RockinHarry

Thanks, another good time saver. Figured it´s "ALT + CTRL + CLICK", to unify whole side window/wall configurations, for multistory modular buildings. This way, building city blocks with all adjoining houses and inner walls beeing correct (blank wall, no windows & doors), goes way faster.

Yes, that´s what I figured lately. Thanks for the tip re not needing any units onmap for the cam position stick and work. Seems the 3D map preview is as good as useless.

Something appropiate for elaborate defense positions in fairly open terrain. Combined with AP mine fields and mixed in CMN barb wire, it would do the purpose failry well I think. 2 rows of "X" pattern wire fence: Uploaded with ImageShack.us ..or maybe an idea for CM: The great war Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Of concern is what a fence is mainly used for (in western europe). Cattle and meadows are usually wire fences, while wooden fences are either of the garden, backyard type, or oftenly seen at horse farms. You either fence something in or out. Plantations and farm fields are very rarely fenced at all. If you can´t safely keep something in or out by fences, you wouldn´t waste resources building some. So the main use for CM wire and wooden fences would be: Wire: Cattle, some private properties, dangerous areas (swamps ect.) Wooden: Horse farms, private gardens, backyards ect. Don´t place fences for pure "cosmetical" reasons, particularly crop and farm fields. Beside beeing unrealistic, they also provide unnecessary obstacles to players and the AI. To the contrary, I could imagine purposely placing wire fences as sort of a "light wire obstacle" (as opposed to the impenetrable CMN barb wire) in user made scenarios, or to attempt "channelizing" AI movements in certain areas. I´ve not tested the latter though.

Wished the 3D preview in editor saves last cam position (always restores to 0,0). I now "preview" particular map changes in Units/Deploy...mode, with at least 1 onmap unit present. It´s one click more, but at last saves considerable time, as one does not need to scroll all over the map again and again to reach the last viewed map spot.

Yes, true. I had a focus on outer appearance of gritty looking city streets for this exemplary building block. There´s yet few adjoining buildings, which have the inner walls correct, but I´ll do that in next step, when testing AI and general unit behavior. Good next topic for this thread! Yes, as you mention, cycling through is the only way, but if you reach blown wall, next is no wall and then comes wall/no windows. Takes 9 to 14 fast clicks to get there. Another issue is mixing adjoining independent and modular buildings, since you can´t change wall layout of independent buildings, just their textures. Balconies are generally way oversized, so I´d possibly avoid them. Placing buildings with balconies half an action spot back, might give a better visual result. About to test all this later. Btw,...this so far is all "prototype" testing and if things all look and work right, I´ve plans to work on full scenario and map, with probable Brest or Aachen setting. Brest also had half of german troops non paratroopers, so it should be ok for a CMN scenario. Aachen would be outside CMN time frame though. We´ll see.

Even the hurtgen forest does not have or had uniform looks. There´s older fir trees with branches starting couple of meters high and visibility is comparatively good (CMN Tree E). Then there´s younger ones with branches down to the floor and you can hardly see beyond the next tree. Then there´s mixed age fir tree areas, but visibility is mostly determined by younger ones. Then there´s the smashed pine tree forests that we oftenly see in wartime pics. Visibility in them is almost solely determined by all the debris, branches and tree crowns lying on the ground. There´s also a couple of pics from shortly after the war, where huge forest fires had devastated the area furtherly, with just the tree trunks sticking out of the ground with all debris and underbrush completely burned away. The hurtgen also has/had a number of areas with mixed type forests or pure deciduous trees. Would be nice to have younger/smaller trees of every kind added to CMN as well. Btw, can you identify the 5 CMN trees? Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Wished the see through mode for occupied buildings could be switched off, like in CMX1. But here´s the Ronson added. Lighting is somewhat changed due to the burning Sherman.

Exactly. Here´s Paved1 & Dirt Road and Gravel Road & Dirt Road. Underlying Dirt, or Dirt Lot smoothes things out.

Hauptmann Schultz figures his new staff car beeing beyond repair, although Opel driver Hans claims, that just bits of paint will do the fix.

