Lucky_Strike

Yes of course. I speak merely from a personal perspective, and only echo what I sense those that do feel. Those that don't have their own obsessions, but their support is always welcome, at least for me. Much of what we create cannot exist in a vacuum - without critique, testing, deployment what would it be? I do personally make the mods for my own play, I want to make the game look better, or rather look how I think it should look, but I get equal pleasure from sharing the work, ego gets a satisfying boost, a legacy is created, friendships are forged, a difference is made. Yes, there may be an element of resentment out there, or it could be a response to a lack of appreciation, or to criticism of something that is provided gratis. After all, nobody is forced to use any of the community-created material, be it mods or maps or campaigns or whatever, but without it, any of it, we would all be poorer for sure. For myself, I'm a creative artist professionally and very used to criticism by those that don't - water off a ducks back . I know that, mostly, it's nothing personal and they (those that don't) as often as not don't know their arse from their elbow when it comes to taste ... Personally I would be happy if BF paid me ...

Yes, that's the idea. The only things that you may need to alter in the editor are the crop type, I think it's set to crop1 short, and maybe try a bit of marsh. Otherwise I think everything was featured one way or another, so you can switch most of the textures in and out to see what you prefer. Also maybe worth changing the weather conditions to see how things look in the rain for example.

Ah good. The last version of the file was modified 7 November 2020 at 17:48. There's not much to see, it's quite a small map with just some Germans, but lots of undergrowth and bocage, mostly examples of how best to use the bocage and doodads to achieve the kind of look that I imagined. Enjoy!

Erm it might be that it’s made/edited in the latest game version. I will go and have a look at the actual file from the most recent uploads to check it’s not become corrupted in some way. Otherwise I can’t think of another reason it won’t open.

You are welcome my friend.

Hey @3j2m7 - you always manage to put a smile on my face Quick answer, no you don’t need the Barbarico shader. Longer answer - Barbarico’s shader replaces the stock movie mode with a more stylised look. I sometimes use a variation that RockinHarry made some time back, a more subtle version. My mod is designed to give a natural colour palette, the shaders, or ReShade, can be used to alter that palette to your personal taste, but none are necessary. We can ping his Mordness to see if he is around.

Not so much put one off playing as just exhaust a body. Modding in itself is also part of the fun of the game, at least it is for me. I can’t speak for others but I get the sense that the creative process, whether it be through modding or mapping or researching, is all part of our joint obsession, sometimes frustrating, mostly enjoyable, ultimately elementary to the game. The beauty of these games is that here are no limits to what we can all make.

For sure. Also have to echo Aragon’s recommendation for Duel in the Mist, volume 1 in particular is an outstanding piece of work. I suspect a lot of us were inspired by Charles MacDonald, he had a distinct, pioneering, important voice and spun a good yarn based on his own very vital experiences. Certainly looks like you’ll need a new bookshelf in the not too distant future! Happy days!

Thanks Aragorn. I know you aren’t pressing me to hurry up . I really do appreciate your enthusiasm and encouragement, it’s what makes creating the mods worthwhile. I wish I could speed up the process, but unfortunately there’s only one of me, so next September is probably quite realistic. These games will be around for a few years yet at least, so who knows what we can make in that time!

Thanks @Aragorn2002. I’ve had a bit of a rest now and I’ll be getting back to some landscaping over the festive period. May have to tap you for some local knowledge for the September ‘44 mod. Can’t promise it’ll be done soon but we’ll hopefully have the F’n’R module to distract us imminently.

WOW!!! Thanks for doing the review @Bootie Great early Christmas present. Have to say I did swell up with pride for a wee bit. Did LOL when you couldn’t find your pixeltroops. To be clear - you do have the latest version, I’ve only played around with ReShade a bit and looked at some of the ground textures since finishing the mod, but I haven’t released anything else. Seeing your video inspires me to get on with some more. Great to see it working well with @BarbaricCo’s excellent War Movie shader. Thanks again and thanks for hosting the downloads. Sláinte

Those Who Hold Bastogne by Peter Schrijvers is a good account of the battle for Bastogne. The Battle East of Elsenborn & The Twin Villages By William Cavanagh is a fast-paced narrative which makes for a good bedtime read. Seven Days in January: With the 6th SS Mountain Division in Operation Nordwind by Wolf Zoepf offers a very detailed and personal account of action in the Vosges Mountains during the first seven days of 1945. Also covering the same campaign from the perspective of the US Seventh Army When the Odds Were Even: Vosges Mountains Campaign, October 1944-January 1945 by Keith Bonn. And Victory Was Beyond Their Grasp: With the 272nd Volks-Grenadier Division from the Hurtgen Forest to the Heart of the Reich by Douglas Nash is an insightful account of a rarely covered subject. All of these are manageable size for bedtime reading!

