RockinHarry

Hehe... I did bits of guessed that. I´d tried messing with the surrender ani as well, but with still no proper access to MDS... ... but would be nice to have. Similar to old CM where POW had to be walked away. There´s still so many great stuff at SD3 and GAJ. Before I start on creating my own things I keep looking there first. Don´t have time for reinventing the wheel usually. I also found some Mark´s mods I didn´t even know before. Yes, likely depends on normal map´s details I guess. I know fairly little about them ATM. Have tried making 2-3 myself with mediocre results. There might be just a certain valid range for CM NM colors and then beeing fed to the shader files. Needs bits more investigation. IIRC there must be some older forum threads about that already. Guess there was little demand for stuff like that so far. And BFC modellers likely more beeing busy with adding new verhicle models for the games, old or newer ones. Considering age of the game and graphics engine there might have been concerns re game performance. But that was 10 years ago. Or more. Now even me has a half way decent computer now. It´s just 3 years gone since I switched from a stone age WinXP scrap box. Interesting and promising idea actually. Could made to work for mod builds maybe since there´s objects where other objects can be attached to. There´s nothing like that for indi builds IIRC. I guess basic planes and boxes are kept in a CM LUT. Why else ain´t there actual geometry MDR to be found for stone walls and such. That misteriously missing MDRs. For flat rubble one also needs to consider the game engine needs some free 1m nodes for rubble flavor auto placements. And this thing is bits of buggy already. (floating rubble FO) That might well be. Considering the game engine´s age as said. I´m playing games like Skyrim, ARMA 3 etc and used to way better things graphically. I only run into issues when I max out each and every graphic setting but never goes down lower than say 10-15 FPS. And these ARE all real time and not WEGO. But BFC had to invent RT to CM.... I think texture names (material) can be rerouted so then aren´t common anymore. Did that on couple of things actually. But buildings is bits of a different, more complicated breed unfortunately. And there´s that random element, where the game engine swaps texture sets when starting a game. One the bigger annoyances when carefully setting up facades/roofs for urban environments, then seeing CM f*cks it all up. Some the things one discovers by chance usually. But helps on understanding and making use of some the games mechanics for own purposes.

apocalyptic! Destruction has never been more beautiful!

hm....might find a way here. Remember the 88 put on the roof/balcony earlier? But that requires some likely complicated editing in Blender for preparation. We can´t put something on a "roof" that´s not there or beeing recognized by the game engine. So just take this as sort of my usual brain farting for now. but could possibly enlarge the remains of surrounding wall objects in Blender. For indi builds it´s just textures, but for mod builds it´s single geometry objects then beeing assembled by the game engine. Could be tricky thing but in theory it sounds doable maybe. No way for the rubble ground texture it seems. It´s very likely a hard coded thing like other terrain deforming types, but we still know little to nothing about META... Would be cool, but think the bottom half would have to be changed and we can't do that yet. Never know, Harry might come up with some hex mod for it. don´t even know how Nigel got the germans surrendering in stand up position. Nigel? I found it quite interesting seeing the collapsing stuff keep falling below the ground mesh. Saw it by chance when game cam was outside map area. It´s quite interesting (and enlighting) to see objects extending to below the ground. Also for checking on any objects Z-axis placement changes made in Blender. Thus I place many my test objects near the map edge(s).

Same here. For the time beeing I´ll remain with ReShade as well. But CM shaders seem always involved, whether we switch on Shadows/Shader or not. Would be interesting to see if shader files could be deactivated entirely, coupled with removal of (some) normal maps. Then see what Reshade can do here. But I´ve my doubts it can get to work since ReShade is just an overlay basically.

strange double post. Very rarely happens to me.

It´s sort of a standard pose (skeleton) then animation sequences applied to it. That´s from my understaning. There´s surely more pro description somewhere in the net. Search "T-pose" Just a maybe possible procedure (or theory of mine). No idea if it can be done without killing the MDS files data structure, thus making it unusable in the game. Pity I´ve so little time for checking it all out ATM. Currently focusing on just Mark´s and Nigel´s mods. Might come back to Worgherns again but first lets see what Mark will have in the offers (like HH etc). It´s actually not thaaat much to learn on at least the basic things, then improve on them step by step. The harder things is getting knowledge applied to CM modding for the various limits we have there. But as we see, knowledge base gets broadened week by week ATM.

