Lucky_Strike

Thread shouldn´t see much activity and people usually check out 1st and last post, here the
Abstract:
Utilize the Blender method in order to create/import new (3D) objects or modify existing objects in Combat Mission. Furhtermore techniques and ideas how to integrate these in-scenario.
Mods/Downloads:
The majority of the 3D custom mods released here are of experimental, educational, and proof-of-concept nature and never had the intention to become a quality/final product. They were not made to look great. Objective was to breach boundaries and enable modders to employ and further develop these techniques in order then to create shelf-ready mods. Was clear to most as I stated it dozen of times but there is always the particuar not very bright struggling to understand, this should sort it out extra clear.
Text:
Good information but alot of clutter. Documented and described all discoveries. Best to start from beginning, skip what is not interesting. Used bold to emphasize. Good skimming skills welcome.
Videos:
Alongside documented alot of my Blender experiments by video recording them. Some without commentary, newer ones with. Not easy as the Blender method per se is unusual but computer layman level individuals reported to me they were able to figure it out using the videos. Skip video parts you don´t see relevant. I recommend to start with the later - commented - videos. Linked video 47 is a good start. Playlist:
 
Next?:
My objective is completed. @JM Stuff @37mm @Lucky_Strike  @kohlenklau @NPye and other very talented modders released quality mods and are further developing and exploring new methods. Check out their threads for the most up-to-date knowledge. You will find their work in the respective threads usually located in the CM games´ mods forum sections.
 
Great too see the plenty of promising projects
Good modding

For sure, snow has it's very own set of issues. I did mess about with some trees and bits a couple of years ago. Other than the issue I mentioned wrt pine tree leaf branches facing most of the rest is not too hard to visualise. It really depends on whether I go for the full Christmas card winter wonderland look or something a bit more restrained. I really enjoy playing FB snow battles, fond memories of battles in CMx1, so it's hard not to want the full winter wonderland.
I tried a quick night fight against the AI on a small section of Berlin map, just testing my Panzer IV bunker. AIP had one objective - destroy my bunker and occupy the location. Waited 30 minutes, the length of the scenario, for the AIP to show up. Not a single AI pixelnik nor tankski showed, at the end of the game I found them all clustered in a side street out of sight! 🤣 Think they found a bottle of vodka there or something.
Will eventually make some textures for these. Have already shown the bocage and hedges can be remodelled with all sorts of stuff, so turning them into fallen branches should be fine.
Still too scary for me!!!
Yes, s'what makes that map flow well and look natural. Nature is full of amazing patterns and surprising maths but it's also very untidy at times.
Exactly. I did try the FI shader folder in RT to see if it made any difference, sadly I couldn't see anything noticeable save for the movie mode.
Yes it's a shame really that there is no nature damage modelled beyond the loss of leaves and complete disappearance.
Yes these are on my list of stuff to create. I already looked at the scaling of the bushes as the stock models are too uniform for my taste. They all look a bit too much like someone's garden shrubs. I have some already that are more like small trees, whilst others are like thickets. It's a shame that bushes and trees can't coexist on the same tile, but we can use our friends low bocage and hedge  to compensate to an extent. 
Yes they are, though the footpath is barely recognisable as the same texture because it's scaled and has a degree of transparency as you say. The dirt lot is dirt road scaled down a bit.
Yes I like the dirt street open sewer mod. It could be worked on to make an extremely narrow water course with a rutted road effect perhaps. Will have to look at it.

