Lucky_Strike

LOLs Enjoy your break matey

There are always some complete wastes of oxygen - make nothing, contribute nothing, have no humour nor grace yet think it's okay to criticise those that do. @Bootie you do a job that nobody else has been willing to take on which makes you unique amongst us, we are all the better for it and indebted to you. I'd happily take the slipper to these wankers to teach them how to respect what is given to them for free, but that would probably be wasted on their sad entitled asses. I'll raise a virtual dram to your good health instead (am off the bottle at the moment - docs orders @ Christmas too!) Sláinte buddy

Yes, sadly with Apple the GPU drivers are a bit too closely integrated with the system unlike in Windows where it's much easier to downgrade ones drivers if a new version has issues. It is possible to mess with the GPU driver versions but it's a right faff and can cause other unforeseen issues. If I get a chance over Christmas I might try out a newer OS but sometimes if it ain't broke ... is the safest approach.

Great work JM! Looks like we're all on Santa nice list this year. I just checked and have a certificate to prove it ... Anyone else who wants to check can do so here I will of course be taking Santa's advice and helping around the house more

There are a couple of very recent threads that have mentioned running various games on the M1 natively. Looks like it's not too bad, just a few issues with graphics artefacts which have dogged Macs for sometime on and off. Check out these two threads:

Welcome to the forum Tomiko, that's a big stick you brought along to poke at the hornets with ... There's a lot in your post that has been discussed many times here and will doubtless be discussed many more times in the future. I just want to say that WRT graphics, yes I get it, the game is not Post Scriptum nor Hell Let Loose not even Arma, sure it could use a dose of what they have, but it's also not those types of game. If a new player comes to CM expecting those types of game they will be disappointed, if they come with an open mind then they might just find something quite unique, despite it's dated looks, a kinda milf amongst games. For sure a modern gloss would doubtless attract more players but the expense of that, not just financially, but also in development time and resources would distract our tiny team of developers from doing what they actually do best. I don't doubt that BF are acutely aware that the engine is far past it's sell by date in terms of graphics, amongst other issues, but I also believe that they have a roadmap, and their commitment to the franchise is peerless amongst developers. Correct me if I'm making an assumption but I think you mean horizon when you say sky, the hard line of the skybox and distant ground is far from stellar ... I take issue with your presumption that a skilful modder could turn one game into another, this is to not understand the games and engine in the slightest. Yes I can take all the graphics, textures and skins from one game and put them into another but it changes nothing of the underlying mechanics. CM2 has been with us for over a dozen years and no one has ever been able to do what you suggest simply because they can't. It would mean reverse engineering the whole game, everything, and then remaking it again. Now, I don't know about you, but as someone who has made a mod or two, which I hope dramatically change and enhance the game, I have an idea about how long that little lot took to do AND as a practicing professional graphic designer I have a bit of an idea about what my time is worth. So believe me when I say that there's more bang for buck built into one game than any modder's life works would cost unless of course you are independently wealthy and don't want a life beyond this game. Your assertion is bunkum mate.

Speculating it may have something to do with the HG division uniforms. Those charming fellows had access to SS and other camo patterns later in the war so maybe if you select them it invokes a smattering of camo. 'Course I might be talking utter sh*te and someone who knows what they are talking about will hopefully come along and comment.

Interesting that the Vega bugs out. I use a 2019 iMac 27" 5k with Radeon Pro 575X GPU and have practically zero issues running any of the CM games. I do still run Mojave (10.14) for stability/compatibility as it's a work rig as well. Use it to play and develop my mods and rarely find anything it can't handle. Bit slow opening the largest of maps but that's to be expected. Looks like AMD may have futzed up the newer drivers. I may run a test with Catalina, Big Sur and Monterey to see if any of them cause issues for me.

That's good to know, thanks for the update.

Sweet!

I actually don't think it's that bad, yes the god's eye view is where the skybox fails, yes the gap is not nice, but in terms of what can be done with it and how it appears in game it's not so far from what the eye sees if not concentrating on the horizon and viewed from near ground level ... From CMBN with modded skybox etc. Of course if one stares at the horizon it's nothing like reality, but that's because the game can't focus like an eye plus there's very little point to staring at the horizon, unless daydreaming ...

Very cool ... will this one make it into AK as well?

Thanks for update. Those artefacts look like shader and shadow issues, what options do you have switched on/off?

... they backup stuff going back to the 1640's !!!??!

