Lucky_Strike

Thanks @sbobovyc. My efforts are mostly just cosmetic and are as nothing compared to what you gave us with your Blender import/export tools. It took me a while to get something useable out of Blender. Getting models into it is easy, getting something that’ll work ingame is much harder. I did look at the metadata on a couple of the bocage and tree models, but have to confess it was pretty much meaningless to me. One thing that I did notice, which occurred when I was having export problems, was that the tool would spit out an error related to unknown metadata values, and on closer inspection I could see that there were indeed unknown values in the listed metadata fields. Once I get a bit more confident that I can achieve repeatable results with the export of my mods and I understand a bit about what I’m actually doing in Blender then I’ll try a few tweaks of the metadata to see what it does. If I do discover anything I’ll make sure to report back on it. In the meantime I look forward to getting a nice shiny new Blender tool for Christmas

In an effort to raise the level of conversation again - why camouflage is important plus some hazel bushes and trees ... there's hazel in the bocage as well, but this view caught my eye ... With my ReShade sunny, dusty settings applied ... Raw image for those who like it that way ... with a bit of @RockinHarry's movie shader tweaks applied There's a hazelnut in every bite ... (okay, so they don't have a hazelnut emoji, it's close, and may well make its own appearance ...)

I remembered what I was doing when I saw the download thingy, and the request was for something to do with invisioncic.com. A quick Google suggests it something to do with forum software. So perhaps there were some updates. Yesterday I certainly had a few problems, wasn’t able to get pages to load at all, didn’t think much of it, but guess it could be related. Who’s in charge of these things here? @Battlefront.com

Ahh, the wind blowing through the trees ... I always like a breeze in my scenarios just to watch the vegetation waving back and forth. My wife says I always manage to bring the conversation down to a base level eventually ...

There you go @AlexUK, M. Falaise’s your man

... and wind

+1 Saw it on my iPad. I thought maybe it was something to do with the server software as well. Happened to me twice when I clicked the Mark site read option at the top right. Nothing was downloaded and haven’t seen it since.

Damn it! That’s because the spelling autocorrect kicked in when I tried to put in the TM manually ... A Mod to FarTM became something about wind ... so I didn’t spot the real spelling mistake. Write it out 100 times I will not fart too

Hah, Sgt. Howerd would be proud. My doodads have been known to visit Somerset from time to time ... Not to worry, I’ve been dreaming about mods lately, and I don’t mean the scooter riding type. I must get a real life ...

That’s A Mod to Far. I have absolutely no idea where to start with sound mods, nearest I ever got was adding my own theme music to the old CMBO and BB games. I think you’ll have to try to persuade one of the talented sound artists to make a mod for dickie birds , or get @Falaise to go out with his portable reel-to-reel to make some recordings in his back garden

Oh yes! Our first bocage flowers! (if I can get them to look right). Who knows, maybe we'll have Elderberries for jam making in the Netherlands in Autumn ...

Thank you kindly.

LOL, folks after my own heart ... another classic. This may well have to be the subtitle of my eventual tree mod package ... might even include no.1 The Larch ...

Hah You know we only do it to tease! Trust me, I want to get this finished so that I can concentrate on making the bocage look even better with work on those 3D models. I know you will appreciate the extra few days ( months ) it has taken. Imagine, you’ll have Ash trees to shelter under, Hazel bushes to hide behind and more beautiful bocage textures than you can name ... now where did I put my reference for those Elder trees

You think? I thought it went quite well with the Barry Bocage mod. Oh, by the way I think it’s stuck somewhere in your cheek ...

Great shots again Falaise. Reckon the Kubel driver got out to “refresh” himself in the bushes, or he’s found a nice quiet spot for a picnic

LOL. Seen that a few times myself. Reckon this one couldn’t see where they were headed, most of his vision blocks must have been cracked!

MERCI, MON AMI ! (sorry I had to shout, the cheering was so loud, made me jump and frightened my wife!)

