CMFI GL Bulge '44 Mod Pack Contents Brain stormer thread

[kohlenklau]

Fellas,

I know you all are on the edge of your seats for CMBN OMG but can we harness our team energies here to think what could be a mod pack for turning CMFI GL into a Bulge '44 stand-in? Yes, I know some folks want to wait for the professional for sale version of such things, but sometimes it is fun to also strive to create our own mods.

Humbly, so far, we have thanks to mjkerner, etc.

1. US airborne greatcoats

2. US and German snow helmets

3. snow smock German greatcoat

4. snowy lower elevation horizons so it looks more like Belgium

Can we get some vehicles looking more Ardennesque?

Gloves for Germans and US?

Scarves by god!

Let slip the cats of imagination!!

Thanks

[agusto]

Talking about gloves: explode the CMFI .brz files, look for soldier textures and paint their hands black (or use a glove-ish texture). I think some of the CMSF models wear gloves, you could cut out these textures and put them on the CMFI models. IIRC the 3D models used by the CMx2 engine are seperated from the textures, so you can simply edit them with Photoshop without having to be able to use a 3D-editor.

Mittens would be significantly harder to do because you would have to open the 3D models and edit them.

Scarves would also have to be done with a 3D editor. It is probably possible (although i dont know how the animations would work with scarves, possibly you would have to do that too in order to have the scarves look good) but it would never ever be worth the effort. Mittens on the other hand probably wont need new animations.

Changing the vehicle textures is within the range of what can be done IMO, but it would still require a lot of work to transform all of them to winter camo/white.

The easiest thing to do of all of the above would be the gloves with fingers.

[benpark]

You can't change the 3D models at all- only textures.

the CMFI GL module introduced tags that will have different seasonal effects show up if that season is selected. MUD, for instance loads the textures that make the tracks look muddy when the conditions are mud, etc. This may be possible for things like gloves- this also allows you to mod the texture of the hands to be more glove-like without making all hands gloved in warmer scenarios. Exploding the files and doing investigative work will allow for lots of interesting ideas.

[agusto]

You can't change the 3D models at all- only textures.

Are you sure? I know i saw screenshots where someone gave a CMBN soldier model a CMSF Javlin in its hands. I also think that i can remeber that the CMSF Euroscape mod exchanges some of the Syrian vehicle models for Russian ones (not only the textures - the 3D models).

[benpark]

Yes. You can rename and swap existing models in and out of the current games (like your example, or the US Airborne greatcoat from the other thread that I was describing), but you can't use a program like 3DS to change anything.

[kohlenklau]

tentative CMFI GL Bulge '44 Mod Pack contents

1. US airborne greatcoats

2. US and German snow helmets

3. snow smock German greatcoat

4. 16 lower elevation horizons so it looks more like Belgium (game date 01Dec43-31Jan44)

5. 2km x 2km Baraque de Fraiture map (not a scenario)

6. Gloves for Germans and US

7. snow camo equipment

[kohlenklau]

OK, I thought of something else for the modpack. Some Belgium-y Road signs!!

I gotta hunt down tempestxxx or TempestZZZ or something like that to help me out.

[Broadsword56]

Something else I remembered about Bulge troops from seeing the old newsreels:

The Germans wore a kind of hoodie or balaclava under their helmets. So their faces were visible, but the area from the back of their heads to about halfway between their ears and face was covered by the hood -- gave them a cool kind of "Death Comes to Call" appearance.

I know you can't change the 3D model, so this would be a matter of applying a new winter skin texture that has hooded faces. The texture could be identical to the one for gloves. The hood would look skin-tight, unfortunately, so the effect might just look weird and not have the bit of droop that a real hood would have. But it would be interesting to see.

[mjkerner]

Something else I remembered about Bulge troops from seeing the old newsreels:

The Germans wore a kind of hoodie or balaclava under their helmets. So their faces were visible, but the area from the back of their heads to about halfway between their ears and face was covered by the hood -- gave them a cool kind of "Death Comes to Call" appearance.

I know you can't change the 3D model, so this would be a matter of applying a new winter skin texture that has hooded faces. The texture could be identical to the one for gloves. The hood would look skin-tight, unfortunately, so the effect might just look weird and not have the bit of droop that a real hood would have. But it would be interesting to see.

I'll give it shot tomorrow when I'm back at my home comp, but you're right, it will look mostly like a balaclava (I think that's what it's called...those pullover stocking caps) with a larger face opening.

[mjkerner]

Something else I remembered about Bulge troops from seeing the old newsreels:

The Germans wore a kind of hoodie or balaclava under their helmets. So their faces were visible, but the area from the back of their heads to about halfway between their ears and face was covered by the hood -- gave them a cool kind of "Death Comes to Call" appearance.

I know you can't change the 3D model, so this would be a matter of applying a new winter skin texture that has hooded faces. The texture could be identical to the one for gloves. The hood would look skin-tight, unfortunately, so the effect might just look weird and not have the bit of droop that a real hood would have. But it would be interesting to see.

P.S. Broadsword, you never commented on the Brit mortars-as-Fallschirmjagers here:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=110390&page=3

They OK?

[Broadsword56]

P.S. Broadsword, you never commented on the Brit mortars-as-Fallschirmjagers here:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=110390&page=3

They OK?

Sorry -- I missed that post!

Yes, more than OK. Gotta have em!