A nice feature in Units / Purchase units section, is the ability to also place vehicles in "destroyed" or "burning" state onto the map. You can set this before or after purchase in "Vehicle Status" drop down menu. Also works for shelters/bunkers. The destroyed Opel below is given randomly created states, meaning it sometimes shows with co driver door open, sometimes shut and same goes for the rear deck flap. Didn´t test other destroyed vehicle state configurations yet. Placement of destroyed/burning stuff in buildings is possible IF the building is placed AFTER placement of the killed vehicle, BUT it appears to crash the game once a particular scenario is tried to be started. So no recommend to try something like that. I also figured, that nudging/rotating flavor objects, as well as editing buildings, is possible in Units / Deploy... mode. So I was able to create the following composition: Since burning objects provide a light source, it´s also interesting to use these for night time battles, even if CMN night setting is anything but really dark.

Definitely a minefield, not single mine. No idea if a field can be thickened, by placing more than 1 field into the same action spot though. Would be nice to see german "bouncing betties", or more difficult to "mark" glass and wooden box mines.

Same perspective from the map editors preview mode. The junk in the bomb crater is yet floating in the air, but this gets "fixed" automatically by the game, between unit setup phase and first action turn. There´s yet other final ground mesh adaptions / object fixations for certain game objects, including houses, trenches, bunkers..., that can´t be previewed in the map editor, but can be seen in their final states when playing the game. and seen from opposite direction

(Western-) european 1930-40ies central city buildings are usually 3-4 stories high for residential areas, with higher story buildings usually beeing administrative, commercial and (absent in CMN) industrial buildings. The screeny below shows a mix of independent (commercial) and modular 3-4 story buildings. Textures have been matched with neighboring buildings, by use of SHIFT-CLICK and door/window frames with ALT-CLICK. The rubbled building in the foreground is a modular building, leveled with ALT-SHIFT-CLICK and put on a tile, 4 meters higher than the surroundings. Additional rubble has been placed with Flavor objects #1 / Junk / 4-5-6 and shifted around (SHIFT+LEFT CLICK), as well as rotated (LEFT CLICK) where needed. Ground tiles is a mix of Ground #1 / Cobblestone and Gravel. Cobblestone IMO looks a bit too "clean", so I prefer using it under buildings, with the gravel beeing the layer for Paved 1 roads. Ground #1 "Rocky" was used as layer for the rubbled buildings and "Hard" for the bomb crater in the middle of the street, as well as backyard areas, in order to not let grass spill over from neighboring tiles. Various flavor objects have been used (Street lamp, junk, drum) to enhance certain areas. This is just an "experimental" city block that I use for prototyping western european, war torn, dirty cities in late 1944. Making larger city sections this style, will be very challenging and time consuming, as well as getting frame rates dropped though.

Now some special treatment for natural looking CMN pine forests in western europe, late summer, early autumn. I found that density of 1-2 trees a tile, is mostly just enough for natural looking pine forests (which are mostly cultivated forests anyway in europe) and also helps with game frame rates, if forests get larger. Tree type "Tree E" is only evergreen tree in CMN, as it seems. Ground tiles used is a mix of "light forest" and "dirt", with occasional other ones. "Light forest" (and "Heavy forest") in CMN is actually best suited for non pine tree forests, so I use it rather in conjunction with dirt, which brownish looks match better to pine forest grounds. Pine forests are usually more dark and shadowy (dependent on density off course), so there´s usually little light for much underbrush to grow. Unfortunately, CMN provides some partly unnatural ambient lighting and shading, but I figured that particular weather and time of day settings help, to get the overall looks more or less right. Setting below is "overcast", 10 hours. While it all might sound more like "science" than "fun", I figured the results to be worth the efforts and time investments.

