Aquila-SmartWargames

This is my "way and method" how I got to the finish. Perhaps there are steps that aren´t required or not best.
 
CUSTOM FLAVOR OBJECTS FOR WW2 AND MODERN AQUILA METHOD:
1) Install Anaconda Python 3.X (Google)
2) Install Blender Software (Google)
3) Install a Photoshop Software. Free good Tool: GIMP2 (Google)
3) Check CM2Tools Plugin Authors Github page https://github.com/sbobovyc/CM2Tools for info and plugin download. Also his BFForums thread (1st post) Watch Plugin Author´s Import/Export Tutorial (1st Post)
4) Install Plugin like shown in these Videos
5) Take the original .brz files in data of your WW2 or Modern CM2 game and put it into "Input" of Combat Mission X/ModTools/Rezexplode and unpack them
6) Go and find a custom 3D Model of your liking in one of the Blender formats (advanced users may convert them). You can check comptatible formats in Blender under File/Import. Free 3D Databases in 1st Post and recent big post of me. Check that it comes with textures. 
7) Start Blender, delete the placeholder cube you don´t need it, with add/lamp/hemisphere in the lower interface you can make everything brighter. It is sometimes very dark.
8 ) I start with importing an original "primer" Cm2 flavor object. Without this step no custom models show up in CM2 (there is likely some essential info stored into them). They are located in your unpacked CM2 game files. Often under terrain/flavor objects/models. Import for example "shelter1.mdr" into blender with file/import/mdr. Check "import metadata" and "transform", I have 4 checkmarks there. May not be required for flavors but for standarization I always do this. For smaller projects you can use smaller stuff like crate1.mdr.
9) You see a CM2 shelter, there is a small ball dropdown in the lower interface, you can change to "materials" or "textures" so see it with textures
10) Now again file/import/ choose the format of your custom model download and import it aswell. Check if textures are shown, I am no 3d artists some models are riddles and I dismiss them because I can´t handle them. Easy model to start training was the fire truck and ambulance https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/432872
11) You see it, it may be extremely gigantic, extremly small, you need to resize it and move it with these three colored arrows, some objects have multiple entities, use usual windows shift commands for multi selection to move all at once to keep them in cohesion. The original CM2 shelter is your orientation. Where the CM2 shelter is, is the center, where its fundament is, is the ground. Delete stuff you don´t want with right  click "delete hierarchy" in the right interface (I call it Order of Battle, first time is like a battle but don´t give up 😂) . You can move stuff into the space of the original Shelter, no problem but AVOID moving,modifying the box, its your center of the world. Use undo/redo under lower interface/object if you mess up. You can perhaps modify it but I don´t know how and it often leads to problems when exporting with flying models in the sky etc.
12) When you are done, move every custom entitity into the shelter´s folder in the right interface (pros call it make it parent), you can do that by simple drag and drop the symbol of the entitiy. (Author´s Tutorial shows this).
13) Textures of custom models most time come with wrong format. Start GIMP2, load textures into it, go to export, choose file extension "BMP", check 24bit and "do not write info bla" and export it. This is the required format for CM2. 
14) Now difficult part you need to replace the texture connections in BLENDER with new BMP. Its in the Right Interface looks like a chessboard ball and square. There you need to remove (x symbol) and to add the bmp. This is somewhat complicated and I to this day don´t know what I am doing. With Trial and Error you get everything show up with your texture.BMPs
15) (optional) you can turn models or model parts invisible with a blank texture (post attachment) in CM2. Also your primer shelter if it is outside the custom model for example.
15a) IMPORTANT: There is something I forget, some models need to be "triangulated". Sounds super complicated but what you just need to do is select the custom model entity, press TAB, and then SHIFT+T, done. If you ever see a "perforated" custom model in your CM game its this step you´ve missed.
16) When everything is textured you are now ready to export. In the right interface select the root entry (your shelter.mdr entitiy with all bells and whistles in it), right click, select hierarchy, everything gets an yellow outline. Check that you are on OBJECT MODE (lower interface) Go to file/export/mdr and do it, make sure that "export metadata" is OFF and do it.
17) create a folder with your new .mdr file and put all textures in it you´ve used. For reverse engineering and helping others I suggest you save an additional blender file (file/save) and put it into it so others can learn from this.
18) rename the untitled.mdr to an flavor object of your liking. Draw Distance is dependant on what you replace. Do not make a cargo ship and call it crate1.mdr, very bad idea it will pop out after 100m distance. Better draw distance comes from big stuff like shelter1,2,3.mdr and best likely are street trafic light or Black Sea monument or big WW2 shelter.
19) throw your ready folder into the Z mod folder
20) go into editor, map, flavor objects place the flavor object you just´ve replaced and check, first time errors will happen you WILL see nothing, you WILL see black models, process of learning but you will prevail.
 