Here's my latest offering, A photo book, made in old style presentation and colouring.
Whilst building the Mod I have researched through 1000's of old photos of before, during and after the conflict ended. When you see Berlin in 1900s it is such an inspired city, with culture at its foremost, the architecture is so beautiful, the layout of the streets all complimentary, it has vast retail areas like Saarlandstrasse, Alexanderplatz, Potsdamer Platz,  Unter den Linden to name a few...then the huge cultural sector like Museum Island. There are Palaces and Cathedrals...
Then you look at the destruction, all this gone not just in Berlin but by 1945 the whole country, as the all mighty Third Reich goes into its death throes... war is such a waste, the lives lost and the lives ruined, the cities destroyed by a conflict brought about by one man and one political parties vision.
Imagine being a Berliner, what suffering they endured for years putting up with the Nazis telling them what art to like and what books to read, what cinema, the propaganda every day. From the housewife to the business man they waited in line  for everything, even whilst under Russian Artillery fire in the last days as not to lose their place. Then having the news that a relation had been killed at the front... and if you were a soldier imagine seeing the destruction every time you can home getting worse and worse until total destruction and you are fighting on the streets were you live, your 14 year old son is in charge of an AA gun in the Z sector, your wife dead from Allied Air Terror attacks, your home in ruins and all your friends and neighbours all gone. Dead or moved to another location... Anyway enough already, you know the deal. 
So grab a coffee and enjoy my slideshow of the Potsdamer Platz battle area. 
 

It´s bits of a Blender hack then combined with one the known placement cheats in CM editor. Only tried in CMFB ATM.
 
1. In Blender move the objects full hierarchy up 30-40m. Export.
2. In CM place the edited flak in intended action spot.
3. in map editor place the building "on top" of where you know the flak is.
4. open 3D deploy editor and see results.
5. exit deploy screen then go to 3D map preview. "Destroy" roof and upper story of newly placed (modular) building with SHIFT +ALT Click. (that for making the "flat" roof looks) Add balconies if desired (SHIFT+CNTRL Click) and change facades + windows to your liking. Exit 3D preview.
6. Enter deploy screen again and see if the Flak drops or dropped down to next valid level. Should be the one below the destroyed roof then. Check out various face command effects. You can get the Flak beeing placed on the balcony i.e
7. If everything "sticks", save mission and do a play test.
8. If play test does not reveal any issues, replace the "hacked" MDR with original one, or simply delete it from data/z folder. Have fun with flak towers. 🤪


That for cover value of even a 16x16 type mod building. But the situation was bits of unfair I got to admit. 😅

Edit: might share the "hacked" 88Flak MDR as well. Think it´s version where I removed the gun carriage. Use at your own peril. https://www.dropbox.com/s/iq4m3ecya1bskzg/flak36.7z?dl=0
 

Yes I think I have the snow mod somewhere, assumed it would be redundant once we got snow in games but not the case. I think I was going to sort through it at some point, just another thing on the list. Really looking forward to seeing some of your maps in the flesh.
Yes I don't really like the brush doodads at all in forests, there's no way to stop them appearing if using the ground forest textures other than by making them invisible, which obviously affects ALL brush. Since they don't really provide much in the way of cover nor concealment my ideal would be to do as you suggest, turn them into something more akin to fallen branches and accumulated forest detritus, then to use low bocage and hedges for scattered brush in the forests. Choosing the angled corners, cross shaped sections and the gap sections provides a much more diverse and realistic look, PLUS they offer better cover and concealment than the brush, PLUS one can place them where one wants and where they might look more natural. 
Yes, it wouldn't actually be that hard to have a few extra options in the shaders to at least create a darker look that targets a certain colour range, and which could be toggled in by the player. The game engine already adapts the palette slightly to alter the colours for different atmospheric conditions, more aggressively for dusk/dawn and, the most obvious, night. It would be nice to have another shader(s) for wet or dull.
Looks like something from WW1 almost.
Shame we only have the one (BN/FI) or two (FB/RT) pine trees, would be nice to have some shattered trees that aren't flavour objects. Though there's nothing to stop any of the trees being made into coniferous trees, heck we could have an all coniferous set if we wanted ... all shapes and sizes ... 🤔 hmmmm there's a thought. All pines maybe one birch or alder ... hmmm ... takers?
😎 I do like to try and recreate photographs in CM, good fun. Your ReShade version is really nailing it.
So at the moment I have one section of straight paved road 1 looking very rutted and muddy. No chance of bogging on the road but surround it with soft ground and setting conditions to muddy with some precipitation should mean the going will be tough off road.
I haven't finalised the style I will go with, but will try to get that done this week. Also have a few textures working for ground dirt and ground dirt road. These three alone can create a really muddy looking terrain. The dirt road texture is just one texture for all shapes, so that's quite quick. Paved road requires a whole range of shapes so will take longer. Puddles actually look okay if purely cosmetic; real water ... don't think it's going to be possible, could probably make the stream look like a very water-logged track but I think the use is so limited that the effort involved is not worth it, at least not until I get some other stuff out the door.

