Tom TCMHQ

No offense, but....the water tiles are not seamless and ..uhm...the uniform mod needs some tweaking.You should also replace the MG34 with Juju´s weapons kit.BTW: what sky mod are you using ? Cheers Tom

Just to proof I wasn´t lazy over the last few days Greek troops defend a cemetary ( the french forces will be modded as Greek troops. I found some nice references about Greek early WWII uniforms. Also all french voice files will be replaced by Greek ones ). The concrete wall on the pic is one of several to choose from in the final version. Just started to replace the Afrika Korps tanks with Panzergrau versions. Seems to be a lot of work... Close up on a PzKw III. The background shows my cheap trick to make the CM skyboxes seamless. German tanks in front of a Greek fortress. You can also see a new modded fence and replacement bitmaps for the soft ground ( looks like deep mud in the game ). Another shot of the fortress. It`s just an early sketch... the final version will look much more convincing. BTW: I have some nice ideas for special "fortress house rules" when playing human opponents As you can see , there´s much work left to be done.Finally: the new mod will not only work for pure "Greece" scenarios: I´ll try to keep the graphics as generic as possible , so you can also play " Malta " , " Crete " and even " Gibraltar " scenarios. Cheers Tom

Sequoia: YES , that´s exactly what I´m doing at the moment :cool: For later war scenarios , the South African troops would fit better. Cheers Tom

Hi Mike, you are correct about the German vehicles, maybe some friendly soul here will do the job of recoloring the tanks and guns ? Unfortunately I haven´t found any references about the color of the British tanks... I guess the British soldiers had the usual khaki uniforms ? BTW: I need more informations about Italian and Greece uniforms ( yes , Greece soldiers will be included in the mod ). As you can see... there´s a lot of work left to be done. Any help is appreciated. Cheers Tom

Gentlemen, while working on the " Beyond the Siegfried Line - Germany 1944/45 " CMAK mod ( and...yes , a new Battle of the Bulge winter mod will also be included ) I stumbled over some historical accounts about the Italian/German invasion of Greece in 1941. Since I don´t like the CMAK desert stuff , I thought it would be a nice idea to replace this stuff with a " Greece & Crete " mod. So far , 50% of the work is done: new bitmaps for rocky- and grass terrain ,new trees and tree bases , new skyboxes etc. I am currently working on new buildings ( wait for some nice surprises)and new uniforms. Some early impressions: Cheers Tom P.S.: End of August I´ll spent my vacations at Stavelot (Ardennes) and will take some digital photos of wartime buildings in Stoumont and LaGleize. So you can expect some REAL building and terrain bitmaps for the new Battle of the Bulge mod.

:mad: :mad: That´s what I fear most :mad: :mad: Currently I have more ideas than one man can handle ( Beside the building and terrain stuff , there will be new sounds as well ). Finally we will have a kind of CMAK total conversion Dunno if I mentioned this before , but the project now has an "offical" name: "Beyond the Siegfried Line - 1944/45". The mod should give you the enviroment for all ETO from September 44 to May 1945. More sketches ( the factory thingie is just the result of a wired brainstorming, but maybe something like that will make it to the final version ) Thanks for all the encouraging words so far. Cheers Tom

Gentlemen, another teaser from my ongoing new project " Beyond the Siegfried Line " with new mods to recreate the battles in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium 1944/45 ( Ardennes,Huertgenwald,Rur Crossing etc. ). The whole set will include new buildings , new terrain mods , trees etc. and last but not least several new scenarios. Don´t hold your breath... it´s a long way to go. During the next weeks I will use my digicam to make more shots of regional buildings from the WWII aera ( brick houses and half timbered buildings ) to use these for my project. BTW: kudos to Juju and Ed.... modding the CM buildings is the most hellish design work I´ve ever done Now I know what you guys went through..... The pics show an early sketch of a typical brick farmhouse from the Rhineland region ( " Kappesbuurehuus " as we say here .. Don´t try to translate that ). It´s very close to the house that I live in ( at least the windows are photographs from my own house... the blue spot in the right window is my ashtray :cool: it´s really there since my wife forced me to smoke OUTSIDE the house :mad: ) Cheers Tom [ July 04, 2004, 08:26 AM: Message edited by: Tom TCMHQ ]

