Aquila-SmartWargames

Aircraft Carrier (blender file included, resize it to your needs)

Truck Pack + Bus Release Truck Pack comes with 3 Versions: Trailer Truck, Truck only, Trailer Only. All today´s releases as usual in the Cloud + Blender project files (if I did not forget) for reverse engineering. Do/mod whatever you want with them. Truck could be used for driving which just makes sense for without the trailer. But I didn´t invest the work to add a driver seat as I don´t see much demand for this. Only idea that came to me would be creating a VBIED Truck but there are better suited dumpster trucks on CadNav for this if one would dig into this. Bus again has this texture issue but it isn´t that bad. I think the problem could be rooted in this: See the red box. If there are more than 1 "material/texture" attached to the triangle root, it seems when exporting only one is kept while the others are dropped which then can cause texture issues. This is a guess and I also do not know how to fix this yet. The truck only had one texture/material per triangle (mesh) and it worked like a charm.

Train Engine Car (combine with the Train Box Car to build trains) Again this minor texture distortion. Sure it can be mad less noticeable by modifying the texture but it becomes goddamn annoying.

Would be great if you could manage it. Here a Wooden Cart themed for the H&E mod but is also decent enough for something rural Middle Eastern when the texture is modified. Again it has this strange texture distortion issue but still looks decent enough. Now uses the shelter3 as a model base which should be easier to hit in the editor.

I tried to get the free educational license of 3DS Max in order to open .max models to convert them to the free format obj for Blender. For some reason I didn´t hear back from them. Perhaps my initial attempt to register as "John Dong" wasn´t the best idea and they blacklisted me now. If one owns 3DS Max here (or has more luck with registering for the free edition), I would be glad if he could convert this model here from .max to .obj. Its a matter of seconds. http://www.cadnav.com/3d-models/model-10539.html

Beautiful Hovercraft model. And so it begins...

Looks like you´re missing the blank.bmp. It´s in the download. And @MOS:96B2P sums it up pretty good. Those ships look great by the way. Now I get it what you and @Erwin were talking about. You guys figured this "wrap a flavor object around a building" idea out right from the bat. You can resize all flavor objects released here in Blender with "scale" in matter of minutes. It is also possible to stretch them somewhat into all directions without looking distorted in order to make them fit. Just don´t do it with the base CM2 crate/shelter inside the flavor object as it can cause unexpected results. blank.bmp

Got it. Demonstration video with BF109 and an invisible wall: Tip for scenario makers: Mark the invisible wall with a distinct ground tile in order to find them better, when you´re finished with the placement you can restore the intended ground tile. Walls are one option of many and not always is a invisible wall/wreck required if it can be completely hid in the flavor object.

Not sure if I get what you´ve tested but you can´t change the replaced original model´s internal properities by model swapping/Blender. This is basically true to everything in CM. An Abrams tank will keep its armor, hit zones, cannon, and its ammo no matter if its model looks like a fishing boat, donkey, or like an Nimitz Aircraft Carrier filling the complete map (no joke everything would be possible). A MG bunker will keep its MG, and a replaced flavor object will just keep its basic soft cover attributes. There is some exception to it as you can move driver seats, disembark zones etc so if you replace a Taxi with a Mig you can move the driver into the cockpit or when you replace a bunker with a different bunker you can adjust the gunners position. In the CM scenario editor you need to place visible or invisible walls, wrecks, emplacements, or buildings into the flavor objects to give them the hard cover from fire and LOS you desire and ofc in order to impede infantry/vehicle movement.

