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JM Stuff

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  1. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Rooks And Kings in Black Sea Terrain WIP - Frostbite   
    Very nice, I can feel the cold blowing in my ears !
  2. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from ViperAssassin26 in Custom 3D Models and Mods Compilation   
    I could possibly look in the 3d model that I have, you should give me the model in photos so that I can watch If I have on my hd, I have no idea about the helmet that you describe I am rather for the period ww2 but this will be a pleasure to help.
    but you must know one thing, it is that it is difficult to import 3 d models coming from the outside and not included in the existing modules of CM, for the moment I have not yet been able to import a model from the outside but only modify existing models in current CM games, when I could, the Merkava, Btr152... will be already on the way...
    for this part of job I propose to contact @Frenchy56 seem that he has a lot of expericence with weapons, just saying...
    hope this help 
     
    JM
  3. Like
    JM Stuff reacted to Sgt.Squarehead in Tanks in The 'Nam   
    From 'Greatest Tank Battles':
     
  4. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Suchy in Lucky Strike's Mods: Hedgerow Hell - something for aspiring arborists ...   
    Showing yours (almost) perfect result, I was sure that you did something differents that the regular CM files, they are looking differents that the stock one, and your Blender work is something that you manage with passion, so I was not far away from the true.
    Our Lucky is a fox. 😉
     
    Is interresting to see some holes after some big shots from big calibre of yours teats these bocage seem to be indestructible, this dont  reflect really the realty, with your added job I hope yes.
  5. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Suchy in Lucky Strike's Mods: Hedgerow Hell - something for aspiring arborists ...   
    One day you will be able to working of the sun light, and let it see his shadow on the flowers !
    Very nice job Lucky !
  6. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Suchy in Lucky Strike's Mods: Hedgerow Hell - something for aspiring arborists ...   
    Lucky is only grandiose "I cannot breathe" this is so beautiful !
  7. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Lucky_Strike in Lucky Strike's Mods: Hedgerow Hell - something for aspiring arborists ...   
    Just an idea did you try to created your own mdr files and added some lods with existing ones just reworking it ?
  8. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Lucky_Strike in Lucky Strike's Mods: Hedgerow Hell - something for aspiring arborists ...   
    Showing yours (almost) perfect result, I was sure that you did something differents that the regular CM files, they are looking differents that the stock one, and your Blender work is something that you manage with passion, so I was not far away from the true.
    Our Lucky is a fox. 😉
     
    Is interresting to see some holes after some big shots from big calibre of yours teats these bocage seem to be indestructible, this dont  reflect really the realty, with your added job I hope yes.
  9. Upvote
    JM Stuff reacted to Lucky_Strike in Lucky Strike's Mods: Hedgerow Hell - something for aspiring arborists ...   
    Thanks @Erwin @JM Stuff @slippy @Aragorn2002 your support is much appreciated.
    I'll bundle this section up so you can try it yourselves.
    Always in the grand scheme. I have experimented with autumn leaves. It's not so much work to make them and is a natural progression from the summer mods. I will probably finish BN and RT summer mods along with some extras for MG before moving onto the autumn/winter sets for FB and RT. Now that I have some repeatable methodology it's all a bit more straightforward. Finally I will look at what I can do for the sprawling mod set for FI. Side benefit is that anyone who plays BS (I don't and have no inclination to) can easily port this stuff to that for themselves with very little effort. It will also partly work in SF2 and maybe CW, but, again, I won't be supporting those games.
    For trees I am creating new mdrs and LOD packs, reusing my previous leaf branch texture mods from Hedgerow Hell. LODs for trees need to look like the normal model otherwise there is quite a bit of flickering between LODs over distances. I spent the best part of a week figuring out how the various levels of LOD relate to distance and what is used when, also in relation to game options detail settings.
    For the Bocage I am making new mdrs except for what are called endcaps in the mdr object groups, whilst again reusing the leaf branch textures I made previously with some minor reworks for practical reasons. There seem to be some quite specific naming of meshes within the various bocage mdrs which I am carefully trying to stick with since I believe these parts are referenced elsewhere. But there are also instances of seemingly random naming schemata which I don't think are referenced. Bocage is unique within the game foliage, they are treated differently in terms of rendering in game, they have a randomisation element which none of the other foliage have, they are treated as walls when adding to maps and can be combined with other foliage, whereas other foliage cannot reside on the same square together. I also did some blowin' sh*t up experiments with bocage to see what happens to the variously named parts if different names are used. With trees if part names are changed then the tree does not destruct in the expected way, disappearing all at once or suddenly going leafless for instance. With bocage it's either there or gone so far as I could determine. I dropped prolonged barrages of 170mm cannon and 301mm nebelwerfer on a bunch of bocage which made one or two holes in it, the rest just stayed intact, even the added ash sapling was unaffected by direct impacts, until it disappeared along with it's associated bocage section. The game does not treat bocage in the same way as it treats trees and bushes in this respect - in my view a partial oversight.
    In terms of their LODs - the ones that exist in game are basically the most distant and only seem to get used when in God's-eye view, and there is only the one LOD for all types of shapes of bocage. I will probably leave these LODs alone since anything I make will not really impact play or improve the visuals of the game particularly.
    In summary, and to hopefully give you all something to look forward to, I am now able to magic up new trees, bushes (essentially small trees) and bocage models using Blender, and, importantly, make them work as expected in game, so I can now move on to the making rather than messing about with Blender for interminable hours trying to fathom such an illogical interface.
  10. Upvote
    JM Stuff reacted to Lucky_Strike in Lucky Strike's Mods: Hedgerow Hell - something for aspiring arborists ...   
    Have been doing some more work on our beloved Bocage this week, trying to remember how far I'd gotten and how to do stuff in Blender. The good news is I have now got a good solid technique going which I can repeat for all the various sections of bocage. I can now make bocage that is very different from the original game stock and will hopefully give us a more naturalistic gaming environment ...

