Lucky_Strike

Yep, model plays without issue, behaved exactly as expected. Now to try it with a few other things that error'd when exporting, if I can remember what they were that is!
🦴 ⚱️ 🗿🥔 just some other stuff Harry dug up ... 😉

Dig more Harry dig more, return to the past, this is again a very nice and helpfull link 👍 you and Lucky are archaeologists from modern time 😁...
Now I will try it to see if this work also for me 😏
JM

My suspicion is that it wasn't actually the hedges, more some weird aspect of working on & saving the map to a later version... indeed I just checked @Aquila-SmartWargames later conversion hex edits without any difficulty, Tall Bocage & all.
Finishing the conversion is taking a little longer than I'd hoped. On the Japanese side, I have to swap out all the British bunkers (at least the ones not burning) for Italian ones... I'm about halfway through that task.
On the American side, the converted forces were kinda screwy so I had to rebuild & replace a lot of them.
However the extra time has had some added benefits, for instance motivating me to work on the US uniforms which are now all HBT* (original mods by KilgoreT )...

As well as converting the LVT mod for M3a1 Half Tracks (I don't think there are M5a1's in FI)...

I've also broken up the "wave 3-5" reinforcement into its individual waves, just to make things a little less daunting for the player.
Here's an example of a screwy conversion artifact, a 3 man Sherman carrying Demo charges...

I've also added some force backgrounds, a rudimentary splash screen, some music & played around with the floating icons... oh & tidied up the tiny concept scenarios with some basic victory objectives & AI plans.
 
Better get back to swapping those bunkers!
 
*The late war Marines from the original Pacific mod are now activated by a [brown] tag.

And what's that I see in the distance?
 
Just a moment whilst I put my specs on 👓
 
Is it a 🦅?
 
 
Is it a 🛩️ ?
 
 
... no ...
 
 
... it's 🎅 delivering an early gift ... 
 
 
 
... not really, but ...

...
 
 
... got it?
 
 
... ohh yessss!

... big @ss chimnies'r'us

... is it big enough? Is too much?

... texture needs a bit of work, depending on the size. Absolutely not tested, and unknown what might happen if anyone gets inside which they might be able to do. A free glass of my whisky for me if you can guess the host. Answers on a postcard, closing date for entries tonight, my time.

Okay, discovered I had already installed that - 🤣🤪 losing it!!
So, the big chimney of course refused to export with metadata. No changes to the underlying model but I got the usual unknown errors, no real surprise. So I just copied the metadata from the host object (top level) to both objects of the chimney. Now here's a very interesting thing; in my rush to test this I forgot to select the object hierarchy, normally absolutely essential otherwise script throws error warning that it's not selected. Exported without error! But cos nothing was selected the model was somewhat empty, mdr file size went from 107KB to 8KB ...
Second go with full hierarchy selected, no more unknown error HUZZA!
No obvious issues with the model in game at initial glance. Now need to test the model and see how it plays ...
 

Yep, I like to see on screen what I think would happen in reality. Especially like the replacement cower and buddy aid. Absolute must for me, can't tolerate seeing the curled up cower animations anymore.

Messing about with trying to create a generic muddy looking landscape for all the WW2 games - I started in RT. Replacing a few textures at a time to try and figure out the mod tags (that's another story 🙄). Anyway I've gotten to a point where I think I can make it work across ALL the WW2 titles for ALL locations and ALL seasons/weather (excepting snow for obvious reasons - though slush might have to be thunk about separately), using one generic set of ground textures to look really muddy - think Spring Awakening in RT, Hürtgen in FB, Anzio bridgeheads in FI ... you know the kind of thing.
So I was just looking at some of the textures in FI, checking how the tags work when I noticed that the generic ground grass (and ground grass yellow) texture tile looked different than in other titles (BN and RT, haven't checked FB). Further investigation shows that the Italian terrain uses a higher perceived resolution of grass tile than the other titles. Grass is one of the worst texture tiles IMHO, it is a complete blurred mess at anything close up, only really resolving into a texture when looking down from quite high up, and it looks really poor next to a nice sharp AFV for example. This may not be an issue for many folks, but I like to play down in the long grass so I find it irksome seeing the ground texture. The reason that grass tiles look so blaah is because each tile is stretch across 50 x 50 m2 that's 2500m2 - to represent the texture correctly would require a tile of 20480 x 20480 pixels - the existing stock tiles are 2048 x 2048 pixels.
Many modders have tried to improve the grass texture over the years but really there's not a lot of point as they all just end up looking either nasty at low level or weirdly out of scale from up above, this is not a reflection on the modders but rather how the game handles the texture. However, it seems that the game engine is not so equal as I thought, and that with a little tweak from on high we could have a higher resolution. I don't notice any particular hit on my GPU/frame rate with the alternative tiles used in FI so I wonder why this hasn't been implemented across the other titles? It's not like we would need to redraw maps, or anything like that, as it's an engine based change affecting how much each tile is stretched or repeated within a specific area of terrain. Plenty of the other tiles occupy much less relative space, that is, they are stretched less and repeated more often. Here's some images from RT and FI for you consideration. The ground grass tiles have been replaced with a different texture that I was considering for a sodden ground grass texture, the doodads are the same in both games (from my Hedgerow Hell mod 😉)
First RT from ground level, as close as possible ...

