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37mm

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Posts posted by 37mm

    SF2 'All in One' Released

    in CM Shock Force 2 Maps and Mods

    Posted

    7 hours ago, The Steppenwulf said:

    @37mm I've messaged you once and it didn't warrant a long-ranting list of counter justifications.
      

    I will certainly consider your request the next time I update the AiO.

    PS

    As well as the music & the plates, am I alright to use the (tweaked) versions of @Scipio's vehicle silhouettes you used without permission or credit?

    0

    SF2 'All in One' Released

    in CM Shock Force 2 Maps and Mods

    Posted

     

    One of my ongoing side projects (aimed, mostly, at the new influx of Steam Players) is to host an 'All in One' for every CM game here.

    CMSF2 has been a bit of a mess on that front with separate modpacks for Syria, Afghanistan as well as old dropboxes of content from SF1 scattered around the place.

    This has now all been brought together under one package... a proper 'All in One'.

    Arguably this 'All in Ones' primary feature is a vast mass of content (361 scenarios* & 31 campaigns) which has been organized into four different categories...

     

    Syria

    The default modpack should be fairly familiar to many consisting of (tweaked) versions of @Kieme(ITA)'s outstanding terrain & buildings mods (I also added a few of @Zveroboy1's Allepo buildings), @MikeyD's horizons, @Pete Wenman's flavour objects, a tweaked version of @Sir Lancelot's realistic Syrians, @Jock Tamson's unconventional & (tweaked) British mods, tweaked versions of @AtlasActual's Canadians & a few bits & pieces from @mjkerner's USMC mods. There are also some .mds fixes by @Kevin2k & @Jace11. Many of the old SF1 vehicle mods by the likes of @Ryujin, @M1A1TC, @Kieme(ITA) & @Marco Bergman will also be quite familiar. @Mord's Marine vehicles have been given [brown] tags & so don't conflict with the US Army vehicles.

    UI mods are provided by @xacto, @SteppenWolf, @Vinnart, @Mord & @MikeyD. Whilst music is a mix from @Blimey & (I believe) @Augusto. The ME effects compliation & ME soundscape (with its expanded dynamic range) & voices by waclaw, @George MC &  @Mord complete the package.

    What might not be familiar is that I have added "rudimentary weathering" to (I believe) every vehicle in the game & used @JMDECC's .psd layers to add dust to every uniform.

    207 user made scenarios & 23 user made campaigns are set in Syria.

    84YOLS2.png

    5uNi37I.png

    gNZRCvV.png

    There are three zip files inside the Syrian mod folder labelled Afghanistan, MENA & OPFOR. Unzip ONE of these files to activate that particular regions mods...

     

    Afghanistan

    Users of the (now discontinued) SF2-Afghanistan 'All in one' will be familiar with this mod option. It is in essence a fusion of @Zveroboy1's excellent Afghanistan, Taliban & ANA mods alongside a port of Combat Mission: Afghanistan's terrain & @Bil Hardenberger's Afghanistan trees as well as various doodads from @SeinfeldRules & @Kieme(ITA). The modpack has been tweaked & simplified somewhat from the 2021 version but little has really changed.

    There is now a folder for appropriate text changes (renaming "Syria" into "Afghanistan" for example) however this will only work for the current game version (2.06). This folder will have to be deleted for all other game versions prior or to come.

    2 user made campaigns & 44 scenarios have been given an "AFG" prefix to highlight that they are set in Afghanistan.

    2NMIMgx.jpg

    ok0T1oQ.png

    VdZC6eL.png

     

    "Middle East & North Africa" aka "MENA"

    Whilst planning the 'All in One' I was considering updating the old "Road to Bahgdad" mod by @Blimey using primarily the cool DCU uniform mods by @beeron & @Damian45.

    However as I sorted through all the user made scenarios, I came to realize that there were many other Middle Eastern scenarios set in places like Libya, various fictional Middle Eastern kingdoms, various training camps & even a blue on blue battle set in an Egyptian shopping mall.  As such the MENA modpack was born... the best way of describing it is "The Middle East but NOT Syria".

