Lucky_Strike

They are the oddest of camo, look more like something a young child might dream up. I guess they had an appropriate terrain in mind for each colour way, but the yellow one is particularly jarring. Yes there is a degree of guesswork, though now there are computer AIs that can guess very accurately based on tonality and learning. Some colours do have a very distinct grayscale signature, others are going to be much harder to decipher. Much of the recolouring we see is down to the knowledge of the colouriser and context.

John, did you forget to make your bed this morning ...?

Great idea. These are like registration marks used in printing, very clever. Thanks for explaining JM. Yes I recall there's only the one tile for this. I tried to make a track with grass growing in the middle. Fine in a straight line but when you get to a corner it all goes Pete Tong. One of the game's brick walls... I seem to recall reading somewhere that the normal maps are only employed when the game runs in regular mode, not when the movie mode is employed. I also don't think they have a very high overhead as they are rendered on the fly by the GPU, most modern cards (by the game's standards anything from about the last 7 years or so) can handle normal maps with ease. There are many textures in game that don't have normal maps, much of the terrain for instance. I think BF took a decision not to add them where it was felt they wouldn't really be noticed that much. I have wondered about adding them for tree trunks etc, but it's a little more complex as U think they might need to be added to the 3D model .. don't know will have to add it to the list of things to try

Hehe. That, or he was just in the middle of launching his own torpedo.

These are very effective JM. It's very difficult to make ground textures especially where they are repeated often and take on a very regular pattern. Which road tiles are these? Also, just out of curiosity, what are those very bright green blobs in the first pic by the verge? Also I spotted a very bright orange spot in the last image.

Okay ... a real one, allegedly ...

Exactly, this was taken in the 1940's so no way it would be this sharp if taken from an aircraft camera, they just didn't have the lens quality that this would need. Too much CSI my friend, it's staged. My other thought was maybe they were blowin' up mines, clearing them using the AA cannon.

... or the lovely Avon lady ...

Thanks for taking the time to explain this JM

Welcome back. Which game is this in specifically, or does it affect all games. Can you name the scenario as well. Would help if someone can do a like for like test. I don't recall there being a way to turn off the lurid colour for the setup zones, would be nice if there was, can't say that I like seeing them once I've got an idea about what I'm up to.

Drinking whisky is also a business that I take very seriously ... at least once a week, preferably a nice Highlands or Islands single malt ... This is all good stuff JM. I like the fag on the lip look, though not so easy to keep it there when running around the battlefield. Did know a fellow who used to smoke whilst riding his motorbike, full faced helmet with the visor up, didn't really have inhale too hard since the wind did much of the work for him ... Not sure I really understand what's happening with your Lieutenant's rank insignia. They disappear when the guys run around, aren't they part of the bmp texture? Or don't the Amis have separate officer textures? Not at my desk to check. I think Erwin has a point re their uniforms, perhaps an option that is smarter with just a bit of dirt on the knees, seat, elbows and cuffs.

Wow, fantastic work @37mm very much appreciated and will save users a HUGE amount of time and effort let alone damage to their failing brain capacity and eyesight... this will become a must-have-instant-classic ... THANKS!!!

I don't think it'll be more cores, though happy to be proved wrong. I reckon more VRAM and removing some arcane limits imposed to make sure that game ran on circa 2011 PCs. Heck just letting me cache more graphics into VRAM would help, I think my web browsers are a heavier load on my GPU than CM!

Fo'sure ...

