Tanks a Lot

I want to thank Juju for all the hard work he put into this preview, and all the great comments and suggestions he makes to help me improve the look of these buildings. I know I can't make everybody happy. Removing the potted plants and watering can will probably cause others to say the base of the walls need something, because they are too empty. Because of game limitations, I am very limited in what I can do, not to mention all the limitations in my skill. Since the wall doesn't go down to the ground, a layer of plants/weeds, that might otherwise help the building blend in with the ground better, is really out of the question.

Unfortunately, at least for the independent buildings, the walls don't go all the way to the ground. They go into the base part that juts out, so any plants added to the bottom of the walls, will not look they are growing out of the ground.

It's going very, very slowly, with so many game issues to deal with, and unfortunate compromises to make. Plus, I'm really rusty at doing it. Here's a very early preview, since I'm still on the first building:

Another must-have mod. Can't wait for the next one.

Look at those rust stains leaking down from the rivets, now that's detail. Great work again, Juju.

The difference is stunning, but that's usual for Juju's mods, love the moss growing between the stones. I'm becoming well aware of all the issues and limitations, and the frustrations involved, so he did a great job of overcoming them.

Go out and grab it! Juju put a lot of work into this beauty.

We just like to make people suffer, while we get to play around with your great looking mod.

Thanks for the kind words, your comments always helped keep me going during the CMx1 days. Unfortunately, the same window/door problem showed up with building 001 and 002. I assume it will be the same with the rest. That really limits what I can do, aside from the wall texture itself. One of the unique things about Normandy buildings, from the pictures I've seen, is the somewhat haphazard placement and size of windows. Some entire sides of buildings have nothing but a blank wall. I might have have to resort to just playing the game. ;-)

Thanks Mord, good seeing you back too. Looks like I have a lot to learn, thanks for the tip.

I'll look into it, that sounds promising. Does the game need to be restarted for new textures to show up? Whenever I tried adding new BMPs to my Data/z folder, then going back to an already opened CMBN, the stock textures were still there. I used to alt-tab out to the desktop and back so many times testing my mods in the old days, I hope that can still be done.

Hey Juju, It's great seeing that you and other mod gods are back. Yeah, modding buildings is very daunting, and that's why I was just fiddling around right now. I thought it might be a little less so, since there are no winter or damaged, or winter damaged sets to feel compelled to make. If that window/door issue is confined to building 000, (of course it had to be the first one I tried) I might keep playing around with the idea. You helped me so much before, I'd gladly send you my work for testing, if I decide to commit to doing it again.

Thanks for clearing that up, Mike.

I was just fiddling around with modding a building or two when I noticed this strange sight: I used a solid wall texture, but there are outlines of the original windows showing through. Is this a bug or am I limited to using the exact placement and size of the original windows and doors?

Interesting experiment OSF had a lot of 8 bit terrain textures, filled 2x2 km maps and battalions running in the field. Hope I find the time to test it with fraps to, to see whether there's a difference. But I can read from your results that it won't be that dramatic What about physical memory use? It would have been awful to see your magnificent buildings in black & white :S Thanks Tanks a Lot! </font>

As an experiment, I converted all the buildings to 2-colors (1-bit). Then created a map with dozens of buildings. I then measured the frames per second with a tool called fraps. There was basically no significant difference in frames per second between the full colored buildings and the 1-bit buildings.

That's some nice work eichenbaum. About converting to indexed color, Philippe is right about "no free lunch". The file size will shrink to one third, but unfortunately the game converts them back to full color. A lot of people claim it will run smoother at 8-bit, but technically it shouldn't. Hopefully Kwazydog can confirm this for us.

Unfortunately, you can't see rocky terrain doodads from that height, no matter what you do to them.

I copied this post from an older thread that might help your problem. Do you have a CDV version? If yes, than you're probably putting them in the wrong folder, you have to put them in X\RUN\BMP with X the path to your CMAK folder.

Thanks Mord. I still remember you helping me out on that marsh mod, good times. When I look at the quality of Juju's buildings, I feel more like a jester than a king.

Thanks for the nice comments.

My attempt to make Normandy-style buildings. All eight small buildings, for all seasons, and damaged versions too. I tried to make the lighter ones mostly plaster/stucco, and the heavy ones stone for easier recognition. Four new roof textures are included. I hope your modems are ready, because this is a big download. Two packs weighing in at around 26MB each. You can see some previews here and here A big thanks to Juju for all his testing and great suggestions. You can download them from Santa's Mod Village Merry Christmas!

Thanks. I've been fiddling around with it the last few days. I kept making so many changes to the buildings that it was a pain to keep updating the site.

All four versions of the eight small buildings (summer, damaged, winter and winter damaged) are pretty much done. They should be available in a few days. I haven't really started on the tall buildings or shacks yet.

Wish I could make 'em like that. They look more realistic than the photographs, or are these the photographs? Stunning work again Juju. [ December 08, 2004, 01:01 PM: Message edited by: Tanks a Lot ]