Lucky_Strike

That's a mod too far ... 
Thanks and no.
You can have this instead ...

It's one of my favourite mods - courtesy of our friend and star modder/scenario maker/inventor/dreamer/human dynamo @kohlenklau
 

Here's the latest and probably first release version of the hedgehog cum dragon's teeth mod.

This is a slightly warmer colour concrete and represent teeth fairly recently cast. Maybe just a litle tweak but otherwise they are part of v.1.
I did some quick, probably very unscientific, tests to see if the different textures would remain with the teeth in the same locations from their initial deployment through to actual game play, even to a saved game. It seems that they do but with a caveat. Everything went swimmingly at first then a strange curve-ball got into the mix. I had positioned the set above in the editor, saved the scenario, opened it to edit again, opened it as both Axis and Allies to play a couple of turns, finally opened a game save. Through nearly all of this the texture remained the same, then on the moment at which an American M4 approached them and they popped into view as he spotted them, they suddenly inherited a mix of textures. Now this was very unexpected because I had not seen a mix within a single set/base of teeth but only across sets, so set 1 might look like above, set 2 might be dark, set 3 another texture. Instead I saw dark teeth mixed in with the teeth above. So that was the end of that. No further saves would shake them out. Just another odd inconsistent behaviour.
Onwards ...

I did, but for the hedgehog mod into dragon's teeth I think we are limited to one size and one texture. These are NOT flavor objects ... yet. It's a quick way to build your very own Westwall for a map. If we also do flavor objects then, yes, it's possible to make all sorts of barriers. I had a conversation with @kohlenklau about this and, similar to what @RockinHarry's suggesting, one approach is to use the hedgehog as an invisible, immoveable object with flavor objects as the visible item, if we can make this work as there are caveats as Harry pointed out. It would be similar to the way your wrecks might be based on a barrel or something like that. This then allows us to have maybe half dozen various sizes of teeth, barriers and other gnashers.
Soon my friend, soon ...😉
I'll make a version 1 for you to get stuck into then we can see about some others using flavor objects. I'm thinking The Westwall mod set (otherwise known as Mrs Miggins hangs out her Washing on the Siegfried Line)
Re: the tram, my latest thoughts on that are an invisible immobilized AFV - a halftrack, or even something like a Bison would do the trick I reckon, so long as it's thinly armoured and not likely to be dangerous. It will provide a kind of core for cover and some concealment, so the pixeltroops would hopefully hide behind it. Course another option that just occurred to me is low bocage - not really a feature of cities so might be a way to mod a straight section into something more useful. Could certainly make the basis for a pile of rubble combined with an impassable ground tile like forrest - who knows.
Anyway I digress - your tram if on something like a halftrack could also encourage your pixeltruppen inside ... or what about a small independent building ... no ... could we? I really don't know enough about buildings to say ...
Yes, yes, yes, lets not get ahead of ourselves here - those things look like giant jacks ...
For the uninitiated, this is how we used to pass the time ... (for @Warts 'n' all  I think this is still in your future, although according to Wikipedia you may have been playing with a different material)

Just made a nicely detailed bespoke King Tiger from the Muncheberg Panzer Division.

I did, but for the hedgehog mod into dragon's teeth I think we are limited to one size and one texture. These are NOT flavor objects ... yet. It's a quick way to build your very own Westwall for a map. If we also do flavor objects then, yes, it's possible to make all sorts of barriers. I had a conversation with @kohlenklau about this and, similar to what @RockinHarry's suggesting, one approach is to use the hedgehog as an invisible, immoveable object with flavor objects as the visible item, if we can make this work as there are caveats as Harry pointed out. It would be similar to the way your wrecks might be based on a barrel or something like that. This then allows us to have maybe half dozen various sizes of teeth, barriers and other gnashers.
Soon my friend, soon ...😉
I'll make a version 1 for you to get stuck into then we can see about some others using flavor objects. I'm thinking The Westwall mod set (otherwise known as Mrs Miggins hangs out her Washing on the Siegfried Line)
Re: the tram, my latest thoughts on that are an invisible immobilized AFV - a halftrack, or even something like a Bison would do the trick I reckon, so long as it's thinly armoured and not likely to be dangerous. It will provide a kind of core for cover and some concealment, so the pixeltroops would hopefully hide behind it. Course another option that just occurred to me is low bocage - not really a feature of cities so might be a way to mod a straight section into something more useful. Could certainly make the basis for a pile of rubble combined with an impassable ground tile like forrest - who knows.
Anyway I digress - your tram if on something like a halftrack could also encourage your pixeltruppen inside ... or what about a small independent building ... no ... could we? I really don't know enough about buildings to say ...
Yes, yes, yes, lets not get ahead of ourselves here - those things look like giant jacks ...
For the uninitiated, this is how we used to pass the time ... (for @Warts 'n' all  I think this is still in your future, although according to Wikipedia you may have been playing with a different material)

