PIATpunk

Here is the new version of the 4 months June July August and September (for @Aragorn2002) which uses @Lucky_Strike mods.
it works on the same principle as the previous version
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gusx1a43oah26px/AAAegFjxuQtbkwb0s58cgNgma?dl=0
 
The goal is to use as many of the fantastic of @Lucky-Strike bmps as possible over the course of the four months.
I took the time to be able to compare and refine, watching the evolution of nature during these 4 months. The richness of the lucky strike mod offers a (very) large number of combinations!!
 
In addition to the Lucky Strike mods other are original textures
I also tweaked the Ramblers mod for the trees by changing the colors and mixing them with the stock and Lucky Strike ones to break the repeat effect.
You will also find the plowed fields of Kieme and Aris modified so that the colors match the Norman soil which is brown.
Finally the whole has been reworked in color and saturation.
For reasons of balance so that if you are flush with the ground or at half height and height, some BMP does not appear "tackled" giving an unpleasant effect
 
You will also find a multitude of small insignificant details but which to put together give a real impression of the Normandy countryside.
 
 The mods that I offer you, largely build and combine with these original textures, I advise you to remove all other vegetation and terrain mods to get the best result.
 
There are 6 files: one called land of Normandy
 
This is to be permanently installed in the z folder
 
Then 5 other files called June, Wet July and Dry July, August and September which must be installed as desired in z
 
You have to choose depending on the scenario which you are going to install in z. As soon as you take a scenario that changes months, all you have to do is put the corresponding "month" folder, thinking that you have deleted the previous "month" folder.
 
 “Rendons a César ce qui est a César”
Without the existence of  @Lucky-Strike  Hedgerow hell mod, this mod would have been impossible. BIG BIG THANK you to him
 I invite you to watch the post very carefully and strongly advise you to use "zzzzzz-LS-new-bocage-straight-1" which gives a big plus to the general aspect of the game
 

june

wet july

dry july

august

september

Tiger in august !!

 

FR Rumble at Reitwein
2304x976
This in an out-take from Fire&Rubble that didn't get time to have tested to standard (though I have done many runs on it in Scenario Author mode, and in my own playtesting).
Meeting Engagement just to the west of Reitwein between Soviet 370 RD and attached armor elements versus elements of Reitwein area Volkssturm, Panther-Battalion "Brandenburg", a KG from the "Kurmark" Division, and attached stragglers from 9th FJ Division.
The scenario is fictional, but is derived from actions and forces in the area in attempting to enlarge/reduce the Soviet bridgehead over the Oder.
Play as either side. 1 plan for Axis, 2 for Soviet side. May also be suitable for HTH.


 
FR Rumble at Reitwein.btt

Hello everyone that is playtesting.  I went over it for the 5th time.   I have since done some revisions.   Fixed some map Aesthetics' and flavor objects.  Added 8 Troop in which I  had forgot in the very beginning with a couple small items.  Fixed some AI timing on the Axis side to make it more Neutral for H2H play of sorts and added more to Allied description and added the names of those play testing the scenario.   https://www.dropbox.com/s/d8rpdpnpn7k2p46/A Once Quiet Town V2.zip?dl=0
LATEST VERSION HERE...

Wee update.
Overview of (slow) progress from first post. Spent time creating village of Jasienica. Which is the long village bottom centre of the image below.

Comparison with the map I'm working from (its a Russian 1:50 000 but also x-referencing with Polish 1:25 000 just contour inof and other stuff was easier to work with using Russian map as basis for overlay). I'm also checking in with Google earth but this place has changed a lot since 1944. It also shows the compromises I've made in creating the map within the game engine constraints. Few wee techniques used though. 'Dirt lot' tiles make good hard surface dirt roads you can run at any angle. With short grass at the edges it blends in well. Tad wider than required but means easier for player to plot movement orders. As I said I tend to avoid zig-zag roads from personal preference and aim more for the 'feel' of the road/track etc.

