FinnN

I'm pretty sure GIMP supports Photoshop plugins - Photoshop plugins use an open spec, so (with a few exceptions) most work in any program that supports them, Paintshop Pro etc. Have fun Finn

Just discovered, you can edit the height maps in Photoshop - no need for Geoscape! Details at the modding forum. Have fun Finn

If the 3D data in the maps is editable then you could sink the roads slightly and put a slight rise on either side on which to put the bushes. I don't think anyone's done this yet, but the format has been identified so maybe it would work. That would get you the required LOS effect as you'd have lots of mini reverse slopes. Have fun Fin

http://66.249.91.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=http://forums.games.1c.ru/%3Ftype%3Dflat%26tid%3D326464%26page%3D1%26set_mode%3D1%26DTFSESSID%3D1e66a13f5d94151c218f959ee8797d85#1889754 'Borrowed' from Close Combat apparently, personally I think an improvement over the ToW sounds, especially the small arms. Have fun Finn

http://66.249.91.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=http://forums.games.1c.ru/%3Ftype%3Dflat%26tid%3D326464%26page%3D1%26set_mode%3D1%26DTFSESSID%3D1e66a13f5d94151c218f959ee8797d85#1889754 'Borrowed' from Close Combat apparently, personally I think an improvement over the ToW sounds, especially the small arms. Have fun Finn

BTW, it's sensible to extract to a folder other than the game folder itself so it's easier to roll-back if things go wrong. What I do is use the JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler: http://www.users.on.net/~jscones/software/products.html Just put the modified files in their own folder and it's easy then to have multiple versions of the game which can be switched on and off just like that. I've also written a utility which handles the adding lines to filesid.ini and so on automatically, which I'll release at the same time as my infantry project. Have fun Finn

BTW, it's sensible to extract to a folder other than the game folder itself so it's easier to roll-back if things go wrong. What I do is use the JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler: http://www.users.on.net/~jscones/software/products.html Just put the modified files in their own folder and it's easy then to have multiple versions of the game which can be switched on and off just like that. I've also written a utility which handles the adding lines to filesid.ini and so on automatically, which I'll release at the same time as my infantry project. Have fun Finn

Ah, I see. Even so, an infantryman after one mission can get enough points to get in the range of a regular crewman. Personally I think the novice range needs replacing with the regular one (or maybe even bumped up a little) and the other ranges adjusted too. Also the minimum skill level to operate a gun needs pushing up (this is also in an ini file somewhere) so that it's harder to build up an unrealistic force mix of potential crew, the offset to this being that all your 'real' crew are much more competent. There are a number of inter-related sections and files so it needs to be done carefully, but I think it would be a move forward. Have fun Finn

I get a big boost with the 7.6 drivers as well (I have an X800) - I play with object shadowing on, but not self-shadowing. I run at 1600x1200 btw. Have fun Finn

The transparency comes from the alpha channel, not from any colour in the main texture. In case you haven't come across one before, normally an image is composed of three channels - one each for red, green and blue. An alpha channel is a fourth channel representing (usually) opacity. You can think of each channel as a grayscale image, for an alpha channel black is transparent, white is opaque with gray tones in between representing semi-transparency. There's also _spec files which contain information on bump mapping, shininess, etc - but providing you don't make major changes in representing the surface you can probably leave these alone. In passing these are 512x512 resolution files, whereas the textures are 256x256. You could probably reduce these to 256 and tweak out a little extra performance or up the textures to 512 and get a little extra detail. Have fun Finn

The transparency comes from the alpha channel, not from any colour in the main texture. In case you haven't come across one before, normally an image is composed of three channels - one each for red, green and blue. An alpha channel is a fourth channel representing (usually) opacity. You can think of each channel as a grayscale image, for an alpha channel black is transparent, white is opaque with gray tones in between representing semi-transparency. There's also _spec files which contain information on bump mapping, shininess, etc - but providing you don't make major changes in representing the surface you can probably leave these alone. In passing these are 512x512 resolution files, whereas the textures are 256x256. You could probably reduce these to 256 and tweak out a little extra performance or up the textures to 512 and get a little extra detail. Have fun Finn

