Lucky_Strike

I can only speak for the top and bottom pics, M. Falaise will have to furnish you with the middle one, he might even be able to deliver some in person You can get mine here: You might have to hunt through for a link, the Google ones should still work, or have a look on the Mod Warehouse here

And no frost for a couple of weeks! Longest day soon ...

Merci mon ami Just so long as you don't frighten he locals, remember to keep the safety on. I still dream about bocage. Have to take to Streetview every now and then to wonder down my native lanes. Hampshire byways are pretty and all, but not quite so dark and dense.

Don't listen to him M. Falaise! Sounds like my garden at the moment! Can't get over how quick it grows at this time of the year! I can see someone hiding in the top one, Not to worry, plenty of friendly farmers with cidre and fromage, sure one of them will try ake him in.

Hah, had to double check these, very convincing!!

Wowww, these mods are getting more realistic by the day

For free I think I can put up with a bit dated, still easier than trying to use Gimp and abunch of other software just to write out a file. I can't remember how I was doing bump maps a few years back. The terrain stuff I did last year didn't need them. I know that recent versions of PS can make then natively, there's a whole load of built in 3D functions it the newer versions, not sure when that was introduced. I'm sure there will be a normal mapper plug in somewhere ... Maybe this - says it's for legacy versions.

Man! We just finished having frosts here! Nice work M. Falaise, I do like a massif or two, reminds me of Montagne Sainte-Victoire. Got me wondering if we could make one of those typical Provençal pine trees ... One suggestion to give it that Mediterranean vibe, have you tried it with some horizons form CMFI?

... Hah ... Does it work on Win 10? I love that they have a version for Mac PowerPC G4! That takes me back. I might just grab a copy and install it in VMWare, I think I have a disk image that's got MacOS 10.2 - old skool! I bet, even under emulation, it runs faster that the new versions of CS. Adobe really excel at making bloatware these days. Great stuff Harry! Cheers!

Never any doubt Is this something that would benefit others?

Yes, folders in the Z folder to keep it sane. No conventions, you can call them whatever you want, once in the Z folder you don't need to prefix 'Z' again to their names UNLESS you intentionally want something to load last. Otherwise, remember the naming order will affect loading order calm-mother-in-law will load after angry-mother-in-law. As CaptainTheDark mentions some mods have multiple choices where you might find the designer gives you options in similarly named, or sometimes the same named folders which you can pick and mix, so it's useful to practice good folder management so you know which options you have installed.

Free is alway good, glad you got it solved

That is exactly what I do inside the Z folder. It's also very convenient, since I develop on my Mac and play on a Windows 10 PC, I can just drag 'n' drop the Z folder between the two installed games via a network connection to have identical installations on both platforms with nice, neat, easy to understand subfolders, or even have some app do it for me periodically.

Yes. Also I think some of the installers do this automagically, I've certainly got aliases that I never created.

Isn't CMCW on Steam? Don't know, don't play it or use Steam but I thought that it was coming out on Steam. pinging @BFCElvis and @Battlefront.com

Yes, dead as the proverbial Dodo here in UK

The principle is the same for all games - You create a Z folder inside the game's Data folder, mods are installed into the Z folder. I do believe that with some of the games a Mod folder will be created when the game is installed, I have not seen this on any of the WW2 title ON A MAC, and in any case the Z folder approach will always work. (Hint - have TimeMachine back up the game folder for each game as installed in your Applications folder and your installed game and mods are then always secured - do an offline backup and cloud backup to make extra certain. You can then easily restore your game by drag and drop if the worst should happen.) Mods can be added however you want to the Z folder. I prefer a very a.n.a.l. approach to file organisation, some go for a 'Chuck em all in and hope for the best' approach, do what suits your particular mind set. Whatever you put in your Z folder will be used by the game in preference to the textures, sounds, 3D models etc installed with the game. Once inside the Z folder you can adopt whatever naming hierarchy suits you FOR subfolders, BUT the mod files must have the same names as the files you wish them to mod*. * An exception to this is where a particular texture, for example the bocage textures used in CMBN, can have variations which are achieved by appending numbers to the file names eg boccage 2.bmp, boccage 3.bmp, boccage 4.bmp etc, there are only two or three original bocage textures, but the variation can be seemingly endless, though there's likely a built-in limit. This features allows for increased variety. Another exception is with the use of mod tags which again are appended to file names in a specific manner, and are activated by the use of the tag in the scenarios that require them, eg snow. These again seem to have endless variety depending on the scenario designers and their creativity. These naming methods are great for extending the games, but not all files can have variations. Any mod you install will only be used in preference to the textures it is intended to mod. If you install only part of a mod, only part will show up. IF the textures are shared across multiple modules, or are shared by different combatants, then the mod will, erm, mod, all of those that share it. A very simple example, the headphones that panzer troops used in CMBN are shared by all the German combatants that need them EXCEPT, iirc, the Luftwaffe Panzer crews who have their own textures. So if I have a mod for the Heer panzer crews headphones it is also a mod for the Waffen SS crews and Heer stug crews but not the Luftwaffe crews. If I uninstall the mod, the game reverts to using it's stock textures installed with the game, they are still there and not touched, overwritten or in anyway altered by the mods you install in your Z folder. This is a benefit of this system, you never overwrite any texture, sound, 3D model etc first installed with the game when you add your mod. There are some mod managers that I believe work with the game on Windows, but I don't think there are any for Mac OS. This leaves you having to manage the modes manually. This is why I am keen to keep my mods organised. I have a set of folders inside my Z folder for things like buildings, landscape, roads, you get the picture, then inside each of these I have specific subfolders for types eg dirt road, cobbled road, paved road etc. I then arrange my mods by subfolders with the specific mod name appended with a description and appended with the name of the designers for example Uniform - German - Heer - Panzer crew - Ez Mine. This way I know who, what, why for my mods. I also have a folder specifically for testing new stuff, called zzzNew Stuff to Test, the extra zzz means it always load last so in preference to anything else installed. I also have a folder in the game folder OUTSIDE of the Data folder just for temporarily uninstalled mods. As you're about to discover mods can take over your hard drive very quickly so best to store the ones you're not using, or might use but not for now, or hoarding, somewhere else. But if you just want to try a new mod which might become you new favourite Sherman Firefly, a temporarily disabled mods folder in the game folder is a convenient place to keep you old favourite. Mods can occasionally affect the game inadvertently but it's rare. If your mods are organised you can more easily identify the culprits and deal with them. If you want to understand how the z folder structure works and which mods get chosen I recently offered some advice ... ... about installation/preferential usage/naming order. Might also be of help. If you get stuck, don't panic you can always just dump the contents of your Z folder and start over.

