RT Unofficial Screenshot Thread

[Lucky_Strike]

2 hours ago, Artkin said:

Do you mean Herrtom's presets? I couldn't get them to work with my Reshade as well, despite having all the effects and the HerrtomReshade.ini (Whatever it was called).

Harry's talking about my presets from my Hedgerow Hell mod, but yes same problem, I struggled with Herrtom's as well. I think that so much changes with ReShade as newer versions are released that preset become redundant quite quickly. Same issue with some I downloaded from various places, barely any work as expected sadly.

[Artkin]

Ah, it's important to hear that from you LS. So now I know presets don't really work as intended.

And in response to my previous screenshots here... I present THE CLEAN UP CREW:

 

I never knew having a dedicated QRF could be so useful

Edited October 26, 2022 by Artkin

[Phantom Captain]

A free trip to Berlin they said...what could possibly go wrong?

[RockinHarry]

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I think SweetFX used to be a stand-alone app in itself some years ago. I'm definitely going to try the latest version of ReShade.

Thought the same actually and then was surprised seeing it integrated (or added) to Reshade. But didn´t have any idea about these reshading things until I installed Reshade at last. Was always hesitating installing that, maybe destabilizing my system but now I know it´s a local, game related thing only.(?)

4 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Christmas trees ... that reminds me ...

 

Now if only there was some way to light it up and put a nice warm glow in the windows of the church and cottage it would look idyllic.

Beeing an ARMA3 player there I see lots of things I´d like seeing in CM as well. Light FX do really add much to a sceneries mood, during night times quite in particular. Night FX in CM are more geared toward playability which is okay since it´s not a FPS. But it´s my least prefered CM battle type for the non immersive graphics and FX generally. Imagine distant horizon muzzle flashes of enemy or friendly Arty, occasional tracers and flares added to a CM battles skybox system. Just for eye candy FX.

4 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

There are some very good free resources out there on the web for textures, so I say go for it. Customising it to your personal taste is what it's all about. If you want any of my original layered files give me a shout.

Now is certainly the time to get out and take some pictures of fallen leaves. 

Yep, there´s tons of them. Might try my own photo shooted ones first though. What´s also needed is properly textured pine forest floors. I´d added a rather simplistic one to YEG mod set which does the purpose, but off course would prefer something more convincing and higher res. So in case you´ve any in your bag, I´d love trying them out. Same for fallen leaves on various type grasses and default forest floor terrain tiles.

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yeah presets can be a bit of a problem if the version of ReShade is different (newer). Lots of the fx may have been replaced or superseded. Even on my PC some of my older presets don't seem to load the complete set of FX.

That´s likely beeing the case but IDK. Haven´t messed with the more detailed Reshade parms yet and still learning the basics for using it generally. Thus far I don´t see a noticeable loss of game performance, but haven´t tried on any my bigger (2x2km or larger) maps. Anyway... my old CM movie shader I don´t need anymore now. Reshade does it all better without messing with AA.

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Thanks Harry, you're more than welcome. And yes, I'm determined to get this one finished. 

Yersel! Now also getting back to my old hurtgen forest related projects seems possible. Learned so much here just during past few weeks. Also got to try @Butschi´s terrain generator very soon. Just the right tool to recreate the high complexity nature of hurtgen forest terrain it seems. But first got to try some CMRT urban battle, the way I envison it. Breslau or any other... I´ll see. That should keep me busy the coming months for sure. Will be fun making the AIP using an urban map properly. But worked out couple things on my CMBN urban prototype map already. With new and better knowledge on flavor object usage, even more neat things seem possible now.

[Lucky_Strike]

13 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Was always hesitating installing that, maybe destabilizing my system but now I know it´s a local, game related thing only.(?)

Yes, I honestly haven't seen any crashes that I could link to ReShade; all it's doing is taking the game output and manipulating the image more or less.

13 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Beeing an ARMA3 player there I see lots of things I´d like seeing in CM as well. Light FX do really add much to a sceneries mood, during night times quite in particular. Night FX in CM are more geared toward playability which is okay since it´s not a FPS. But it´s my least prefered CM battle type for the non immersive graphics and FX generally. Imagine distant horizon muzzle flashes of enemy or friendly Arty, occasional tracers and flares added to a CM battles skybox system. Just for eye candy FX.

I've never played ARMA, nor many other games at all for that matter, but I've seen plenty of YouTube content about them and I certainly agree that some lighting FX would be great to have. ReShade can only go so far with things like bloom and other glow FX. It's interesting that we have ambient sound FX but not really much in the way of ambient lighting FX, other than the pretty crude shaders - guess it's just much easier to have sounds loop in the background.

13 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Yep, there´s tons of them. Might try my own photo shooted ones first though. What´s also needed is properly textured pine forest floors. I´d added a rather simplistic one to YEG mod set which does the purpose, but off course would prefer something more convincing and higher res. So in case you´ve any in your bag, I´d love trying them out. Same for fallen leaves on various type grasses and default forest floor terrain tiles.

I'm certain I've seen some pine forest floor textures. The biggest issue is one of scale. Finding a texture that is the right scale for how much area the texture occupies. Someone did some experiments with how much the ground textures are stretched in game and I also did some to see how big all the textures would need to be to all have the same resolution. Grass is by far the worst, it would need to be something silly like 500MB to resolve the same as, for example, ground dirt. Just not practical. The forest floor textures are much better as they occupy a much smaller area. I actually use them instead of other textures quite often because of this. They make an excellent base for bocage for instance, especially because of their added brush. I'll see what I have.