That sounds great! If you need any assistance creating custom units (not just uniforms) let me know and I'll give you a hand (in a couple of weeks). Have fun Finn

What Dr.Jones says is correct, but I can I suggest that once you've given it a go to see that it all works that instead of replacing the existing skins you add new ones. This is a little bit more complicated but worth it in the long run. First of all go into the model folder where you find the textures: eg: {YOUR GAME FOLDER}\3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif Copy one of the folders containing the textures to a new folder name. eg: copy 'Summer1' to 'Summer3' Next, go into skins.ini and copy and paste one of the skins sections. Everywhere where you see 'Summer1' replace it with 'Summer3' </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">[skin_Summer1] Type Skin Name Summer1 SkinPath Summer1 Material0 mat_sh1 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat_sh1.mat Material1 mat_sh2 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat_sh2.mat Material2 mat_sh3 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat_sh3.mat Material3 mat1 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat1.mat Material4 mat2 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat2.mat Material5 mat3 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat3.mat Material6 mat4 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat4.mat Material7 mat5 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat5.mat Material8 mattr1 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mattr1.mat Material9 mattr1_a 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mattr1_a.mat Material10 mattr2 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mattr2.mat Material11 mattr2_a 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mattr2_a.mat Material12 matzaptrk_1 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\matzaptrk_1.mat Material13 matzaptrk_all 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\matzaptrk_all.mat Material14 zip1 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\zip1.mat Material15 zip2 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\zip2.mat</pre>

What Dr.Jones says is correct, but I can I suggest that once you've given it a go to see that it all works that instead of replacing the existing skins you add new ones. This is a little bit more complicated but worth it in the long run. First of all go into the model folder where you find the textures: eg: {YOUR GAME FOLDER}\3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif Copy one of the folders containing the textures to a new folder name. eg: copy 'Summer1' to 'Summer3' Next, go into skins.ini and copy and paste one of the skins sections. Everywhere where you see 'Summer1' replace it with 'Summer3' </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">[skin_Summer1] Type Skin Name Summer1 SkinPath Summer1 Material0 mat_sh1 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat_sh1.mat Material1 mat_sh2 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat_sh2.mat Material2 mat_sh3 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat_sh3.mat Material3 mat1 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat1.mat Material4 mat2 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat2.mat Material5 mat3 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat3.mat Material6 mat4 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat4.mat Material7 mat5 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mat5.mat Material8 mattr1 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mattr1.mat Material9 mattr1_a 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mattr1_a.mat Material10 mattr2 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mattr2.mat Material11 mattr2_a 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\mattr2_a.mat Material12 matzaptrk_1 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\matzaptrk_1.mat Material13 matzaptrk_all 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\matzaptrk_all.mat Material14 zip1 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\zip1.mat Material15 zip2 3dobj\tanks\ger\pz_iif\summer1\zip2.mat</pre>

Here's the relevant table from : </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">{Shooter} // Novice Regular Veteran Elite Leadership 0 10 10 40 40 70 70 90 Driver 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Gunlayer 1 19 20 49 50 79 80 95 Scout 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Accuracy 0 5 5 10 10 20 20 30 Intelligence 5 100 15 100 25 100 35 100</pre>

