Kwazydog

Hi Mike! Its not impossible that something like this might be available down the track but at this point no, we dont have any plans to allow the models themselves to be accessible unfortunately. Its also doubtful that anything like this will be available in game...we have much more important STUFF we need to code up first Dan [ September 02, 2005, 06:40 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

As others have mentioned there is a thread at the top of forum in which we have asked people to comment in their wishes for CMx2, which kinda makes the censorship comment as odd about the one on this forum being on the UK. So until we do have something further to provide on PBEM that is the place to voice your opinions. Dan [ September 02, 2005, 09:59 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Palantir, as the guys have mentioned there has only been 2 locked threads here, and the second one of those was locked because it was a rehash of the first. Generally though I think that if you do a search through the CM and General forums you will find very few threads have been locked and see that for the most part we are very tolerant for a forum with so many members (the old political forums were another matter though, hehe). Generally we dont lock threads unless they are becoming heated, but the PBEM issues is basically a dead one at the moment, one which has caused a lot of tension in the past. Yes, we want it in there too (Im a huge fan of it myself) if at all possible, and that is all that can really be said on the matter for the time being. So as far as that issue is concerned for now...I think we've discussed it in detail, how about we move on to a new topic until we have more info for you? Dan

Gorden, yes, its a bit of a juggling act. The trick is to get the right balance of detail between the textures and the 3D models so that the lack of depth to the textures looks reasonably unnoticable. Generally speaking any 3D game with dynamic lighting makes these sort of concessions and unless you go looking you never really notice any problems Dan

Hehehe...actually I origionally used the Tiger as an example but didnt want to overcomplicate the example with details of early-late models, etc so I changed it to the Pv-IVg. Fixed now! Dan

Columbus, that shouldnt be necessary as files should be named in a reasonably straight forward manner (depending on how late I made them ). For instance a Pz-IVg tank might be made up of PzIVg-turret.bmp, PzIVg-Hull.bmp and PzIVg-details.bmp (details could be anything...for instance we may put the vision block glass in a seperate 'material' in order to all up to add reflection to it). Modding should be really interesting for you guys in CMx2 by the way! The considerably more detailed vehicles are both a blessing and a nightmare, hehe. For instance, much of the detailed that had to be simulated by textures in CMx1 is now handled by the model itself (and has light reflected off it correctly by the engine of course). Thus, for instance, in CMx1 we needed to create a raised surface around an engine cover by hand giving it a 3D appearance including simulated lighting...that wont be necessary any more. On the other hand if you want to get a neat row of bolts around the top of that engine cover they will need to be *exactly* in place or they wont actually be on the raised surface. The results though should well be worth the effort! Dan Disclaimer : And the Pz-IVg was just an example...it should not be taken as an indicator of CMx2 setting either way [ August 29, 2005, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Sergie, I see what you mean and I think that is pretty much what I was thinking Paul was after. Essentially though the product described really isnt all that much different to where the last CM series finished off...its the same game with the few remaining rough edges rounded off. As the engine was to be rebuilt from the ground up we didnt want to simply rewrite the origional game with a few new features added in...we wanted to take it much further exploring features which could have even been considered when coding began on the origional series. Dan [ August 29, 2005, 04:30 AM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Trees should be 3D now, with twigs, branches, roots and leaves all being modelled using various methods...again time will tell just what we can do here after more solid testing . Dan [ August 29, 2005, 04:34 AM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Hehe, thanks Salkin! Yes, things have been very busy indeed and have been for quite some time for me...for my point of view Ive had a considerable amount of new software and techniques to learn from the old CMx1 days. All told though I think you guys should be very happy with what we can do visually in the new engine...I know I am Dan

Paul, by your defination it sounds like the last in the CMx1 series, CMAK, is the CMx2 you were after. In all honesty the first engine has been pushed to its limits...it was time for us to take the lessons learnt there and move onto something new and improved. Dan

Lamer, I cant give you any solid figures until we get a little further down the track but I can give you some estimates. From my perspective Im hoping we may be able to spend around say, 2000-3000 on a soldier, 300-500 on his weapon and maybe 5000-8000 on a vehicle. Im the 3D Modeller though and we always like to get as many pollies as we can, hehe...its not impossible that Chalres could turn around and say okay, time to cut them back. Testing thus far look promising but time will tell. Just to put those figures in perspect CMBO had about 150-350 pollies per vehicle and CMAK ended up with about 600-700 on new vehicles for that game. Each soldier in CMAK, as a guess, was probably about 120 each (these models were basically hardcoded so I cant say for sure). Dan [ August 29, 2005, 02:13 AM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Firstly, although its been mentioned a bunch of times, Ill remind folks that we didnt invest a lot of effort in this. Yes, it is modelled as described, but it wasnt something that took Chalres weeks (or even days) to code...basically it is just a nice touch that the engine could handle easily As to your other question RCHRD, Id suggest doing some searching on posts by Steve in the past weeks/few months. I know he has been posted a lot of info about where we are heading and what people can expect. Dan

Sirocco dont worry, we *should* be able to have detailed running gear with suspenision, etc. Something to keep in mind is that its amazing just how quickly you can remove details from a model as it moves away from screen yet have the human eye not be able too tell the differnce in game. Dan

Sirocco dont worry, we *should* be able to have detailed running gear with suspenision, etc. Something to keep in mind is that its amazing just how quickly you can remove details from a model as it moves away from screen yet have the human eye not be able too tell the differnce in game. Dan

All gone now...we will be contacting the ISP provider with the contents of this post. Dan

Moving this by request of poster...easy done Dan

Its being tested guys...we want to make sure its rock solid as it will most probably be the last CMAK patch. Dan

Guys, as weve mentioned CMX2 is going to be a huge jump over the current engine in every respect, including the tracking of ammo. As such, although we appreciate the effort very much, the above suggestion is based on the old engine and thus really isnt relevant to CMX2. Needless to say as soon as we are ready to give you guys solid info we will. Dan

Skolman, please note that we want our forums to be suitable for all ages, and swearing is against our forum policies. I understand you may not have be aware of this but please keep this in mind in the future. Dan

Thats the plan

Spotless, keep an eye out for news in the future when we actually have some give At the moment we arent quite to that stage in development. Dan

Looking good Yup....I use a couple of different programs and basically generate the trees according to age, type suitable for the particual location, etc. Dan

Hehe, I do still read the forums but at the moment I am spending more time working on details for the new engine which is taking away from my time I once had to do so. Its early days still but I know Im excited...we will certainly have more details for you guys when we are further through the process Dan

Interesting discussion actually Something the US has learnt in Iraq is that a Bradly can penetrate an M1 from the rear and if hit in the right locations the side, so although they would be one mean beast to kill I dont think it impossible if hit in the right location. I guess an interesting side note to this discussion is how a 25mm DU round from a bradley would compare to, say, a standard AP round from the Panthers 75mm? Dan

Note that you will loose the mountains in Crete too guys, which will probably look rather odd, if you remove them from the desert...unfortuantely disk space got the better of us so we had to share more than we would have liked too. We will be looking at using multiple in the future though. Dan [ December 06, 2003, 12:05 AM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]