Completely understand, even within my very modest attic box there is a tin full of lots of arms, legs, heads, rifles, kit bags etc etc Let me just say ... track sag on those soviet monsters

Very interesting ... so you think that bip01 spine2d is a location on the model, can you change the location to say spine2c and have the equipment move? Or is all the gobbledygook after spinexx the location relative to the bip spinexx - that is to say for example bip (body insertion point) spine02 is at ,.3/4 ...Ãõ etc?

It's a forever limit, you'd have to remove some files to clear space for new stuff. Trouble with this is that if you only recently posted those images in your threads then when you remove the files the images may well disappear from the thread; this seems to be because the forum has a kinda backup routine that will eventually scrape the images from threads and embed them permanently, but this only seems to happen after a few weeks - delete an image from your allowance too soon and it's gone for good

Great job WimO. Can I suggest you try one of the image hosting sites such as imgur.com rather than using the forum hosting. Accounts are free; once signed up it's very easy and efficient to use; as a side benefit one doesn't need to worry about managing the tiny amount of space offered for free on this forum, and the images stick around for future generations to drool over. I've been using it for close on a couple of years now and have had zero issues, plus I they don't seem to spam. I'm sure they have taken over a part of my soul somewhere, but I haven't noticed. There are of course other hosts.

I'm detecting a theme here, modellers anonymous - I also have a box of unmade models in the attic ... I actually laughed out loud when I read this ... thank you! in fact this whole conversation made me chuckle oftentimes...

... yup that's Blender ... Yes I do wonder about this. I've had success exporting models with and without the metadata, and there don't seem to be any hard and fast rules as to what will work. Vehicles are probably the most complex and frustrating, but can be made to work. I do seem to recall that @sbobovyc who developed the CM Tools import/export Blender add on was looking into what the metadata actually did, but I don't know what became of that. I had a look at a few files in online hex editors but don't have a clue as to what I'm looking at. I could see file names and sometimes other info related to colour etc but making sense of it was just too much for this addled brain The easiest I can think of, and perhaps useful because they are quite similar but distinctly different, are the leaf textures for trees (8-bit alpha channels) and the leaf textures for boccage (1-bit alpha). The LODs for trees are all 8-bit I seem to recall, maybe the smallest has a 1-bit mask, can't recall off the top of my head. He did us a great favour; really do hope one day that he, or even someone else, can figure out how to access the mds files in Blender or whatever. Thanks again for your insights Jace.

Mmhhuh know that one ... Sgt's dining table makes for a good stash for part of his collection ... seriously where are we supposed to put our feet when we come round for dinner? Fo'sure I've created copies of the whole relevant game installation for each of Kohl's total environments, renamed the directory and app so that I know what is running then just dump his, and a few other carefully selected mods, into the appropriate z folder. Does take up a bit of extra disk space but ultimately means I can just have one dedicated Barbarossa or Afrika Korps installation, plus saves me a lot of headaches. And when there's a new version of the his mods I can just replace the whole thing in a few seconds. Also means I have my clean, original game installations where I can do my mod work without fear of accidentally trashing anything. YMMV

LOL

Trying to follow along, hex editing is a complete mystery to me, but then so was Blender a couple of years back ... What you are saying here Jace is very interesting and sounds like it could offer some useful workarounds. Out of interest have you tried the same in Blender, that is adding a custom bmp texture to a vehicle to achieve something similar, and if you have does the change show up in the hex strings in the same way as editing the hex directly? I'm wondering what else could be changed in mdrs that might be useful - perhaps changing use of bmps with 1-bit alpha channels to allow use of bmps with 8-bit alpha channels - my guess is this is controlled somewhere else but it would be interesting to know if it's assigned on a per model basis within the model file. Thanks for taking the time to explain this technique and your findings. I'm sure Phil will absorb this into his already outstanding work on the mds files.

Phil, that may be because it needs to be a two-sided object in Blender. Same thing happens with tree leaves which in CM consist of two meshes sandwiched together with normals facing outwards from each mesh. That way when viewed from either side they appear. If tree leaves are made as a single mesh then the backside doesn't appear properly in game, only the front appears. Or am I barking up the wrong proverbial tree here? Philips scenarios have this effect! Thanks for the mention and you are most welcome. No squinting necessary to imagine that PZ IV - great work once again. Hopefully, when I can get my arse back in gear, I will be making something a little more appropriate for Barbarossa.

You want it to look more like this one ... This is actually one of the earliest Tigers captured by the Russians, turret number 121, serial number 250004 from 502nd battalion captured January 1943. Very informative article about this poor wreck and it's sister 100 #250009 here with lots of juicy pepperpot pics.