Kwazydog
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Posts posted by Kwazydog
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Hi all!
I thought Id start an official thread about the modelling contest we are holding. To start with, here is a press release we have sent out.
"Missing Links, the Internet's premier modelling website and Battlefront.com, home of superior war and strategy games, announce a unique contest for all WWII vehicle modellers. Send in pictures of your own best WWII vehicle models, and you might find them featured in Battlefront.com's new 3D World War Two computer wargame simulation: Combat Mission - Barbarossa to Berlin! The main prize is a $300 Smart Jet air compressor from Iwata! And YOUR name in the game credits!
„Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin covers ground combat on the Eastern Front from 1941-1945”, says Steven Grammont, Vice President of Battlefront.com. “That means a lot of vehicles which all will be modelled in high-resolution 3D, from the famous Russian T-34s to the largely unknown Finnish, Italian, Hungarian and Romanian vehicles. So why not give all those skilled modellers out there the chance to see their own favorite tank in real combat action - and their name in the credits!”
Modellers can send in pictures of their best works to modelcontest@battlefront.com. These will then be converted by Battlefront.com’s graphics artist into in-game models and textures, complete will all the details. Ever wanted to see that fantastic KV-1 model you made in real 3D combat? This is your chance!
Runner-up prizes include hand-drawn tank posters by artist John Smith VIII, as well as 10 free copies of Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin. For more details, visit www.missing-lynx.com or go directly to www.battlefront.com/Model_Contest/Model_contest.html "
So, what is this all about?
Basically we are attempting to to gather photos of models that we aide us with our vehicle texturing process.
In real terms this means that the more entries we recieve, the more time we will have to complete vehicles for CMBB.
If you have a look at the contest page noted above you will see out vehicle 'wish list'. I can tell you now that for each vehicle on that list we recieve a texture for, chances are that you will probably see that vehcile in game!So guys, if you are a modeller, dont forget to enter! If you arent a modeller yourself help us spread the word about the competition!
Thanks Guys
Dan
[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]</p>
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Okay guys, Im going to lock this one up.
Dan
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Heya guys
Flammenwerfer, Zalgoa has some great models and some that are pretty rare, too. Im not sure if he enters competitions though, hehe. Time will tell I guess.
Panzer Leader, if you are getting yourself a digital camera, make sure you get one with more than 2.1 mega pixels these days. The more the better but 2.1 does give a nice picture. Scans will be fine for the competition though, hehe, so dont go spending money on a digital camera unless you after an excuse to buy one
Dan
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Hehe, guys, we will let you know if we start to get a lot of submissions of a certain type. Currently we have only had 3 submissions and two of those were from Michael, so at this point I dont think that a list is needed
Dan
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Mace is right, we will be keeping a list but it is also a competition, so we are welcoming more than one submission per vehicle. In fact, the more submission we get the more we will be able to flesh out the vehicle varients.
Dan
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Heya Guys,
Okay, a few quick answers...
Thomm, lighting is an interesting question. In general, I think that shadowing is probably best done in Photoshop, and generally you want all shadows to look like they are the same depth and that is something hard to do if you have submissions from many different modellers. Generally though, a light source that is from a 45 degree angle from the direction of the camera would probably give the best results, as long as it isnt too strong.
Mattias, fingers crossed it will be a success!
Leeo, currently the contest is on the two most frequented pages...the news page and the General Discussion forum. Missing Links have their own competition on the main page at the moment, so currently we are on the other pages.
Shep, if you get us a texture for every model, you will most probably see them in CMBB, hehe. We do need to keep textures to a certain quality level, but from what Ive seen over at the Missing Links gallery every model would fit into that catagory!
Dalem, generally we are after AFV's but please free to send along any guns you guys have, too. I will double check that this is fine with Steve, but Id say you will get yourself a poster out of it at least
Michael, looking forward to the Panther and Id love to see the SdKfz 251!
