Do the mods on greenasjade require the v4 upgrade?

[Zenomorph]

Hi all,

After a long hiatus from CMBN, I just upgraded to v3 (if you're here you likely noticed the self-inflicted cluster that was my upgrade process).  I mainly did so in order to use the mods on greenasjade.  I'd installed tons of them in my Z folder but only a few of them took effect.  I figured since v2 was so out of date I might need to upgrade but the upgrade to v3 had no effect on the mods - the few that already worked still work but that's it. The first one I installed as a test was the Wirblewind and that worked fine but that, the SS camo and some of the terrain mods are the only ones functioning.  I also noticed a few people saying v4 had various glitches on their systems so I thought I'd just stick to v3.  Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[Erwin]

The vast majority of mods should work fine.  However, I believe we are always advised to remove the mod folder "z" or whatever b4 installing updates.  (Not sure why.)

There are some mods - esp like the useful and popular "Vin's Animated Text" that has to be redone for every evolution of each game or it creates problems. 

Am told there are other mods (eg: from early days of CMBN) that no longer work.  But when one has probably thousands of mods it is impractical to check em all to see which work and which should be deleted.   Wish there was an automatic way to determine which mods are fine and which need to be deleted or replaced.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Erwin

[Mord]

Most mods that are out of date/not working are because of the newer naming conventions that were introduced around v2 or 3 (can't remember now) of the bmps (the biggest hit was to uniform mods). However, once renamed they will work. Best thing you can do is to explode your brz files (if you are not on a Mac) and examine the bmps for the mods you are having trouble with, and then rename your mod bmps to the same thing. You'll want to start looking in the V2 brzs and up. The only mods I can think of off hand that aren't working are MJKerner's uniforms, DC's Uniforms (which won't work at all if they are using Hex edits) and my face mods.

Another way of doing would be to dl a mod that does work and look at the bmp names in that and apply them to the one that doesn't. But I suggest the above. Be proactive, explode all the brzs, save all the folders, and then you'll have every game file ready for future reference.

There are instructions for exploding brz files in the manuals. The simplest thing would be to copy and paste the brz file when you go to do this, that way you don't have to worry about losing the original. I have every brz for every game and every update exploded and put into folders for reference.

 

Here's an example of what my folder setup looks like:

 

 

Now, whenever I have a problem/question/interest, all I have to do is pop into the folders and start looking. Once you do this a few times you'll get an idea of what bmps/wavs are stored in what sub-folders. Examples: faces would be under soldiers/skins. Once you know the naming conventions for a file dealing with CM graphics and sounds is very, very simple. It's probably one of the easiest games out there for a non-modder to manipulate by simply knowing what to type for the file name. And outside of nationalities most of the names remain the same across tiles.

 

Mord.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Mord

[Mord]

BTW exactly which mods aren't working for you?

 

Mord.

[Ales Dvorak]

2 hours ago, Mord said:

 Best thing you can do is to explode your brz files (if you are not on a Mac).....

I may overlooked info, but after 6 & 1/2 years still no rezplode for Mac. Do you know why?

[Erwin]

12 hours ago, Erwin said:

impractical to check em all to see which work and which should be deleted.   Wish there was an automatic way to determine which mods are fine and which need to be deleted or replaced.

As I said...   Am impressed with your organization, Mord.  But that looks like a HUGE amount of work unless one has been doing that from the start 10 years ago.  One of the reasons PESE (best tank sim of the 90's) faded into oblivion was that it started to take more time to maintain the game and all its mods and patches than one did playing the game. 

[MOS:96B2P]

10 hours ago, Mord said:

Now, whenever I have a problem/question/interest, all I have to do is pop into the folders and start looking. Once you do this a few times you'll get an idea of what bmps/wavs are stored in what sub-folders. 

+1   Wow ...... .  Now that is impressive.  

[Warts 'n' all]

3 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:

+1   Wow ...... .  Now that is impressive.  

Yes, as impressive as his excellent mods.

