Aquila-SmartWargames

A little more progress at last. I (re)wrote US and German briefings and worked up tactical maps for PURPLE HEART CORNER. Now to start playtesting.

Thats not really how distance vision and visual acuity is working. I´ve had contact with real military simulators and shortcomings are described on exactly the opposite. Due to limitations of most in-use displays - thus videogames and recordings - may have a limitation of proper farsight and distant stimulus aquisition in a visual busy environment when compared to the capabilities of the human eye. This is the reason why games like Arma provide the player with an artifical zoom in order to try simulate proper eye capabilities.
Its the eye feature called accomodation that is shifting the lens in order to adapt the focal point on the retina/fovea centralis in context to distance. Thats how we manage to accomodate close and distant focus. A healthy eye without lens, bulbus, retina, muscle anomalies is able to accomodate into the infinite. What you´re describing sounds more like what shortsighted individuals may experience who can´t accomodate their focal point to distance properly. Also there is often haze which becomes more noticeable on distance.
Low resolution textures don´t make it more realistic. Grain doesn´t make it more realistic, (radial) blur and field of depth are resembling this but are nowhere realistic as this effect appearance and strength is tied to the videogame POV and not player eyes´ fixation and accomodation.
Nevertheless the screenshots you´r e mentioned look good. It looks like the Tilt Shift effect in Reshade. I would like to use some sort of depth of field effect alongside @37mmScreenshots profile. Problem is that it is tied to screen position and not ingame distance. Not sure if there is a way for Reshade to "read" CM´s ingame distance... would be definitely great.

One of the best mods I´ve played so far.

Scipio Silhouettes v130b.brz is now in my Dropbox
Try this names:

 

If you guys want that conical hat I made a while back, here it is. You will need to alpha channel out the strap. One texture for reference (for making variants).

Vietnam Conical Hat.zip

You knocked that sucker well & truly outta the park mate!
@puje's 'Year Of The Rat' campaign for CM:SF2 'Heaven & Earth' is available here:
 

Responding to an in progress call on first watch. 


Checking a burned out abandoned for a report of trespassing. 

Two more map conversions...



The "mountain retreat" scenario needed very little work...

If you upload your test scenario and your modification of the cover mod I can check it with my own eyes.

Yes both methods are possible:
 
1) This was done with "Destroy BF109" objectives but as you can guess you can do it with everything.
2) The destroyed objective was a Bedford Truck replaced by a BF109. Make copies of the custommodel.mdr of your choice and replace the main mdr and lod mdr files. For weapon caches you can simply take the vanila "crate1.mdr" and rename it to "vehicle-taxi.mdr", then make copies from it and add "-lod1" up to "-lod4" to it. You could also replace the VBIED vehicle as I believe these have a chance to explode when fired upon, so players would be extra cautious and call an armored vehicle to do the EOD job.

3) Very good for replacement are casual/transport vehicles (Jeeps, Civilian cars, Humvees, Wolfs, Trucks etc etc,) as you can remove their crew in the editor and they don´t give away so much "?" intel like bigger stuff. The crew can then be removed by extraction zone or simply placed somewhere else as enemy force.
4) It looks like the removed crews are accounted for victory points (in this example I had every BF109 set to 9999 but as you can see I received around 6000 or ca. 60% of the victory points. The Crew (Supply Platoon HQ) is sitting on the map edge in this demo. Keep that in mind when doing your mission´s victory point calculations.
3) When replacing vehicle, turn them to "IMMOBILIZED" so they won´t make engine noises when spotted.
4) You can either use them for hidden TOUCH, OCCUPY objectives (reach the downed bf109 and search it), for SPOTTING and like in this example for DESTROY objectives (destroy the bf109). These can obviously used for the player and for the AI aswell. Scenarios like "we lost an important asset in this region. Locate it before the enemy does" or "defend the asset from destruction/search" and many more become possible.
5) You can also replace sturdier objects as (Wooden) Bunkers or armored vehicles, this would require the player to use specific weapons (satchel charges, launchers, grenades) to get the destruction objective done. For example you could replace some armored vehicles with the train for an "Ambush the Train" scenario requiring to fire rockets or missiles into the trains.
6) And again these objects can receive AI plans and do movement like the replaced vehicle. You could simulate something being slowly towed away or trying to escape (like the example with the MIG-21s that try to get airborne (evac zone) in order to escape.)
7) Same goes for reinforcements, you could let them spawn when and where you want.  Pretty good for these mentioned "patrol and locate weapon caches" big sandbox map scenarios. Combined with the methods used in the CMBS "TOC" sandbox scenario, there are ALOT of options just requiring creativity and out of the box thinking.
8 ) placing these custom model objectives into ground caves (deeper as in my showcase) and cave labyrinths which then are covered by the Underground Cover Mod, and with the edges made inaccessible either by mapping or the various methods we have (invisible walls, bushes etc.), would the player demand to go into these caves to locate/destroy objectives otherwise not able to be spotted.