Oh... could be hard then finding, if it´s an all in one mod package maybe. Or it was a custom made combo. Uniform from that and caps from another one. Thus far I rarely played missions with Gebirgsjagers involved so I lack an overview. But good luck. Interestingly remains of 6th SS Nord fought their last battles about 50km from where I live now.

I´ll see if I can "improve" the M3 gunner´s position somewhat then. Pity we don´t have individual crew animation files for the many vehicles here, since so many got shared. Yes, if HT tactics get applied in sane ways the SdKfz gunner should have better days. Unless enemy fires come in sideways. Then he´s doomed unfortunately. Something for BFC to think about for a more refined "open up" system. Thanks again! A further update for remaining SdKfz will come very soon. It´s another half dozen or so. You playtested with an Africa mod sort of btw?

New detail on CMRT ammo dumps. If making them "reinforcements" they will appear on map at set time. But still not at start of a battle (beeing not a reinforcement). Odd... For AIP it´s similar but ammo will be distributed evenly for all appropriate types. Infantry with no fitting weapon type will make unneded ammo deleted from the game. I.e placing an ammo dump spawned from a dismounted mortar carrier truck will only distribute small arms ammo with mortar ammo beeing deleted, if there´s no on map mortar unit. Okay... makes sense.. to a certain degree... but if I want the mortar ammo dump beeing preserved with original load out and ammo not beeing distributed immediately? As said Iron game play mode. So ammo depot mechanics seem different between CMBN and CMFB/CMRT. Why?

Sure, it´s here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5pta8tjh31ngk2l/Re Animate.rar?dl=0 There´s also bits of descriptive text in each sub folder. In case you see any oddities or have (new) problems, just let me know please. It´s made for CMBN but BFC recycles almost all animation files for all their games. So it should be 99% compatible with CMRT as well. Edit: I´d recommend to not get distracted with it too much ATM. If you´ve some your missions working and finished, then try Re-Animate to see if it/they play different or "better". It´s aimed for "lower carnage", but side effects can be reduced infantry spotting and shooting opportunities.

Haven´t much messed with TGA file formats yet so IDK ATM. Had a look at games foam.tga file and it seems having a 256 color alpha channel. So it then depends on target BMP file format and its alpha channel demands I guess. Does the target BMP has or needs an alpha channel? Should it be 2 or 256 colors? That´s the things I´d look for and that in PS CS2 for make sure proper 32bit BMP file gets saved/exported correctly, then beeing loaded by CM with no problems (black looks or "invisible").

Thanks for having a closer look! Think the hard to dislodge from buildings thing was added with a previous patch already. Haven´t yet tested on 2.12 fixes/weaks re this particular behavior. Re AT guns if they´re beeing placed frontally and rather low range they´re made scrap metal in short time. Better have them placed and key holed for flanking shots. Some well placed SOV snipers do the turret guys get their heads down quickly and Tiger spotting caps are reduced significantly. Same for those germans that might help on info sharing (HQ´s). Place snipers where they can engage 300m an up. At lower range they get discovered and killed fairly quickly. I´m also using high experience (crack and up), but low morale for these guys. Otherwise they get spotted/killed far too quickly when higher morale gets them keep their heads up and shooting for far too long. You can do similar things on them (AIP) by means of scripting. Like "on the spot hiding" when giving movement orders in certain intervals. Off course they won´t move anywhere when waypoint is same as current position, but follow any other given scripting orders (and behaviors). One off course can give them real move orders so they´d move to a switch position in same or different AS. Combine that with key holed placements and Tigers stop having fun times. Hehe Btw... did you try my infantry animation mod (Re-Animate) already?

on to do list, but experiments are just at the beginning. You might start reading from here and get involved maybe?

you´re welcome.

