Wolfe

Le Bump. Is it possible for Battlefront to change the title of this mod from Wolfe to Wolfe's Reduced Shimmer Terrain, or should I delete and re-submit? Thanks. - Chris

Thanks very much. Glad you like it. - Chris

Thanks for the plug, Juju! Here's a thread-bump for the excellent mod mine is based on. - Chris

Yep, working on it. A larger comparison pic with most of the buttons can be found at:

Well this got screwed up somehow. I tried to update my Wolfe's Reduced Shimmer Terrain by using the "Update Submission" button. The filenames are the same, but a new file submission was created instead, and with an incorrect title. The file itself is fine, but has an incorrect name (Wolfe). I just tried to update that file with its correct name (but not attach a new file); it took the submission, but I don't know if that will work. Sorry if I screwed things up. Can you fix this? (Best would be to rename Wolfe to Wolfe's Reduced Shimmer Terrain), and I'll delete the old 1.4 submission. If not, then I'll delete all the existing ones and upload as a new file. - Chris

Okay, thanks. From above I got the impression there might be an update to your mod to either change the name or add a silhouette. - Chris

It'll definitely be uploaded to the Repository when it's done. Juju, do you know what your brz's filename will be? Since my mod mods your mod (that's a mouthful!), mine would naturally have to load alphabetically after yours. Thanks! - Chris

Fantastic looking mod! Congrats. One thing you might want to mention: Anyone who has Marco Bergman's silhouette mod installed won't see parts of your mod because of the naming conventions (yours is loaded first alphabetically, then his over-writes). BTW, I may have to steal your command buttons and colorize them. I really like the more subtle grey buttons you created, but I got used to the color convention in the game. Credit will be given, of course. Something like this: Colorized buttons Thanks for the great mod. - Chris

Not 100% certain, but this might have to do with turning radius. Tracked vehicles can pivot on a spot; wheeled vehicles can't. Shermans and Stuarts seem happy with tank-sized holes in bocage. Trucks and Jeeps can have problems, even to the point of taking the scenic route along roads laden with AT guns. Urgh. Try to have the truck or jeep going very straight at the opening for some distance before it reaches it, and as perpendicular to the bocage as possible. And go no faster than Move. - Chris

Darn. Thanks, Phil. - Chris

Is there a way to make the water texture more transparent? Changing the ground water.bmp file affects the tile underneath the water, not the water itself. - Chris

I posted a pic of where mods go; it may be easier for folks to understand than trying to explain it in text. Z-Folder location - Chris

I actually didn't think about that one, but it does seem to make a difference. From a quick test blasting Along the diagonal bocage, Conscript succeeded in making a tank-sized hole with the 1st blast 48% of the time (31/65) and Elite 71% (46/65). - Chris

After struggling to reliably make a tank-sized hole in a series of successive bocage rows in a scenario using only 1 Blast, I decided to see if how the Blast command is plotted makes any difference. For Bocage that lies N-S or E-W: * For bocage where an opening already exists: Blast Thru is most effective, followed closely by Blast To. * For bocage where no opening exists, Blast Along (sideways along the bocage) is best. Details: In each case a hole was opened in the bocage that's good for infantry, but not always large enough for a tank to get through. * With an existing Opening: Blast Through: 43/50 (86%) Blast To: 36/50 (72%) Blast Along (sideways): 31/50 (62%) * Without an Opening: Blast Through: 2/50 (4%) Blast To: 18/50 (36%) Blast Along (sideways): 29/50 (58%) The image below shows the 3 different methods. The leftward Blast Through didn't open the bocage enough (though it usually does when an opening is present), while the middle Blast To did. The rightward Blast Along just made another hole, not sufficient for a tank. For Diagonal Bocage: * Always blast ALONG the bocage (not through it) to reliably make a tank-sized hole. Either from triangle-to-triangle or from square-to-square. If the first Blast doesn't open it up enough, a second one always seems to get it. - Chris

Finally got this bugger on the third try. Those AT guns made my life miserable. The damn PaK38 WOULD NOT DIE! So on the third go-round I surmised the copse of trees off to my right "might" make a great hiding place for an enemy AT, and I prep-bombarded the place with half my arty tubes before doing anything else. Cheating? Maybe. But at some point you just want to move forward with the campaign. One thing that makes a big difference too is to WAIT for the daylight to change. When you start out it's so dark you actually can't target the hill ahead. The tanks came early, but I just let them sit there until my FOs had LOS to the hill, then moved 1 tank out to draw any AT fire - it did. I then took out the two remaining guns in succession with massed MG and mortar fire. I spread the MG teams out on either side of the bridge, just short of the river, to provide covering fire. And once the AT guns were dead moved the tanks 1-by-1 over the bridge. My MGs took a beating from the arty, but I took great effort to buddy-aid as much as possible so I could have them for later in the campaign. In the end my tanks did all the pushing forward. I got a major victory with only pushing 2 platoons across that bridge (1 team at a time). Whew. What a pain! - Chris