    Terrain & doodads are a port of the old SF1 terrain & (I think) is quite pleasing to the eye (it also looks much sandier than I remembered). @SteppenWolf's UI & music take centre stage here & more of @Zveroboy1's buildings enter the mix. There's a few different vehicles by @M1A1TC, some more voices by @Mord (as well as a different mix of portraits). @JMDECC's .psd's have been used to create alternative red uniforms alongside his Iranian vehicles (although these have also been rudimentarily weathered &, inspired by @IICptMillerII's sandy vehicles, recoloured somewhat).

    There is also a folder for appropriate text changes however this will only work for the current game version (2.06). This folder will have to be deleted for all other game versions prior or to come.

    2 user made campiagns & 60 scenarios have been given a "MENA" prefix to highlight that they are not set in Syria.

    eeD7PwG.png

    frtXZOY.png

    JAfspLi.png

     

    "Generic OPFOR"

    The old SF1 content creators (and some of the newer SF2 ones) were an adventurous & experimental bunch and, with only one CM game to work with for many years, unsurprisingly made a considerable amount of content set in alternative theatres. There are scenarios set in Europe, in Chechnya, on Artic Islands, nuclear wastelands, Africa, South America, New Zealand, New England, various fictional countries... I think there's a Chinese invasion of the United States & a zombie attack or two.

    To mod all of these places would be impractical to say the least, so I came up with the "Generic OPFOR"... they are everyone & nobody, everywhere & nowhere.

    Terrain is a mix of the old Euroscape & Syrope mods by @dpabrams & @birdstrike respectively as well as their US vehicle mods. @Kevin2k provides the Syrian & British vehicle mods whilst @JMDECC provides the various woodland uniforms. I also added some @Oleksandr uniforms to the mix.

    Yet more of @Zveroboy1's buildings are added to the mix alongside the modern UI mod by @Kinophile. I have no idea where the music tracks are from.

    There is also a folder for appropriate text changes however this will only work for the current game version (2.06). This folder will have to be deleted for all other game versions prior or to come.

    4 user made campaigns & 50 scenarios have been given the "OPFOR" prefix to highlight that they are not set in the Middle East.

    nFUTJjT.png

    RvWORWD.jpg

    SgmnSEl.png

     

    There's also another two additional folders...

    Extras & Options

    Here you will find various extras which can be activated when needed or desired for example there's a modern version of @RockinHarry's re-animate mods (I used a lot of SF1 animations for the modded stances) designed to keep the pixeltruppens heads down & (possibly) increase their survivability.

    There's the old SF1 marsh & mud to water mods which can be used whilst playing SF1 campaigns which are meant to have water on them (the old content creators did not have access to water so often made do with marsh).

    There's an untagged night effects pack designed for dawn/dusk scenarios (this will also have the added benefit of removing all those sunglasses... your troops will no longer wear shades at sunset) as well as @Kieme(ITA)'s optional HD highway pack (these look good but don't work with every maps highway set-up).

    Modtags

    There's not many but here you will find @Zveroboy1's ANP pick-up, a weathered & desert version of @Chelentano's T-34, the old "Road to Bahgdad" cemetary mod & @Pete Wenman's squalor mod. They're activated automatically.

     

    DOWNLOAD LINKS & INSTALLATION

     

    https://www.mediafire.com/file/hk8tt6jfxv2ro8l/CMSF2_%27All_in_One%27.7z/file

    https://app.mediafire.com/izmk6muctniv5

    Unzip the file & add the "Z for Syria" folder to your games data folder (the folder with the .brz files in it)... that's it.

    For the content, add the campaign .cam files to your games campaign folder & the scenario .btt files to your games scenarios folder... I suggest adding the content to folders which only contain base game scenarios & campaigns.

     

    *I have updated a lot of the old SF1 maps which featured marsh being used as pseudo-water with proper SF2 water however there's nothing much I could do about the campaigns (other than provide the old "marsh to water" mods as an optional extra).

    16

    Initial 'All in One' modpack

    in Combat Mission Red Thunder

    Posted

    4 hours ago, Phantom Captain said:

    Can someone help with making my tracers look right?  They are multi-colored rainbows right now. 

    I've not changed the effects & certainly not the tracers I use* for many years now so there shouldnt be any issues.

    Have you an untagged night effects option active somewhere perhaps? I find they can be occasionally quite colourful.