Nice grass shame about the boat race ...
Now FI, same distance:

That's better - notice how the blurring doesn't jar so much, it all just melds together better IMHO.
Now at camera Level 1 ... first RT ...

It's all kind of floaty ... Now FI ...

Again, IMHO the grass doodads seem more attached to the ground.
This is a matter of taste for sure. There are plenty who will not care, but for those that do, self included, it would be nice if all the games were created equal in this respect.
 

😎 Cool, this might help with some of the unknown meta errors which prevent mdr export with meta. I shall definitely be installing this. Thanks Harry.
Now is there a way to extrapolate the meta? Haven't looked, but it would be useful just to see it in a spreadsheet for example, much easier to look at and compare across models.

😎 Cool, this might help with some of the unknown meta errors which prevent mdr export with meta. I shall definitely be installing this. Thanks Harry.
Now is there a way to extrapolate the meta? Haven't looked, but it would be useful just to see it in a spreadsheet for example, much easier to look at and compare across models.

Anybody still using this? Figured one could bits of mix and match some the idle animation sequences with ones from different weapon groups. I.e taking the idles from LMG troopers work for rifle carrying guys as well and vice versa. This bits of adds more variation.
There´s also ways to bits of individualize certain pixeltroopers stances according to ones preferences like inspired from here:
Also like to remind of Frenchy56´s cool MG34/42 ani file mod here 😎
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/?s=MG34
 

Hargh, that's a coincidence that it looks quite similar. It's quite close to the centre as well, wonder if it's on the map I have will need to take a look. Hard to be sure with foreshortening but that bridge should help locate it.

Well as it happens a bottle arrived today, so I accept your gift 🥃

I LOVE IT!

LOL thats iso awesome mate...Will work really well on Stalingrad maps as well...I think the size is good bud... You get a bottle of whiskey for this one...

OMG u done it. How ****ing emmersive is that... I love it and can I have it?????? 

Agree. But that´s the price of beauty I guess.
Ahh.... Butschi´s stuff. I´d downloaded all required files already but haven´t yet came to install and try it all out. 🤪 If it works (for me) it´ll surely be huge timer saver I guess. 😎

Very nice very interresting project we can do a lot of things with this I 
JM

I had another look at how I had buried the bunkers for comparison especially in light of the extra info/pic of your map. mine were only 2m deep whereas you had them 3m deep. So now I have buried them 3m deep and your special bunker is definitely sitting better in the ground. I tried switching them as well to see if it was just something to do with the ground mesh, but in both cases your special bunker sat much more centred in its hole than the stock MG bunker, as well as looking like it was slightly lower down. Yours is on the left here:

yours ... where is everybody?

the stock mg bunker ... no amount of clicking would get it into the hole nice and centred.

And what's that I see in the distance?
 
Just a moment whilst I put my specs on 👓
 
Is it a 🦅?
 
 
Is it a 🛩️ ?
 
 
... no ...
 
 
... it's 🎅 delivering an early gift ... 
 
 
 
... not really, but ...

...
 
 
... got it?
 
 
... ohh yessss!

... big @ss chimnies'r'us

... is it big enough? Is too much?

... texture needs a bit of work, depending on the size. Absolutely not tested, and unknown what might happen if anyone gets inside which they might be able to do. A free glass of my whisky for me if you can guess the host. Answers on a postcard, closing date for entries tonight, my time.

And what's that I see in the distance?
 
Just a moment whilst I put my specs on 👓
 
Is it a 🦅?
 
 
Is it a 🛩️ ?
 
 
... no ...
 
 
... it's 🎅 delivering an early gift ... 
 
 
 
... not really, but ...

...
 
 
... got it?
 
 
... ohh yessss!

... big @ss chimnies'r'us

... is it big enough? Is too much?

... texture needs a bit of work, depending on the size. Absolutely not tested, and unknown what might happen if anyone gets inside which they might be able to do. A free glass of my whisky for me if you can guess the host. Answers on a postcard, closing date for entries tonight, my time.

I'd imagine it's the modern affliction. I certainly suffer twinges and I have no doubt that our very own GeorgeMC must given the detail on his maps. That's why the map generator script by Butschi will really help for some of the random textures clicking.

Testing this  for ground and paved road textures much rougher roads and tramlines plus cracked pavement. I like it. What do ya think. Cheers

RSI? 🤔
Yup, also considering all the basic functionality resides in game engine already. Just need made accessible and rerouted to some editor buttons. In 2D editor pressing "O" key does the thing. In game it could work as well, when fixating game views to 6 and above. Just adding the outsourced custom made map layer on top might suffice for a start.
Nooooo.... don´t start making maps more seriously.... now. lol 😅

Ah... that I´ve experience with already... unfortunately. 🥴 One my "mouse fingers" can get a swell if I overdo but developed my counter measures when I start feeling it. Thus as well I´ve deepest respect for ARMA map (and mission) makers generally.