[Mord]

11 hours ago, Ales Dvorak said:

I may overlooked info, but after 6 & 1/2 years still no rezplode for Mac. Do you know why?

Nope. They never implemented it. I guess it was too hard to do. That's one of the reasons I don't pack my mods when I release them so Mac users have access to the single files.

3 hours ago, Erwin said:

As I said...   Am impressed with your organization, Mord.  But that looks like a HUGE amount of work unless one has been doing that from the start 10 years ago.  One of the reasons PESE (best tank sim of the 90's) faded into oblivion was that it started to take more time to maintain the game and all its mods and patches than one did playing the game. 

But it's not a huge amount of work, it would take about an hour. CMBN is the biggest one to do. But they all don't have to be done at once. You could do one game per day, and in a week you'd be done.

It takes no time to maintain CM once it's installed unless a patch comes out. A person can install the game and hit play, barring an install problem, anything after that is self inflicted and is the user's fault. Nobody puts a gun to anyone's head and says they have to use mods in their game. And if you dl every single mod known to man and god, and just throw them all in the mod folder without any forethought, then of course it's gonna be a mess, and you will have no idea what is what. Whose fault is that? Taking time to organize the mods before hand saves a ton of time later. Even with a subscription system like Steam uses there will still be problems with conflicts and duplicates. There's no way any company can stop gamers from sabotaging themselves as far as I can see. "I want every mod, I want them now, and I want them to work without a hitch. However, I don't want to have to spend any time organizing them to make sure they will work."

 

 

 

Pretty simple. I know where everything is. Yeah, I had to spend some time doing it but it saves me LOTS of time later. A couple clicks and I know what mods I already have, who made them, and if they will conflict with anything new released.

3 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:

+1   Wow ...... .  Now that is impressive. 

LOL. I don't have all the files memorized, I just have an idea of what folders they can be found in from having explored the folder hierarchy so many times. For example: knowing that Sherman bmps were found under "vehicles" in the CMBN 1.0 folder, if I want to know if BFC updated them, I'd look for the "vehicle folder" in the other patch/upgrade/module folders. And once you know when something was updated/changed you don't need to bother with folders prior to that date. AND a lot of times there is much less added in the non upgrade/module folders. Patches usually have few physical files in them.

 

Mord.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Mord

[Erwin]

1 hour ago, Mord said:

Nobody puts a gun to anyone's head and says they have to use mods in their game.

I beg to differ.  There is definitely someone around here frequently with a gun to my head.

[Erwin]

1 hour ago, Mord said:

And if you dl every single mod known to man and god, and just throw them all in the mod folder without any forethought, then of course it's gonna be a mess, and you will have no idea what is what. Whose fault is that?

Well who ever predicted back in 2007 that there would be SO many mods produced, and SO many duplicate mod choices to make.  The fault is in being an early fan/adopter. The guys buying into CM2 now have it easy.   (Bastids!) 

(Uh... how much do you charge to organize mod collections?)

Edited December 22, 2017 by Erwin

[Mord]

3 hours ago, Erwin said:

I beg to differ.  There is definitely someone around here frequently with a gun to my head.

LOL. Are you looking in the mirror?

Mord.

[Erwin]

They reassure me that they stand right behind me and have my back.

Uh...   Yup, still there...

Edited December 23, 2017 by Erwin

[Zenomorph]

11 hours ago, Mord said:

BTW exactly which mods aren't working for you?

 

Mord.

Well, I'd have to say nearly all the vehicle mods.   What's a bit strange is that thing about the Wirblewind.  It was the first one I downloaded, it worked and then pretty much none of the others worked.  So I thought maybe I had some mods interfering with each other and I tried an experiment of removing all the vehicle mods and then only put Aris' "SdKfz 251 Ausf D CMBN V2" back into the Z folder.  Then, since that particular mod has several versions of the halftrack, I picked just one and removed the others (I don't think it said I needed to do so in the readme but just in case).  Nothing worked.  I see it says V2 but it didn't work before my upgrade either.   So...very odd if it's working for other folks.  I'll try your suggestion though, Mord.  I was wanting to mess around with modding at some point.  Thanks again!

