Lucky_Strike

Well, as suspected it's a rather complex model - when fully triangulated it's well over 25K triangle texels ... ... even more than the CMRT SturmTiger which is a pretty complex model I did try a quick export based on it using the same hidden crate as your box car, but TBH it's well outside my experience zone - I haven't looked at all the stuff that @Aquila-SmartWargames did regarding his ship and other great models so would need to do a lot more genning up on it before any hope of getting this bad boy into the game. The textures are pretty simple actually so they are here is you want to grab them. I guess we would have to treat this more like any other vehicle in terms of how the Blender file and mdr are structured. There are a lot of separate objects in the Blender model, but many - most of the wheels for example use just the one simple bmp. So they should be able to be made into one mesh - though again I really don't know and would need to study Aquila's stuff and how our overlords make the vehicle models for CM. For now I'd suggest you don't do too much work on the textures as they are pretty good and already have Deutsche Reichsbahn name plate on them. And until someone can get it working in-game, you don't want to waste too much time on it. I would take a look but it's going to take me a lot of work to figure out when there's probably somebody else who could handle it much more quickly. One thing of note - the loco uses the correct narrow gauge so when placing it next to the boxcar it's clear that the wheels on the the boxcar need to be given a narrower gauge, should be possible in the model.

Dragon's teeth texture three - a bit more weathered and aged (aren't we all?) ... in the foreground Inspired by HArry's question about how the teeth look at night ... Westwall night combat - into the Dragon's Maw ...

Think how well a lot of the Roman concrete structures have lasted ... At least if France decided to invade you've already got half the wall built! Another case for low bocage ... easy to lay down in the editor, provides cover and concealment - would always be visible on map though, so no chance of hiding one's positions from the opposition ... OK yes I admit it I'm bocage obsessed @kohlenklau did some work on the sandbag positions for his North Afrika mod set, he probably has some insight as to what might be possible. I think overall that defensive works haven't received much in the way of attention since CMBN was released, kinda the poor cousins of CM - could really do with an overhaul, especially considering how important they were in late war to the Axis forces. Also, what do they do in CMCW for prepared positions, thinking of highly camouflaged bunkers and the like? What was the bunker bug that you mentioned previously?

I'll download it and take a look. Although the author says it's low poly there's low poly then there's Combat Mission low poly, so don't hold your breath. I can try various things like a Blender decimate modifier to simplify it a bit. I'm not at all familiar with making stuff move, there are lots of gotchas, I've only ever modded one vehicle so my memory of what needs to be done is pretty sparse. @JM Stuff might be able to help on that front. Let's get it into Blender first, get the textures out for you to mod and get it working as a flavour object, take it from there.

What do you need Nigel? Have you got a link to it? Ohh scratch that second part I can see the link in the first image. So just the first question ... nice find by the way.

Oh alright then, we'll do a special just for the CMCW folk later. And yes they (teeth) seem remarkably resilient.

Fantastic - great stuff, now you can get onto the locomotive!

Thanks Harry. They'll all be optional, just swap in and out prefferd - I'm doing five textures in all, should be plenty then for all tastes - excepting maybe the graffitied versions

Hhahahahaha LMAO - I got stung by that one as well - absolutely the most frustrating - I just ended up deleting it from my Z folder in the end or replacing with something else, can't remember which though.

Yeah I guess they couldn't have predicted that x years down the line we would need it We can always use the tall bocage models with a bit of jigging around, but they will just be eye candy. You can have all sorts once I figure it out - doing the initial Blender work is the hard part after that we should be good to port in any tree, the game engine will mostly take care of the seasons so long as we have textures. Yep they work pretty well all round. Cos they're quite light colour they make good markers in the dark I really want to get some winter textures done for all my mods. Playing in snowy scenarios is one of my favourites. Yeah maybe in the next engine we'll get some of these time and sanity savers!

Seemed to do the trick. Try this one Can't guarantee it's solved everything - there's still some odd shading in the solid view of the model that I can't explain but in the textured view it looks fine in Blender - we all know that doesn't guarantee success in CM though

Hah. Now I need the other texture - the one for the hidden box - it's a transparent texture I think, should be tiny.

Can you dropbox it? The png will import into Blender but it's very small and has a generic name. I can convert it to a bmp and rename to the correct name which should be alright - what's the bmp called?

Sorry Nigel, that turned it into a png for some reason, can you zip up the bmp like you did for the mdr. Yeah, pretty sure it's what I suspected; the material is set to reflect or something like that, the specular colour is set to 100% (1.000 intensity) white which I think makes it very shiny, most stuff in CM is a matt finish. I'll tweak it and send it back to you, see if it helps.