Thanks for the interest guys! If any of you out there have ties with the modelling community or other forums, etc, please feel free to help us get the word out and let them know about the Missing Links competition. The more folks we get interested, the more models we will get and the more we will be able to fit into CMBB within the time frame we have
Dan
[ 01-03-2002: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]</p>
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"I hope a German operated T-34 will not sport the same paint job as its Red Army counterpart."
Hehe, no, that would look pretty silly, wouldnt it
Dan
PS : Mace, what sort of models do you have there, hehe. I might get you to scan in some of the plates
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Hehe, send it through Michael
Its big enough...Im just glad that I dont have a small monthly download limit!Dan
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Michael, generally it would probably be best to enter models unaltered as such alterations can cause odd artifacts from time to time, but if you are comfortable with such minor changes that probably wouldnt be a problem.
If we get several submission for the one vehicle type we will be sure to let you know, but in many cases we would like multiple textures. Check out how many different Pz-III's we have for isntance
Dan
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Hi Michael!
I think I might be recieving your model at the moment...Im glad I have a cable account, hehe.
There are two purposes behind the modelling competition. FIrstly, we were wanting to generate some interest in CMBB amongst the modelling community. I think there would be more than one modeller whome would love to see them Panther come to life
Secondly, yes, it will help us with texturing. Generally we are mainly after historically accurate textures, but even if models are not particually accuracte we can edit them significantly before applying them to a vehicle. Just getting the visual details of a vehicle (such as the hull top of a Tiger tank) can save us a lot of time. You would be surprised just how much time even a nice shot of a skdfz 152's road wheels can save us overall, probably a couple of hours.
Put it in a different way...If we could get a texture set for eveny vehicle on that list, you would probably see every one in CMBB!
Dan
PS : Oh, and yes, we are wanting to have pre-42 vehicles panzer grey, mid war vehicles yellow (with or without camo) and possibly even having late 44-45 vehicle in ambush, if time permits.
PPS : Hehe, and to answer the question you added after I started types...we are generally after realistic camo schemes. They dont have to be matching a particular photo, but they should be something that wouldnt look out of place on the battlefield either.
[ 01-03-2002: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]</p>
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Heya Guys,
Hehe, I see it didnt take you all long to find the competition...at least you saved us from making an announcement here I guess.
Guys, as has been noted, that list is a *potential* vehicle list for CMBB, but how many make it in does depend on time and how we progress with development. The more model submissions we get the more time it will save us and thus more vehicles will make it in though, so please feel free to spread the word as far as you can!
Dan
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Warrior, that is a good idea but would require extra coding that we probably wont have time for, as unfortuantely it isnt quite as simple as it sounds. For instance we would need to make sure that the code didnt place wall studs where there were windows, doors, etc, and we would need to code each building type separately as the internals of a hut would look a lot different from those of factory.
Something we will be looking into further in the future though.
Dan
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Hehe, indeed, shouldnt you guys be out celebrating or something
Redwolf, currently the process is automatic depending on available VRAM, but I will ask Charles about the possability of having a toggle for this feature...
Dan
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Busboy, that is what we will be doing if all goes to plans. What will happen is that when damage on a building reaches a certain level the texture will be replaced with another.
Unfortunately though, this wont free up any addition VRAM, which is the main concern with regards to building damage textures. Actually, we did discuss the possability of allowing an interior to damage buildings but that multiples VRAM usage by 3 for each level of damaged building, something which we simply cant afford unfortuantely.
We will be looking into building damage in much more detail with the rewrite though guys.
Dan
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Commissar, dont worry, this is something we will be looking into in much detail when we do the rewite. We will then have other options open to us that should allow us to do much more in the way of vehicle textures.
With CMBB we need to think of those out there still running on the 8mb and 16mb cards whilst still adding enough extra detail that 32mb cards will offer a visual treat. Id love to be able to have 2 sided vehicle textures myself, thats for sure, but the average hardware level isnt quite there for us to be able to do this just yet.