Altering the Hedge BMP doesn't seem to do anything in the game. Hedge appears to reference the boccage2.bmp instead. Is that a bug? - Chris

This is the 1.4 update to my original mod. It's now at a different URL because I unwisely gave the 1.0 zip file a version number in its name, and you can't replace a file at the Repository with one of a different name (and I thought people downloading the newest version, but seeing 1.0 in the name might think they got the wrong one). BFC helpfully removed the older version. Any comments or suggestions should be made here rather than the old thread. Thanks! Enjoy. - Chris

You stick any downloaded mods inside a 'Z' folder within the Data folder. If the Z folder doesn't exist, create it. Unzip (or un-RAR) any mods you download and stick the various WAV/BMP/brz files within it. This pic may help: CMBN Z Folder Creating mods consists of whatever talent you have with BMP graphic or WAV sound files. Be sure to read the 'Mod Tools Readme.txt' file within the Mod Tools folder for info on packing and unpacking brz files. - Chris

The one thing I'd like to see with the controls would be the ability to set your own height and angle for camera levels 1-9. The jump from 2 up to 3 is more than I'd like, and the jump from 3 to 4 is simply huge, IMO. I'd love to be able to "squash down" 1-7 so that 7 is about at 5's height, but looking out over the battlefield (for large maps). Not sure how much coding this would require, but an editable txt file allowing the user to set their own height and angle for the various presets would be most appreciated. - Chris

I cleaned up a few mini textures last night so they blend a bit better when transitioning over to the larger BMP as you scroll across the map, and added a few new ones in for pavement tiles. The final version should be ready this weekend. - Chris

Thanks! Glad you like it. I've tweaked a few more of the textures to further reduce some shimmer (Cliff, Marsh), but hadn't really planned to re-upload a newer version. However I also found a way to reduce the moire pattern in the plowed fields by cropping the BMP, except this separates the plowed rows unnaturally. Not sure if this is worth replacing the 1.0 mod, but here are a few pics: Original Terrain Reduced Shimmer 1.0 Reduced Shimmer 1.2 - Chris

This mod scales down the large terrain BMPs (losing a bit of detail close-up) in order to reduce the amount of texture shimmer along the ground. The green ground terrain (a bit too bright, IMO) has also been slightly desaturated. Reduced Shimmer Terrain - Chris

You could extract the sound from the main brz, lower the decibel level using Audacity, export (save) it as a wav file, and copy that file to your Z mod folder. You could substitute another wav file, such as Sergei's Decreased Ambience mod from CMSF (works fine in CMBN). But you'll have to extract the wav from within the brz and copy it to its correct filename. There are 5 background sound file names: background day combat.wav background fog.wav background night combat.wav background rain.wav background wind.wav - Chris

Cool, but more transparency could help. BTW, a unit that is panicking will have a more transparent icon and could get lost among the transparent fortifications, so perhaps make both sides slightly grey-ish (or brown-ish) in color. The US and Ger markers are different shapes, so making them the same color wouldn't matter, and it'll be a rare scenario that has fortifications on both sides anyway. - Chris

*In a QB I had an M20 AC hunting over a small rise along the road toward a village. Behind him, low in the gully with no LOS at all over the rise sat a Sherman-75. An enemy Tiger rolled into the village and the M20 had only just spotted him when he fired. The shell missed the M20, flew past its wheels and took out my completely defilade Sherman in the gully. Arrgggh! The now 3-man crew panicked and fled to the corner of the map. About 8 minutes later I moved the reduced crew back into its abandoned tank. I then moved him up and he took out another Tiger from the flank before succumbing to a third Tiger. Guess it just wasn't his day. * In another QB my PzIVH holed a Sherman-75 completely through-and-through (in through the upper right hull at about 30 degrees, and out the other side). The 75mm round had lost so much momentum that when it exited the tank it flew slower than a schreck round. I've seen deflections, and even - in CMSF - an Abrams holing two side-by-side BMPs, but I've never seen a tank round moving that slowly through the air. - Chris