I did, but for the hedgehog mod into dragon's teeth I think we are limited to one size and one texture. These are NOT flavor objects ... yet. It's a quick way to build your very own Westwall for a map. If we also do flavor objects then, yes, it's possible to make all sorts of barriers. I had a conversation with @kohlenklau about this and, similar to what @RockinHarry's suggesting, one approach is to use the hedgehog as an invisible, immoveable object with flavor objects as the visible item, if we can make this work as there are caveats as Harry pointed out. It would be similar to the way your wrecks might be based on a barrel or something like that. This then allows us to have maybe half dozen various sizes of teeth, barriers and other gnashers.
Soon my friend, soon ...😉
I'll make a version 1 for you to get stuck into then we can see about some others using flavor objects. I'm thinking The Westwall mod set (otherwise known as Mrs Miggins hangs out her Washing on the Siegfried Line)
Re: the tram, my latest thoughts on that are an invisible immobilized AFV - a halftrack, or even something like a Bison would do the trick I reckon, so long as it's thinly armoured and not likely to be dangerous. It will provide a kind of core for cover and some concealment, so the pixeltroops would hopefully hide behind it. Course another option that just occurred to me is low bocage - not really a feature of cities so might be a way to mod a straight section into something more useful. Could certainly make the basis for a pile of rubble combined with an impassable ground tile like forrest - who knows.
Anyway I digress - your tram if on something like a halftrack could also encourage your pixeltruppen inside ... or what about a small independent building ... no ... could we? I really don't know enough about buildings to say ...
Yes, yes, yes, lets not get ahead of ourselves here - those things look like giant jacks ...
For the uninitiated, this is how we used to pass the time ... (for @Warts 'n' all  I think this is still in your future, although according to Wikipedia you may have been playing with a different material)

Forgot adding and linking file to dropbox. (Invisible hedgehog obstacles) For those who are interested. https://www.dropbox.com/s/xfwjbl728dojxt3/LS-RHZ_Invisible_HedgehogObstcl.zip?dl=0
And another I forgot asking. How´s about adding smaller type war junk flavor objects and heaps? Something like (broken) firearms, helmets, opened ammo boxes, gear and such. 😎 I noticed @NPye started adding similar things to Berlin already.

Quite, there's a lot we can do with the flavor objects. I'm thinking two mods: one a simple HedgeHogs to Dragon's Teeth for quick and convenient Westwalls etc. The other a comprehensive flavor object barrier set with an invisible hedgehog as immovable object - all sorts of fun.
I think you're right about the metadata. I'm pretty certain that a lot of what you see in Blender is relative positional coordinates for the mesh, but some is related to light, reflection, shade etc, whilst some is probably an absolute mystery.
Good news is I managed to maintain the metadata in the dragon's teeth so they should play well.
That's pretty much it. AND going forward I will hopefully be applying this to my other mods so no more nasty textures.
Lots of fun ...
And to top it off I have now done some more work with the textures and, inspired by what I learned doing my multiple bocage texture a few years back I tried using numerical variations in the naming of the texture file - dragon-teeth.bmp, dragon-teeth 2.bmp, dragon-teeth 3.bmp, dragon-teeth 4.bmp etc (how many do we want? Anyone?) and yes it works ...


... a nice new dragon's tooth anyone ...

Each set of teeth will be textured the same, so one gets clusters of same textured teeth. What would be interesting to know is do they persist in their different textured groups once placed on a map, could we indeed have a row of just dark ones and a row of sparkly clean ones ... assuming the mod is used to begin with of course.
All this has got me thinking ...