    ... this image shows the one section model that I have reworked thus far - bocage-straight-1.mdr - repeated three times on a straight run of bocage. What you can see immediately is that it has a much more ragged profile with a bit of light coming through the underside and NO beanpoles, those you can see are from other unmodified sections. Here is the Blender render of the model ...

    ... fully clad ...

    ... leaves removed from the main body. Blender tends to give a smoother render than the game engine.
    As you can see from the last image we have a large ash sapling to one side which gives immediate height, the supporting branches are now more bush like and there is a good layer of undergrowth at the bottom. The ash sapling and undergrowth are fixed, extra textures whilst the body of the bocage is variable. So depending on the number of boccage textures present in your Z folder, there are an almost infinite number of combinations that can appear in-game. This is just one section remember, by the time I have reworked the other fifteen 😩 section types for tall bocage alone the variations will be legion. With different extras textures for the other sections along with variations on height and depth we can finally have a representation of bocage that gets us closer to what I envisioned when I started this project last year.
    If anyone would like to take this for a spin let me know and I'll make a little bocage bundle to drop in your z folder.
  11. Upvote
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Lucky_Strike in Lucky Strike's Mods: Hedgerow Hell - something for aspiring arborists ...   
    One day you will be able to working of the sun light, and let it see his shadow on the flowers !
    Very nice job Lucky !
  12. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Falaise in JM´s Corner   
    Project Rangers with theirs mortars !
     

     
    Now they are wearing amunitions... heavy heavy and take position  ! ! 
     
     

     
    ...and letting in the front of the mortar now they are ready to shot !
     

     

     
     
  13. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from benpark in JM´s Corner   
    Project Rangers with theirs mortars !
     

     
    Now they are wearing amunitions... heavy heavy and take position  ! ! 
     
     

     
    ...and letting in the front of the mortar now they are ready to shot !
     

     

     
     
  14. Thanks
    JM Stuff got a reaction from kohlenklau in Ideas for a future, most probably the final pack ever for CMFI. The "Ci Vediamo Dopo" Pack (Farewell/See you later!)   
    Always on track, and awake l' ami Koh...
    Again a nice project Phill.
    JM
  15. Upvote
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Lucky_Strike in Lucky Strike's Mods: Hedgerow Hell - something for aspiring arborists ...   
    Lucky is only grandiose "I cannot breathe" this is so beautiful !
  16. Upvote
    JM Stuff reacted to Lucky_Strike in Lucky Strike's Mods: Hedgerow Hell - something for aspiring arborists ...   
    I can see it's been a while since I gave my fellow tree-huggers an update so ...
    I'll start with the bocage, or rather sunken lanes. I've been doing some experiments with other ways of creating sunken lanes. Previously I had just put two rows of tall bocage on adjacent, parallel rows of tiles. This provided a not too bad version of the sunken lanes we see in Normandy, but I felt it could be improved upon, or at least made differently. So starting with the same two rows of tall bocage what I tried was to ditchlock the bocage in ditches of 1-2m depth running their length, any more and the ground becomes very distorted whilst surroundings become harder to manage. The ground texture is, at the moment, just plain old dirt, but other textures might well be useful, forest light can look effective, but does introduce quite a bit of vegetation so the path becomes less distinct. A custom tagged ground texture might be the way to go on these. The result, with lots of heavy bocage, is a tunnel-like experience that I would imagine provides almost total concealment, and which induces a real sense of claustrophobia. They are just about wide enough for smaller vehicles though corners are likely to stop movement. Probably best treated as footpaths. Here's a little sample map with trees off ...

