Lucky_Strike

Congratulations JM, great work.

This is where the pic came from ... Incidentally Bubba, if you want to find anything on the forum, don't rely on the search engine. Google can do a quicker, more accurate search every time just go to Google and type this in the search field: site:https://community.battlefront.com/ Gebirgsjäger Replacing Gebirgsjäger with your search term. Even shows forum pics in the images tab which is how I found what you were looking for.

Yes movie mode is definitely easier. So the night vision shader doesn't work in current game engine?

RT has Shermans and T34s, would have to play blue on blue. Some of the other lend lease stuff would work for the US - Jeeps, HTs? Not sure how one would go about uniforms though ...

Just as well Thanks I'll have to dig them out. Ah yes, was looking at the pics on an iPad screen, I needed to enlarge them a bit, I see them now, ta

Did you try it? Most of these shaders will have some effect across all the games. If it doesn't do what it says on the tin, then it probably needs an update but ultimately it could work or at least a newer version would work. If you are PC based have you tried ReShade. It excels at this type of effect.

Yeah could really do with an added choice for this. Is this heavy rocks with a modded texture? Yesss These really look the part, great work. Happy to go with which ever you prefer. I'm just about finished with the factory/chimney. I just have some weird glitchiness to deal with then I can send it to you for retexturing - better scale brickwork for the chimney and improved skin for the factory walls and roof, really needs your touch.

Nope, on Mac and still waiting for the email ...

Yes thanks, that's the right kind of stone block work, great. Both guard houses were pretty much gutted by the time of the battle having been damaged by bombing and artillery, so they would have been pretty stained and pock marked on the outside. Looking at archive photos the buildings actually seem to have only two floors, but to mimic that we would have to add extra flavor object skins to the outside since the ground floor looks taller than a regular level in CM. I don't mind that we have three floors with a reasonably well functioning building. I don't know enough about the modular buildings to say if you should add windows or not. The windows were quite simple looking, similar to those on the rebuilt version. Again, from archive images, there seem to have been windows on all sides with doors to front and rear as well as facing into the middle/Pariser Platz. The doors were bigger than the stock size but I don't think it matters too much. The front doors facing out onto Pariser Platz were not centred but offset to the left on the left block and right on the right block. If this means that the stock doorholes can't be used then probably best to just leave them centred. I think the main thing is to get the look about right and not worry too much that the layout is a little different.

If they're not at least considering this or something like it they'll be dead in the water within a decade imho. Not because their games are crappy but because the next gen gamer will expect a lot more than the current engine can ever offer. Hehe I got at least three cores that sit idle whenever I play CM, not to mention a graphics card that laughs at me when I pan around and complain about crap frame rates.

that sounds very very familiar to me. Nice thing when getting older, you need far less sleep than before. Yep. Although I still like my sleep. My hours are just too messed up. Guess we're doomed if you listen to the health experts.

Great, that's what I like to hear. I'll test out blowin it up again then get on with finishing the model before we get into textures. I knew it was close but had never seen this shot until researching for the model. I think it was for Time. It's astonishing how much was bulldozed and eventually rebuilt, wouldn't know it walking about that area now.

Progress on the Brandenburg Gate ... Tested the roofless side temples and making the whole thing into a multi flavor object build - virtual lego! Works well, need to do some wall thickening around the roof supports and gables, as well as some slight repositioning of stuff so it's actually attached, not floating - there are small hidden gaps in the original model. What's nice about this approach is that the model doesn't flick in and out of view so much since more of the mdr origins stay in frame for more of the time. Note also how the guard houses in the front temples can be properly enclosed with this method of building ... The two guard house temples at the front will probably be the same FO repeated, the two rear ones will be two unique FOs because it's obvious from archive photos how they were quite differently damaged from bombing. The main central support columns and walls, except for two, will all be one FO that can be repeated, the remaining two, which will be attached to the portico, will hopefully have some unique modelling for variety. If you want to start on some textures Nigel you could make the faces for the guard houses - I have used a part destroyed 5 storey modular single block for those. On a different note and moving ahead a couple of decades ... this could go into CMCW ... anyone planning a Berlin Wall scenario set in the Cold War - bit of Harry Palmer action ... Checkpoint Charley and all that ... Should I make the model now or wait for the call from BF?

Sage advice

I don't know why I hadn't tried this before with tall walls. It's not an absolute guarantee that one can keep the pixeltruppen out, if the wall is destroyed by HE fire they can still get in, or they can use breach charges to get in, but as a measure to stop defenders using it for cover or as an escape route it's ideal. The low wall are perfect for blocking most light vehicles. Now it's just a case of more testing, more texturing and we hopefully have a pretty reasonable, functioning model.

Hehe, two conversations at once, kinda Jekyll & Hyde! The mdr of the chosen independent building and all its bmp textures, including the ruined building textures - it has to be something you're not using on the airport map though as once modded it's going to appear everywhere as that building. If it shares textures I'll need those - they might not be in the same folder. I won't mod shared textures it's just so that I can open the mdr and not get errors when exporting it from Blender. Ikve just been working on a similar model for the Berlin map for CM Red Thunder ... Added a tall chimney to the factory model to replace some rather small ones. Process is pretty simple, adding new textures takes longer but but hopefully we can keep your model pretty simple ... famous last words! Just going to eat, will be back later.

Are there any small independent buildings you're not using in your maps? Only needs to be one square and preferably flat roofed? If so I can make you a little building/generator/transmitter hut with mast attached to it. Much better for targeting. And could even be defended if you wanted.