CUSTOM VEHICLES FOR WW2 AND MODERN AQUILA METHOD (just different step):
16) Turn "EXPORT METADATA ON", do not forget otherwise all tire and track wheels will look like you´re watching a Transformers movie. This on the other hand means there are difficulties replacing vehicles or vehicle parts with custom models as custom models require "EXPORT METADATA OFF" so if you want a custom ride with wheels or track wheels with current CM2 tools this seems not possible AFAIK but you can do surely do boats as these naturally don´t require wheels.
HOWEVER: You can mix/match several CM2 vehicles by importing them all and switching their parts. Its a bit like playing Car Mechanic simulator, no joke 😂. NEVER FORGET when importing set "IMPORT METADATA" and "TRANSFORM" and always "EXPORT METADATA" when working with vehicles, do alot of backups, if you once miss this and save info is lost, I lost an hour work because I forgot as you don´t notice that you forgot to import/export metadata. Since this I always stop breathing for a moment when I give my custom CM rides the first move command. 
You can also sculpt and cut parts by moving the vertices or selecting specific model parts in EDIT MODE (Tab) with Wireframe Model (Z) and deselecting (A) (pixels that connect everything) in edit mode. I always USE DELETE FACES not delete vertices as otherwise I got export errors afterwards. Check my Humvee V2 creation video, no commentary for doing this live. But sculpting completely new vehicles out of existing ones requires 3D Artist maestros and is alot of work. 
I had 5-10 lines of text in mind before writing this, very naive. Honestly now after writing this I see that a written tutorial wasn´t the best idea and I don´t know if this will make any sense but perhaps it helps one and somebody can come up with a decent video tutorial. Don´t get scared by Blender´s interface, for Combat Mission stuff you do not need 99,9% of it.
blank.bmp

Damnit why had to come up with this. I was looking for something like them and this idea is too good for CM to let it pass.
 
CM MODULAR BILLBOARD PACK (Modern + WW2 )

Removed Feet (for attaching on buildings and walls)

Removed Lights

1) Lights and/or Feet can be quickly removed by switching textures (included)
2) The small yellow stickers can be retextured or quickly removed (included)
3) 5 Billboards included which all call their own dedicated texture. This means you can all 5 give them different posters and use them at the same time. In the release all 5 posters look the same but you can freely edit them to your needs.
4) Download in the Cloud
Despite commercials here are some further ideas how you can utilize them:
Factory/Shop/Facility Sign



 
Information Billboard

Graffiti

 
WW2/modern Propaganda

Public Information/Subway

Military information/notifications/warnings/signs

 

Damnit why had to come up with this. I was looking for something like them and this idea is too good for CM to let it pass.
 