Nice work.

[kohlenklau]

German Army Wool Toque:

There was like 3 or 4 ways to put it on.

Call before midnight tonight and we will include a 2nd toque absolutely free!

[kohlenklau]

mj!

Can we please get some Waffen-SS camo for the non-great coat selected troops?

I remember before CMBN CW came out, someone did a mod so they could do a Saving Pvt Ryan mod. Anyway, we would want the so called M44 dot pattern I think, not as a walk the talk, talk the walk expert however....Can you scrounge it up and do the file name swap? Goal would be that axis human player (using Bulge mod-pack) could select some units to not have greatcoats and they would awesomely default to being Waffen-SS, all greatcoat soldiers outfitted by Kerner's Men's Emporium, 10 stores in the greater tri-county area!

[mjkerner]

mj!

Can we please get some Waffen-SS camo for the non-great coat selected troops?

I remember before CMBN CW came out, someone did a mod so they could do a Saving Pvt Ryan mod. Anyway, we would want the so called M44 dot pattern I think, not as a walk the talk, talk the walk expert however....Can you scrounge it up and do the file name swap? Goal would be that axis human player (using Bulge mod-pack) could select some units to not have greatcoats and they would awesomely default to being Waffen-SS, all greatcoat soldiers outfitted by Kerner's Men's Emporium, 10 stores in the greater tri-county area!

Sweet, sole source gub'mint contract! I'll kit 'em out. Give me a little time.

[mjkerner]

German Army Wool Toque:

There was like 3 or 4 ways to put it on.

Call before midnight tonight and we will include a 2nd toque absolutely free!

In CM reality, they'll look more like The Blue Man Group in white.

[agusto]

In CM reality, they'll look more like The Blue Man Group in white.

I think that it maybe wouldnt look too bad - all the problematic bodyparts, like hair, ears, usw are covered by the helmets anyways.

[Broadsword56]

I think that it maybe wouldnt look too bad - all the problematic bodyparts, like hair, ears, usw are covered by the helmets anyways.

Also, if you draw the shading of the cloth folds on the texture (can you?) then it will perhaps give the illusion of not being painted on and skin-tight even though it's just wool-textured skin (I hope).

[kohlenklau]

Great!

Revised CMFI GL Bulge '44 Modpack contents:

1. US airborne greatcoats

2. US and German snow helmets

3. snow smock German greatcoat

4. 16 lower elevation horizons so it looks more like Belgium (game date 01Dec43-31Jan44)

5. 2km x 2km Baraque de Fraiture map (not a scenario)

6. Gloves for Germans and US

7. snow camo equipment

8. Belgium roadsigns (Bastogne, Baraque de Fraiture, etc.)

9. German army toque

10. M44 Dot Camo for non-greatcoat German army simulating Waffen-SS

[mjkerner]

Also, if you draw the shading of the cloth folds on the texture (can you?) then it will perhaps give the illusion of not being painted on and skin-tight even though it's just wool-textured skin (I hope).

Yes, but we'll see how artfully I can do that.

[kohlenklau]

OK, I downloaded the old CMBN before CW Waffen-SS uni's and have renamed them for seeing how they turn out in a quick experiment.

They are slightly goofed in that they have the army eagle on the right chest versus the proper left tricep area. But hey, I appreciate the original effort by Wyseman76 back in August 2011.

Thank you sir. EDIT: I pm'd him to ask permission to use them and mod them further for CMFI GL Bulge '44.

I think I will try and fix the boots also...

But mj, please tackle whatever gets you excited. You can mod these or start from scratch. Want me to dump them in our db folder?

Oh Oh Oh, these are just the privates and nco's!!!! We do need officer Dot 44. This way, when a particular appearance selectable team or unit is selected to be "standard" and not greatcoat, then they ALL look cool. Now we have the problem of some regular heer looking officers with their Dot44 kubelwagen driver for example, do you copy that?

[mjkerner]

Yessir! I assume you want some winter smocks with that as well?

[kohlenklau]

I have various books about uniforms and would have to consult them to refresh my memory.

BUT right now, I think we just want the M44 Dot but not whited out since it was NOT a reversible garment. AFAIK.

I think the file structure allows 2 soldiers, 2 NCO's and 2 levels of officers with maybe 2 choices each.

[kohlenklau]

I am trying to make some Bulge '44 signs.

Here is my first try.

I named it "it-mile-sign7 [mainland]" and included the associated CMBN skeleton with the same number. Loaded both as a mod and restarted game. It showed up in the flavor objects as a new milestone, a new number 7 where there were only 6 before. I placed it and then tried to view it in 3D. The proper shape was there but it was all black.

File size and image dimensions look proper.

Hmmmmmmmm.

Anybody know what I did wrong?

[Tempestzzzz]

Hi Kohlenklau:

I sent you 2 e:mail messages in reply to your PM. I'm on travel right now.

I suspect-and I'm doing this off the top of my head the MDR (?) file is not referencing the proper Jpeg. Your questions is easy to answer-but I did this months ago and need to look at my work files to jog my memory. If that's the case it's a simple hex or Notepad ++ edit of changing the JPEG number in the MDR file.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=106961

The mediafiles are reference are no longer there. Also if I recall the jpeg has to be reveresed backwards in order for it to be oriented properly in the game.

[kohlenklau]

Thanks Tempest! I pm'd you.