The Steppenwulf

Some worthwhile and interesting experiments that you've carried out there RockingHarry. I was particularly enthused by the HQ sign you created. This is very much the sort of thing I'm hoping to create as a set of flavours for BN, only I'm going to have to create the artwork for the entire set from what has inspired me in modelling and various ww2 dioramas. I've been deliberating on what specifically I might include in such a set - I'm limited to 8 different designs. For this reason I thought about creating the textures as photoshop/paintshop (.psd) multiple layer files so that map makers can "drop over" whatever design they want for that particular model, thus providing much broader choice particular to the scenario in mind. My reservation in following this idea is that most members of the community probably don't even have these software programs and moreover many others wouldn't be able to see the merits in this idea, thus few will actually take advantage of it. I'd be interested to know what scenario your map design centered on. Are you thinking about putting in your own artistic efforts to textures on signs and/or posters? If so do you have possession of a reasonable art programme and are you any good at producing textures?

I should have mentioned if you hadn't already guessed that my inspiration for this came from the cross fertilisation of flavour objects between the various theatres. So for example a Community member, sometime ago, posted various RT flavours for use in BN - since the coding is identical. Go check that out of you haven't already, there's a lot of flavours already available that are nice additions to BN.

I think you're on the scent and exactly what I identified before working on the milestones. As I stated in my earlier post, I do have some excellent further ideas with the flavours that I shall upload soon enough. Unfortunately trying to get the artwork done for some ideas whilst continuing the experiments with the .mdr and the hexadecimal code for others is a multi-task and impacts on my limited time to work on these matters. Then there's the two huge maps that I'm currently creating and the Black Sea weapon icons that is almost finished... In short a collaboration of findings are welcome Rockin and may be the only way to maximise the potential that lies in these ideas. I have since played around with the shockforce vehicles that Kheine introduced to BS (see his thread on this if you haven't already) because the modern maps are badly in need of more variety (colour) of vehicles IMO. Without them urban maps look bereft of a greater depth of realism. Nevertheless, my experiments in this area have not yielded much fruit as yet. Another thing I thought could be addressed for introducing lots of flavour objects (filling up all the available slots) was to rearrange them better (object names) so that there is more space available to coordinate newly created flavours in the editor. I'm kind of figuring, following a quick examination of the strings .txt, that they are hard coded.

I forget to mention in my mod explanation, there exists a small caveat with using these signs which is critical; whatever files you use to build your map must be included as a package with the finished map file. The users then drops this into their z mod folder. In this sense it is no different from mod-tagging where you must include any modded files with the map. However, in this case, unlike mod-tagged material, if these modded additional signs are placed on a map but the files not transferred to the user, the map will crash. To reiterate; it's not any different to how mod-tagging works.

You must possess a sharp brain as well as some hexadecimal knowledge to work that out - So Bravo!! I have some even more impressive tweaks that I'm working on at the moment and I hope to release by the wkd so please do watch this space!

Make your own authentic milestone signs for maps – no more random signs! Package can be downloaded over at CMMODs III http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=2624

Here, hare, here:- https://www.dropbox.com/s/zi1t2l6nb1k21k6/Veins CMBS Ukrainians.rar?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/cpxanwsu1fwtes2/Veins CMBS Russians.rar?dl=0

Yep tried it - works great indeed. On another point; I was thinking about someones suggestion regarding a night thermal look mod. Slightly more difficult since I believe it would require enhancing the brightness and contrast on all the men and vehicle skins to be effective. Though actually, this would make the night vision effect better too. Unfortunately it's an onerous task and vastly increases mod material. Surely the best solution would be for BF to produce a brightness/contrast filter for infantry and vehicles only in night vision/Movie Mode so that players can best benefit from these great mod ideas?

Thanks Rambler - I dearly hope that tracer fire looks like the dogs bollocks with this night vision effect. Even so, perhaps the 'tracers effect' file could be modded to provide that white hot look in this 'night vision mode'?! Tracer effect file file could then be mog-tagged for specific inclusion in scenario designer's night scenarios. Sounds good huh?!

