Lucky_Strike

I reckon they use standard software to make all their models and animations but then add a layer of encryption or compression. They started doing the CMx2 stuff about 15 years ago so it can't be too sophisticated. It's probably just an export plug-in or add-on to Blender or some other common 3D software. Bit like the brz compression that they use for packaging the textures. That's just a very simple zip compression, doesn't saves much space, it's just useful for packing up a lot of very small files into a bigger one for delivery. Sadly I think we're going to be waiting a very long time, as you say JM, before we get into the pixeltruppen models and animations.

The .mdr metadata is a complete mystery to me. Some file types won't work if it's not exported with the file, others seem fine without it. I suspect a lot of it is related to generic stuff like lighting and surface etc, while there could be lots of specific stuff buried up in there to do with LOS, path finding etc. I've not seen any I'll effects by not exporting it with trees, but with vehicles it's a deal breaker. Strangely I don't see an negative effect on fps of having lots of flavor objects. Put in lots of trees or buildings or units and fps can fall off a cliff. My thinking is that flavor objects are considered in a more simple generic way by the game engine, so their impact on CPU/GPU time is much less. I don't expect we'll be able to have any flavor object buildings that can be used for anything more than decoration, but it's definitely something I'd like to try anyway. Sadly I think he's directed his interests and skill elsewhere. Yes after the Soviet army surrounded Breslau the situation for civilians turned very bad very quickly; there were still a lot trapped there and they had to put up with the fighting for about a further three months before the festung surrendered; sadly many became casualties in that time. Too bad about your Grandpa's militaria. I don't have anything of my own granddad's who was in the British merchant navy - he did both the Malta runs and the Arctic convoys, never, ever spoke about it.

Don't see why not, others have made ships and even a giant alien spacecraft. My Blender skills are a bit rusty at the moment but if I can find a big building I'll give it a go over the weekend.

Come to think of it, they did say that 314 was shot up quite bad - a 6 pounder shot jammed the left drive sprocket and a PIAT took out the right - those'd probably weaken the tracks. The left track is clearly damaged in the photos. Just off to order me dots now - do you think ten packs of these would cover 131? "Haarrrolllld!" Gawd bless 'em

Very impressive v2 N, a real Eve lotion from first version. Re a Brandenburg gate - probably as a flavor object, but as a building I haven't a clue. It would certainly transform the landscape. I would be cautious of spending any cash on that at first, let's try it with something free, there must be plenty of freebie Blender buildings out there to experiment with, something big, a skyscraper or stately home? I they can be made to work then you could consider your Brandenburg gate (and don't forget a FlaK tower ).

Interesting, I wonder if this can be altered in any way, another project for Blender to add to the list. I do like a bit of family history. Your Mum's panzer might have been a half-track, but yeah, my memories of when I was six are pretty sketchy to say the least and they're a bit more recent than your Mum's. Happy 85th Birthday to her!

Sounds close enough. Could be a Wyvern Steptoe picked it up. Good find, though I don't need more distractions! First part of the three Quite often they bulldozed these things off the side of the road just to get the roads open quickly, rolled over on it's side then possibly. It's a bit odd though 'cos where it's been knocked out in the lane both sides of the road have fairly step banks, so really no way to move it other than by towing. Hand brake off and pull it into a field. But then its been rolled on its side, and somehow ends back on a section of track ... as you say, who knows.

Got to admit I haven't looked, being lazy here, are the buildings models available to look at in Blender? I must go and have a look. I do agree though, it's not the best feature of the games. It's quite frustrating for some folks but I suspect that BF were thinking about the impact on gameplayability and what hardware could support when they first released CMx2. I wonder whether they'll introduce rooms and a more realistic approach to house to house fighting in the next iteration of CM ... I think the mod is somewhere at the top of the thread, I'm sure mr Pye will be along to point you in the right direction if you can't find it. I visited Breslau (Wrocław) many moons ago on a trip around western Poland (in late October - so cold but nothing a drop of the local vodka couldn't remedy). Lovely city centre, scars from the siege were still all over the place. Your family were very lucky to get out before the Russians arrived and the ensuing battle destroyed the place. I believe it was the only one of the so called Festung cities that pretty much lasted out the conflict until the last days. There must have been some very desperate battles there. I'll have to go and dig out the book I have about it ...