View of Jasienica - looking NW.

View of Jasienica - looking west along the main drag of the village.

Looking SE towards the village from the northernmost railtrack.

Overview of the map looking NE towards Tluszcz.

Ground level view from NW corner of the mpa at the railtrack looking south.

Oh and I intend to place lots of craters and then go back over and damage everything....

The name is my WIP reference name and refers to a rather confused action around the village of Jasienica and the town of Tluszcz in Poland mid August 1944.
This map is fairly large (4x3km) but has been giving me a bit of trouble to sort out. Its low laying terrain with a rather complicated rail network on often embankments. looks easy but trying to get everything to match up... Also progress has been glacial slow due to RL. Still getting there.
This is the real world location on period maps and aerial images taken before the actions occurred (though judging by the shell holes it was getting some hot attention from bombing raids I suspect!



So first step was sketching out the map in CM.

This was pretty quick to do as effectively this is just sketching using the overlay. I'm not a fan of zig-zag roads. So i end up making compromises to 'fit' the overall 'feel' of the road/track/rail. I think this makes it easier for the player in game to plot road movements etc. So I compromise map accuracy for ease of play.
The real work comes when you start adding the elevations... This was a tough one as there are also lots of water features. Lots of do and re-do to only re-do-re-do...

So slowly taking shape. This is the railtrack at the north of the above maps looking west.

Looking south, from the west edge of the north of the map, towards the large wood block (on Google earth they are marked as 'Budziska'.

Looking back east from the above wood block - way in distanced will be Tluszcz (not started on that yet)

View of current state of work of the map. Only about a 1/4 done regarding terraforming! A looong way to go yet. The view here is the same view as above but slightly higher. I'm just starting doing the village of Jasienica itself (top right), which will take a wee while.
Cheery! 

@Artkin @37mm Corrupted barn wall is from Tanks a Lot's CMRT Big Barn 1. Here's the uncorrupted version if you haven't grabbed it yet https://drive.google.com/file/d/19wwWHoLBQh2E8LQ_rqA7MnIAzvJKaOt-/view

Have been doing some more work on our beloved Bocage this week, trying to remember how far I'd gotten and how to do stuff in Blender. The good news is I have now got a good solid technique going which I can repeat for all the various sections of bocage. I can now make bocage that is very different from the original game stock and will hopefully give us a more naturalistic gaming environment ...

... this image shows the one section model that I have reworked thus far - bocage-straight-1.mdr - repeated three times on a straight run of bocage. What you can see immediately is that it has a much more ragged profile with a bit of light coming through the underside and NO beanpoles, those you can see are from other unmodified sections. Here is the Blender render of the model ...

... fully clad ...

... leaves removed from the main body. Blender tends to give a smoother render than the game engine.
As you can see from the last image we have a large ash sapling to one side which gives immediate height, the supporting branches are now more bush like and there is a good layer of undergrowth at the bottom. The ash sapling and undergrowth are fixed, extra textures whilst the body of the bocage is variable. So depending on the number of boccage textures present in your Z folder, there are an almost infinite number of combinations that can appear in-game. This is just one section remember, by the time I have reworked the other fifteen 😩 section types for tall bocage alone the variations will be legion. With different extras textures for the other sections along with variations on height and depth we can finally have a representation of bocage that gets us closer to what I envisioned when I started this project last year.
If anyone would like to take this for a spin let me know and I'll make a little bocage bundle to drop in your z folder.