I did, but for the hedgehog mod into dragon's teeth I think we are limited to one size and one texture. These are NOT flavor objects ... yet. It's a quick way to build your very own Westwall for a map. If we also do flavor objects then, yes, it's possible to make all sorts of barriers. I had a conversation with @kohlenklau about this and, similar to what @RockinHarry's suggesting, one approach is to use the hedgehog as an invisible, immoveable object with flavor objects as the visible item, if we can make this work as there are caveats as Harry pointed out. It would be similar to the way your wrecks might be based on a barrel or something like that. This then allows us to have maybe half dozen various sizes of teeth, barriers and other gnashers.
Soon my friend, soon ...😉
I'll make a version 1 for you to get stuck into then we can see about some others using flavor objects. I'm thinking The Westwall mod set (otherwise known as Mrs Miggins hangs out her Washing on the Siegfried Line)
Re: the tram, my latest thoughts on that are an invisible immobilized AFV - a halftrack, or even something like a Bison would do the trick I reckon, so long as it's thinly armoured and not likely to be dangerous. It will provide a kind of core for cover and some concealment, so the pixeltroops would hopefully hide behind it. Course another option that just occurred to me is low bocage - not really a feature of cities so might be a way to mod a straight section into something more useful. Could certainly make the basis for a pile of rubble combined with an impassable ground tile like forrest - who knows.
Anyway I digress - your tram if on something like a halftrack could also encourage your pixeltruppen inside ... or what about a small independent building ... no ... could we? I really don't know enough about buildings to say ...
Yes, yes, yes, lets not get ahead of ourselves here - those things look like giant jacks ...
For the uninitiated, this is how we used to pass the time ... (for @Warts 'n' all  I think this is still in your future, although according to Wikipedia you may have been playing with a different material)

A lighter less weathered version ...

Now without further ado ... THANKS AND PRAISE BE TO OUR ALMIGHTY MOD GOD @kohlenklau
He took them away, he chewed them up and sent me a beam of dazzling, tantrum-quenching, inspiration ...
Here are your dragon's teeth in their proper, glorious form...



So what made the difference ... I had completely forgotten that the CM engine does not like planes/faces of objects that are joined across angles. What we have to do is to separate the faces, ALL OF THEM, so that the texture fills the face and doesn't then seemingly smear across to the next face. I don't know why it's set this way, but it is.
How does the saying go ...? Ah yes, Where there's a way there's a Phil
Next up can someone make some of these gnashers ...

This is a great idea. I had discussed with @NPye the possibility of a tram road block as flavor object earlier but hadn't really applied myself to it. Using invisible, immovable items like the hedgehogs is perfect, though it's very likely that he's used a lot of hedgehogs as is for his maps. In the case of the tram I was thinking of an invisible immobilised AFV - a halftrack or something similar to add a bit of cover value as well.
Nevertheless there's still plenty to explore here. And Harry, I like your other blocks - similar to the 'British' versions that @Warts 'n' all posted a picture of. The anti-tank trench would be great for Kursk scenarios!

Well actually with careful use it can do an fantastic job and can produce some useful results. If only I could sort out some of the issues with UV mapping we would be away.
What I'm trying to achieve with the trees is something a bit more naturalistic, not just stick trees and cones, not to mention the bean poles holding up the bocage ... textures certainly go some of the way and a little bit of shaping can make a huge difference. But making it all in a vacuum is quite tough.
Absolutely, I actually don't have enough hours in the day to do what I do, let alone create a whole new environment. Anything, no matter the size, that anyone can do is always very welcome.
Yes it's a lot to store, good thing is though it's possible to just copy the Data sets for each game installation, back them up and have them at hand to reinstall. I keep all my Data sets on a NAS so I can install them on either my Mac or PC as needed. Also means I can keep everything in sync. My dream is to completely mod each game to my taste then have a master set that can be installed without Z folders filled with so many random tests, just replace all the original textures etc. 
Strange thing to code in, maybe BF were looking to do something else with it, though I can't think what. Maybe related to basements or tunnels or some such.
All black would do it. What I was seeing was shadows when there were not even any 'hidden' leaf branches. They weren't masked out in the alpha channels, they just weren't there at all. It's like the game remembered they were there originally. It's very bizarre and has no rationale as far as I can tell.
I wondered if that might be the case. I took a look a some other archive photos and noticed the same thing in other locations. Also noted there were quite a few different  shapes. 
Hah, yes, have to be careful else @Vacillator will insist we get a room.
We'll I'm happy that you like it and you're more than welcome to make use of it.
Well that one up on me, didn't know it was possible to copy/paste the original metadata. I went and tried building another one up from scratch on top of the original hedgehog model, h kept the original inside the dragon's tooth - bit like a kinda big dragon egg waiting to hatch a little baby hedgehog 🦔... < no that's not hedgehog poop 🤣
Anyway I could export that with metadata intact but it still didn't work 🤯
Actually the shadows look much better on your flatter coloured versions. Also they seem to have curved edges. I'll try some much lighter/cleaner texture and even more triangle texels - might ameliorate the issue temporarily until I can solve the UV problem, or not ... I'm pretty certain that there's something, possibly in the export script, that messes up the UV maps sometimes. So hard to know and sadly sbobovyc has moved on from the scripts.
Thanks for taking a look at them Harry. 