We know that you can place visible wrecks and walls into flavor objects to give them blocking properities. We also know that you can place invisible wrecks and invisible walls into flavor objects to give them blocking properities with blank texture files (For walls I tested and confirmed this) But what about buildings? Buildings + Flavor Objects Ideas Buildings like everything else can placed "in" custom flavor objects. What options and dis-/advantages I came up with: 1) Where walls and wrecks aren´t tall enough multi story buildings could give tall flavor objects like the Cargo Ship or the Radar Station proper LOS/Fire blocking properities without being visible from outside. 2) By combining a flavor object and a building in a smart way you could create a flavor object that can be occupied. For example you could add a multi-story building tower into the "cargo ship" to simulate personell firing from the ship´s bridge. You could place a fitting building into the Radar Station so it can be occupied. This of course makes the most sense for custom flavor buildings. I did just create the Radar Station but there are countless options to add new flavor buildings. 3) I was curious if you could turn an entire building invisible which then produced this result: For some reasons the windows and doors turn black (not shown) when modded with blank.bmp texture files. Perhaps I missed something but even so if a building could be setup without doors and windows it could be used as a complete invisible LOS/fire blocking tool for tall flavor objects. However due to the modularity and randomization of buildings it looks like an overcomplicated solution for little gain. I have little knowledge about buildings in Combat Mission but noticed that scenario and map designers come up with pretty tricky building setups. They should evaluate if this method is viable. But like already explained you can use regular visible buildings and "hide" them in flavor objects. 4) AFAIK enemy personell can´t be prevented from leaving higher building levels. I also know no method to "lock" guys in higher levels. Under suppressive fire for example the Cargo Ship´s bridge guys thus would leave and descent "into the ship" i. e. into the lower levels of the building placed inside the flavor object. Keep that in mind when working with this idea. 5) Obviously flavor objects do not turn transparent when entering or enemy activity is spotted in them like buildings do. So for a "who´s there" peek you need to zoom into the flavor object. Buildings Related Stuff in the Editor I couldn´t locate the "complete blueprints" of the buildings in the files and suspect that they´re are located in the internal (hidden) part of the game files which would make sense. But CM2 Tools allows you to access several parts of buildings like walls, windows, doors, balconies in order to modify their models. When it comes to building walls/faces I suspect one can edit/mod the doors (entry points) and windows (observation/firing ports) which then might be correctly identified by infantry. Interesting would be to know how infantry would behave on changing the shape of the balcony. However overall I have no idea what possibilities CM2 tools might provide for us in this department but perhaps one of you will find out. Texture Problem with the Airliner and Huey Bump: When converting to .mdr it looks like the texture "rips apart". Perhaps I missed a CM2 tools exporting prerequisite again but one looking into it would be appreaciated. Projects are in the cloud.

The portraits look pretty great. The guy with the Coca Cola shirt Too good.

Medium Airliner: As you can see there is an issue with the texture when I export it to .mdr. I had the exact same issue with the Huey helo. I hope one of you can find the root of this problem as I have no idea whats the cause. The complete project folder with .mdr and blender file are in the online clouds. I noticed on this model that the invisible shelter1.mdr primer is especially hard to "hit" with the cusor in the editor in order to move/rotate the model. In the future I will check the other shelters if they´re better suited. And it would be definitely great if BF would add some "extra slots" for custom flavor objects (with good draw distance etc.). For the time being we have to use the modtag system. Creating a dead corpse or a "group" of them as an flavor object is perfectly doable with this method. I recommend to keep the bodies in a neutral appearance so that it doesn´t become so noticeable that it is always the same flavor object. Despite the visualization of a deadly battlefield, this could also come with some interesting options for scenario designers. This could be utilized for scenarios ala "we´ve send a squad an hour ago to check the Northern woods and didn´t hear back from them. Find out what happened to them" or as an ambush/killzone hint for players. AFAIK flavor objects are always visible but if one replaces an unimportant vehicle or emplacement with the fallen soldiers and (then sets the vehicle to "destroyed" and) places it on the map, the fallen soldiers need to be spotted.

I dismissed several models because I couldn´t get their textures to work. There is a chance that it was caused by the simple mundane issue.Thanks to contrails´ tip I fixed two models: MIG-21 Pack V2: V2: - fixed texture issue - better glass texture - now comes with a vehicle version including a "driver" seat and exhaust.fumes. UH-1 Huey It was a challenge to find a free Huey 3D model in one of the Blender formats. This is the best I could find. The texture got distorted either because GIMP required some strange compatibilty formating on importing or due to the model causing some scaling issues in Blender. Its definitely not a beauty but in my opinion still looks decent enought to fullfill its role as a flavor object. It was primarly made with the H&E mod in mind but as most of my work it is kept neutral without markings. The UH-1 thus fits plenty of modern scenarios as it is still in use by alot of the world´s armies. Both are in the Dropbox/OneDrive

Great work too! You fixed it by simply renaming the texture file to lower case?

Everything the same just updated the link after it went down. If I update something there I´ll attach an "V2" or something to it or let you know. MIG-21 Crashed + Parked. You can also turn it into a vehicle (example rename it to taxi-vehicle.mdr) to simulate taxiing aircraft that attempt to flee/takeoff which could be simulated by an extraction zone in the editor. However I can´t get the textures to show up and don´t know why. Converted them and did 24bit and "no not write (...)" but still doesn´t work. I am out of ideas but did upload everything including the blender project files as "MIG-21 Flavor Pack" to the Dropbox. Perhaps one can solve the riddle. As with my other stuff feel free to fix, modify, use it for whatever you need it.