You're welcome. I do like the PanzerWreck books, consistently coming up with very interesting and new material. One source I always return to when looking for answers to these types of questions. As for the Wyvern ... it'd be interesting to know if the Wessexers (???) opposed the 654. We can't see any sign of the Wyvern in the earlier shots of 314 in the lane 'cos of the foliage which seems to have been positioned in just the right place ... What's also interesting, and not mentioned in the captions, is the strange 'paint-job' on the front of 314. I can't decide what it is, it looks like a very hard edged stripe, I'm pretty sure it's not a scorch. In the earlier images it's a lot less pronounced, so it could be an artefact of image enhancement techniques used by the publishers. I'm pretty certain the guys at PanzerWrecks do pretty thorough research. They've a good track record. The splash guard was a field adaptation seemingly, good material for a mod. That's interesting that the different size muzzle brakes have been reproduced in different model kits. It's probably down to the makers using different examples as the basis for their measurements. When I was down at Bovington a few years back there were teams of Chinese guys sticking little coloured dots all over some of the exhibits so that they could do laser measurements, presumably for mould making for models. Did occur to me to go and get a whole load of colourful sticky dots so that I could crawl all over the displays 'n'all ...

Okay that's a majority, and a scapegoat ... Without further ado and to quench the thirst for knowledge that is so rampant on this forum ... wrecked JagdPanthers ... Schurzen ... Looks like schurzen to me ... Now pop over to PanzerWrecks and get yourself a treat (as penance of course).

That's two in favour, one abstention ... You do realise it's dark outside?

Still in Panzerwrecks volume what ever ... not sure I should reproduce them here, or do we think it's journalistic fair use ... I'll take a show of hands then do a Lizzie and blame it on my no.2. Who'd of thought it, swapping out one Lizzie for another in the space of just a few weeks ... can we have the old Lizzie back please ...

Undated sadly. Look like summer, look quite fresh, certainly a few of the other wrecks are contemporaneous (longest word of the day prize for me) with Bluecoat, some have been moved, one is for sure still a bit of nuisance to local road users. Hard to say if he's Jock, he's quite peely-wally, but then I think most folks of these islands were in them days. I'll go with your theory, it's certainly not the wurst I've heard.

Hey Harry, thanks and good to hear from you. NPye's Berlin mod is out, as I'm sure you figured, lots of potential in that alone for new scenarios, could easily be used to create a battle in one of the late war festung cities - Breslau, Königsberg, Poznań ... I've yet to release my mod for burnt ground, need to refine a couple of things and then I'll put something out into the wild. Saw your musings on Flavor objects, great find and incredibly useful. I do wonder what other hidden capabilities, accidental or intentional are still undiscovered. If you do feel inclined to make a scenario or two I'm sure @kohlenklau would welcome a contribution to his Christmas Challenge, as we all would!

So I just downloaded GIMP and took a look at it's handling of a uniform texture bmp. First thing to say is uniforms don't have alpha channel masks so they should be saved as 24-bit bmps. I opened one uniform bmp in GIMP, opened a second, copied and pasted a chunk of that into the first one, flattened the image (did you do that?) then exported the final texture as a bmp. Upon export there's an extra dialogue that will appear to select Advanced options for your file, disclose those and make sure you have 24-bit toggled on: Then export - you should have a perfectly serviceable bmp. Unless of course you're trying to do something else ... PS Ah yes in the list of file extensions - I just used the first one, the second seems the same but did say something about not matching the file type, though the resultant file is actually fine.

Yes but it's more of a photo editor than a graphics editor, also doesn't support export to bmp. This sounds like you're missing the alpha channel when exporting to bmp. I don't know GIMP but what you should be looking for is something about channels when saving out to your bmp. If the file has an alpha channel AND that channel is 8-bit then you will need to save your file as a 32-bit bmp NOT 24-bit. Look for something like that when saving. If it's not got an alpha channel then don't save the file as if it has, ie save it as 24-bit. The choice of apps that support both useful image editing and 32-bit bmps is a bit limited. PhotoShop and GIMP are the most obvious on a Mac. I do hope in the next gen of CM that Battlefront move away from the rather archaic bmp standard to something a little more recent like PNGs which have wider support.

Yes I came across the same issue last year so I created a temporary home (as noted on CMMODs page above) - you can grab them here until Bootie gets them hosted.

Yes, export to BMP is always a bit of a chore in many apps. Affinity doesn't support them, Pixelmator does to an extent but it seems to wipe the alpha channel mask when exporting, though that might just be operator error ... Glad you found Gimp for the job, it's pretty capable and v. inexpensive. I'm certain that Graphics Converter would handle BMPs correctly, but it's not free and you'd still need an image editor.

