to "The Eastern Front: Armour Camouflage and Markings, 1941 to 1945", Steven Zaloga and James Grandsen: There's no mention of repainting the vehicles green. That's not to say that it couldn't have happened.

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, so hopefully this isn't a duplicate question. Is vehicle/gun motion being improved in the engine or will it still be abstracted? Specifically, all tanks can't pivot on their center point by counter-rotating their tracks, but must rather brake one track which slews the vehicle around. Wheeled vehicles also must engage in some sort of slewing around, or turn in with a series of forward and backward motions, which of course gets even more complicated when towing a trailer or gun. So, just wondering if we'll see any improvement in this area with CMx2.

Steve, Interesting, and thanks for the reply. Guess we'll have a bit of a wait until we can play CMx-Roman Legionaires.

Red, especially if fighting against engineer units with flamethrowers (and melted butter projectors).

Steve, What about in the larger formation direction, since CMx2 is the engine that can handle Space Lobsters, etc. If you're going to produce a game from earlier historical periods, the basic unit of deployment wasn't the squad or platoon, but rather the Company (e.g., American Civil War) or regiment (Napoleonic)? Just curious.

Nice summation, thanks.

Drift definitely varies from object to object. Wind can either accelerate or counteract drift depending on the wind direction and speed and the current's direction and speed. Tides can be modelled as a form of current and the change in water depth attributed to tides probably isn't significant enough within the time frame of a CMx2 game. However, we MUST have waves, even though "Charlie don't surf!"

I'm hoping that wire, roadblocks, trenches, etc. are all "deformable" terrain as outlined for walls in a different thread.

Great, now the facies is gonna hit the (alluvial) fan.

Ok, we can now rule out another possible topic for the first CMx2 release. It won't be "CM: Grand Theft Auto."

You'd probably have to beat the volunteers away with a stick if that was the only "problem."

Steve, Marco and Dan, Ok, we'll have to see what the balance is between what can be added versus what doesn't look right when the dynamic lighting shifts. I am moderately relieved, and look forward to seeing how it all works and what is possible within the dynamic lighting system.

Actually, upon reflection, I'm rather puzzled. If the dimmensional aspects of the models are going to be lighted dynamically, then any "drawn" details, e.g., rivets, bolts, and other added "stuff" won't stay in synch with the dynamic lighting as the model moves with respect to the light source. Will this cause too much of a visual disontinuity to make it worth while adding such details?