Lucky_Strike
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Posts posted by Lucky_Strike
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3 hours ago, Falaise said:
I can't stop saying it !!!
I showed my wife after a silence she just answered: "is it an Englishman ?"This actually made me LOL during a particularly sad scene in Law & Order - much to my wife’s consternation!
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3 hours ago, 3j2m7 said:
This one is extract... from the Combat Mission Battle of Normandy Scenario "La cage aux folles" !!
LMAO
I can see a whole new mod set coming out of this!
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5 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:
They could buy ready-made animations for a whole lot less than a wheelbarrow of cash. It's not 1990's anymore.
"A set of 53 motion capture animations of crouching and proning for a character with rifle."
Price: €13.40
https://assetstore.unity.com/3d/animations?category=3d%2Fanimations&q=soldier&orderBy=1
This is also true of terrain elements. There are masses of excellent quality 3D stock art objects to be had for relatively very little money.
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6 minutes ago, Warts 'n' all said:
I log on humming "Tiger Rag" only to be confronted by Bazzer. Yuk!
Just to cement this in your noggin - think Copacabana ...
Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl
With yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there
She would merengue and do the cha-cha
And while she tried to be a star
Tony always tended bar
Across the crowded floor, they worked from 8 'til 4
They were young and they had each other
Who could ask for more?
[Chorus]
At the copa (CO!) Copacabana (Copacabana)
The hottest spot north of Havana (here)
At the copa (CO!) Copacabana
Music and passion were always the fashion ... -
19 minutes ago, Vacilllator said:
Ha, love it.
More seriously what you describe sounds very good to me, bring it on please
By the way is anyone else getting corrupted icons on the forums today?
Oh it's gonna happen now I know about it ...
And yes, icons, little squares, more forum weirdness.
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2 hours ago, Erwin said:
So one should not have a "boccage1.bmp" with textures as it won't show up? Or does "boccage1.bmp" sabotage the rest so that nothing else other than "boccage.bmp" shows up?
Presumably "boccage 2.bmp" was an error(?)
I really don't know, but I shall try a couple more. It might be boccage 1.bmp or boccage1.bmp. boccage 2.bmp and boccage2.bmp seem to both work, but boccage3.bmp doesn't, and so on ... also let's not mention boccage as opposed to bocage
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2 hours ago, Erwin said:
The other "innovation" that puzzles me since it makes things more complex and takes more time, is moving the "EDIT" button away from where it used to be (next to the QUOTE button) to the top right - so you now have to click on that NEW button in order to access the EDIT button so that one can then click on the EDIT button.
Why turn a simple one click process into a two click process??? Who one earth came up with these stupid ideas that make a simple process into a more complex process?
Quite!
And that's assuming the edit button even shows up - all I see at the moment is a small square outline ...
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9 hours ago, StieliAlpha said:
Is it only for me, or is the new forum UI not properly working on the iPhone since the last iOS update?
E.g., I see only tiny rectangles, where the „tap fields“ are.
It's happening in the desktop view as well - I'm using Brave browser and see only small squares in many of the click buttons, not to mention that the colours for page headers and quote box headers is still not optimal ...
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16 hours ago, Falaise said:
we can mix the Rambler's hedge, that of Lucky and that of stock to obtain variations.
we can use various names with and without space which will more or less modify the randomness
ex: boccage; boccage2; boccage 2; boccage3; boccage 3 etc ....
@Falaise I tried this in the past and it didn't work for me, so I just had another go and YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! GENIUS!!!
What I discovered, in a quick and colourful experiment, is that the numbering is somewhat odd, but we can indeed have a (probably unlimited) number of extra bocage textures which I don't think will impact on framerate, maybe it'll have an impact on load times. The numbering goes like this:
boccage.bmp; boccage2.bmp; boccage 2.bmp; boccage 3.bmp; boccage 4.bmp; boccage 5.bmp; boccage 6.bmp; ...
I stopped at seven textures but as you can see it's possible that we can have loads of different textures - which means I can do a few more to add quite a bit of variety - possibly some thinner, some deadwood, heavy branches ... dammit more work, nevermind, it'll make this hedgerow nerd happier.
In the meantime here's a screenshot of some quick multiple bocage textures numbered as above ...
And someone was so impressed he's using them as is:
@Vacilllator not sure where Mr Wittmann could hide his Tiger here ...
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46 minutes ago, Vacilllator said:
I've just started having a look at Rambler's Trees and Bocage mod (with thanks to @Rambler I assume). If you haven't seen it, it thins out foliage on trees, or on both trees and bocage. Interesting as it is probably more accurate than the dense impenetrable vision blocks in some situations, but perhaps not in others.
Here's the link in case it's news to anyone:
P.S. In another thread the theme was why bother using mods, LOL can't stop myself.
Thanks. I long used Rambler's excellent mods and then EZ's, which I think were versions of Rambler's, or at least inspired by them.