CM MODULAR BILLBOARD PACK (Modern + WW2 )

Removed Feet (for attaching on buildings and walls)

Removed Lights

1) Lights and/or Feet can be quickly removed by switching textures (included)
2) The small yellow stickers can be retextured or quickly removed (included)
3) 5 Billboards included which all call their own dedicated texture. This means you can all 5 give them different posters and use them at the same time. In the release all 5 posters look the same but you can freely edit them to your needs.
4) Download in the Cloud
Despite commercials here are some further ideas how you can utilize them:
Factory/Shop/Facility Sign



 
Information Billboard

Graffiti

 
WW2/modern Propaganda

Public Information/Subway

Military information/notifications/warnings/signs

 

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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...

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Impressive work! Took a look at the MiG-21. Culprit is that the mdr requires texture files to be lowercase. Suggest you incorporate sbobovyc's 'exporting checklist' to your written tutorial  https://github.com/sbobovyc/CM2Tools/wiki/Blender-plugins

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.  

This is my "way and method" how I got to the finish. Perhaps there are steps that aren´t required or not best.
 
CUSTOM FLAVOR OBJECTS FOR WW2 AND MODERN AQUILA METHOD:
1) Install Anaconda Python 3.X (Google)
2) Install Blender Software (Google)
3) Install a Photoshop Software. Free good Tool: GIMP2 (Google)
3) Check CM2Tools Plugin Authors Github page https://github.com/sbobovyc/CM2Tools for info and plugin download. Also his BFForums thread (1st post) Watch Plugin Author´s Import/Export Tutorial (1st Post)
4) Install Plugin like shown in these Videos
5) Take the original .brz files in data of your WW2 or Modern CM2 game and put it into "Input" of Combat Mission X/ModTools/Rezexplode and unpack them
6) Go and find a custom 3D Model of your liking in one of the Blender formats (advanced users may convert them). You can check comptatible formats in Blender under File/Import. Free 3D Databases in 1st Post and recent big post of me. Check that it comes with textures. 
7) Start Blender, delete the placeholder cube you don´t need it, with add/lamp/hemisphere in the lower interface you can make everything brighter. It is sometimes very dark.
8 ) I start with importing an original "primer" Cm2 flavor object. Without this step no custom models show up in CM2 (there is likely some essential info stored into them). They are located in your unpacked CM2 game files. Often under terrain/flavor objects/models. Import for example "shelter1.mdr" into blender with file/import/mdr. Check "import metadata" and "transform", I have 4 checkmarks there. May not be required for flavors but for standarization I always do this. For smaller projects you can use smaller stuff like crate1.mdr.
9) You see a CM2 shelter, there is a small ball dropdown in the lower interface, you can change to "materials" or "textures" so see it with textures
10) Now again file/import/ choose the format of your custom model download and import it aswell. Check if textures are shown, I am no 3d artists some models are riddles and I dismiss them because I can´t handle them. Easy model to start training was the fire truck and ambulance https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/432872
11) You see it, it may be extremely gigantic, extremly small, you need to resize it and move it with these three colored arrows, some objects have multiple entities, use usual windows shift commands for multi selection to move all at once to keep them in cohesion. The original CM2 shelter is your orientation. Where the CM2 shelter is, is the center, where its fundament is, is the ground. Delete stuff you don´t want with right  click "delete hierarchy" in the right interface (I call it Order of Battle, first time is like a battle but don´t give up 😂) . You can move stuff into the space of the original Shelter, no problem but AVOID moving,modifying the box, its your center of the world. Use undo/redo under lower interface/object if you mess up. You can perhaps modify it but I don´t know how and it often leads to problems when exporting with flying models in the sky etc.
12) When you are done, move every custom entitity into the shelter´s folder in the right interface (pros call it make it parent), you can do that by simple drag and drop the symbol of the entitiy. (Author´s Tutorial shows this).
13) Textures of custom models most time come with wrong format. Start GIMP2, load textures into it, go to export, choose file extension "BMP", check 24bit and "do not write info bla" and export it. This is the required format for CM2. 
14) Now difficult part you need to replace the texture connections in BLENDER with new BMP. Its in the Right Interface looks like a chessboard ball and square. There you need to remove (x symbol) and to add the bmp. This is somewhat complicated and I to this day don´t know what I am doing. With Trial and Error you get everything show up with your texture.BMPs
15) (optional) you can turn models or model parts invisible with a blank texture (post attachment) in CM2. Also your primer shelter if it is outside the custom model for example.
15a) IMPORTANT: There is something I forget, some models need to be "triangulated". Sounds super complicated but what you just need to do is select the custom model entity, press TAB, and then SHIFT+T, done. If you ever see a "perforated" custom model in your CM game its this step you´ve missed.
16) When everything is textured you are now ready to export. In the right interface select the root entry (your shelter.mdr entitiy with all bells and whistles in it), right click, select hierarchy, everything gets an yellow outline. Check that you are on OBJECT MODE (lower interface) Go to file/export/mdr and do it, make sure that "export metadata" is OFF and do it.
17) create a folder with your new .mdr file and put all textures in it you´ve used. For reverse engineering and helping others I suggest you save an additional blender file (file/save) and put it into it so others can learn from this.
18) rename the untitled.mdr to an flavor object of your liking. Draw Distance is dependant on what you replace. Do not make a cargo ship and call it crate1.mdr, very bad idea it will pop out after 100m distance. Better draw distance comes from big stuff like shelter1,2,3.mdr and best likely are street trafic light or Black Sea monument or big WW2 shelter.
19) throw your ready folder into the Z mod folder
20) go into editor, map, flavor objects place the flavor object you just´ve replaced and check, first time errors will happen you WILL see nothing, you WILL see black models, process of learning but you will prevail.
 