I can see it's been a while since I gave my fellow tree-huggers an update so ...
I'll start with the bocage, or rather sunken lanes. I've been doing some experiments with other ways of creating sunken lanes. Previously I had just put two rows of tall bocage on adjacent, parallel rows of tiles. This provided a not too bad version of the sunken lanes we see in Normandy, but I felt it could be improved upon, or at least made differently. So starting with the same two rows of tall bocage what I tried was to ditchlock the bocage in ditches of 1-2m depth running their length, any more and the ground becomes very distorted whilst surroundings become harder to manage. The ground texture is, at the moment, just plain old dirt, but other textures might well be useful, forest light can look effective, but does introduce quite a bit of vegetation so the path becomes less distinct. A custom tagged ground texture might be the way to go on these. The result, with lots of heavy bocage, is a tunnel-like experience that I would imagine provides almost total concealment, and which induces a real sense of claustrophobia. They are just about wide enough for smaller vehicles though corners are likely to stop movement. Probably best treated as footpaths. Here's a little sample map with trees off ...

At left a zigzag path running uphill south to north, forking at the top, the other down the middle running along a field edge. As you can see they are somewhat narrower than the regular dirt road, at left and right. At ground level ...

... the track through the middle, just about wide enough for a 250, probably navigable, but a bumpy ride ...

... hunting through the dappled shade further up the path ...

... it's dark in there, even on a sunny day!
Now back to trees ... As it stands I have now done enough exercises and experiments in Blender to successfully export tree models, new or modified, with proper wrapped bark texture on the trunks and nicely swaying leaves for windier conditions. I've learnt some more of the limitations of the game engine. I've figured out an approach to making LODs that works in both the same way as the originals but also, I hope, enhances the look of them somewhat. I can pretty much make any tree that I desire to see in the game, and have it appear in pretty much all seasons, though winter is still to be worked on just because how snow looks on trees can vary tremendously depending on the amount of precipitation, so coming up with a single solution for all snowy conditions is unlikely to give the best results. This will also apply to bushes. This all assumes that BF DON'T change the way trees work in all the existing WW2 games since I discovered SF2 has a quite different approach that I think will be more difficult to mod in such a pleasing manner.
So, introducing the Scot's Pine (Pinus sylvestris) or my take on it.

It's the tall ones centre left. (These are in BN) I have made these deliberately taller than the stock pine trees.


They stand head and shoulders above other trees and are more like the type that might be seen in a mature plantation rather than the more twisted forms that are also commonly seen. Pines are generally used in game to represent plantations or vast forests so it seemed appropriate. Going forward I will probably increase the height of some of the other trees a bit as they're on the small side IMHO. Any tree can of course be made to represent whatever tree we want by reworking the model and a little tagging or renaming. We can even have a set of say just pines and conifers to represent a heavy coniferous forest seen in more northerly or mountainous regions.

A small plantation.
Scot's Pines are found throughout much of mainland Europe so are a good species to represent. The models are a bit more complex and natural than the game originals but they seem to work without problem in game.
Running the game at balanced or improved which are the recommended setting means that LODs are used more often. What I discovered is that the LODs are actually used a lot more than I originally suspected. So long as a tree isn't moving then it's probably a LOD, usually LOD level 1 but more often LOD 2 or LOD 3 are used. What this means is that the lower detailed models are used even when quite close to them. LOD 1 will be in view at ranges of less 50m commonly, and in some cases when it's almost right next to the viewpoint, LODs 2 and 3 are commonly seen from about 100m out to 400m, whilst LOD 4 (the star-shaped trees viewed from high above) are seen at anything from 100m to a few km depending on quality settings and how many trees are featured on the map. Incidentally LOD 3 is the model used for bare tree trunks when trees are toggled off. What I've tried to do is make the detail levels of the first three LOD levels a bit closer to the detail level of the normal model, reducing it as the LODs become more distant. I have also tried to make LOD 4 look a bit more like a tree in the distance but also, importantly for very large dense forests, allowed it to work when viewed from a bit closer. I can't control when LODs kick in, but I can make the models a bit more detailed to compensate for this. 

Morning on the edge of the Zon Forest near to the town of Best (MG Outstanding Gallantry). The distant trees are LOD 4.

At the edge of the forest - a lot of trees! The foreground is Normal and LOD 1 but the scene quickly starts to use LOD 4 models because of the sheer number of trees rendered. Of note, the LOD 4 models don't cast or receive shadows.