Because I've got nothing better to do ... So the image I posted is one of a series of 20 about the Normandy wrecks of s.Pz.Jg.Abt 654. There are four featuring the wreck of 334 and our shirtless friend. These four are all credited to the US Army Heritage and Education Centre. Image 1 shows the wreck from the right side, about the same angle as that posted (image two). Our shirtless fellow prone on top, possibly another on the back deck. The caption mentions the unit diary entry, also states that the 'Jadgführer' was Uffz. Teltau. According to the caption the diary recorded the vehicle was bogged in a sunken lane then got shot up and burned out. However the author notes that 334 looks neither shot up nor burnt out, and that diary had likely confused 334 with 314 which was shot up and burnt out as recorded in several other images (featured in subsequent pages). Image two of 334 is the one I posted. If you're late to the party it's back a page. Image three is a low front view of 334 with our shirtless fellow (looks like a squaddie, could be one of Warts' relatives) still on the roof. The caption discusses a report by the Ministry of Supply, Armour Branch which goes into details about the armour strength and vulnerabilities of the JagdPanther, basically don't go head-on at them, attack from the sides; by stealth with PIAT; stacked up big AT mines; or Jabo rockets. Image four is a rear view. This time the shirtless fellow is joined in conversation with his shirtless mate and an American trooper (shirt on) on the back deck, whilst another British-looking fellow (with his shirt on) is propping up the JP. The caption mentions the losses the unit suffered and the customisations to the stowage. Still none the wiser as to what our fellow was doing on top - my interpretation, souvenir hunting, perhaps seeing if she'll run, can he take her home with him? After all there's no real sign of damage, no obvious holes, no scorching, not down on its suspension and the cannon looks to be fully extended. Quickly, distractedly browsing through the rest of the book, there's barely a schurzen in sight. Of all the Stugs, Panthers, JagdPanthers, JgPz and PzIVs only the photos of 334, possibly 314 and a few turrets on PzIVs show any sign. Most are admittedly wrecks (hence the book title ) and a lot are not in situ, but I think it goes to show that a short spell of combat would probably whip off most skirts!

What specific issues are you having with it on Your Mac? I use it all the time and although I detest the rest of Adobe's bloatware these days, PhotoShop is still pretty reliable. Could it be connected with the M1 chip? You could try Affinity Photo as per Chuckdyke's suggestion, it's very similar and can handle most of the common tasks most folks might have. Also would recommend looking at Pixelmator Pro, a very competent alternative and written for MacOS.

Yes, as Mr Warts says. 654 was the only unit in Normandy equipped with JagdPanthers. The vehicle in the image is No.334 which was lost on 3 August according to the unit diary, near St Georges church. The unit eventually lost some 22 JagdPanthers between 31 July and 28 August (a not insignificant amount to PIATs apparently). My thought is that most lost their schurzen pretty quickly whilst fighting in and moving through the narrow country lanes. No doubt they would try to hug the raised banks for extra concealment so inevitably they would be scraping against all sorts of branches and obstacles large enough to wrench the schurzen off their brackets.

Back on topic ... PanzerWrecks to the rescue, from volume 17, which has a feature on the JagdPanther wrecks of s.Pz.Jb.Abt 654 in Normandy, I give you ... Schurzen ... Ain't she purdy. There's another wreck in the same series of images which seems to have a whole side of schurzen but it's taken from the front so they are only just visible (didn't want to disappoint, nor have some argumentative type come along and diss her).

I ASSume it's down to choice of the forum software language, likely US English rather than the proper variety. Don't think it's a bug as such, rather a lifestyle choice. I say leave the wanking, wank, wanker software alone. Wonder what other British vernacular we can get away with ... presumably the C is not allowed, nope thought not, what about bugger? Yep. Bloomin' loverly. Bit like being back in the school library looking up the swear words in the OED ...

Yes as @Vacillator said, or you might use bloke to start a story about someone anonymous as in 'Some bloke down the pub ...', or use blokeish to describe a macho looking woman, 'she looked a bit blokeish'. For wank you could use derivatives such as 'Oy! knob off you wankstain!' if you want to tell someone to go away. You also might shout out across a street at someone 'Wanka!', whilst making an appropriate hand gesture. This could be a bit of good humoured banter between friends, or goading a rival. If you want a thorough grounding in the finer points of British swearing I suggest getting some of Derek & Clive's recordings, they are particularly enlightening on the subject. Now go forth and curse ...

... for no other reason than this ...