Here's the second texture for Dragon's Teeth, first in background. The second one has a quite smooth uniform looking texture, nice even batch of concrete that day ...

LOL Sadly no, just the big smokey steam ones

Hey Nigel. So did Aquila (I presume you mean him) make the train (or obtain it from somewhere)? And have you made your own bmp for texturing it? 1. You fixed the rotation - I presume you mean in-game rotation, the mdr rotates fine when imported to Blender. 2. From the screen grab and mdr it looks like the surfaces are set to reflect too much for your material and were probably designed with another material in mind - possible metal or fabric? Do you have a link to an image of the original if posted somewhere here by Aquila? 3. Maybe just a bit too much for the game engine to cope with, stretching its capabilities perhaps - how does it behave in actual game play as opposed to the editor? Can you let me have your bmp as well?

Gotta do something Aragorn whilst we wait for BF to feed us

Here's the latest and probably first release version of the hedgehog cum dragon's teeth mod. This is a slightly warmer colour concrete and represent teeth fairly recently cast. Maybe just a litle tweak but otherwise they are part of v.1. I did some quick, probably very unscientific, tests to see if the different textures would remain with the teeth in the same locations from their initial deployment through to actual game play, even to a saved game. It seems that they do but with a caveat. Everything went swimmingly at first then a strange curve-ball got into the mix. I had positioned the set above in the editor, saved the scenario, opened it to edit again, opened it as both Axis and Allies to play a couple of turns, finally opened a game save. Through nearly all of this the texture remained the same, then on the moment at which an American M4 approached them and they popped into view as he spotted them, they suddenly inherited a mix of textures. Now this was very unexpected because I had not seen a mix within a single set/base of teeth but only across sets, so set 1 might look like above, set 2 might be dark, set 3 another texture. Instead I saw dark teeth mixed in with the teeth above. So that was the end of that. No further saves would shake them out. Just another odd inconsistent behaviour. Onwards ...

Nice, like the zimmerit effect. Great addition to your mod

Yes I reckon we can do something with this. It is sad that BF don't include the tall bocage. I know the idea behind it is to imitate a specific feature of the Norman landscape, but they are also useful for creating other types of landscape. I guess the ditch-locking feature was good enough for things like roadside ditches but as you rightly point out it's the low berm that is very useful - perhaps that's what they could incorporate into the game instead, a bocage feature without the foliage on top. I could probably conjure up something like your images of toppled trees: ... with or without foliage. They would probably have to be a bit smaller than these trees, but would still block roads and for be an interesting challenge midst battle. The version that's been felled with explosives on the trunk would be a lot more work to create so I would likely go with the ones with full rootball or sawn trunks.

Daniel Craig look-a-like ...

Sadly I think we are limited to low bocage and hedge in RT. Hedge does provide some concealment but I doubt offers much cover. It could probably be modded to look a bit taller but that only adds eye candy. I absolutely agree that low bocage makes a great addition to forest and woods - I often use the corner angled sections to represent thickets and brush in woods, for both cover, concealment and to block LOS as you say. Combined with the odd fallen log flavor object it makes for a very convincing overgrown forest floor. What I like about bocage is that the ground deforms under it so creating a natural rise, ideal for topping with rubble and debris. I might work something up to see how it looks. The bocage leaf branches are very randomly distributed, there's not much structure beneath them so there is plenty of scope in the actual mdr to do something interesting. All the existing leaf branches and the 'trunks' could be remodelled. They use 1 bit masks which would lend themselves to jagged twisted debris. What a great idea. Again the modelling could be taken further to add actual trunks which could lie parallel with the direction of the bocage, pretty sure they would be destructible just like the bocage is. Shouldn't be hard to mock something up to give it a try, I've no shortage of bocage and tree models! Could look really great in an Ardennes or Hürtgen winter scene. Let's see what Santa can rustle up ... Yes a grid feature a bit like the tree placement tool would be very useful. I'm gonna have to give it a try to see if the textures randomly swap. I noticed the same with bocage, but am never sure if they do or don't once a map is saved. Onwards ...

Poor little Jimmy wouldn't let go

Thanks Nigel, I think this one look like the Berlin ones. I did a search for models previously when we discussed this, but finding a licence-free one will be the challenge. I'm sure we can but I haven't found one yet. Also we have to make it compatible with the game engine so we'll loose a lot of the fine details, that'll have to be rendered in the texture rather like our AFVs and buildings. And of course it'll have to be wrecked! ... Bond, James Bond ... Very cool!