The other side of the forest in sunlight, the trees in the middle are LOD 4, notice how the light doesn't affect their trunks, can't alter this ...

... but, IMHO, they do blend quite well, especially considering they are used relatively close up, as on the right here.
Another benefit of the extra details, hopefully, is that the jerkiness and flickering associated with trees won't be so noticeable when transitions between LODs are a little smoother, but this is yet to be demonstrated with multiple new models.
Things like the lack of shadows on LOD level 4 are stuff that I can't influence. Increasing ones quality settings in-game pushes the point at which LODs are introduced further form the camera, but at a serious cost in render speed and frame rate. The shadows under the trees move back a bit but they are still missing in the distance. A mistake in my opinion since the shadows at that distance bind the trees to the ground and create a sense of distance and depth, they're what makes it look three dimensional, makes it pop! Look at a landscape with distant woods and you'll notice that the underside of trees and the ground below, even on dull days, is much darker, whereas in game it's light and indistinct. I know that there are compromises with how the game has to work and what is rendered, limited by consideration for hardware, but I do believe this one is an error in judgement ... IMHO. If I could fix one thing it might be this ...

The Rhone Valley as appears in game on a bright day but not full sun (with my mods)

Artist's (huhhum) impression with shadows under distant trees. Perhaps a consideration for the next engine ...
As always your feedback is greatly appreciated. And remember to plant a tree 🌲

Hello, I had created this scenario some time ago and would like to make it public.  I had spent about 3 months researching the units involved, and actually where this small unit action took place.  Although there really was no official information from the US side with some exceptions, I did list my sources in the scenario if you wish to check them out.  You can download it here.  Again, let me know your thoughts.  Note:  I did increase the challenge by adding some things US side, and I updated it, giving the AI another plan.  
Playable only as Axis vs AI.      Ghost Rider CM Missions - Dropbox
 
Best regards,
James.

Guys
This thread will be used for me to advise you of updates and latest uploads to the aforementioned areas.
Its an ongoing process that Im working through but a quick update for this first post is....
The Scenario Depot III : Ive totally redesigned this and am working on fixing thumbnails so that the grid format looks good.  When uploading scenarios be sure to use a square image (any size) for your featured image.

The CM Mod Warehouse : A huge task that Im still plodding away at. Im tidying up all the downloads from the previous site and have also got a HDD full of mods from the mists of time that will eventually all get uploaded also.
The Proving Grounds II : This site is dead but I am going to work on it to turn TPGII into something new... possibly a challenge site or something along those lines... still to be decided.
Any updates I carry out or content uploaded you will be notified about in this thread.  
Thats all for now.
Thanks
Bootie

I have made a mod for ploughed fields in snowy conditions that produces much less annoying moiré patterns. The ploughed fields ground texture is also used for some of the crop fields. Here is an overview what it looks like under sunny conditions (click and enhance to expand for a closer view):

The mod is the same for Final Blitzkrieg and Red Thunder but I made seperate folders for convenience. Note that there is a seperate one for Fortress Italy. All three can be found here for now, and maybe @Bootie can add them to CMMODS later on.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1cyq3wnr79ym0mb/AACTEp1VWL0H-3zUaiCzSxC1a?dl=0
 

Sorry my friend.  RL got busy.  This Friday, September 24th, I'll make time to send it to Bootie.   

One of my ongoing side projects (aimed, mostly, at the new influx of Steam Players) is to host an 'All in One' for every CM game here.
This is my initial effort for RT & its primary feature is a large collection of weathered vehicle mods (by @kohlenklau, @umlaut  & @Aristoteles ) renamed & tagged so that they now work with F&R. It also features terrain mods by @SeinfeldRules, UI mods by @rocketman, @Marco Bergman & @Volksgrenadier, Infantry mods by @EZ, @Tashtego & @Ithikial_AU, loading screens by @umlaut, building mods by @Kieme(ITA) & @Tanks a Lot as well as the ME effects package, ME soundscape & (subdued & fixed) superpack voices by @ironsturm plus many more others.
I know a lot of people had issues with their old RT mods & the new Fire & Rubble module so hopefully this modpack will be of some interest to them.
Here's a taster of some of what you can expect...
 