Bocage/hedgerows are so variable it's probably impossible to model all the different types. Some like it thick, some like it thin ... What I'd really like is a model that introduces some kind of variation in density. We have two different heights plus the garden hedge, but what would also be good is some different densities along the length of the bocage, auto-generated by the game engine or applied by the map maker. Maybe if we get a CMx3 BN this could be introduced - with associated spotting issues of course.
I may do a quick thinner version of my bocage and trees for those that don't like squinting at their screens to find their own pixeltrüppen let alone the enemy.
Did you see the YT video posted by @scarletto here:
Quite interesting in a hedge nerd kinda way.
P.S. you are suffering an addiction to mod p0rn
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21 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:
@Lucky_Strike Thanks for that explanation of the underlying problems of modding the hedgerows. I've always thought that the "straight poles" in particular looked out of place.
NP
Whilst it’s all still fresh in my mind I might have a small interlude to look at the bocage 3D models once I finish the basic Normandy textures.
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15 hours ago, 37mm said:
Nope, well not by us, the minimap resolutions are hardcoded & there's no way to change them... the game just converts any higher resolution minimap mods back down to the hardcoded resolution.
However, as the games have been released over the years the minimaps have improved somewhat...
So CMBN has mostly 16x16 mimimaps with a few 64x64 miminmaps for common terrains.
CMRT features fewer 16x16's, more 64x64 minimaps & the first [tagged] 128x128 minimap.
CMSF2 is near entirely 64x64, alongside several 128x128's.
Thanks for the explanation. Won’t worry about making new minimaps for BN, phew ...
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22 hours ago, Vacilllator said:
My curiosity is peaked
as I'm not either. Can't say I like bocage much anyway from a tank perspective, but that's not the point. Sounds like you have a cunning plan in mind, or that your jedi powers will evolve sufficiently to transform those large angular ever-green hedges?
17 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:Hedgerows could certainly do with some attention from the modding community. It would be good to see some earthen banks, tree roots, fallen branches etc.
Hmm. All I've managed so far is to tweak the bocage textures to include some alternative plants - hawthorn, weeds, brambles etc - but the way the graphics are used is a quite perplexing. Unlike most of the foliage textures used in-game, bocage is hard edged, so renders with a very blocky look. I don’t know if this can be affected in any way by altering the underlying models. Also it uses what appear to be straight poles for branches, again not sure if this can be changed. The earthen banks are created from the underlying ground textures, if plain grass is used under the bocage it looks pretty poor, some other ground textures look a bit better but this is down to the map maker to improve.
Unfortunately some decisions were made early on in the game development to have the bocage look like evergreen hedges, probably down to what was easy for the existing graphics capabilities of PCs to handle. This applies similarly to brush, bushes and trees. And, whilst these latter textures can be improved on, the bocage remains stubbornly resistant to change. My hope is that I can eventually make some changes to the underlying models to improve the look, but honestly, don’t hold your cumulative breaths.
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13 hours ago, 37mm said:
I will say that the Hi-res terrain mods do make the boundary between your Hi-detail bubble, close to the camera, & the low-res world, outside of it, FAR more noticeable* (arguably to the point of immersion breaking)... this is a particular concern with non-CMSF2 games as they tend to have smaller, low-res minimaps.
...
*Indeed for this, among other reasons, I've been tending towards reducing the Hi-res mods back down to standard resolutions (the textures are often inherently better no matter the resolution)... starting with H&E itself & now extending into my various other modpacks (Syria was recently reduced, as were the buildings for my Afghanistan modpack... your building mods in fact, did you notice?).
As a mod maker I tend to watch the action at ground level, so the look of the game is important to me, but I always start with a god’s-eye overview from on high which uses pretty much standard graphics. So @37mm are you saying that the minimaps textures can be improved in older titles like CMBN? That’s to say can they be enlarged, detail added, resolution bumped up?
I also have to agree with @37mm that reducing high res mods back down to standard resolution has much less of an impact on how the mod looks in general game play, some detail is lost but not so much as would be noticed most of the time. For my Normandy terrain I’ve produced the mod in high, medium and standard res where possible, and I have to say the standard res works pretty well.
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On 9/18/2020 at 4:36 PM, RepsolCBR said:
I will probably be an old, drewling man...wetting myself before that happens...
I must remember to switch off my web cam ...
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On 9/17/2020 at 10:46 PM, Falaise said:
it's crazy what we learn with this game !!!
LOL for sure! And what we pass on to others. Merci, mon ami! Who would have thought we’d be discussing arable farming in a war games forum ...?!
I never knew rapeseed oil was used as fuel back then. I’m definitely not going to be modding any for now. Just putting the finishing touches to Le Lin.
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On 9/17/2020 at 8:30 PM, JoMc67 said:
Ahh, I remember 'Lucky Strike' back in the CMx1 days...
