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Documenting uniform model/texture problems


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Normally when something is wrong within CM we have a discussion in the general CM area or in Tech Support. But the discussion about incorrect uniform model/texture problems with soldiers was brought up here, and it does seem to be the best place for it.

Currently CM has 1866 unique Teams and 5879 individual Soldiers assigned to them, each of which can be one of 928 unique Soldier types. And that's just the count today :D There is no doubt in my mind that there are errors mixed into all of this. It is impossible to conceive of it being otherwise.

Unfortunately most people don't pay attention to these little details. Or if they do, they don't report them at all. And if they do report them they do it in a way that is unhelpful "sometimes I see a guy with x instead of y" is like saying "I don't feel well" to a doctor.

As a "uniform grog" and the keeper of the TO&E, I'm quite interested in getting errors fixed. It's actually (usually) quite easily done once I know exactly where to look. So please use this thread to document where there are issues. I need to know:

1. Branch of Service (e.g. German Army, German SS, etc.)

2. The chain of command down to the specific unit the soldier is in

3. The specific Soldier within the unit that is incorrect

Most of the Teams are reused more than once, so often identifying even one spot where the mistake shows up is good enough to find it. Sometimes the mistake is low level and one fix in one place makes many fixes in many places. Perhaps even for multiple CM Families too! Other times the fix applies to just one particular formation. There's no way for you to know which is which so just report as you find them and I'll take it from there.

Thanks!

Steve

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An example from the other thread as an illustration:

In pioneer armored company, kubelwagen driver wearing in tankman uniform with headphones.

Based on this, I looked through the various pioneer armored companies and could not find the described issue. On a hunch, I then looked in the Panzer Battalion's Aufklärung Pioneer Platoon and found a single Kübelwagen driver wearing tanker gear. So here is the sort of specific information Steve needs in these cases:

German Army / Waffen SS --> Panzer Battalion --> Support Company --> Aufklärung Pioneer Platoon [armored]

-driver of plt HQ Kübelwagen is using tank crewman model

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We should probably indicate the camo style involved, too.

German

Waffen SS

Pioneer Battalion

Any Company

When set to "standard" camo (only), the company commander's jacket appears to be using the boot sole texture. The indvidual company commander seems to be the only one affected.

(PzGr company commanders had this same problem prior to 2.01, but it was fixed.)

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An example from the other thread as an illustration:

Based on this, I looked through the various pioneer armored companies and could not find the described issue. On a hunch, I then looked in the Panzer Battalion's Aufklärung Pioneer Platoon and found a single Kübelwagen driver wearing tanker gear. So here is the sort of specific information Steve needs in these cases:

German Army / Waffen SS --> Panzer Battalion --> Support Company --> Aufklärung Pioneer Platoon [armored]

-driver of plt HQ Kübelwagen is using tank crewman model

Thanks man, I just confused in what element I saw this problem.

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Thanks guys. These are easy to fix once I'm pointed in the right direction.

The NCO problem is in the TO&E code, not with the textures.

I know one more bug - smod_german_ss_m43_soldier_uniform 3 [camo-peas] texture file was missed, so when you choose full camo set, program use some non full camo textures, I fixed this bug in my WaffenSScamo mod.

This was an intentional decision by Fernando, one level uniform grog senior to myself :D Mixed camo and wool on the same soldier was quite common in Normandy.

Steve

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Thanks guys. These are easy to fix once I'm pointed in the right direction.

The NCO problem is in the TO&E code, not with the textures.

This was an intentional decision by Fernando, one level uniform grog senior to myself :D Mixed camo and wool on the same soldier was quite common in Normandy.

Steve

No Steve, it is a bug, because in {camo-peas} texture files you have textures with wool, but with that mistake, program use more files with wool uniform from standart camo or non camo sets.

And please create individual normal map file for plane tree smock texture, you use one normal map file for both smocks, but this textures are different.

8fb8674dc24f.jpg

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German gun crew leader on 88mm L/71 PaK 43/41 in CMBN wears a uniform with Gefreiter sleeve insignia. Infantry formation. Leader is shown to be an Unteroffizer in the information panel.

On American soldiers, the textures for the map /document case and the M1911 pistol holster are stretched badly on the sides. Doesn't matter if it's an officer, nco, etc. - they all have this problem.

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No Steve, it is a bug, because in {camo-peas} texture files you have textures with wool, but with that mistake, program use more files with wool uniform from standart camo or non camo sets.

And please create individual normal map file for plane tree smock texture, you use one normal map file for both smocks, but this textures are different.

OK, will look into these issues.

Steve

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German assault gun crews (StuG and StuH) in CMFI do not use the uniform variation that features the red waffenfarbe (German army panzer formation).

Not a bug. There are only Panzer (black) and an AFV (gray) uniform variants for vehicle crews. There is no ability to vary the Waffenfarbe, which can be several different colors (Pink, Red, and Yellow). Of course there are separate versions for Heer, SS, and LW.

German gun crew leader on 88mm L/71 PaK 43/41 in CMBN wears a uniform with Gefreiter sleeve insignia. Infantry formation. Leader is shown to be an Unteroffizer in the information panel.

Not a bug. There is no correlation between the actual rank and the rank on the uniform except by accident. That is because we do not (yet) have the ability to add rank "decals" to uniforms for specific ranks. There's roughly 14 rank types for each branch, so do the math and you'll quickly see it's impossible to do that with the current system.

On American soldiers, the textures for the map /document case and the M1911 pistol holster are stretched badly on the sides. Doesn't matter if it's an officer, nco, etc. - they all have this problem.