 
Here's the modpack link...
https://www.mediafire.com/file/rwd0d774itq1omg/CMRT_Initial_%27All_in_One%27.7z/file

One of my ongoing side projects (aimed at the new influx of Steam Players) is to host an 'All in One' for every CM game here... I suspect my initial CMRT pack will be "ready" in a few days.

Feeling ambitious, and buoyed up by some success working with the 3D models in Blender, I decided to experiment with a bit more scratch modelling. I remembered that someone had mentioned having pine trees that reached down to the ground, that looked a bit more wild and less like plantation trees. So here I give you an old spruce. You're either going to love it or hate it depending on how you play and what you like to do in forests. I've staged these in CMRT because that has eight tree varieties so it's easier to mix in two types of spruce, my new old one interspersed with the type with a very bare trunk. Mixed in this way creates a much more dynamic forest. I can even see an excuse for replacing all the tree models with spruces and pines in various stages of growth, even some tiddlers - image ... 🎄🌲🎄 ...


new spruce on the left, spruce with bare trunk on the right ...



the view out from underneath - probably needs a little bit more foliage ...

ideal for mountainous scenarios ...

So there you have it. The model I've made is a combination of reworked found and original BF. Interestingly the found was much higher detailed than the normal models we have, meaning a lot of extra info is stored in the file to create a more naturalistic tree. I thought these would fail miserably in game, leading to poor performance and lots of stuttering if they worked at all. To my delight they are fine on my system which is fairly conservative in terms of GPU. This bodes well for future model making and I hope it's a sign that I can push the envelope a bit further than before ... guess what's coming next ...

Well, what's the old saying, where there's a will ... no more nasty texture distortion (caveat: with some compromise) ...
There's no manual for how to mod CM, especially how to mod the 3D models, so this is all made up after much trial and even more error, but some careful thinking with prompts from our amazing mod powerhouse that is @kohlenklau and a drop of the special sauce 🥃 (donations very welcome 😉) ... I spent one more (very long) night bashing my head against a very tough tree trunk, trying to get rid of aforesaid texture distortions, and just as Mr Blackbird was greeting the dawn I decided to call it quits. Off to bed for you my lad and dream of mods. Then, just as I was cleaning me gnashers I had a thought about my last attempts, which had seemed better but still not much; I had separated all the main components into their own meshes (sorry if this sounds like nonsense to the uninitiated, it might help some other poor soul), but most of the distortions remained except at some edges, what if, as with the game's originals, the models all need to be tubes? So, today, I cut the trunk into a series of tubular sections, deleted most so that I was only concentrating on the large bottom section, and tried again, better! What about slicing the trunk lengthways - imagine a paper tube cut along it's length then opened out flat; better again the texture distortion along the cut edges gone! You see where this is headed?
Finally, cutting the whole tube into manageable sections gets rid of the distortion at ALL the edges of ALL the sections, each sub-mesh effectively has it's own texture map that stops at it's edges and doesn't affect it's immediate neighbours - hey-presto no distorted textures (excepting if I actually make them distorted). Why this way? Don't know, maybe the game cannot handle curves beyond a certain angle, there are for sure other curved facets in the game, but most are made from tubular shapes constructed with triangular cross-sections or square, pentagonal, hexagonal, octagonal, etc (essentially triangles, look down the muzzle end of a large calibre gun barrel when next in game to see what I mean, they're not round, you get the picture), nothing wonky ... so all tubular shapes need to be constructed in this way OR from flattish individual panels, more like building for instance.
So here boys and girls is a more naturalistic tree trunk without nasty weird distorted textures that will work in game ...

... it's only the bottom section, the branches need a whole load of work to do the same and so on ...