Dan
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No exactly Rob,
What it means is that a 16mb card will automatically downsample the textures so they will all fit into its VRAM. If it doesnt do this, then it would have to use your systems RAM for textures, something which can slow your frame rate down dramatically.
Yes, the quality of the textures on a 16mb card will look slightly less than those on a 32mb card, but the trade off is that frame rate will higher than it otherwise would have been.
Dan
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Why not...easy answer...VRAM.
This is the reason we couldnt do this in CMBO, and the same reason we cant in CMBB, and thus is something that cant be 'fixed' until we are all using 64 and 128mb video cards. Our recommended card for CMBB is going to be a 32mb card, as most people still do not have 64mb cards, and we are already pushing the 32mb mark with current textures levels.
With VRAM everything is a trade off. We could have allowed for different textures to be used on each side of a vehicle for instance, but the trade off would have been no doodads. Considering the visual enhancement these add to the game, I know which Id rather see.
Dan
[ 12-31-2001: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]</p>
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Heya Guys,
Yes, this is something we are considering and may well make it in. It is a feature that will take up a lot of VRAM though (basically each level of damage doubles the building VRAM usage), so we will probably have to limit it to 1 level of visual damage for CMBB.
Dan
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Hi Kmead,
Charles has just recently coded CMBB to downsample textures to fit neatly into cards with lower VRAM limits. It does a good job of this, with the differences between textures when downsampled 1 level being very hard to notice.
This means that CMBB should run fine on your system without having to use system RAM to store textures and without you having to manually downsize textures. Of course they wont look like they do on a 32mb or 64mb card.
Incidently, CMBO didnt do this as we designed our origional textures to fit with the smaller cards of the time, which is why people will notice slow downs if they load so many high res textures they max out their cards VRAM. If anyone has noticed slowdown as they have installed more and more high res textures, this will be why...
Dan
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Hehe, I didnt know Santa knew C++
Dan
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CG, a couple of suggestions.
How about you tone down your posts a little and see how people respond. Most people are happy to have a laugh, but your posts tend to be more of an abrupt than most. Also, if you are serious about staying on the forum maybe it would be worth changing your name, as most people dont seem to take you seriously any more due to your initial posts.
The main reason for this is that most people believe you are someone whom has been banned perviously from the forum whom has decided to return and cause some trouble, and to be honest I am one of them. When I get a chance over the break I will run an IP scan to see if this is so, but if it is not, considering this a chance to make a second beginning.
Dan
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Von Fauster, its hard to answer that question in terms of percentages in relation to coding time as Steve has been working on research for many months now separaretly to Charles, whom is doing the coding. Charles did have to do a lot of research early on on vehicles as well, which I helped with a little too.
What I can say is that I have had to do a *lot* of research to make sure I had the vehicle models correct, particually for the Russian tanks which can be hard to find good picutres of (anyone got a good shot of a *true* BT-*?
). I would guess that 30-40% of building the models was devoted to research.Dan
Dan
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The doodads are, yes. By that I mean that their shape is, which is basiaclly a cross for the most part.
Textures, no, every bmp is editable, just how it should be
Dan
PS : Thomm, I noticed your question about when doodads become visible. I dont know how Chalres has done it but they seem to be always there, even way off into the distance. Charles has done a great job with them whilst not harming frame rate!
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Basically it is a pile of burnt wood.
Due to VRAM limitations we did need to limit outselves to one type of rubble texture for all buildings. Thus, that texture needs to look just as suitable for a peasant hut as it does a factory. Not an easy task, I can tell you that
Btw guys the artefact some of you have noticed in the rubble is in fact due to the mirroring of the texture where the two pieces of the 'doodad' meet in the middle. Ive asked Charles to see if we can make a little code change to fix it and if not Ill touch up the texture.
Dan
[ 12-20-2001: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]</p>
What use would I have for an air compressor?
in Combat Mission Archive #4 (2002)
Posted
Check out this thread for some more info guys...
http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=023004
Dan