There might not be anything we can do about it, but I will have it looked into.

German army, grenadier battalion, standard gray uniform for all soldiers, ncos, and officers: the texture for the shirt collar is somewhat stretched. It's especially noticeable on the company CO uniform texture.

There might not be anything we can do about it, but we'll try to tweak it.

Further note to you guys... when describing things like stretched/distorted textures, see if it happens only for certain levels of detail. Each Soldier has something like 4 or 5 LODs (Levels of Detail) depending on camera distance, graphics settings, and hardware performance. A model mapping problem might be on any one or more of the LODs, but not necessarily on the others. If you can't easily figure out which one it's happening on it's not a big deal. Just helpful if you can.

Steve

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Not a bug. There are only Panzer (black) and an AFV (gray) uniform variants for vehicle crews. There is no ability to vary the Waffenfarbe, which can be several different colors (Pink, Red, and Yellow). Of course there are separate versions for Heer, SS, and LW.

Really? I know for a fact that StuG / StuH crews in CMBN have the red waffenfarbe on their uniforms, and I'm practically certain I've seen the same color of waffenfarbe in the texture files for assault gun crews in CMFI.

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Alright, I just made a check of the files. Steve, I think you need to take a look at your list of texture files again. ;) In CMFI, there absolutely are separate texture files for assault gun crewmen and for tank crews. However, in-game the assault gun crews use the same uniform (pink waffenfarbe) as the tank crews. Contrast that with CMFI: the tank crews have the pink waffenfarbe trim, while the assault gun crews wear the correct red waffenfarbe trim.

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Further note to you guys... when describing things like stretched/distorted textures, see if it happens only for certain levels of detail. Each Soldier has something like 4 or 5 LODs (Levels of Detail) depending on camera distance, graphics settings, and hardware performance. A model mapping problem might be on any one or more of the LODs, but not necessarily on the others. If you can't easily figure out which one it's happening on it's not a big deal. Just helpful if you can.

Steve

All of the ones I've seen show up at the highest level of detail and as close to the camera as one can go.

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I just checked inside the game and everything looks as I said it should. There are two different types of uniforms:

Black panzer wraps w/pink Waffenfarbe

Field grey panzer wraps w/red Waffenfarbe

That's it. There's no other set used in the game other than the type for Armored Infantry (which is not relevant to this discussion).

The black ones are used mostly for tank crews, but also some other AFVs such as armored cars. The field gray ones are for StuGs and other turretless fighting vehicles. I only tried some tanks and some StuGs and they are showing up correctly for me.

As I said, Waffenfarbe and rank are not customizable to the unit or soldier using it.

Steve

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German Luftwaffe Jägerbattailon Standard

NCOs (all, as far as I know, but I may have missed some) using regular enlisted uniforms

Yup, same for WSS, Heer, and LW. They all use the same basic code that assigns uniforms in this case, so it's one fix for all.

In the battalion HQ unit, both the leader and the assistant use the same "senior officer" uniform.

That's because both are considered "senior" (Major and Lt. Colonel). We have 3 officer uniforms for the Germans (Junior, Mid, Senior) to cover the three major levels of command (Battalion, Company, and Platoon), but there are 5 ranks found in those 3 slots (excluding senior NCOs, which have their own texture). Lt. Colonels and Majors use the same textures as do 1st and 2nd Lieutenants. Captains are the only officer textures which have a dedicated to Captains.

Again, until we have decals for ranks it is practically impossible to cover all possibilities with unique texture sets (as the game is setup to handle now).

Steve

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Not uniform related texture issues, but there's something wrong with the texture mapping on the P38:

6cNBOBr.jpg

G93MRKF.jpg

There's also an issue with the MG42 and MG34 textures if you have more than one variation. For instance, if you have a texture for a dark blued MG42 and a light blued MG42 (or MG34), the top covers will be switched. The top cover from the dark texture will appear on the light texture in-game, and vice versa.

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I did some tests on the MG42 and MG34 problem, and you can see the results below. This is just two textures, a dark and a light. The textures are obviously exaggerated to highlight the issue. It actually turns out the bipod, drum magazine and top cover are being shared between textures. This just shows the MG42, but I've encountered the same thing on the MG34. It would be nice if this could be fixed so different variations of the MGs can be made. :)

If you want to test it out for yourself, you can download the textures I used here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/66606021/mg42.zip

ovSafsy.jpg

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I just checked inside the game and everything looks as I said it should. There are two different types of uniforms:

Black panzer wraps w/pink Waffenfarbe

Field grey panzer wraps w/red Waffenfarbe

That's it. There's no other set used in the game other than the type for Armored Infantry (which is not relevant to this discussion).

The black ones are used mostly for tank crews, but also some other AFVs such as armored cars. The field gray ones are for StuGs and other turretless fighting vehicles. I only tried some tanks and some StuGs and they are showing up correctly for me.

As I said, Waffenfarbe and rank are not customizable to the unit or soldier using it.

Steve

Steve, I hope I'm not being dense but...something is not right here. I just took a look at a formation of StuGs in CMBN. Both crew models are rendered with the red waffenfarbe on the caps and shirts. No problem at all there, it looks good.

Then, I loaded up CMFI and again chose a StuG formation. The StuG crews there are not using the assault gun uniforms w/red Waffenfarbe. The caps and uniforms here sport the pink panzer waffenfarbe. This, in spite of the fact that of course there are separate assault gun red waffenfarbe uniform textures.

And just to be doubly clear, I'm not using any texture mods of any sort. All is 100% stock.

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