[Zenomorph]

Oh, here's a good one:  When I cut all those mods from the z folder and went to paste them into a temp folder, I didn't realize I still had the game open and so it said I couldn't remove a bunch of them bc they were in use by another program.  So I guess that's one way to know which mods are working and which aren't!

[Mord]

4 hours ago, Zenomorph said:

and then only put Aris' "SdKfz 251 Ausf D CMBN V2" back into the Z folder.  Then, since that particular mod has several versions of the halftrack, I picked just one and removed the others (I don't think it said I needed to do so in the readme but just in case).  Nothing worked.  I see it says V2 but it didn't work before my upgrade either. 

The version number has to do with his mod and not CM's engine, so that shouldn't have any bearing.

Did you by chance rename any of them? There should be no number 1 in the numerical sequence. Your files should look like this: sdkfz251d-hull 2, sdkfz251d-hull 3, sdkfz251d-hull 4 etc.

 

When you put the chosen SINGLE file back in your mod folder did it look like this?

sdkfz251d-hull

All the files in that mod have numbers, to test a single file the number (and space) would have to be removed.

And for the sake of thoroughness, I have to ask, did you make sure all the mods were unzipped before placing them in the mod folder?

Mord.

Edited December 23, 2017 by Mord

[Zenomorph]

It should say, "MEEEEEE".  So, just in case others can learn from my mistake, here's what happened:  I was checking the file names as Mord suggested and...in organizing mods in the Z folder I created a folder called, for example: "Vehicles".  But my file renaming utility was set to rename ALL the files in the folder and subfolders as well.   So now all the vehicle files had the prefix "Vehicles" on them so of course CMBN didn't recognize them.  Recently migrated to a new laptop and I vaguely recall years ago on my last laptop having to uncheck that default setting in the renaming app.   Ugg and ugg.  But thanks Mord!  Still can't get the US uniform mod to work so it gives me a reason to mess with Rezexplode.

Mord, I'll have to ask you about Cthulhu soon.  I'm really trying to get my kids into RPGs as something the fam can all have fun with together.  My kids already like to draw characters and create stories around them so getting them interested in RPGs should be easy, right?  Well, not.  It's "dad's idea" so of course it's the un-coolest idea ever.  Also, one of my girls has autism and - it's one of those things that sounds crazy but makes sense at the same time - but RPGs are something of a growing theory in helping kids with autism.  Along the lines of (since kids with autism often have difficulty with social cues), "Well, if you're in a dungeon with your friends, you come across a fire breathing dragon and you're the one character with immunity to fire, do you see why your friends might be upset when they realize you just left them and made a run for it?"  "Hmmm....oh yeah, now that you put it that way...". Haha.  So they get to make some mistakes in the game rather than real life.  Thanks again!!

[Mord]

9 hours ago, Zenomorph said:

But thanks Mord!  Still can't get the US uniform mod to work so it gives me a reason to mess with Rezexplode.

You're welcome. The uniforms will be a completely different beast as there are many different names for even the Americans. You'll find the updated naming convention starts in the 2.0 brz. Pay attention because some will have mod tags on the end so those will only show up when triggered by their tag description. Example: Uniforms tagged with [holland] will only show when the scenario location is set to Holland.

9 hours ago, Zenomorph said:

I'm really trying to get my kids into RPGs as something the fam can all have fun with together.

I think that is a great idea. It's an excellent way to spend family time together and great excerise for the kids' imagination . There are tons and tons of RPGs out there nowadays, for just about every subject you can imagine, and plenty that would be decent for younger kids. There are also hybrid board game RPGs that come with miniatures and maps and such, which kid's usually love.

 

Mord.

[Ales Dvorak]

On 12/22/2017 at 8:22 PM, Mord said:

That's one of the reasons I don't pack my mods when I release them so Mac users have access to the single files.

As a Mac user I appreciate this and Mord, thank you for your mods.

[Mord]

You are very welcome, my man.

 

Mord.