Usually I strive for that extra "realism" that make maps looking more "natural", with regard to wildernesses AND those parts of terrain that are civilized. Though the example below is part of a yet unfinished CMBB scenario, I also apply it to CMN, which offers even more possibilities that demand exploitation. The 2.5 x 3 km map shown below, was created by letting the auto map generator create the general lay of the land (shallow elevations) and then took this as a base for further editing. All terrain elements were erased with clear/grass, with just the auto generated slopes left. I then analyzed the map for putting wildernesses and cultivated areas, in sort of a "god creation mode", which although quite time consuming a process, it was also the most creative and fun at last. Switching back between 2D editor and 3D mode, I checked every map spot for natural looks and made small corrections if neccessary. Oftently raising/lowering a single tile by 1m made a difference. I also made extensive use of diagonal terrain layouts (villages, roads, fields...), as this offers not just extra interesting tile/object placements, it also helps to get away from unnatural looking square looks. Contours were also enhanced by particular terrain element placements. Mochowoe as seen from SW. Battlefields need a bit of fires burning, as well as same damage and craters, which also help to disguise the enemies foxhole positions. If I can´t quite get the look & FX I want, I do mod it. In this case sandy soft ground, for placement along rivers, in Balkas (small eroded gorges), ect. The CMX1 railroad tile always bit of offended me, so I fleshed it out with double RR spur, exactly covering the underlying terrain types (bits of open and path). The RR bridge also is a combination of land and water bridge, as oftenly even small rivers, have wide banks with soft or dry ground, that needs to be bridged as well. Forests in central to southern russia are seldomly of single tree type, so I bridged the gap between high pine and forest with a "mixed" type mod, that includes both, high pines and high deciduous trees with some underbrush in a single tile. Actually just two deciduous tree types replace existing pine trees, so the look at last depends on existing pine trees (original or modded). Although the examples is CMX1, all of that (and more) can be applied to CMN as well. Exploring CMN map making capabilities is great fun alone and the potential to create gorgeous looking maps can´t be underestimated. Hopefully, fire & smoke effects will be added to CMN and its modules later, so map/scenario making results will lead to even more immersion.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us Could well be Aachen in autumn 1944, but Brest would fit closer to CBN timeframe. Should be ready, when CW module and Fallschirmjagers join the force.

I played the demo, figured most the reported issues myself (beside some more unreported) and nevertheless purchased CMN just few days ago. Having played (and still playing) CMX1 series for a couple of years, I know that CMN will evolve to an equally great WW2 game series alike. CMN is a bit like the normandy campaign itself. It has its "Gold"..., and "Utah" beaches, as well as some "Omaha", which most complainers are currently focusing on. But the landing as a whole was successful and with oncoming patches, the bridgehead surely will be greatly expanded, finally leading to "Cobra" and "V Day" with oncoming modules at the latest. I have full trust and belief in BFC, as well as the Beta testers, which are parts of the most experienced and respected CM players/designers around. ...so while waiting for BFC to finish patches, I´ll be very busy making maps and scenarios, as well as some minor modding stuff.

Darn....out of memory error stroke again! Just tried 3D map preview. CMN took about 840k memory (out of 2 GB) at this time, leaving roughly 700k, which should´ve been enough to finish loading I think. Need the patch!

Hey George! Have the full game now on my PC a couple hours (purchased/licensed today)! Just had a try loading Fire Brigade, with same reported result. Stopped loading at 36-38% and out of memory error. Athlon II X2 64 250 (2x3 GHz) 2 GB RAM Geforce GT 240 512 MB Ram WinXP Well, hopefully the patch comes soon! ..and Btw, you have a scenario tester back.

FLAGS ...no more silly capture the flag objectives.

I´d like to see small pneumatic and assault boats included, for smaller tactical river crossings.

could it be related to this observation? http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=98340

Missing: Pre battle damage of trees. I´d wish for shattered, de-leafed tree variations placable in the map editor. Since the routines are already in the game, it shouldn´t be much of a problem to have them available in the editor. Could also work like this: Place trees --> Place craters = Damaged trees

Thanks for sharing! I get back to it, once I have the full game in my posession. Even if it does not quite work like the real thing, I see lots of interesting possibilities, particularly in MOUT environments.