I´ve just exchanged ideas with @3j2m7 about depicting the Balkan War or Israeli-Arab conflicts and noticed that I forget to mention this mini mod:
Six-Day War Vehicle Collection (Stug, Jagdpanzer, Pz. IV, T-34, T-55, Sherman, all with desert skins)
Similar to the Falklands vehicle conversion minimod this was also created. It includes Arab Stug, Jagdpanzer, T-34, and T-55 and the Israeli Sherman. If scenario designers should pick this up, they replace the static T-54 and static T-55 but keep in mind that there is no way to limit the fire arc of the STUG/Jagdpanzer so if you use them then only for the AI and place them in tank emplacements which limit their fire arc via terrain. A total conversion with infantry etc. if one would be interested should be certainly doable as most modern conflicts from post WW2 to up this date work pretty good with CMSF2s capabilities. Many infantry weapons of this war are already to be found in the various CM games. A Red vs Red scenario would be likely the best base and with the force selection trick you can also use further bluefor vehicles (and their reskinned/relocalized crews) if really required. You can do Red vs Red quickbattles and by human purchase and setup these tank battles fairly quick. Just have in mind what replaces what.
M1200 Armored Knight V2 for Recon Humvee

I think this was my first Blender modification created 3 weeks ago. Corrected hatches and removed the M2. Desert + Woodland Skin version.
MT-LB, BTR-70, BTR-70M, BTR-80 for BTR-60 Conversion

Replace your BTR-60 with other Russian APC with custom skins. Good for some enemy variety. (Credit to Euroscape authors for the BTR-70 skin). MT-LB swap is not very realistic as the real MT-LB has no 14.5mm. 
SPG Makeshift Car
One of the first models.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1tviryry89g6py7/AAAJpSvGH6u1iEx4WzwVLSnJa?dl=0
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Agho21MGTssHaTHHgpIcaQWqWpU?e=5rKEzK

Captured/Insurgent M2 HMMWV V4

The M2 HMMWV being one of the few vehicles that can be made accessible to foreign crews in the editor I´ve created a highly randomized insurgent version with a frankensteined appearance to depict the lack of spare parts etc. However main goal was to test how far randomization can be done for a single vehicle. Here is the result:
- Will randomly display spare wheel
- Will randomly display gunners camo net
- Will randomly display makeshift door or other replacement doors in several colors
- Will randomly display the hatch in the back either in different colors or removed.
- Will randomly display frontal protection and tire mudflap.
 
How to do it:
1) When you want randomized gear in Blender, name a model part "gear" + (Number) there is a chance that it will displayed or not:
1) EXAMPLE: name spare wheel model "gear15". It might be displayed or not. You may get a vehicle with alot of "gear" models or you may get a vehicle with little "gear" models.
 2) When you want your vehicle to display exactly ONE option of many use -optiona -optionb -optionc as suffix to the model name.
2) EXAMPLE: name spare wheel on the vehicle´s back face "spare-optiona" , name spare wheel on the left face of the vehicle "spare-optionb" etc.. Either the back face spare will appear or either the left face spare will show on the vehicle.
2) EXAMPLE2: name a door that uses a desert texture "hatch1-optiona", name a door that uses a woodland texture "hatch1-optionb", name a door that uses a blank texture "hatch1-optionc". Result: either or desert, or woodland, or a invisible/no door will appear. (I used this on the hatch in the back when you watch the Insurgent Humvee Showcase.)
3) Sometimes you may not want to have all options the same chance to display. For example I didn´t want half of the HMMWVs to have this makeshift door. I believe this little trick should work. Create several duplicated of the model you want to show often and name them for example: "hatch1-optiona" "hatch1-optionb" "hatch1-optionc". If you add now the model you rarely want to see with "hatch1-optiond" it should have an average appear chance of 25% in this example.
4) Was curious if weapons could be utilized with the -option feature and I added a DHSK to my Insurgent Humvee which then should be randomly displayed instead of the M2 but upon export it threw an error. 
 
Tiger with Camo Nets

1) The Tiger uses a quick recolored camo-net model & textures from the British CMSF vehicles. You can basicaly do this to all vehicles and it isn´t that time heavy. 
2) When adding camo or other stuff to the vehicles, make sure that you attach them to the correct parent. I.e. Camo nets for the turret should be attached to the turret so when the turret turns, the camo nets will follow and stay in place.
3) I tried to add CMFIs own bush models to the Tiger which looked beautiful in Blender. However in the games only the wooden base is visible. Perhaps someone else will figure this out or find an good bush substitute in the game files.

4) I am pretty sure there are more models suited for camo addons to be found in the CM game files.
 
Downloads in the cloud.

Yes I had several 1vs1 tank thrillers that were decided rather by the tree standing between them

Very, very cool...  Can't believe people been dreaming these sorts of eye-candy ever since CM2 came out in 2007.  It's finally possible.  Thanks Aquila!!

Soldiers from the Alarmeinheiten pass a downed friendly aircraft.  Thanks @Aquila-SmartWargames . 


 

+1.  Interesting idea.  Thanks for sharing. 

Great idea by @wgbn1968 uzilizing the underground cover mod to simulate basements:
 

Great idea by @wgbn1968 uzilizing the underground cover mod to simulate basements:
 

Great idea by @wgbn1968 uzilizing the underground cover mod to simulate basements:
 

Very interresting, I was asking one day to have this possibility to fight in the cellar, or bunker, and I see this is possible, this promess lot of news possibilities for the futur, I like also the way to explain the situation on the begining only with arrows, (because I dont understand anything in russian, 😄) I think BF could introduce this kind of arrows in the preparation phase in the game, great video love it, thank you to post it @Aquila-SmartWargames

I flip between extremes of "Yes, of course" & "No, not a frigging chance".
Another day, another map for "Major Nguyen's Brigade"...

I didn´t know that this campaign existed. Not that bad as I can play the conversion without any knowledge about what is awaiting.

This review covers the included campaigns and scenarios with briefings and first impressions.
 

Excellent video, thank you Aquila. Love you Youtube channel !

This review covers the included campaigns and scenarios with briefings and first impressions.