Thanks :cool: Yes , I will breath some new life into my old website in a few days ( if wargamer.com still wants to host the stuff ).I think about a new design and some unique content. More about that later. Cheers Tom

Gentlemen, there seems to be some interest in alternative CMAK terrain bitmaps , so here are a few screenshots of my current work in progress: " Dirty summer grass " " Dirty Autumn grass " (subdued version) " Rocky Terrain " Especially the " Rocky Terrain " looks nearly photorealistic ( the pics don´t do it justice ) and should be great for Greece, Crete , Italian and Yugoslavian scenario types. Release date ? When it´s done... The whole thing is at a very early stage. I´ll keep you informed about the progress. Cheers Tom

Hi Shadow, Problem fixed. Thanks for the reminder. Cheers Tom

A new CMAK Splash Screen based on the old AMIGA " Afrika Korps " Game by Impressions. I think that Rommel and Monty had to be on the cover ! The new Screen comes with two new sets of Splash Buttons: an English one made with the ARMY font and a German one made with the Luftwaffe Fraktura font. Also included is a set of blank buttons if you want to design your own kit. Happy Xmas Tom - TCMHQ [ December 23, 2003, 06:44 PM: Message edited by: Tom TCMHQ ]

Gentlemen, nice to hear that somebody finally found my site. To be honest.... I lost track about it several months ago :eek: Maybe you remember: the original website was made in 2000 - a few weeks after the release of CMBO. Unfortunately the site caused too much traffic over the following 2 years , so my provider kicked me out. I found a new home at MILITARYGAMER.COM ( thanks again for their great hosting service ). In spring/summer ? 2003 all site contents were moved to WARGAMER.COM. I was informed about the process , but lost all informations , passwords and - YES - even the URL during a PC cleanup.I didn´t care much about it , since I am actually involved in a very interesting but time consuming music project ( take a look at " www.the-path.de " ). To make a long story short: I just scrolled through my old pages and was very moved by all the friendly guestbook entries. TCMHQ took many months of work , sometimes I sat whole weekends in front of my PC to keep things up - ask my wife about that.. . It would be a shame to let it die this way. When my copy of CMAK arrives I will update the site contents , will correct all the wrong links and will also try to host a few new nice mod ideas. Hope there is still some interest from the CM community in the TCMHQ project. Kind Regards Tom [ December 02, 2003, 02:27 PM: Message edited by: Tom TCMHQ ]

:eek: :eek: :eek: This one deserves a MONSTER BUMP CMBB looks much more realistic with these new sky texture eye candy. No more painfull dithering pixels ! Sweeeeeet My current No.1 for any " CMBB mod of the year " contest. Cheers Tom

Just a request for some eye-candy: 1.) Pleeease use 4 sky box bitmaps to create the sky background ( one for each direction ) Makes it much easier to mod. Can we have 16 bit pics instead of the usual 8 bit stuff ? 2. ) Greek buildings look different than Italians ( not to speak of the complete different architecture of North African buildings... flat roofs for example). A European church in the Sahara would look crazy. So I think we would need at leat 3 different sets of buildings. Can this be done ? And...will you include the Pyramids ( just kiddin...) Tom

Andrew , :eek: :eek: :eek: WHOWWWWWWW :eek: :eek: :eek: But...did we expect less :cool: Tom

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: FUNTASTIC NEWS !!!! BTW: I guess the first " Total Conversion " Mod for " Afrika Korps " will be an " Beyond Overlord " Mod to bring the " CMBB feeling " to the Western Front :cool: Tom [ April 04, 2003, 03:28 PM: Message edited by: Tom TCMHQ ]