That is not just cool, it's uber cool. Please upload asap I'm currently playing a night scenario. You know that desperate longing feeling when you just have to have something

Don't whether it's been mentioned before this, but text displaying when a unit is under fire, just like the "Vehicle Hit" text, but for infantry, would speed individual player decision-making at a stroke and thus speed the whole game. That would make RT slightly more palatable for the WeGo players too. Furthermore, the net-effect of speeding play would not be gained at the cost of dumbing down the game - no-one is asking for Vehicle Hits text to be removed to make it more realistic?! I would think this could be a game feature that could be easily implemented given that all units are flagged by the engine when receiving fire in any case. Hope BF consider this for version 4.0.

Sent you a pm with a folder link.

No because I haven't got as far as completing any of the OPFOR icons. Also I had some other interface ideas, as can be seen, but they also remain a couple of hurdles from the finish line.

I managed to do the US weapon icons sometime ago. I'm quite happy to share these in the interests of collaboration:-

"The dynamics of a battlefield" - that oft used phrase and, perhaps contextual for this forum, is one where the conditions, resources and/or any other factors affecting the combat arena are changing or in a state of flux. In reality almost all battlefields are dynamic and it is more about scale and the particular operative factors coming into play.

- Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy enlisted in the Wehrmacht.

From the official release thread on the Battlefront News page. Chris ND has reported that Bulge and FI will indeed be next with a BS module scheduled for much later on down the line.

There will be a Black Sea module apparently - I recall reading something official where that was stated. It will predominantly be additional units, but community members have speculated that it will include NATO forces. Seems like sensible supposition to me.

I think this is sensible supposition; the vehicle models in both titles largely overlap, therefore, one would expect it's just a question of activating the respective code in the Normandy exe and then all the model metadata for Bulge can be transferred across.

I'd love to be fly on the wall in the BF office tomorrow morning To be fair the main reason no one has bothered to pursue writing a script for the mdr files thus far is because there is limited benefit in doing so - for the reasons already explained. Correcting some of the UV mapping issues is certainly one, as is the creating of new special flavours (dead horses in BN anyone?) Now a decompression tool for the .bts (game save) file format, that would really set the possibilities alight!!

IMO, this audio, which is a wonderful one, would work better if the radio chatter sound level were lowered considerably against that of the engine noise level.

Actually it should have just been FF and 00. That was confusing and I was distracted at the time of posting. Still, by way of explanation:- If you were to look at icon/image files in a hex editor you would see that the pixels are represented by a series of bytes; the alpha layer is denoted, following the actual colours, by a range falling between 0 -255, with 0 in the alpha channel representing 100% mask (or zero transparency) and 255 representing 0% mask (or full transparency). 00 is the hexadecimal number for 0 and FF is the hexadecimal number for 255. Therefore if you wanted your alpha channel to completely blot out the icon image (as you require), you would achieve this it by ensuring the relevant bytes in the file were changed to 00 (zero transparency). Icon files that are fully visible in game will have most of the symbol represented by anything other than 00 up to maximum visibility (FF). It's the variance of this range that gives the icons the different shapes; round. square, kite and allows designers to offer different styles as mods. Simply by masking. Naturally most modders will just perform this 'masking' task in some art software and don't bother understanding how the information is coded into the file. But opening up the code in an editor allows you to understand how the information is actually represented within the file. Interestingly this also opens up other manipulation possibilities with any type of file - not just image files. One can simply change the bytes within an editor.

I created my own transparent icons for these feature objects when I first got BN a long time ago. Actually always thought it should be the default option for playing the game since there's simply no point in having all those icons on screen, especially considering you can see the objects anyhow and they don't move unlike squads and vehicles which have to be monitored. Moreover, the icon clutter they create, detracts from the important information, and once you get used to not having these surplus alerts, you quickly realise how pointless these icons are. I would highly recommend everyone replace FF FF FF in favour of 00 00 00. It really is a game enhancement and not adulteration!!

I find this all highly amusing. And this is why:- When the CM:BN installers went live, I downloaded the 10GB package (one of the few players I would think to have done so - I mean if you've already got the content why download the installer). After approx 10 hours at a ridiculously low download it crashed out at 80% complete. I complained about this on the BN forum (as a few others did also) and it's true that Bf were simply dismissive of the issues: "Client side server issues"! Regardless, Bf should have realised at that point that there really were download speed issues. So today, my forum buddies, I write this feeling smug & tacitly amused because I knew that, regardless of the distance Bf tried to create from the issue then, as soon as BS was released, complaint chaos would reign.......