Kwazydog

Guys, make sure you remove the old drivers totally before installing the new ones (like it says on the above page ). Initially I was still getting some interface problems but after doing a total removal and reinstall of the drivers all does appear to be fixed. Dan

If you read the post I actually said that I purchased the early model Marder III with the 76mm gun, not the 75mm. If memory servers me correctly I believe that these vehicles were actually available *before* the 75mm models and helped deal with the heavy Russian armour until other vehicles became available, including the 75mm versions. Of course, none of this is relevant to Steve point, which was that these vehicles were rather vulnerable to even AT rifle fire and thus were rather delicate vehicles to have on a battlefield. Dan [ 01-22-2002: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]</p>

Indeed, thanks for the entries Panzer Leader. Let keep them rolling in guys Dan

Actually it tells you that infomation directly in the interface Panzer Leader. It is displayed as a plus or minus percentage. Dan

Heya Guys, Glad you all enjoyed it! Hehe, hopfully time will permit for us to do all models to this quality. It can be very time consuming getting the camo right though, as Mike suggested Fytinghellfish, no Pz-III just yet, hehe, as the final model isnt quite yet in game. Once we get there though you can bet youll see some shots. This was just a sample though, so I dont know if you will see this texture in particualr Dan

Heya Guys To be honest, I dont really understand what the concerns here are. The rarity system has been in CMBB now for some time and I can tell you I have not played a game without it since, nor does the idea of doing so appeal to me (but that is just my preference). A perfect example of the rarity system is in a game I recently played with variable rarity turned on. I cant remember the *exact* details but it should give you a fair idea of how it worked. It was May '42, and I was playing as the axis player. After examining the armour purchase options I decide to purchase 2 late model Pz-IIIj's as my main AT vehicles. These were about 10% more than their standard purchase price, but they did have the longer barrel 50mm so I decided to purchase them over the slightly cheaper early models so they at least had some chance against the T-34's. Now, with my remaining points I had two options. I could purchase two common Pz-II's (these were cheaper than usual if I recall) which would have been great against infantry or one more expensive AT vehicle. As I suspected my opponent was going to take big and nasty tanks I decided to purchase an early model Marder III with its 76mm gun. It cost me maybe 30-40% more than usual which is probably a little cheaper than it should have been due to the variable rarity, but I figured the 76mm would be worth the price. And yes, it was. My opponent bought a platoon of KV-I's (1941 models) and currently my 76mm Marder has killed 3 out of 4 of them at the loss of 2 of my Pz-IIIJ's. Now, if my opponent had purchased a lot more infantry I would have been better off with the better value Pz-II's, but I made the right choice. What seems kinda ridiculous to me would be a system that may force me to choose from only Pz-II's and Pz-III's in a particular battle (which were the more common vehicles of the time) and thus force me into playing a battle which I have next to no chance of winning. Dont get me wrong here though, I too talked to Steve about the above method as I too thought it would be better, but after playing with this system I personally feel that it is 10 times better than the 'forced selection' method. Dan [ 01-20-2002: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]</p>

Actually, no Yaphank, they wouldnt have done that either. On top of everything else mentioned here an important concern was to not damage or cover any of the tanks vision ports, something which could easily happen if a tank entered a building. I have footage here of a Tiger being demonstrated to Hitler and although it easily flattened a building it was covered in rubble. Vision from a tank is so limited to start with that covering any such ports could be the difference between life and death. Dan

Thomm, here is an answer just for you, hehe. I hope it is what you were after http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=023133 Dan

Hehe, thanks PawBroon...glad you enjoyed it. Awwww, I dont believe I made a spelling mistake in the heading though! Dan [ 01-18-2002: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]</p>