Yep, fairly complicated thing. I´d tried as well then figured it got to be made with finely adapted ground/object textures, CM shader file tweaks then maybe enhanced further with some ReShade stuff. Time consuming affair. Not tried yet but from my meager understanding normal map files take their part as well. At least where they are and can be used by the game. One can try removing given normal map files, then let do the CM shader files (blur_shader.* and bumpmapping.*) do their inbuilt default shading procedure. Then see how much CM shader file tweaks can do seperately (without effect from existing normal map files). Untried theory as said.

can you mix in some Pimpfe youngsters as well? Well done btw. if it´s Schutzstaffel it was usually both anyway. fag (gots), the musical instrument (bassoon) in german. Nice but I´m bits in doubt they´re placed such openly. More into corners or side streets with long range of fire along a particular street. This at least was how it´s done in Breslau city. No idea for details in Berlin battle though. Panzerschokolade

From my understanding it´s based on some texture files then beeing dealt with by shader files "water_simple.frag" and "water_simple.vert" for in game rendering. Haven´t yet figured out how to manipulate these. I wanted water look more gray when it´s cloudy/rainy weather but couldn´t get it to work this far. Either I´m stupid or this feature ain´t fully implemented in the CM games. IDK.

Dead soldiers is last frame of an animation sequence which then stops for good once a soldier is downed (KIA/WIA). Other animation sequences are loops based on a commonly used "T" pose model then replayed or followed by a different type loop if applicable. But as long as we can´t "extract" single frames from an ani sequence you won´t have access to them for modding purposes. (= the MDS files). With some effort one could probably figure out individual frames by means of Hex edit hacking and then cut out all frames except the last one (= dead soldier lying on the ground motionless). No idea if that´s doable, but that´s the idea if we can´t have access by means of a 3D editor understanding BFC´s MDS format. The M4 Sherman examples is original Aris, then bits of adapted in my graphic apps. Mostly some contrast tweaking, bits of darkening and making colors more vivid (or saturated). For infantry it depends on base mod made by anybody else. Then adding bits of dirt and "wet" effects similar to mentioned above (vehicles). For terrain (and objects) stuff it´s based on what´s available. So it´s a case to case procedure like with my YEG mod package. Can be original games ground tiles/textures then beeing modified by myself. Or the more pretty stuff from Mark or Worghern i.e Might grab some of Nigel´s stuff when ready as well. If I understnad you correctly you want having a look into YEG mod set? DL link (dropbox) is included at mission download page if that´s what you mean. https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/combat-mission-battle-for-normandy/cm-battles-for-normandy/cmbn-v4-mg-vp-you-enter-germany-introduction/ Hehe. No worries mate. Ya know If beeing asked I always do some further explanations if I do too much 中国人 talking.

definitely, yes. I´m used to dynamic weather from ARMA 3 so there´s no reason not including it with CM as well. yes again. Reinforcement by choice or concerning AIP by means of a (terrain) trigger. All nations almost always had timed reserve and counterattack forces (if available, strength wise) destined to move into action when certain things happened automatically. No higher up HQ orders necessary. ...Like penetration into MLR or loss of a certain terrain objective. Okay, there´s some workarounds but require a large enough map and using AIP scripting in more elaborate ways. what do you mean and saw exactly?

you can get rid of them (texture, not geometry) by using this little file already. Everything else is just map placement techniques (ditch locks). Can use with your prefered trench mod (Juju, Aris or Umlaut´s maybe) but make sure my sandbags texture mod gets loaded after. Have fun. https://www.dropbox.com/s/kjiy5n9j6xu5u5g/sandbags.rar?dl=0

still WIP but basically just sandbags made invisible (preserving the bits of offered direct fire cover if there´s much of it at all) and different texture (uniform dirt something). And placing these into -1m blue type ditch locked action spots so vs direct fire cover is somewhat better (if pixeltroopers drop to prone at least). Otherwise if something heavy is coming in (direct or indirect), you better move into those wooden shelters ASAP. CM "trenches" are death traps and hardly any better than lying in the open. Even shellholes are "better" cover than "foxholes" IMO and CM TacAI is well aware of that.

Thanks. If I find time I might give it a go. We need CW in FB ASAP!

I as well prefer my own mod set and placement techniques so it´s not thaaat much of ugliness. eye level from farer way same after some heavy Arty barrage

yup, that was what I wanted saying. But as said whole wet condition mod set ain´t neccessary IMO. One can base it on what´s used in a particular mission only, which limits workload. That´s what I´ll most likely do then. Here´s another nice example of "wet looks" T34/85 Notice its dry looks at the start of the vid then turning to "wet" later.

Might make this my this sunday´task maybe. Found a different vid that offers making all three of required sound loops which are vehicle move, engine idle and shut off. So CM sound loops would have required consistency I think.