Smoke'n'mirrors ... Just tried this on both my Mac and PC game rig. On the Mac (3.1 GHz i5; 40GB DDR4 Ram; Radeon Pro 575X 4GB) - which does 4K natively (actually does 5K natively as well) it just wasn't having any of it. No matter what I set the display.txt to it just defaults to whatever real resolution I'm running at. So running at real 4K to see what effect the rest has - yep things are snappier and scudding around a map is easy. But the UI is unusable small. So experimenting and ONLY changing 3D model quality: fast has about the same impact on speed. Turning off shaders, shadows etc is minimal, plus I like me shadows on a sunny day. V-Syn off causes noticeable screen tearing artefacts for me at least, YMMV. All of the above at my normal usable resolution, about 2K I guess, and options to my regular set up excepting 3D model quality: fast gives easy performance and a sensible sized GUI - that is to say, not really worth bothering with ... Moving on to the PC (Intel i3-9350KF 4.00GHz turbo 4.6GHz I think; 32GB DDR4 Ram; NVidia GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6GB) - here things get a bit strange, though whether it's better is very subjective and not at all scientific (my OS suggested the Petri dish emoji ...). So applying all the options as suggested then editing the display.txt to 7680 4320 144 did seem to make everything run quicker though with some tearing artefacts (probably the V-Sync being off), FPS overall was slightly improved, but nothing radical, and everything seemed to work okay. Caveats, no shadows looks like s%*t on a sunny day; tearing is not nice; scudding around the battlefield really fast is probably useful for real-time playing, but for WeGo I don't see much benefit. Tried the same at 4K - same deal. Now here are my very unscientific (personal) observations (background - I do a lot of very heavy duty modding, lots of high res and silly 3D models that are not ever going to give anyone nice fast FPS): 1. The engine is doing something with the settings for the display, but whatever it is it's not running at the higher resolution supplied - if it was one couldn't read the GUI - at real 4K or 8K you would need a magnifying glass to read it; my opinion it's ignoring it ... 2. Just switching off V-Sync increases your speed, notice it says Off (speed) as the off setting 3. Changing 3D model quality: fast is probably the biggest boost to your speed that any setting will give you YMMV; again notice it's called Fast. 4. I like shadows/shaders on sunny days and shaders on not sunny days, there is no way for anything ReShade or otherwise to add shadows or shading as provided by the ingame shadows/shaders. The old maxim applies when using ReShade - s*#t in, s*#t out - ReShade is a fantastic piece of software but it does what it says on the tin, it takes whatever images the game produces and adds effects to them afterwards, it cannot add content ie shadows. At best you can mess with the existing fake shadows as drawn in the graphics the game uses, but this is not dynamically generated shadows as produced by the game engine with shadows switched on. I know the game shadows are not the best and have real issues but they are all that we have. 5. I noticed no perceptible increase in load times which says to me the game is not preloading the graphics as it loads the game, but rather it caches them as it goes along, this results in choppy play to begin but then it gets smoother as one moves about, that is - it behaves as it does normally by design. 6. My GPU was not apparently being used anymore than normal, temps seemed normal, couldn't tell you what VRAM useage was but if temps are stable it's probably not struggling; ReShade makes it work way harder. 7. My CPU was behaving as normal, temps were stable and no throttling was noticed. 8. RAM useage was about 5.8GB running the game as opposed to 4.6-5.1GB idle, pretty much normal. Make of this what you will, for my part just changing the 3D model quality: fast is about as much as I might do. I'd suggest if one wants good speeds then change 3D model quality: fast, turn off V-Sync, and don't run any mods, or at least only run mods that are the same resolution as original game graphics; the rest is smoke'n'mirrors ... YMMV

Smoking is a very serious business, don't do this at home kids! Cough, cough , oh no!

Very impressive and some great ideas here, I can see you've spent a lot of time thinking about this BornGinger. Trees and other flora are something I'm especially interested in, so if I may, and this is probably for CMx3, I'd add that it would really help to have a way of generating an area of woods or forest in the editor that doesn't require lots of clicking and which is filled with a random selection of variously sized trees. I think some kind of drawing tool that could be used to outline an area which could then be auto-filled with the desired woodlands. The fill could be generated randomly by the editor engine, with a selection tool to choose from coniferous, deciduous or mixed forest and a choice of density, perhaps controlled by a slider or more simply by a choice from a list ... dense, light, scrub, whether there's undergrowth, how much undergrowth etc. The selected area and choice of fill should remain editable so that manual tweaks and edits can be made. Same could apply to fields and open ground where a mix of grass, weeds, flowers, brush, dirt, etc might be desirable. Anything to avoid crazy clicking to generate random mixes. There should also be a choice in all landscapes to include areas of destroyed vegetation, burnt grass, trees and bushes, this could be painted onto the map as an editable overlay or layer; overlays might also be a useful way for adding destruction to a map that is used for a campaign. TA

... and for a bit of balance, our Matilda with a fancy new frock ... specially for Malta apparently ... What's not to love about North Africa and the Med?

Hear, hear! Wallet still open ...

Tis funny for sure, I always have a giggle reading through your threads, and appreciate the immense effort you put into this forum. Great and early series from the 70's, well printed and thought out, plundering the Bundesarchiv library, inspiration for many a diorama. I still have my copies from my, erm, yuoff. Surprising how often I still browse through them, usually looking for some inspiration or image I think I've seen.

now digitally desecrated augmented? Sorry I just like looking at pictures Phil, get carried away sometimes dreaming of a garage full of these oddballs. Wholeheartedly support the appeal for a NA vehicle pack, might even have a palm tree or two to contribute!

Thanks track sag ... Like that turret's not already heavy enough - what's with the Christmas decorations! Errr, we needed to use our petrol quota Herr Hauptmann! Fo'Shizzle!

Indeed In the shuffling madness ... Well it got me thinking and all nostalgic like - pulled out my old 70's copy of Bruce Quarrie's Panzers in the Desert, nice collection of classic photos of NA. Weirdest (other than that odd landship thing) got to be this Tonka Toy now one of those in the garage would make me happy, that or a Kettenkrad of course!

I recognise the bottom two beasties, but what's the top one? Something Russian judging by the chassis? Whilst we're at it I want my KV85 back ... loved those in BB. Sorry Kohl but you never know whose reading these threads.

The Czech 47mm was a pretty useful AT gun, better than much of what the Heer could field at the time, certainly way better than the 37mm PaK, and look at how tiny that thing is, hide it in a 6x4 garden shed ...