Are there FO chimneys in CMBS? One of those might be a good model for it, tallest would be best. Send me the mdr of that as well. Meant to ask is that picture of the mast a 3D model you have access to? If so send that too.

Hey FriendlyFelon, If we can find a suitable 3D model then this should be relatively simple. There's just one caveat with flavour objects - once they get hit in just the right spot by direct HE they will disappear from your scenario. They are quite robust with indirect HE barrages. So a question: is anyone going to be shooting directly at the mast? If the answer is no then send me a PM attaching the model (mdr) file you are using and I can return your mast. Note I don't have CMBS so you'll have to do final testing though I can test it in a WW2 game as an FO so we should be okay. How tall is the mast by the way - I should be able to make it the correct height for you.

Hey it's a pleasure mate. The texturing will have to be done at some point - then I'll be calling on your skills.

Hehe, I would really be tempted to have a go at the bridge thing if there were a better way of raising them out of the ground. Your gate is the best working one for sure but if I can get this thing halfway working then maybe you'll have to retire it

Cool. That opens up some possible solutions that will give you a much more resilient BG and one that anyone else messing with it in their own maps can hopefully abuse to their heart's content. I've come up with a pretty workable solution to the foundations for it which prevent vehicles passing though easily whilst giving pixeltruppen somewhere to call home but importantly no access to the central arches without a big pile of HE ... Once the buildings are in place it's then just a case of building up the gate on top, either as a single FO or combination of several parts ... or possibly six or seven parts depending on further tests with direct HE fire. Foundation walls ... ... buildings for added resilience ... ... FO over the buildings. This all takes a lot longer to write than it does to place the parts! A few new skins for the various buildings and most of the look and functionality will be done, then it's a case of how I handle the BG FO itself, or it might become an existential part of one of the indi buildings if I can figure that out AND if it's worth the effort.

@NPye does the above still stand, I'm looking at way to improve the resilience if the Brandenburg Gate against HE and basing it on a building might just solve many of the issues I have with it at the moment

I won't crack anymore toilet jokes, suffice to say I'm glad we don't have smellivision yet. I thought we already had outhouses. Or is it that you want this specific communal style. Now got me wondering if Berlin had any of those pissoirs the Parisians and Amsterdammers are so keen on. Would certainly add another kind of flavour.

Yeah would be easy enough to add something, whether it's an extra object, like a single red brick, or something on the texture. I'd prefer the former as it's more accurate. Well whatever is going on it's not making any sense, a sandbag wall is a sandbag wall, I did nothing to it other than place it on the map expecting it to act as such - it didn't. I tried them on another map, Kubel went around as expected. What the engine/AI seems to do is decide okay on this map I can drive around the sandbags cos there's space, but on this map I can't SO I'LL DRIVE THROUGH THEM! What kind of decision making is that. Absolute tosh. Nah, it's not a problem adding the buildings on the map, it all fits in quite well now. Skinning buildings is probably easier than adding extra FO parts in the model to enclose the walls, similarly with bunkers. The concrete bunkers aren't used so far as I know Nigel? @NPye, though they would have to added as a force pick by the map maker. One of my biggest concerns is not so much direct assault on the gate as it wasn't the focus of fighting, rather a prize to capture, no I'm more concerned about the effects of HE on or near it. It being a massive FO a direct hit could easily make it just disappear without so much as a cloud of dust left behind. I tried a few barrages directly on it ... Mix of 120mm heavy mortar and 152mm heavy howitzer batteries full barrages. Obviously they'll have no damage effect on the gate as it's an FO, but they certainly damage the enclosed buildings, walls and such. Most of the extra enclosed FOs were left untouched, a couple of fountains bought it and a column or two disappeared. Even with the addition of a 300mm rocket barrage to the mix the gate was still there. So indirect HE is not too much of a worry. A lucky shell might hit the sweet spot but chances are against it. Indirect HE had very little effect even on the surrounding buildings, just a few extra holes in them. More of a threat is direct HE. I set up a ISU122 about 1km away (imagining the Tiergarten approach) and set area fire on the gate, took just three or four shots then it was gone. What I figured was that the sweet spot for flavor objects is the origin/handle. One HE round there will knock it out. I moved the origin to a more protected place. This time it was much harder to disappear the gate. However area targeting the place where the origin was moved to made short work of destroying it. I did try placing the origin somewhere impossible to target - up on top of the portico - but the game engine does't like that, can't grab it to move the gate. An interesting side effect of moving the origin right over to one side of the gate - after doing this I noticed the gate was flickering a lot more than it had done previously, popping in and out of view. Thought it might need some LODs but that didn't solve it. What causes this is when the camera viewpoint moves such that the origin is out of view but the majority of the gate is still in camera it will disappear. Seems the engine dumps FOs from view as soon as their origin is out of camera. So keeping the origin central will keep the object in view for longer, as the camera pans away it'll disappear but because by that time it's on the periphery it isn't noticed so much. This probably explains a lot of the flicking in and out of view of other models, trees and the like, as well. So the dilemma of how to make the gate robust enough to withstand some direct HE, stop passage by vehicles and look the part still remains to an extent. One other solution that I'm looking at is a multi-part FO. break it down into three distinct objects will give each component part better odds of surviving any direct HE fire. Might also loo again at making the cetral part into a shell for the windmill if I can figure a way to stop entry by pixeltruppen. Onwards ...