kohlenklau

PUTTING MY CRAZY THOUGHTS DOWN.... I plan to use Tank Encyclopedia https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ to help me evaluate what pairs of vehicles can BEST be modded using "mdr shenanigans". I made up a term I will call ATA rating. "Apples to Apples" rating. There could be ATA rating (armor) or ATA-a, ATA rating (gun) or ATA-g, ATA rating (speed) or ATA-s, ATA rating (crew) or ATA-c, others probably. The inbound vehicle is the shell mdr. The inner mdr is the host mdr. Shell/Host is the ATA basic formula. The ATA rating helps us see if we are modding a Sturmtiger over a kubelwagen. ATA-a would be a very high number, the thickness of the real armor 150mm divided by the sheet metal of the passenger car, 1mm? ATA-a = 150. ATA-s would be low number, < 1...maybe .4-.5 So, the best mdr shell and host combinations are if these ATA's are near 1. The process starts by having a need. You need a certain vehicle for a certain timeframe of the war. The abandoned "early war timeframe"... I am working the PzIVD over the PzIIIN and I think the ATA's look good. I am eyeballing doing a T-34/76 Model 1941 over a T-34/76 Model 1942 and I think that will also have good ATA's of around 1. Maybe not the ATA-c. It would be 1.25 as the older vehicle had just 4 men, the newer Mickey Mouse turret supported an extra guy. Sorry, Boris, somebody must be shot.

@Aquila-SmartWargames FYI, I found this on a Blender forum...maybe it is the answer to that one hassling problem. hull ---> hull.001

Not an alpha channeled knockout. Well, for that video with the missing wheels I THOUGHT I HAD deleted the turret skirt in the Blender model and was surprised to still see the shadows . But in Blender there are many ways to "delete" and maybe I picked the wrong one. I am not lazy and will experiment with a variety of methods... Should I flat out delete it from the hierarchy? Should I select the faces in edit mode and...what is the dang word, not delete them but vanish them or something else? Or the vertices or the edges too. UGGGGH! EDIT: DISSOLVE THEM! THAT IS THE WORD... When I import the mdr should I check the box for bring in shadeless? I am thinking out loud but I appreciate any words of wisdom.

It would be a great thing if it helps make the QB AI opponent better matched to the AI plan in the QB. ANYBODY PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG OR OUTDATED: The stock QB's seem to only have A1, A2 and maybe A3 as AI groups. You can't get a LOT of offensive tactical finesse with just A1 and A2. Sometimes they seem to manage a marginal defensive performance with just A1 and A2. This effort of yours kind of reminds me of an old excel spreadsheet Jack O's campaign tool or something like that. It worked with CMX1 and was cool to track maturing of your forces. A unit would survive and you'd go back and enter the kills and he would gain experience. If he finally got waxed/gefallen it was a sad pixel truppen graveside digital ceremony...deleted from the spreadsheet.

EARLY WAR ORPHANS CAN HAVE A SMILE TODAY! I kept at it and achieved success up to this point after a few failures (wheels disappeared). Still some work to do and then the GiMP art to make it look gorgeous. As he said at the all women's college dorm..."THE SKIRTS MUST BE REMOVED!" This can also be modded to look like a Barbarossa version alongside an early PzIIIG in CMRT F&R.

@benpark How do I get rid of the shadows from the turret skirt frame if I want to eliminate the turret skirt frame? Here is EARLIER video before I fixed the missing wheels and short barrel polygons but HAD deleted the turret skirt element in the hierarchy....

The above is going to be the mdr shenanigan that I think we can all live with. A MacIntosh Apple modded to look like a Golden Delicious Apple. A modded PzIV riding the PzIIIN mdr host. short barrel 75 = short barrel 75. crew of five = crew of five. Axis = axis. relative armor/speed ~ relative armor/speed. WE MUST SEEK OUT ALL OPPORTUNITIES TO FIND SIMILAR APPLE-APPLE vehicle mdr mods. T-34/76 Model 1941 modded from early T-34/76 Model 1942 is on my plate.

BLENDER TEST IDIOT'S LOG (06/03/2021) I kept at it and achieved success up to this point after a few failures (wheels disappeared). Still some work to do and then the GiMP art to make it look gorgeous. As he said at the all women's college dorm..."THE SKIRTS MUST BE REMOVED!" But the turret box CAN stay. Hull mount MG needs modded. A few other things if we get really picky. And we need that funky metal angle iron thing under the barrel. AND we need a row of jerry cans with white crosses up on the turret (wasser, wasser...)

@Blazing 88's As he said at the all women's college dorm..."THE SKIRTS MUST BE REMOVED!" But the turret box CAN stay. Hull mount MG needs modded. A few other things if we get really picky. And we need that funky metal angle iron thing under the barrel.

I FIXED IT! Thanks to Aquila's good video and encouragement.

Hi Glenn, I love tiny battles as well. They are easier to write for scenarios and less taxing on my brain for playing. AND I have an interest to squeeze more out of the QB part of CM. So this interests me. Question: The OOB you select for the enemy AI, how do you best purchase it for the AI to best assign the AI groups? Do you look at the AI plans first for the target QB map?

A legend! Oh my lord. I am enjoying to try things with Blender. I have more ideas than skills. By the way, a couple weeks back Stan Bobovyc replied back to a PM I sent him. He is busy with real life stuff. Best wishes to you!

Hey JM, Oui Oui. Your mind is good. There was a video.

@Aquila-SmartWargames I think Aquila left good notes in his big thread. I will study the below and see if it solves my missing wheels for the PzIVD.

It might be a Blender glitch. I will try to do it ALL again and see if the wheels stay on the bus.

I don't know what happened. They were there during deployment and then disappeared as soon as I pushed the turn button. Hmmmmm. Very odd.

Son of a ......Well, I was so focused on modding the damn gun, I didn't notice somebody jacked the wheels!

No...but versus western Europe I have it lucky in the North Africa battlefields for map making, not so much major development since the war for Ikea stores, schools, subdivisions, or new highways! I am beating the brush for aerial recon imagery. Have a few emails out to researchers...

Not that I am or think I am a "Pete Wenman" but I also use a mix of all these resources to make the CM map. Old photos, old maps, aerial recon stuff, AAR's, GE and finally some tweaking to make it all click in CM.

Thank you sir!

For the El Mechili map for the "Gardner's Horse" scenario, this is my "special editor overlay.bmp" I can make paths in Google Earth and know the slope along the paths. I drew many not shown here. I ran one across the wadi. I ran one downstream along the wadi's path. Taking notes or making screenshots of Google Earth info. I slap the thumb tacks in spots and drag a path out to my desired width and depth of the map. Change preferences to meters in Google Earth! You can rotate the view as needed first to get the high priority roads in the proper CM map editor desired angles. The final 4 thumbtacks are my corners.

@Canuck21 There is a thread also about the trove of aerial recon photos from the RAF...a website. Old aerial recon photos PLUS Google Earth PLUS imagination</>inspiration PLUS some allowance for CM map limitations (roads) = AWESOME MAP

This is the part I meant to emphasize. Have you connected Google Earth with CM map making yet? It is an entire thread. If you have NOT done this I will look for the thread and shout it out to you.

I have started the "BIG ARSE AFRIKA MAP" but I have also started and prioritized a 2000 x 1000 map of El Mechili for "Gardner's Horse". I used an old US Army map from 1941. I also used Google Earth. @Canuck21 I am taking a combination of education and inspiration from newsreels, old B&W photos and modern color photos.

We're going to use the Brazilian 37mm M3 AT Gun as the 2 pounder...