"Don't shoot. One day Aunty will make a telly show about you blokes."

Now without further ado ... THANKS AND PRAISE BE TO OUR ALMIGHTY MOD GOD @kohlenklau
He took them away, he chewed them up and sent me a beam of dazzling, tantrum-quenching, inspiration ...
Here are your dragon's teeth in their proper, glorious form...



So what made the difference ... I had completely forgotten that the CM engine does not like planes/faces of objects that are joined across angles. What we have to do is to separate the faces, ALL OF THEM, so that the texture fills the face and doesn't then seemingly smear across to the next face. I don't know why it's set this way, but it is.
How does the saying go ...? Ah yes, Where there's a way there's a Phil
Next up can someone make some of these gnashers ...

Yes we're all desperate 😣 But praise where it's due. Anything you can deliver, just anything, please ... 😉
Don't know - with the state of our economy this could be gainful employment, pay per click ...
I don't understand how this (the contour generator) wasn't included, and at least a randomising paint brush for terrain features, or the random map maker as @Vergeltungswaffe mentioned. It's kind of a no-brainer IMHO - sorry BF but in this instance I really think this was a corner cut too many. 
Let's hope it's noticed.

Thankfully, never tested. Mind you there was always ...

Thank you all! 😊 You should dial down the level of praise a bit, though, because otherwise it will go to my head. 😇
And please, please don't get your expectations up too much, I don't want you to be disappointed. This is not a random map generator. It will use randomneIss to decide which tree or crop or grass and so on it puts into a square. The information that there should be a tree comes from OpenStreetMap.
I keep wondering if they don't have something like this, at least for the professional edition? I have a hard time imagining that the British Army (or whoever is their customer) employs CM scenario designers...

This x3000.
I so miss the random map generator from CMx1 and this looks like the road to having it back.

😛

Aragorn my friend you should know the answer to this by now, as long as it takes ... and even longer when distracted ...

Yes, correct. In OpenStreetMap a forest is a polygon with some tags that mark it as a forest. CMAutoEditor has currently two options for such cases. It either randomly chooses a tree type and density individually for each square within this polygon or an identical one for all squares. The latter is useful for other farmland, for instance. The tool works in a way that you can configure what should go into an area of a specific type. So, if the map contains different grassland types you can have differently looking areas. For forests there are, e.g. tags that say 'broadleaved', so you could select only specific tree types instead of the general mix.
Ok, let's not derail this thread, here is a little sneak peek (mildly cherry-picked of course but everything generated automatically), I'll make a dedicated thread once the code is good enough to present.

I did say Phil 'has' a big helmet, not that he 'is' a big helmet.
And oddly I had thought of taggin you in, especially when Frankie arrived.

I remember as a somewhat innocent teen hearing my old dad shout "Helmet" at one of the blokes who played in the football team that he ran, whilst he walked through town minding his own business.
Me - Why did you call J***** "Helmet"?
Him - Cuz 'es a K*** Head.
Ah, the joys of a puritan upbringing.

I'd contribute a CMAutoEditor map. There is still some work to be done but currently I'm in the process of integrating OpenStreetMap content. Currently importing forests/bushes (with randomized tree types), farmland (with randomized crop types) and water works quite well. Importing roads/foot paths works... in many cases (converting lines on a map into those road tiles is algorithmically less than trivial and, sorry BFC, the line drawing tool sucks). I am thinking about integrating buildings (would have to be very randomized!) but no promises as that is a tough nut to crack and there's no guarantee that it would look adequate in any way...
Anyway, how about we do this: You suggest any area of, say, max. 3km x 3km, preferrably in Germany because there I know how to get good free terrain models in many cases. Name a Combat Mission Title. I'll do the script foo and provide the map. Someone else would have to make a scenario out of it - learning AI plans and all that would currently be a little too much for my schedule. 😉