CUSTOM VEHICLES FOR WW2 AND MODERN AQUILA METHOD (just different step):
16) Turn "EXPORT METADATA ON", do not forget otherwise all tire and track wheels will look like you´re watching a Transformers movie. This on the other hand means there are difficulties replacing vehicles or vehicle parts with custom models as custom models require "EXPORT METADATA OFF" so if you want a custom ride with wheels or track wheels with current CM2 tools this seems not possible AFAIK but you can do surely do boats as these naturally don´t require wheels.
HOWEVER: You can mix/match several CM2 vehicles by importing them all and switching their parts. Its a bit like playing Car Mechanic simulator, no joke 😂. NEVER FORGET when importing set "IMPORT METADATA" and "TRANSFORM" and always "EXPORT METADATA" when working with vehicles, do alot of backups, if you once miss this and save info is lost, I lost an hour work because I forgot as you don´t notice that you forgot to import/export metadata. Since this I always stop breathing for a moment when I give my custom CM rides the first move command. 
You can also sculpt and cut parts by moving the vertices or selecting specific model parts in EDIT MODE (Tab) with Wireframe Model (Z) and deselecting (A) (pixels that connect everything) in edit mode. I always USE DELETE FACES not delete vertices as otherwise I got export errors afterwards. Check my Humvee V2 creation video, no commentary for doing this live. But sculpting completely new vehicles out of existing ones requires 3D Artist maestros and is alot of work. 
I had 5-10 lines of text in mind before writing this, very naive. Honestly now after writing this I see that a written tutorial wasn´t the best idea and I don´t know if this will make any sense but perhaps it helps one and somebody can come up with a decent video tutorial. Don´t get scared by Blender´s interface, for Combat Mission stuff you do not need 99,9% of it.
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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.  

M1 Abrams vs Osa Naval Patrol Vessel:
That ship is rough work but it works. I will upload the complete blender project folder and mdr to the dropbox.
You can basically turn every texture in CM invisible by adding a blank texture. For example the jeeps were designed with 3 randomized spare wheels by using -optiona -optionb -optionc in the editor wich means only ONE will get be displayed. However the third spare got a blank texture so there is a chance that the jeep simply has no spare. As real objects and flavour objects do not collide its possible to combine them to get obstacle characteristics, there are alot of options which just require some creativity.