     

    *@Vein's v4 tracers during they day & @Ithikial_AU's versions at [night]

    0

    Trying to modify a .bmp file with gimp but it shows the black pixels ingame and I dont get how to fix it

    in CM2 Scenario and Mod Tips

    Posted

    GIMP, as far as I can tell, will never transfer transparency to .bmp files (perhaps there's a plugin for that).

    You need to convert a .bmp file to a .png file (which GIMP & Paint.net handle better), use that & then convert back to .bmp afterwards.

    I use the very simple Pixelformer for a lot of basic .bmp work (there's probably better options out there).

    1

    Initial 'All in One' modpack

    in Combat Mission Red Thunder

    Posted

    9 hours ago, Russkly said:

    Is the link in the original post always the latest version, or does one have to search through this thread to find it?

    Nowadays, the links should never change (but I do mess up occasionally)

    Either way, the VERY FIRST link in the OP is a link to all the compilations & will never change.

    Also subscribers to my channel will have a pretty good idea of what I'm currently working on & (roughly) when it'll be ready for release.

    1

    Distant terrain display and ground mini textures question

    in CM2 Scenario and Mod Tips

    Posted

    Fresh sets of eyes are always a good thing & getting an "overall look" right is kinda my thing these days so send away...besides it seems inevitable I will be compiling a 2023 CMBS "All in One" update at some point.

    I would also ping @Falaise & @Lucky_Strike as they're far better terrain experts than me.

    Indeed @Lucky_Strike recently discovered why the longstanding general opinion by many that CMFI was the prettiest looking CM game wasn't just an objective opinion but an actual fact as CMFI has (by FAR) the most advanced grass rendering of any CM game.

    Plus both he & @RockinHarry are apparently working on mud mods.

    I suspect a lot of the confusion with minimaps is due to engine changes... originally CMSF, CMA & (I believe) early versions of CMBN used multiple mini bitmaps & they were often only 8x8's. As further games were released the mini bitmap sizes seemed to increase over & the multiple mini bitmaps disappeared.

    0

    Distant terrain display and ground mini textures question

    in CM2 Scenario and Mod Tips

    Posted

    This image might help explain what happens if you use larger bitmaps for the mini's...

    xvChwEv.png

    ... the tiles on the left are using a 512x512 bitmap of this square pattern.

    As you can see the game loads the entire bitmap & tries to spread it entirely over a large area.

    The tiles on the right are using a typical 64x64 bitmap of the same pattern & here, once the pattern is finished with, the game just loads another one & keeps going until the area has been covered.

    The reason why @Kieme(ITA) & @SeinfeldRules sometimes go for smaller bitmaps is probably because getting the colour right is the most important aspect of distant terrain.

    Creating a large repeating pattern is often detrimental for smooth distant views. Here for example is the transition from HD terrain to a full HD mini bitmap...

    tBdcUwR.png

    Here's how it should look (with 64x64 bitmaps)...

    S8aV9U1.png

    Oh & here's how it looks if you shrink the mini's to 8x8...

    1EQFh2M.png

     

    1

    New campaign - USMC Gung Ho! available

    in CM Shock Force 2 Maps and Mods

    Posted

    On 5/5/2023 at 12:57 AM, jspec said:

    Hey thanks for making this!

    I'm getting back into CM after haven't not played for a while, and am having trouble getting this campaign to show up in-game.

    High likelihood of user error here, but I've placed it where the other campaigns are located (...Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Shock Force 2\Game Files\Campaigns) but when I go into the game menu this one doesn't show up.

    Built a new machine earlier in the year and reinstalled a few CM games, all installed the 'game files' folder in the documents folder, except CMBN which installed it in the  actual Combat Mission Battle for Normandy folder I installed the game to.

    Not sure if that means anything really, just grasping at straws. I copied my 'game files' folder from the documents to the main CMSF2 folder to see if that did anything but no luck.

    Thanks

     

    Are you patched up?

    Not sure which patch @Paper Tiger is on but I have the latest & see the new Gung-Ho! campaign fine.

    1

    Is CMA fit with me?

    in Combat Mission Afghanistan

    Posted

    10 hours ago, Simicro said:

    So I wonder if the display is fluid compared to other CM games? 2K resolution supported?

    Also, are there any well known glitchs or flaws that I should be aware of, since there will be no more development?

    PS: Yes I am aware of the demo and I will donwload it, but still I would appreciate your feedback.

    Thanks.