I think the problem is that unexperienced gunners have skills that are too rubbish, which is why you tend to have difficulties in campaigns and not single missions. Of course having poor skills means they're less likely to survive, which means they get less experience, etc - it's a vicious circle. I think this is something that can be modded globally (looking at the relevant files briefly it seems that they haven't changed in the patch at first glance), or someone can edit the missions to give all the men more experience. I've not played the patch campaign yet, but certainly the original campaigns had that meat-grinder problem. Historically, given the odds you usually face and the level of experience your men have, the result of most of the battles would be an overrun or Victoria Crosses all round - and in a weird sort of way it's good that that's a typical outcome. Historically not all battles consisted of green troops being attacked at odds of 3 to 5:1 by crack divisions (or even worse doing the attacking). I like a challenge, but I'd rather have a more realistic, balanced and immersive campaign. Have fun Finn

Nope, leaving on Monday - can't wait! The 3D textures are dxt5 flavour DDS files, but named as .tga files. DDS is a native DirectX graphics format, so it can be decompressed by the graphics card rather than the CPU. TGA files would probably work, but best to stick to DDSes for that reason. There's a variety of tools that can read and write them, I'm using the Photoshop plugin from NVidia. SlapHappy is correct though, currently we can't create or modify the .msh files - so we can only change textures or (in the case of vehicles) connect parts (which have separate .msh files) together in different ways. I think that and the 3D terrain are the only two things which aren't potentially moddable at the moment, and as the .msh files are probably a custom format it'll need someone with some experience analysing that sort of thing to make any progress. This is what Dr.Jones has found out so far: http://tow.sieber-markus.de/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=21 Have fun Finn

Nope, leaving on Monday - can't wait! The 3D textures are dxt5 flavour DDS files, but named as .tga files. DDS is a native DirectX graphics format, so it can be decompressed by the graphics card rather than the CPU. TGA files would probably work, but best to stick to DDSes for that reason. There's a variety of tools that can read and write them, I'm using the Photoshop plugin from NVidia. SlapHappy is correct though, currently we can't create or modify the .msh files - so we can only change textures or (in the case of vehicles) connect parts (which have separate .msh files) together in different ways. I think that and the 3D terrain are the only two things which aren't potentially moddable at the moment, and as the .msh files are probably a custom format it'll need someone with some experience analysing that sort of thing to make any progress. This is what Dr.Jones has found out so far: http://tow.sieber-markus.de/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=21 Have fun Finn

It's probably because they're not in the filelist.txt file that comes with the extractor as the one included is quite out of date. In the post at the modding forums I've outlined what you need to do to get the filelist.txt up-to-date. The time consuming (and boring) bit is running the game and opening/closing all the missions etc to catch most the file names with filemon. If no-one has done it for the patched version by the time I get back I'll do it and upload a newer txt file, but I don't have time before going away. Glad people are liking the WIP, hopefully it won't take too long to get something together for release when I get back. Have fun Finn

It's probably because they're not in the filelist.txt file that comes with the extractor as the one included is quite out of date. In the post at the modding forums I've outlined what you need to do to get the filelist.txt up-to-date. The time consuming (and boring) bit is running the game and opening/closing all the missions etc to catch most the file names with filemon. If no-one has done it for the patched version by the time I get back I'll do it and upload a newer txt file, but I don't have time before going away. Glad people are liking the WIP, hopefully it won't take too long to get something together for release when I get back. Have fun Finn