Yes I think I have the snow mod somewhere, assumed it would be redundant once we got snow in games but not the case. I think I was going to sort through it at some point, just another thing on the list. Really looking forward to seeing some of your maps in the flesh.
Yes I don't really like the brush doodads at all in forests, there's no way to stop them appearing if using the ground forest textures other than by making them invisible, which obviously affects ALL brush. Since they don't really provide much in the way of cover nor concealment my ideal would be to do as you suggest, turn them into something more akin to fallen branches and accumulated forest detritus, then to use low bocage and hedges for scattered brush in the forests. Choosing the angled corners, cross shaped sections and the gap sections provides a much more diverse and realistic look, PLUS they offer better cover and concealment than the brush, PLUS one can place them where one wants and where they might look more natural. 
Yes, it wouldn't actually be that hard to have a few extra options in the shaders to at least create a darker look that targets a certain colour range, and which could be toggled in by the player. The game engine already adapts the palette slightly to alter the colours for different atmospheric conditions, more aggressively for dusk/dawn and, the most obvious, night. It would be nice to have another shader(s) for wet or dull.
Looks like something from WW1 almost.
Shame we only have the one (BN/FI) or two (FB/RT) pine trees, would be nice to have some shattered trees that aren't flavour objects. Though there's nothing to stop any of the trees being made into coniferous trees, heck we could have an all coniferous set if we wanted ... all shapes and sizes ... 🤔 hmmmm there's a thought. All pines maybe one birch or alder ... hmmm ... takers?
😎 I do like to try and recreate photographs in CM, good fun. Your ReShade version is really nailing it.
So at the moment I have one section of straight paved road 1 looking very rutted and muddy. No chance of bogging on the road but surround it with soft ground and setting conditions to muddy with some precipitation should mean the going will be tough off road.
I haven't finalised the style I will go with, but will try to get that done this week. Also have a few textures working for ground dirt and ground dirt road. These three alone can create a really muddy looking terrain. The dirt road texture is just one texture for all shapes, so that's quite quick. Paved road requires a whole range of shapes so will take longer. Puddles actually look okay if purely cosmetic; real water ... don't think it's going to be possible, could probably make the stream look like a very water-logged track but I think the use is so limited that the effort involved is not worth it, at least not until I get some other stuff out the door.

Who else as our Lucky guy, the master of the Nature.
Harry, your pictures are really nice and seem to be real, is really a wonder to use correctly the famous Reshade, when you have a good knowledge of a good setup !
JM

Armor (M10 TD) in the hurtgen. M10 textures by Aris, bits of tweaked for some wet looks.

with Reshade

and some pic from the net

who has those muddy dirt roads again? @Lucky_Strike

Thanks you @Lt Bull to post, my blame, here, you can find Ideas Opinions and Projects that we can discuss about, also members can eventual explain what they would like to see, I will put my brain to realised it.   When stuffs are ready I shake hand to Bootie to put on the correct place.   Sometimes things in the link in my signature but this has to be updated, sorry for this inconvenience.   I try that all is ready for Christmas with news wrecks packs in the model of the RTPk1 already on CMMODs for Allied, Axes, and Civilians or mixed vehicles and stuffs.   @RockinHarry, found that we can added  now not 9 Flavour objects (FOs), but 16, where a mod of buttons created from himself, is necessary to see all categories of FOs available, that I recommand to everybodys to download it, and say thank you, Harry also for the link.   This is a huge job, and I need more time to realized it, but I m never without, news ideas, so, just wait...   Bigs Packs will come for :   CMBN, FI, FB, RT, CW, BS, nothing this time for SF2, but is perhaps possible to pick up some stuffs, from BS, or CW, for Russian material minimum, any Ideas?   Thanks again to all yours supports guys.    Voila voila   JM  

Some fun with flak towers in CMFB. 😅


Pity the mod buildings in the game are such crap cover.