    As well as the CMA demo there's the old CMSF 1.30 demo which is also engine 0... if you're okay with the old engine then you'll be fine with CMA.

    You can play any CM game in any resolution you want (there's a text file you can edit in addition to the game settings) however there's no UI scaling so you'll have to put up with tiny icons & text if you play at 4k.

    From what I can tell, most people play CM at 2k & do so with little difficulty.

    1

    Coming soon - USMC Gung Ho!

    in CM Shock Force 2 Maps and Mods

    Posted

    35 minutes ago, Paper Tiger said:

    That's a good point. Thanks. UPDATED might help to differentiate it from the earlier version.

    How does that look?

    Great!

    Interestingly I recently discovered that the Marines inherent [brown] tag, designed by BFC for their uniforms, will work for vehicles & voices too.

    So as part of the upcoming SF2 'All in One' I've been playing around with & adding [brown] to @Mord's Marine voices & vehicles.

    0

    CMSF2-Afghanistan 'All in One'

    in CM Shock Force 2 Maps and Mods

    Posted

    On 3/25/2023 at 6:36 PM, Rangoon said:

    Does this include the original campaign(s) from CMA? If there will never be a CMA2, this mod pack seems like a godsend. 

    As per the OP... no.

    This AiO revolves around the Afghanistan content made for SF & SF2 which is almost entirely GWOT.

    You might be interested to know that this AiO will be updated soon as part of a full proper SF2 "All in One"...

     

     

    0

    Creating Maps with CMAutoEditor

    in CM2 Scenario and Mod Tips

    Posted · Edited by 37mm

    Amazing work!

    Funnily enough I've been thinking all of today about a project where your first version Auto-editor would have come in really handy... then I find out you've massively expanded your work & given it a GUI!

    I believe, that thanks to the simplicity of hexediting, by covering CMCW you've probably already covered CMFB, CMRT & CMBS (CM Pro too) as all of these games have basically interchangeable maps.

    @Artkin would know better but, if my thinking is correct, for maximum "bang for your buck" a CMBN or CMFI auto-editor would seem to be the most profitable.

    1

    CMBS Winter Mod

    in CM Black Sea Maps and Mods

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Andrew6850 said:

    One aspect I like a lot about winter in other Combat Mission games is that the trees and other foliage are bare which increases line of sight.

    Does this mod address line of sight in foliage or is it purely cosmetic?

    BFC's seasonal foilage is also purely cosmetic, LOS does not change between a BFC Summer or a BFC Winter.

    0

    Help please. Road to Dinas

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 2

    Posted

    6 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:

    Thanks for bringing this to my attention. After reading my concept, I think it's a really good idea and also have identified the first two missions in the campaign (Suburban Hell and Al Hasakah). So I have created a new folder called 'Retribution' and shifted in five maps for the time being. I think this will indeed be my next project after 'Gung Ho!' and it will consist almost exclusively of Red (player) v Uncons missions, at least in the first two stages.

    I put an enormous amount of work into creating those maps and it would be nice to get a bit more mileage out of them and to use the Syrian Airborne, a formation I haven't done anything with.

    I dare you to keep the awesome name of "Carry On Up The Khabour" for a grim, Syrian Civil War campaign!

    News of more Red vs Red content is always good news as such content tends to be peak CMSF (and arguably peak CMx2).

     

    The Syrian Airborne have been a favourite for the SF2 content creators as (modded) they've been used as ANA by the likes of @Zveroboy1 and as "Imperial Cavalry" (think proxy pseudo-ARVN) by the Heaven & Earth team.

    They use proper AK-74's in SF2 (rather than the AKS-74U they used back in SF) but do come with one major issue.

    There was a day 1 bug where (because of squad TOE changes between the games) the Syrian squads would only carry 100 rounds of their squad MG. This tended to make them even more brittle after they had fired off those hundred rounds.

    That bug has since been fixed for most of the Syrian Army but, unfortuantely, has NOT been fixed for the Airborne (or the Special Forces).

    The issue is exacerbated by the lack of ammo dumps & no MG rounds carried in Syrian trucks.

    As a result, content creators have had to provide players with alternative access to extra MG ammo.

    IIRC @Zveroboy1used a walled off BMP-3 in one of his scenarios, the H&E team tended to use APC's or UAZ's (these little cars carry a useful 500 MG rounds).

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