... the caveat (at the moment) there are more angular interfaces, much less curviness and more sharp edges, compare it to the very first images of the tree in game at the start of this thread ...

... in-game, in the corner of a field, Fritz hiding in the shadows ...

... whilst his comrades sun themselves in the long grass at the woods' edge, waiting for Tommy ...
The sharper angles might be something I can work around by adding more faces to the 3D mesh, which don't impact massively on the 'drawing' cost of a tree in-game compared to all those leaves ... my tree already has a smaller triangle (face) count than the official version.
Happy days!
 

Partisan ambush triggered.  

Another quick Blender knockabout - I just can't leave those beanpoles alone ... 

Okay, this one's pretty subtle but once I got a taste for it I decided we could probably do better than the beanpoles, and why not stress those GPUs a little bit more with some new textures whilst I'm at it. You probably can't see the difference initially, so for the less eagle-eyed out there I've done a version with nice colour-coded highlighting (no it's not a return of the Bazzer Bocage ) ... 

So what you got is the original beanpoles circled in yellow, not liked. Next to these I have inserted some brush into the bocage model (circled in red), this is part of my brush texture adapted for use inside bocage, it is incorporated into a straight bocage section model. Also in that model are two branchy things which I guess are like bare, mini trees or bushes, these are circled in pink. They are models based on something I grabbed from the SF2 demo and are buried deep inside the bocage, sporting a new bark texture which is essentially hawthorn but scaled to fit these models.
There you have it boys and girls, a single new bocage model which get's us away from wild french beans. There are perhaps thirty or so bocage models to alter, so I'm gonna be busy for a while with that little lot. I'm also going to try things like adjusting the height and width of some sections, maybe adding some tall, spindly stuff and thinning out some of the textures to create a bit of variety. Perhaps add a decimated stump to a section, or a small tree. The possibilities are now endless ... 

Oh how easily he's distracted - my school reports often mentioned this trait. Partly window gazing, partly day dreaming, nevertheless curious. I am supposed to be working on my next big mod project but I got looking at some of last year's attempts in Blender to rework trees and such. Thinking I'd crack two proverbial nuts I decided to see what I could do now that I have a little more (dangerous) knowledge of Blender and the dark arts of 3D. I was going to look again at those beanpoles propping up the bocage when I came across a tree that I had started but could never figure out how to get in the game. I just couldn't export the damn thing from Blender to make anything more than floating broccoli in the distance. Anyway equipped with a bit more patience and a damp Sunday afternoon (though it's now very late into the small hours) I have finally squeezed something out of the Blender tube ... I give you a naturalistic oak ...


... or at least the start of one. The shape is working and I think I can alter it whilst still getting a result out of Blender; what I'm struggling with at the moment is getting the texture-mapping figured out. I have some working whilst other parts are somewhat bedazzled, but I think it's solvable. My question is do you folks want it? A whole forest of these old, leaning trees is a bit much but I guess they could be combined with a straight version of the same tree type for variety. Also a similar model for them apples might be quite nice, ancient orchards and all that. Thoughts people?
In the meantime I'm back to the steppe to work on my latest, although I still need to look at the bocage beanpoles ...
 

Another few adaptions of independent building textures to modular for more variety:

 

 

Cheers Mate.
1) JPz IV - Blast someone noticed. Yeah they were so similar when I was creating the Late variant that I stopped. Will take another look.
2) Whoops!

I Love what is going on with this mod and 100% support the tough decisions made on standardisation and simplification.
Found two tiny oversights:
1. The silhouettes for the JPz IV (early) and JPz IV/70(V) are the same; they're both the silhouette for the JPz IV (early).
2. The branch indicator icon for Soviet armoured infantry doesn't show up in-game. I assumed because the icon's name in the files is "soviet motorized infantry" when it should be "soviet armored infantry". This assumption turned out to be correct when I changed the name and loaded up a fresh game.
Cheers and thanks again for taking the reins on this great mod!