As I've mentioned before I'm working on a complete overhaul of the German infantry in the game, this consists of a number of bits </font> A database to simplify editing and creating the units and their equipment, ranks, etc, etc</font>An exporter which creates the text files that the game uses from the database</font>Textures</font>New squads, split into natural (and historical) firing teams</font> I was hoping to get something done that could be shared properly before going away for 2 weeks on Tuesday, but as this is unlikely now I think I thought I'd share some pics of work in progress. First of all the new squads - what I've done is split them up into two (or in a few cases three) teams. One for each LMG team and another with the rifle/SMG team (squads with no LMG I've just split down the middle). This may not seem like much, but it makes a big difference to gameplay - you can double click on each natural unit, order them to give covering fire etc, then double click on the second half and get them to move without worrying about accidentally sending them off. You can kind-of do this already by assigning keys, but it's very fiddly and not as quick as simply double clicking. Hard to show in a pic, but here you go - and early war rifle squad, lmg with 2 assistants and the rifle team commanded by the man with smg: Now all of this would be a bit dull without new uniforms, so I've been working on them too. I've almost finished setting up my photoshop templates, done most of the tunic variations, now working on the camo smocks, then just have the parka sets to go, plus some without marching boots. Here's a sample of the ss-camo, with one random one from the tunics (the SA texture): From top to bottom, left to right: Peas 44 B, Italian camo trousers; an autumn plane tree pattern; smock made from Italian camo; palm trees with clumps (autumn); a summer plane tree pattern; palm trees with clumps (summer); SA Militia (Styria - used in anti-partisan operations in Slovenia, later merged into the Volkssturm); a summer burred edge pattern; another autumn plane tree pattern. These are still works in progress (things like shoulder boards, collars and insignia haven't been worked on these yet), but should give some idea of the range I'm aiming at. Both the textures and models are fairly low resolution unfortunately, but I think they still look OK in the game and fine unless you get too close - this is the one from the top left: Have fun Finn

As I've mentioned before I'm working on a complete overhaul of the German infantry in the game, this consists of a number of bits </font> A database to simplify editing and creating the units and their equipment, ranks, etc, etc</font>An exporter which creates the text files that the game uses from the database</font>Textures</font>New squads, split into natural (and historical) firing teams</font> I was hoping to get something done that could be shared properly before going away for 2 weeks on Tuesday, but as this is unlikely now I think I thought I'd share some pics of work in progress. First of all the new squads - what I've done is split them up into two (or in a few cases three) teams. One for each LMG team and another with the rifle/SMG team (squads with no LMG I've just split down the middle). This may not seem like much, but it makes a big difference to gameplay - you can double click on each natural unit, order them to give covering fire etc, then double click on the second half and get them to move without worrying about accidentally sending them off. You can kind-of do this already by assigning keys, but it's very fiddly and not as quick as simply double clicking. Hard to show in a pic, but here you go - and early war rifle squad, lmg with 2 assistants and the rifle team commanded by the man with smg: Now all of this would be a bit dull without new uniforms, so I've been working on them too. I've almost finished setting up my photoshop templates, done most of the tunic variations, now working on the camo smocks, then just have the parka sets to go, plus some without marching boots. Here's a sample of the ss-camo, with one random one from the tunics (the SA texture): From top to bottom, left to right: Peas 44 B, Italian camo trousers; an autumn plane tree pattern; smock made from Italian camo; palm trees with clumps (autumn); a summer plane tree pattern; palm trees with clumps (summer); SA Militia (Styria - used in anti-partisan operations in Slovenia, later merged into the Volkssturm); a summer burred edge pattern; another autumn plane tree pattern. These are still works in progress (things like shoulder boards, collars and insignia haven't been worked on these yet), but should give some idea of the range I'm aiming at. Both the textures and models are fairly low resolution unfortunately, but I think they still look OK in the game and fine unless you get too close - this is the one from the top left: Have fun Finn

I've just uploaded the Extraction tool to CMMODs on behalf of Dr.Jones and hopefully we should also see it over at the modding forums as well soon. Details here: http://tow.sieber-markus.de/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=23 Get ready to explore the secrets of those SFS files! Have fun and thanks to Dr.Jones! Finn

I've just uploaded the Extraction tool to CMMODs on behalf of Dr.Jones and hopefully we should also see it over at the modding forums as well soon. Details here: http://tow.sieber-markus.de/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=23 Get ready to explore the secrets of those SFS files! Have fun and thanks to Dr.Jones! Finn

It's there in the English version, 'ignore campaign loss' if I remember correctly - it's in one of the game option menus. By the way, if you look at the campaign files you'll see there's an entry for which mission to go to if you win and which one to go to if you lose so some sort of branching campaign would be possible. Have fun Finn