The Zoological Flak Tower, set in the Tier Garden Berlin, this tower caused both the soviets and the British a lot of trouble... The Soviets 1st attack on the Reichstag was completely stopped with the help of this tower 128mm Flak/AT guns and the British found it really hard to demolish... lol The tower had commanding views that spanned for miles across this sector of Berlin... I know I can't replicate this correctly (as I cant place any 88mm or smaller flak guns on the roof) but it's still a formidable obstruction for the Soviets. 

Gave this a shot. Tried several different ways of converting to 256 indexed colours in PS - Local adaptive, Local perceptual, exact for Windows, exact uniform -it produced some weird colouring, a mud texture came out looking like dark blueish coal ... there may be other factors at play that I'm not aware of but I couldn't get naturall colouring to work. 🥴

We need the errors fixed not inverted and made worse after gratuitous indulgence. 
EDIT: I volunteer to hold the beer and keep it cold until after you and the other smarter guys have done the proper corrections.

@vudi Hello buddy. I only just now saw your question today at the end of October. Are you still out there in the forum? I promise to help you figure this out. Can you PM me?

US 9th ID in the green hell, october 1944. This is a prototype map checking certain things out. Mods in use: Worghern´s Blitzkrieg Environment for CMFB with bits of my own tweaks and some ReShade FX. https://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=3984



Contact!

Some german molehill defenses. 😅

 
 
 
 
 
 

Thank you, guy, nice to see you and appreciated your comments, soon the wrecks pack will come out for almost all CM games !
JM

As this thread contains informations not specific for CMSF2 and relevant for all CM games. I will attempt to move this thread into the general CMx2 mod tips subforum.

Yeah being a mountaineer I prefer wide open spaces 🤣
Nane oh this jungle/tree bashing stuff!! <shudder>

With all that in mind here are some excessively large forest floor textures I have accumulated. Some I've tried, at least one or two are current defaults. I think they are all seamless, you'll know soon enough if they aren't. Majority are high res by CM standards so you might need to scale 'em down. There are some nice pine forest ones amongst them that may well be what you are looking for.

AND IN JUST A FEW MOMENTS AFTER I POSTED THAT, the incredible self-help potential of our community has raised up to solve it. @Jace11 is way smarter than I am and has evidently better attention to detail than I do. 😞  He spotted something named incorrectly in the model.  🙂
"muzzle"
changed to 
"weapon muzzle"
seems to fix them, effects come out the barrels now instead of the top of the bunkers.
Here is a dropbox link to the fix for CMFB. I think it should also work for the other titles but will need tested.
CMRT seems fine with this fix.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9cx82qz6c3txsjk/AACf0xdsEYJYEr3xOyOxjYg4a?dl=0
 

Yes, v.similar approach here. And also make sure when first importing a mdr into Blender to check the displayed model for missing textures. BF have a habit of reusing odd little bits from all over the place, I found Tiger turret texture (MG) inside Panzer IV G turret, not obvious just by looking at the model. Here your friends are the File > External Data > Report missing files and File > External Data > Find missing files. Have the Blender Info pane open for this. Saves hassle later when exporting.
 

Hehe, or just stay away from buildings and find the nearest ditch/bocage.

Hehe, will for sure need testing. Reckon I can do a few at a time and slide them your way.
I haven't, but I will, it seems to be linked much more to regional variations so doubtful it will work in the other games. Yeah rain is tough, it's too 'big' in game and looks best with a bit of mistiness, the latter is better achieved in ReShade.
Definitely will try puddles, maybe even use that water shader thing which is used for ponds and the like, if I can figure out how to.
Also will try some normal maps on a couple of ground textures, would really boost the mud look.