Crocodile tears ...

Arghh that's twice that other Lucky Strike fellow has got my ping lately. Who is he? Course the other way to get someone's attention is to quote them. Folders load in alphanumeric order with everything z, zz, zzzz, zzzzzz etc always superseding whatever loaded before, that is files in folder zz will overwrite anything in folder z through z1, z2 etc through zy, zy1, zyz*. Basically what ever comes last in the naming order will overwrite folders that went before. So for example if you have a Z folder with files and folders inside then the load order would be: Z (folder) smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform 3.bmp (a loose file will load in alphanumeric order as well, in this case it loads before everything else, ’s’ is before ‘U’) Uniform mod 1 (a folder) smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform 2.bmp smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform 3.bmp (the space before the number ‘2’ or ‘3’ or ‘4’ makes these variations load before the unnumbered base file) smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform 4.bmp smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform.bmp Uniform mod 2 (a folder - will load later because it’s name is alphanumerically later than ‘Uniform mod 1’) smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform 2.bmp smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform 3.bmp smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform.bmp zVariation (a folder - will load later than the files ONLY in the context of the folder containing it) smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform.bmp (will load after the version in the containing folder above) zUniform mod 1 (a folder - z makes it, and it's contents load last, overwriting anything that came before) smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform 2.bmp smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform 3.bmp In the example above everything in bold will load last and overwrite all the other file versions in game. The file ‘smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform 4.bmp’ loads because none of the following folders have a version of that file. *This is where things get complicated - if mod folder B loading after mod folder A does not contain enough numbered files (variations of the texture) to cover those in the mod folder A OR the base game files, then the files in the earlier loading mod folder A or the base game will load and be used no matter how many zzzz’s are used naming later folders. If you expect to see a specific mod, AND ONLY THAT MOD, then you need to ensure it has enough file variations which will be loaded in preference to those in the base game or other mods. Example if the base game has the files: smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform 2.bmp smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform 3.bmp smod_german_wrap_crew-tank_uniform.bmp Then the mod will also need to have the same set of files for you to see ONLY the mod and none of the base game files. This is why having lots of mods can become a bit overwhelming if one just throws everything into a z folder, definitely need to apply a bit of housekeeping and logic to get the best out of the system. Sub-folders in your z folder with naming that means something to you is the way to go. Hah - another tourist - one of my favourite activities is wondering around maps admiring the scenery!

I'd be an old (even older) man by then ...

Sorry, Harry, I'm strictly a PhotoShop boy, I have to use it professionally so it's what I know and use for CM mods. I'm surprised Gimp doesn't handle the files easily. What about PhotoShop Elements, it supports import/export of BMPs according to this page. Used to come free with lots of cameras and the like, suspect older versions would still work under Win10. I'm sure I used it in the past on Windows to open mod files. Otherwise I've seen folks mention Pixelformer as an intermediary, it can open and export 32bit BMPs with alpha channels, but have never used it so can't vouch for it.

Very nice composition Sir

Hah!

Now that's a neat trick, I guess we could do that with foxholes or trenches as well if we just want one or the other to have sandbags. Got me wondering where else this sort of trick might be helpful, certainly gonna keep a note of it. Cheers Harry!

Great, thanks for these Harry. Only bugbear I can see is that even invisible sandbags can still cast shadows! Regardless they look a whole lot better at ground level and the shadows only really appear when up close. Cheers again!