I PM'ed you several yrs ago and saying how great your Panther Mods where (among a few others)...I was hoping one day for you to re-join the now CMx2 Mod Community...Great to have you back
Joe
Thanks Joe, I remember.
I did love those Panthers, but I got into modding CMx1 a bit late, not long before CMX2 emerged, then RL got in the way for a bit. I never went too far away, but modding takes time, which I was a bit short of when CMBN came out, so I had to put it aside. I’d really like to do some more vehicle textures, but I think the existing ones are pretty well covered (for now), whereas there are other things that drew my attention - still not happy with the bocage but I can’t resolve that (yet ...).
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On 9/17/2020 at 6:21 PM, Vacilllator said:
Great to see you're still working on this, I'm loving the flora as I blast Shermans and Cromwells
It’s never far from my thoughts ... just a bit of a lull in activity before the final push ... I still don’t like doing crops ...
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1 hour ago, Lethaface said:
No specialist but know a little / looked a few sources up. During the war many cattle and grassland was converted into crops to become self sufficient.
Grain is currently mostly (winter)wheat, presumably not much different back then. During the war I read there were a lot of potatoes and various vegetables ( beets, cabbages, sprouts, etc).
There is a lot of maize now, not sure back then.
I did read about rapeseed being subsidized during the war as a crop because some fats could be gained from it.This is useful info, thanks @Lethaface. Makes sense, guessing the German army turned most of the livestock into something they could eat, or at least deprived the advancing Allies and local populations of the possibility of a steak or sausage. Root crops and brassicas should be easier to do, Brussel sprouts anyone? I think maize is probably a bit more modern, it tends to be used as animal feed and for oil production, and is a late summer/early autumn crop. I’ll need to investigate it a bit more. Rapeseed is usually grown as an early summer crop, at least in the UK, so might well be out of the timeframe for BN/CW/MG or FB in the Low Countries or Germany.
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3 hours ago, 3j2m7 said:
...mouth-watering for all these added futurs little projects and effects, that you made already with perseverance, or obstinacy (don t know exactly which one I have to use) never completly happy with your job, and searching always the perfection !
I take you at your word...(those vines jar with me, we’ll see ...)
jM
Hahaha. I think both are appropriate. Have had an enforced break for a couple of weeks, but am getting back on the case now. Boy do I hate crops, they are by far the hardest textures to make look somewhat convincing, but I am nearly there, so will be able to post an update in a few weeks ... hopefully!
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4 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:
Nope, there aren't vines in FB. I assuming that is because the stock campaign set in Germany takes place in the streets of Aachen in autumn, and the stock battles set on the Franco-German border take place in mid winter.
So unless they’re added later in a patch, there’ll be no vines in FB = no champagne nor riesling ... sorry folks
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2 hours ago, Vacilllator said:
Thanks - I have an offer of help from Lucky_Strike so I may be okay. You make a good point about the real General Discussion forum, apologies for my bad
On its way to you now - enjoy!
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10 hours ago, Vacilllator said:
I could possibly have tried another forum but everyone here is so helpful, so...
Can anyone remember a campaign for Talonsoft's West Front (now under the John Tiller Campaign series name of course) based on the impossible task faced by 12th SS in Normandy? From memory it was produced by someone in Canada, and had at least 15 scenarios, but was unfinished when I last downloaded it. It was a memorable experience, with the sense of impending doom from the likes of naval artillery, air power and massed armour. I've looked for it but couldn't find it, although I did find downloadable scenarios at The Blitz website, where I think @IanL moderates.
Rather annoyingly I think I have it on an old internal hard drive which sadly is lacking the attached PC to read it - I suppose a cable of some sort might help.
Anyway, thanks for any help with what used to be my favourite game series - not any more of course! Which could perhaps suggest I forget about the above and get on with CMBN instead
I have a copy of a version of it, not sure how complete it is or what version it is. Long time since I touched West Front, one of my discarded play things on the way to CM.
I actually have a whole bunch of scenarios, campaigns, mods and data for WF and EF which I can bundle up if you want to browse through some ancient history, not sure what most of it actually is as it's so long since I looked at it, let alone played either. Anyway you're welcome to any of it that you might find useful.
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NP
Pen & Sword = UK original, probably published in US as well. Stackpole = US, publishing worldwide, usually reprint other publishers' titles in a cheaper format, most likely because the original publisher doesn't see any potential profit in making a new edition years after the first hardback and/or paperback. Stackpole fulfil a useful niche keeping otherwise out of print books going, but their books can be a bit on the rough side, okay for text but maps, pics etc are usually not that well reproduced.
Lucky Strike's Mods: Hedgerow Hell
in CM Normandy Maps and Mods
Posted
As I said GENIUS!
Keep a look out for the next release Rob, should be out before Ire & Rubble.