COMPILATION DOWNLOAD NEW DROPBOX LINK: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1tviryry89g6py7/AAAJpSvGH6u1iEx4WzwVLSnJa?dl=0 Makeshift APC Container (texture can be recolored)

Correction of first post: Credits for the US Multicam OCP skins used in several mods here go to Cpt. Miller.

A list of amphibious vehicles for reference: German Fuchs Marines AAV7, AAV7C, LAV-M, LAV-M-A2, LAV-25, LAV-25-A2, LAV-ATGM, LAV-ATGM-A2 Syrian BMP-1, BMP-1P(4A), BMP-1P(4C) BMP-1PK(4A), BMP1-PK(4C), BMP-2, BMP-2K, BMP-3, BTR-60PB, BRDM-2, BRDM-2-AT3, BRDM-2-AT5 There are 21 seperate amphibious vehicle models to work with. Every vehicle on this list can be seperately replaced. In other words for example you can replace the AAV-7C with something new while the AAV-7 remains unaffected.

The German FUCHS is probably the ligthest armed amphibious vehicle. It just comes with a hatch 7,62MG.

I don´t know exactly what you mean with green outline. Contact me on Discord: Aquila #8952 .

This is a good point. When safe unbutton your vehicles occasionally to allow different elements´ vehicle crews to have a chat with each other or with the infantry so they can share contact information which then is further shared on the different radio nets. I love this CM mechanic, pretty unique.

My rule of thumb on this comes from what I think is representative in the real world. From what I´ve seen distant & wide obervation its quiet difficult when on the move in unupgraded vintage T-55, T-62, T-72, BMPs. So I may unbutton them in certain situations. Anything more modern or NATO I never unbutton.

Deleting faces works like a charm I had a problem with deleting vertices, however I didn´t test if its still present in your new CM2T version as deleting faces is a pretty fine method for me. Okay additionally to the written tutorial here is some footage of me working on stuff, everything is without commentary as usual. You see me struggle there with alot and some steps I wouldn´t do as I´ve learned more in the meantime. Alot goes now alot quicker and easier. Also the tools got updated and there are slightly differences now there. Most important the EXPORT METADATA option upon exporting (check written tutorial above): The videos are in chronology of how I found my way but you don´t obligatory have to watch them all or in order. The Blackhawk Video is the most vital one when it comes to designing new flavor objects and should work well alongside the written tutorial. 1) Design of a Makeshift VBIED (complete process, working with existing CM2 vehicles, NO CUSTOM models) 2) Design of the Humvee Wreck (working with EXISTING models, the model gave me alot of headache because i was moving the original CM primer flavor object around, which also results in the Humvee being abit afloat (use rubble or holes to mask it), today I would not touch the CM flavor primer object and simply turn it invisible with a blank texture (see written tutorial). 3) Making the Humvee Wreck look more destroyed (CUTTING FACES, working with EXISTING models) 4) Updating my Battle M2 Humvee V1 to V2 (involves CUTTING & SCULPTING Techniques, EXISTING models) 5) Complete Design of a DIY Syrian Makeshift APC (EXISTING MODELS, TEXTURE DESIGN TECHNIQUES in GIMP2) Shows the issues that arise when working with complex multi-part items like gun turret mounts. I tried to replace the track with wheels but as you can see in the end they look strange when driving thus I put the track back. 6) Design of the downed Blackhawk Flavor Object, (WORKING WITH NEW FLAVOR MODELS, CUTTING) As texture I simply used existing CMSF2´s "concrete-black.bmp" as I had no clue what to do else. The video ends with the an export error. This was a day before sbobovyc updated his tools with the "EXPORT METADATA" option. By turning this off, the major breakthrough was achieved. Today I would use a SHELTER as original flavor "primer" object as I believe it has less FOV issues when being close to the new custom model. I also would move the helicopter parts into the primer and not vice versa and do not change the primer´s height. I would also keep everything at center (green red line intersection).

Links and CMSF2 hotfix in the description

Yes the blank.bmp is an handy tool in many CM modding efforts. With Blender CM2 tools you can go a step farer and blank out specific model parts.