    At left a zigzag path running uphill south to north, forking at the top, the other down the middle running along a field edge. As you can see they are somewhat narrower than the regular dirt road, at left and right. At ground level ...

    ... the track through the middle, just about wide enough for a 250, probably navigable, but a bumpy ride ...

    ... hunting through the dappled shade further up the path ...

    ... it's dark in there, even on a sunny day!
    Now back to trees ... As it stands I have now done enough exercises and experiments in Blender to successfully export tree models, new or modified, with proper wrapped bark texture on the trunks and nicely swaying leaves for windier conditions. I've learnt some more of the limitations of the game engine. I've figured out an approach to making LODs that works in both the same way as the originals but also, I hope, enhances the look of them somewhat. I can pretty much make any tree that I desire to see in the game, and have it appear in pretty much all seasons, though winter is still to be worked on just because how snow looks on trees can vary tremendously depending on the amount of precipitation, so coming up with a single solution for all snowy conditions is unlikely to give the best results. This will also apply to bushes. This all assumes that BF DON'T change the way trees work in all the existing WW2 games since I discovered SF2 has a quite different approach that I think will be more difficult to mod in such a pleasing manner.
    So, introducing the Scot's Pine (Pinus sylvestris) or my take on it.

    It's the tall ones centre left. (These are in BN) I have made these deliberately taller than the stock pine trees.


    They stand head and shoulders above other trees and are more like the type that might be seen in a mature plantation rather than the more twisted forms that are also commonly seen. Pines are generally used in game to represent plantations or vast forests so it seemed appropriate. Going forward I will probably increase the height of some of the other trees a bit as they're on the small side IMHO. Any tree can of course be made to represent whatever tree we want by reworking the model and a little tagging or renaming. We can even have a set of say just pines and conifers to represent a heavy coniferous forest seen in more northerly or mountainous regions.

    A small plantation.
    Scot's Pines are found throughout much of mainland Europe so are a good species to represent. The models are a bit more complex and natural than the game originals but they seem to work without problem in game.
    Running the game at balanced or improved which are the recommended setting means that LODs are used more often. What I discovered is that the LODs are actually used a lot more than I originally suspected. So long as a tree isn't moving then it's probably a LOD, usually LOD level 1 but more often LOD 2 or LOD 3 are used. What this means is that the lower detailed models are used even when quite close to them. LOD 1 will be in view at ranges of less 50m commonly, and in some cases when it's almost right next to the viewpoint, LODs 2 and 3 are commonly seen from about 100m out to 400m, whilst LOD 4 (the star-shaped trees viewed from high above) are seen at anything from 100m to a few km depending on quality settings and how many trees are featured on the map. Incidentally LOD 3 is the model used for bare tree trunks when trees are toggled off. What I've tried to do is make the detail levels of the first three LOD levels a bit closer to the detail level of the normal model, reducing it as the LODs become more distant. I have also tried to make LOD 4 look a bit more like a tree in the distance but also, importantly for very large dense forests, allowed it to work when viewed from a bit closer. I can't control when LODs kick in, but I can make the models a bit more detailed to compensate for this. 

    Morning on the edge of the Zon Forest near to the town of Best (MG Outstanding Gallantry). The distant trees are LOD 4.

    At the edge of the forest - a lot of trees! The foreground is Normal and LOD 1 but the scene quickly starts to use LOD 4 models because of the sheer number of trees rendered. Of note, the LOD 4 models don't cast or receive shadows.

    The other side of the forest in sunlight, the trees in the middle are LOD 4, notice how the light doesn't affect their trunks, can't alter this ...

    ... but, IMHO, they do blend quite well, especially considering they are used relatively close up, as on the right here.
    Another benefit of the extra details, hopefully, is that the jerkiness and flickering associated with trees won't be so noticeable when transitions between LODs are a little smoother, but this is yet to be demonstrated with multiple new models.
    Things like the lack of shadows on LOD level 4 are stuff that I can't influence. Increasing ones quality settings in-game pushes the point at which LODs are introduced further form the camera, but at a serious cost in render speed and frame rate. The shadows under the trees move back a bit but they are still missing in the distance. A mistake in my opinion since the shadows at that distance bind the trees to the ground and create a sense of distance and depth, they're what makes it look three dimensional, makes it pop! Look at a landscape with distant woods and you'll notice that the underside of trees and the ground below, even on dull days, is much darker, whereas in game it's light and indistinct. I know that there are compromises with how the game has to work and what is rendered, limited by consideration for hardware, but I do believe this one is an error in judgement ... IMHO. If I could fix one thing it might be this ...