Nothing special in my settings Erwin. I think the screenshots that you like are the ones that are taken with ReShade running. I know ReShade is not everyone’s cup of tea but I will be posting a few preset ini files for it when the mod is finally released. There are a few ReShade settings that I apply specifically for screenshots, which are a bit excessive for play as they impact a bit heavily on refresh rates. However the colouring and some light effects are fine for play at ground level, though a bit pointless from the god’s eye view. I think my nVidia settings are pretty standard, if anything I dial them back a bit as I want the card to do much of the work through ReShade, and mostly I don’t really understand what many of the settings are doing Whereas with ReShade I get instant gratification, or not!

This and what Sgt.Squarehead says do point towards tags being the way forward. Also I doubt that many scenario designers would want to revisit old maps just to add a thicket or two. Let’s just make it easier for the player as Sgt. points out.

Hah. I think this one may be a job for the boys at @Battlefront.com @BFCElvis HQ to work out - come on guys you’ve got a couple of months still ... Include it with Ire & Rubble - would surely boost sales!

Thanks fellas.

Thanks Sgt. What I hope will really transform the hedges is a mod of the base 3D models. I don’t think hedges are used that much so maybe a mod of one or two of the pieces will be enough to allow us to have proper thickets in woods and forests, without messing up existing maps. Otherwise a tagged mod would work for most situations.

Well, I was actually hopeful of releasing the finished mod, but as it the way of these things I got a bit sidetracked (again) and in the process I discovered a few things that I hope will improve the mod some more. Mainly it's a quick fix here and there which I don't expect most of you will probably notice that much, but it really does help. In the meantime some bones and progress ... The variety of bocage is now legion - I'm creating about ten varieties though one will intentionally be made for hedge use - hedges are the smallest and lowest of the hedgerow / bocage textures. They can be traversed by pretty much everything I believe but do provide a bit of concealment. I'm working on a particular hedge mod which I think will make a good substitute for the lack of thickets in wooded areas. I've been looking at my trees again, and again, and again ... I'm a fan of trees in the game, I know they aggravate some people but I like them, so I've been working up a set of trees that I hope will give everyone enough variety to suite their own particular tree fetish. So ... ... we now have the venerable Ash tree in two sizes, one medium, younger tree, one larger, older tree. Some fine tuning to do, but they provide cool shade on a hot day. (Ash will also make an appearance in the bocage ...) Not to be left out, I also revisited the generic pines. I was never happy having one of my previous efforts, a Red Cedar, as a choice so that's out and we now have a proper (as proper as the game allows) Scot's Pine ... And a revised, very nice Spruce: If you have the Red Cedar and want to stage an invasion of North America scenario then it's ideal. Think of it as a limited collectors edition. One of the things that really slowed me down was the crop doodads. Boy were they a lot of work, but I wanted to make them as good as I could. Reference was good, but I needed some very specific images to work with. In particular the flax was a real challenge, short of me actually getting on a ferry to Normandy and photographing them, it took a long time before I was happy with my base images. I hope that the result - Le Lin - is acceptable ... ... in flower. A very dense crop trying hard to not look like a hairbrush ... ... nearly ready for harvest (the with added poppies version). Provides superb concealment! So that's where it's at, should be here in time for Christmas! Oh, that leads me to one last thing ... I liked the Spruce so much I just had to decorate them ... and yes this is a mod that I'll release ... can't make them light up yet though ...

I think the underbrush is usually determined by the map maker in as much as the forest floor ground texture used will determine how much of the brush doodads will show up. It’s easy to get carried away with woods and forests, but in reality long established ancient woods seem to have more space between the large trees and a good thickness of undergrowth. One problem with our trees in game is that they do not really represent the very large trees that might be found in older woods and forests but rather look more like trees in newer plantations. I guess for Normandy, which generally has a very managed landscape, smaller tees are okay, but for representing primeval forest we’d need something a bit bigger.