Heya Guys, I was writing this for Thomm in the modelling thread, but I thought Id post it in a new thread for those interested. The question was basically - How do we convert a basic plastic model to a CM texture with camo, weathering, etc (at least I think it was Thomm, hehe). Well, what Im going to do is to quickly run you guys through the process Ill be using to take a basic model and turn it into a final product. Now its getting on for midnight here so forgive me if the colour is off or if it all looks a more than a little rushed First, below is a shot of the original image that I will be working with. It is a side turret off of a model that Michael sent in to us (thanks again Michael) and it will be a good help for the entire Pz-III series. Now, for a start lets pretend that we want to make a post '42 model, which generally should be yellow with a basic camo scheme over it (though this wasnt as common on the Pz-III's as the Pz-IV's). The first thing we need to do is to colour the side turret to the basic yellow colour we are after. This is a reasonably simple process and required me to increase the yellow and red in the model whilst reducing its saturation some. Below is the coloured turret (which alone would be fine for a Pz-III model in 42, as it wasn't uncommon for the colour not to be applied) Now, lets add a little camo. What I did next was to add a new layer in Photoshop but I changed its type to multiply, which multiplies the colour with the original image (and thus I dont loose the original detail). After painting my model using suitable colours (green and brown for the Germans) I then applied a few filters to give us a faded and weathered effect to the paint. Often the camo paint used was not of good quality, and if you look at photos you will often find that it is applied rather thinly. Generally petrol was supposed to be used to thin the origional thick paste supplied before it was applied to the tank, but often water was used as fuel became rarer, and the quality of the paint suffered. After applying the camo I then added what is commonly known as a grunge map on top of the texture. What this did was to give the overall impressed of dust and grime, as well as adding some of the water streaks you can see down the side of the model. Next, I have used the clone tool to remove the shiny spot near the front of the turret. Also Ive added a few chips to the paint around the hatches. Here is the final result! Now bear in mind guys that this was very rushed, but it should give you a good idea of the process we will use when working with models we receive. Also note that the above took me about 15 minutes as opposed to 2 or 3 hours if we had no original texture to work from. So guys, if you have any friends out there that are modellers, make sure you remind them about our competition! Hope this was of interest guys! Dan [ 01-18-2002: Message edited by: Madmatt ]</p>

Just thought Id bring this up to the top again guys as the more entries we get the more it will help us bring you as much as we can in CMBB Dan

Thanks a heap for taking your time to do this fytinghellfish, it really does help. At the moment I am so snowed under with working on textures and keeping track of the entries into the competition I have little time spare to do much else Dan

Hi Guys! Its been a busy week but I just wanted to let you know we have been getting some great entries through. Hehe, at the moment I am finding that I dont have the time to keep up more than anything, hehe. Thomm, yes, ive actually been encouraging modellers whom are making models specifically for the competition to send in base coat models as well as their weathered and camoed vehicles as this should help us a lot when creating varients of these vehicles Michael, yes the rarer stuff will be a good help, as Id reallyl like to see some of the rarer vehicles in CMBB. Thanks for all of the help! Panzer Leader, thanks for the great entries...that digital camera really worked well! fytinghellfish, fingers crossed that the author of that site will send us in a few models, he has some particually rare vehicles there. Thanks for taking the time to contact him. Thanks again guys. Dan

Looking forward to them Panzer Leader! One little suggest thought...how about you send them in at about 1024 x 768 but save them out of photoshop as JPG's. When savinh, make sure you leave compression as far to the right as possible, which should give you the highest quality setting. This should make quite a bit smaller than the BMP's whilst giving us a larger image to work with Dan [ 01-14-2002: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]</p>

Very nice panzerleader, Im looking forward to seeing them in full . Dan

Heya Guys, Something else which should make quite a difference to city fighting is the way CM now splits squads. You will find that if you split a squad now that one section tends to get the smg's, satchel charges, grenade bundles and AT weapons (not all, but most) whilst the other retains the lmg and rifles. This effectively allow you to create a small assault or AT team whilst keeping the LMG team in an overwatch position (in conjunction with the cover arc command). Dan PS : Most of the changes listed above will have to wait for the rewrite though, in which we will be making those changes and more.

Thanks for the info tero! Dan

Thanks Diceman, looking forward to seeing them! Dan

Hi Guys, Sorry, I answered this one in the competition thread, but I guess you guys missed it. Basically we do go most years to get photos, but this year we wont be able to make it ubfortunately. Hopefully next year though Dan

Thanks John, your efforts are very much appreciated ! Dan

Uglykid, hehe, note that we are after platic model photos, not 3D ones...I can handle those with no problems at all Oh, and all vehicles on that list are unique vehicles...a finnish stug looks pretty much like a German one except for colouring and makings, hehe. Dan

Mace, that would be an excellent help. The more guys that hear about the competition the better. We are starting to get some submission through, but the more the better! Zitadelle, thanks for the info. Hehe, we actually go to this every couple of years to get some shots. Charles went last year actually Dan

Hehe, glad to hear you found yourself a good example Patrick. This is something to remember when you get to those pesky T-34's on the Eastern Front. I was testing recently and played out a battle against two T-34's with a platoon of Pz-38's. I ended the battle with a lot of my tanks smoking, hehe. Dan [ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]</p>

Actually, I do know that such calculations are taken into account in CM, so Im guessing that maybe the angle wasnt close enough to 0 degrees antaresqc. Dan

Hi Diceman, Well, so far we have had a steady trickle of entries. We have only just started the competition though, so things should pick up. Michael has already entered about 5 vehicles, hehe, so thanks to him for that! Indeed, some of the vehicles from the minor nations will be hard to find, and I think I will have to make these from scratch. The good news is that we will include vehicles from these nations, but of course that in turn means that I'll have less time to spend on some of the more rare vehicles from the Russian and German corners. Hopefully we will get enough entries so this wont be a big problems though Dan