    The Rhone Valley as appears in game on a bright day but not full sun (with my mods)

    Artist's (huhhum) impression with shadows under distant trees. Perhaps a consideration for the next engine ...
    As always your feedback is greatly appreciated. And remember to plant a tree 🌲
  17. Upvote
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Lucky_Strike in JM´s Corner   
    😄 you are the Boss of the terrains tiles, I am the responsible to put my tracks on !😜 together, on, we can than visit Falaise he give us already the way, to arrive it,  "un petit spiritueux apres un bon geuleton a la française with or without mask" 😷 🥂
  18. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from George MC in JM´s Corner   
    A good brush Steph I like your job for me is already a nice difference !
  19. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Lucky_Strike in JM´s Corner   
    Yes Stephane more mouth that's it, but not always compatible with some opinions, that's why we leave the mod on hold for a while to come back later with other more convincing arguments !
     
    I told you @Lucky_Strike, @Falaise will explain about the real aspect of the road in Normandy he has also the advandtage to visit it and see some real older photography to compare,... and the "chery on the cake" this is his passion and almost proffession an allied for every situations !
     
    JM
  20. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Falaise in JM´s Corner   
    Ok guys, I see that my wacky ideas let you use ink, that's why I offer to test for yourself differents textures to use  for the roads, and only the roads, paths are not allowed, because of the restrictions see my post above more more above..., we can of course create our own by a mutual agreement, we can also eliminate those which do not seem suitable to us.
    This is the new one, the dirt is gone... to give a smile to @Warts 'n' all (just joking) his idea was right this was too dark !

     
    This is the model of @Falaise that kindly give me the tile for the rain for a futur modtag !
     

     
    All tiles are basic mean don t have any effects any blur...go in the dirt yourself 😝
    Later on a common accord we can choose the one to keep it !
    J insiste first priority CMBN than CMFB...
    I put in the link in my loading space here 👇 that you can use for your differents modules of CM, only one tile is available for the moment, but that will give you an idea of what this look like.
     
    Try the link first I don t know if it is already available !!
    Let me know if the link is working !!
    Procedure
    put them in your z folder and choose one folder one by one to test it, all files have the same name so copy only one folder to see the effects.
    (personally I created like our smart Guy, Aquila Smart game a ZZZZZZZZ  folder himself in my Z folder so that only the last modifications are taken into account of your mods, when you already have an original file in your simple z folder, which will be read by the game at launch but will not be taken in account) the folder ZZZZZZZZ yes, I advise you to also try it !
    Hope everybodys follow my text untill now ?🤔 everybodys understand or is only me ?🥴
    Try to enjoy and see you, I guess here !
     
    JM
  21. Upvote
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Warts 'n' all in JM´s Corner   
    We take good notes of yours comments and working on !
  22. Like
    JM Stuff reacted to benpark in JM´s Corner   
    Great! Yes - windows are oddities. They seem to knock out entirely, or not at all. Which makes little sense, so it must be a coded element.
    Layers are where Photoshop is most interesting., particularly when used in conjunction with the Opacity slider and the Blending Modes. Using those two tools in Photoshop (or an imitator) can really start to mix the new user textures to the original CM template ones - often where the originals are a guide, and replaced entirely.
    Opacity is the amount shown or not over the underlying layer (like tracing paper that gets progressively shown more closer to 100%, and not at all at 0% .
    Blending Modes set a given method of blending(!) two Layers, based upon a given Mode that you have set. Something like "Hard Light" simulates an intense illumination effect in the blending of the Layers. There a few of them , and they each do something unique.
    The on-line Photoshop knock-off (it seems to have most features):
    https://www.photopea.com/
  23. Like
    JM Stuff got a reaction from Erwin in JM´s Corner   
    You read my mind... they are also working on tiles... who can be Herbert 🤣
  24. Like
    JM Stuff reacted to Sgt.Squarehead in JM´s Corner   
    To avoid this:

    I do the same as your 'Passable Result':

    But I also stick a few Dirt Red tiles around the junction.....It does a fairly decent job of blending things in. 
    FWIW
     
  25. Like
    JM Stuff reacted to slippy in JM´s Corner   
    Gents I'm full of ideas, but have very little knowledge of paint shop and making textures sorry. I did make some for IL-2 quite a few years ago, but I've probably forgotten most of what I learned at the time.
    I could have a go but I will have to do some serious revision.
    JM, apologies I have not had time to try your textures yet mate, busy with work and kids at the moment.
    Are there any tutorials for modding textures in CM?
    Cheers all
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