If someone was willing to bung me ££££ I’d be quite happy to test one of the new M1’s

The second edition of Bloody Streets is definitely worth the investment, I sold my first edition so that I could get it, a very worthwhile investment. Anything published by Luftfahrtverlag-Start has been utterly fantastic so far, am sure the reprint of The Panther Battalion Brandenburg, which adds 16 pages and 14 images will be top notch, am sorely tempted to replace my first edition but don’t think I can justify it on top of volume 2 of From The Realm of a Dying Sun and a couple of new titles from Peko - Fortress Budapest: The Siege of the Hungarian Capital 1944-45 and Bloody Vienna: The Soviet Offensive Operations in Western Hungary and Austria, March-May 1945 both by Kamen Nevenkin. There has definitely been a renaissance in the last few years of high quality military history publishing all to our benefit, though one has to save a bit of the old pocket money for them.

Have to agree with you sir, in fact all your recent recommendations are on my bookshelves. Another title worth considering is Last Laurels by Georg Gunter. Originally published in 1974 in German, it was translated into English, redone and expanded in 2002 by Helion. It covers the fighting in Upper Silesia from Jan-May 1945 from the German perspective. Has some very human stories and covers one of the lesser known sectors of the Eastern Front during the final months of the War. It’s also quite a large format with plenty of pics and maps.

Bought this earlier this year to replace the first edition. Definitely an improvement and fantastic reference. Only thing I’d point out: Dimensioner 310 x 231 x 33 mm Vik 2633 g It’s a real wrist breaker, you’re gonna need some extra space in your bed just for this and don’t fall asleep with it on your chest as it’s likely to suffocate you!

Okay, one more, this really is the last one, M10’s firing in artillery role, look around 0:15 and 0:30 - proper bit of bounce, but still not much. Don’t worry, there’s no sound on this - you haven’t gone deaf watching too many big gun videos ... Nice camo as well!

One more before bedtime - now these ones certainly do move a bit Not quite the most powerful, but man do some folks have all the fun ... Now I’m gonna have to look at a PaK40 in game to see if they jump!

Ha! Can't believe they missed! There's another video of some guy using the same tank to shoot up some gun safes, can see how effective the 76mm was, but again he misses with his first shot - reckon the sights must be a bit off!

Slow mo of a Sherman Easy Eight firing - at about 5:50 they do an overhead of it firing and you can see how much (not much) the front of the tank moves.

Do you have ReShade installed? This can cause uncontrollable spinning. If you do then try Alt-E, might stop it. Even if you don’t have ReShade this might help.

That’s probably down to the copy protection that Schrullenhaft mentioned. Unfortunately can’t do a demo of Shadow to see if that’ll run them - should work as it’s basically a PC in the Cloud rather than emulation. Might try it just for a month to see if it’s any good.

Thanks Bootie, will do.

Haha. No I just read up on what a few others had done and took it from there. I guess it’s an aptitude thing. I understand your frustration, ReShade is like a lot of open software, I have the same problem with Linux, I just go kinda blind if I try to understand it. HerrTom did a visual tutorial some time ago which is still useful: And there is Mord’s primer: And as @PIATpunk says CM are OpenGL games. Some other pointers I passed on to wgbn1968 earlier: Take a look at: https://framedsc.github.io/ReshadeGuides/setupreshade.htm and: https://reshade.me/forum/troubleshooting/5227 Some of this reiterates what I said early. • ReShade does slow things down a bit so expect to see your frame-rate drop, depending on the effects you use. Things that effect depth, focus and lighting tend to slow stuff down the most, simple colour effects have less of an impact. • CM are OpenGL games so you install ReShade for that NOT DirectX • When you first launch ReShade you might see your screen go into some weird colours - toggle ReShade off when not using it to stop it affecting selection menus, the editor etc, just use it when actually configuring it in-game and when playing or looking at the 3D map if editing a map. • When you first launch ReShade to configure the effects you may see your screen image spin like crazy. To stop this you need to switch ReShade off and open a scenario and set Screen Edge Movement to Off (alt-E). This stops the spinning when the ReShade config dialogue is open. • The order in which effects are applied makes a difference. A good thread to help understand this is: https://reshade.me/forum/general-discussion/5453-does-order-of-effects-matter#34280 especially the last comment from Jas01 • Don't try to do too much at once, try an effect, if you like it make a note then try another. Once you see what effects can do then try combining some and so on. It's easy to make a mess of things, but remembering what you did and why is harder. Baby steps first, and try out some presets from other users to see what they are doing. If you don't like it you can always start again, nothing gets broken in the game itself and all the fx have a reset to their own default settings • Remember, ReShade doesn’t break anything as such. If an effect doesn’t work or stops your game from working don’t panic just uninstall or switch off the effect and move on.

Not sure, I don’t know which version is recommended, I guess to get the most out of it would require at least a fairly new GPU. I’m lucky that I only just (2019) rebuilt my PC. Would you like the original layered PhotoShop files for some of the textures, you can then turn off the flowers you don’t want?