Strontium Dog , great job ! Looks fine on my battlefield. BTW: what grass are you using ??? ( serious question ! ) Regards Tom

Hi , unzip the bmp files into your cm/bmp folder.The splash screen will only work with 1024 x 768 pixel screen resolution ( see readme file ). You have to resize and rename the bitmaps with a paint software to make it work with 800 x 600 or 640 x 480 resolutions. Cheers Tom

Centlemen , check out the NEWS section at TCMHQ: Matthias Noll has published a fine AAR of the " Riesberg " scenario ( CMBB version ) and you´ll find a first screenshot of a new CMBB terrain mod idea. Cheers Tom

Halleluja ... my first DOUBLE POST [ March 02, 2003, 11:47 AM: Message edited by: Tom TCMHQ ]

Ahh...Mr.Modslut himself , I guess you are right ( the summer sky was my first attempt ..done with Bryce ) and I feel its way too bright. I will correct that with the next update ( and there are more " lesser clouds " summer skies in the pipeline ). BTW: 16 Bit " Hires " skies are not possible with the current CM engine: all sky textures are downsampled to 8-Bit ( 256 color )format. The downsampling process produces some very ugly dithering effects ( which can be cleared by adding some " Noise " to the bitmaps ). Cheers Tom [ February 26, 2003, 06:15 PM: Message edited by: Tom TCMHQ ]

Ohh noooo.. I´ll never make announcements like that WHILE I am downloading from CMMODS :mad: I started grabbing Mr.Noobies new Intro Music mod a while ago and got aceptable 4.5 kb per sec. , meanwhile I wrote this topic and now I´m down to 0.5 kb per sec. ... still 20 minutes to go. Lesson learned Cheers Tom No pun intended. CMMODS offers a PHANTASTIC service.

Gentlemen, Since I feel very uncomfortable with the image of Vader´s Jester seeing me as an " eighteen-year-old readhead with the pouty lips, skin tight tank top, and mini-skrit that shows off just enough to drive a modslut crazy " I decided to release the first part of my CMBB sky texture replacement kit ( it may take a few weeks if not months to finish the whole thing ). The actual set contains five new texture sets ( three bitmaps each ). There may be a few " rough edges " here and there , but I hope you´ll like the results. Your input on this is welcome. Cheers Tom The new mod can be found at www.cmmods.com

Yes , strange things happen: Yesterday I played a QB against the AI ( total randomized ) and got a German Infantry C. against a mechanized Russian C....supported by six T-34. My poor Krauts ( no AT guns available ..) were overrun by a superior enemy and seeked shelter in a nearby wood. The Russian infantry advanced , while the T-34 took position below a ridge line were they thought to have a LOS to my men. Now a strange event occured. The tanks opened fire at my positions , but all shoots hit the ridgeline in front of my defensive positions and stopped the Russian infantry from advancing further ( in fact many Russian panicked because of " Friendly Fire " ). Now I ask myself: Traitors or a bug ? The Russian tanks never corrected their mistake and wasted all their ammo to the ridge... Cheers Tom

Vader´s Jester , I apologize for the past " Refresh Hell " ...and hope I wont´t torture anyone in the future. BTW: designing sky textures for CMBB becomes a REAL NIGHTMARE. Beyond the " mirroring " problem with the northern- and southern textures ( I guess we all want seamless textures ) , there seems to be some distortion in the other textures as well ( CMBB has no ordinary " sky box " like other games ). I am very thankfull that Dan offered his help. I Will contact him soon. Ben Bittner ( Surly Ben ) has done some marvellous perspective corrections to his CMBO sky textures and I hope I found a way to treat my own bitmaps the same way. Anyway: here is another teaser called " Transylvanian Winter Night ". I know that the " ET " moon is way too big , but it looks great in the game. Cheers Tom