13 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Thus far I don´t see a noticeable loss of game performance

No, I get more of a hit just turning on shadows in game!

13 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Anyway... my old CM movie shader I don´t need anymore now. Reshade does it all better without messing with AA.

Yes, I don't rely on in game AA anymore, it's just not that good and again adds to the overhead. I stil use your shader i=on my Mac though - it rocks

13 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Yersel! Now also getting back to my old hurtgen forest related projects seems possible. Learned so much here just during past few weeks. Also got to try @Butschi´s terrain generator very soon. Just the right tool to recreate the high complexity nature of hurtgen forest terrain it seems. But first got to try some CMRT urban battle, the way I envison it. Breslau or any other... I´ll see. That should keep me busy the coming months for sure. Will be fun making the AIP using an urban map properly. But worked out couple things on my CMBN urban prototype map already. With new and better knowledge on flavor object usage, even more neat things seem possible now.

Hah!

Yes Butschi's script look fantastic. I love to make small maps for experimenting with mods so I will certainly be looking at it once it's finished.

[Lucky_Strike]

18 hours ago, Artkin said:

Ah, it's important to hear that from you LS. So now I know presets don't really work as intended.

Yep, they're fine if your setup matches mine exactly - otherwise ... nah.

18 hours ago, Artkin said:

I never knew having a dedicated QRF could be so useful

Especially when dishing out some .50cal goodness from their M3's

[quakerparrot67]

18 hours ago, Phantom Captain said:

A free trip to Berlin they said...what could possibly go wrong?

i really like these- are they from  npye's berlin or the stock 'f&r' one?  also, what russian soldiers are you using?  i like the blankets.

[RockinHarry]

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes, I honestly haven't seen any crashes that I could link to ReShade; all it's doing is taking the game output and manipulating the image more or less.

Me neither. Thus far. I´ve now installed it for all my 3 CM WW2 titles. Might try on other games as well, if I find time playing them again.

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I've never played ARMA, nor many other games at all for that matter, but I've seen plenty of YouTube content about them and I certainly agree that some lighting FX would be great to have. ReShade can only go so far with things like bloom and other glow FX. It's interesting that we have ambient sound FX but not really much in the way of ambient lighting FX, other than the pretty crude shaders - guess it's just much easier to have sounds loop in the background.

Might be cool if BFC opens up the games for other data formats like GIF or MP3. I could image some graphic FX could likely be made with GIF animations. Maybe for the horizon files and skybox. MP3 would be cool if one could use them for playing certain stuff like "reinforcement arrived" messages, or somes cripted stuff for immersion. Background ambience sounds could also be kept considerably smaller, while increasing the loop length to couple of minutes. Briefing screens could also benefit from stuff like that.

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I'm certain I've seen some pine forest floor textures. The biggest issue is one of scale. Finding a texture that is the right scale for how much area the texture occupies. Someone did some experiments with how much the ground textures are stretched in game and I also did some to see how big all the textures would need to be to all have the same resolution. Grass is by far the worst, it would need to be something silly like 500MB to resolve the same as, for example, ground dirt. Just not practical. The forest floor textures are much better as they occupy a much smaller area. I actually use them instead of other textures quite often because of this. They make an excellent base for bocage for instance, especially because of their added brush. I'll see what I have.

Jup, matching all textures to give a coherent and realistic appearance is bits of a challenge. Scaling and (auto-) blending between textures needs also some considerations. I also don´t hestitate to (mis-)use textures for some their inherent capabilities. I.e make "mud" textures to look like simple "grass" (without the doodads unfortunately). This to "simulate" boggy terrain that´s not marsh nor swamp yet.

If you find some good looking pine forest floor texture, let me know! I think your HH ground forest floor and ground rocky red come close to it already.

2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

No, I get more of a hit just turning on shadows in game!

Yup. Anyway I mostly prefer missions having overcast or rainy skies. Here one can switch off shadows easily, as they look fairly unrealistic and provide various issues with shading. Guess one can do something about that by tweaking shader files, but I don´t have time (nor interest) learning OGL scripting.

2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes, I don't rely on in game AA anymore, it's just not that good and again adds to the overhead. I stil use your shader i=on my Mac though - it rocks

Doesn´t give your Mac AA issues like this shader file does on (my) PC? For me it adds aliasing ugliness that isn´t present when Movie mode is switched off. Even Reshade can´t fight it sufficiently when having some the AA FX activated. So movie mode now off all the time.

[Phantom Captain]

40 minutes ago, quakerparrot67 said:

i really like these- are they from  npye's berlin or the stock 'f&r' one?  also, what russian soldiers are you using?  i like the blankets.

Thanks!  

So, it's kind of a mix of different things.  I use the "All in One" modpack so some of the terrain, buildings, etc might be from some of that, otherwise it's just stock FR with the modpack.  I definitely will try some of @NPye's Berlin mods at some point.  

The uniforms are from here...

t34577685s updated soviet uniform mod for fire and rubble

https://www.mediafire.com/file/vtvc9104crn3tmt/russian_uniform_made_by_t34577685_%28updated%29.rar/file

The original uniform mod was @t34577685's and then @Kuli updated and added the blanket rolls.  They do look AMAZING!  By far my favorite Soviet uniform mod!

However, there is a caveat here too.  In the modpack there is an updated Soviet gear/boots/equipment mod, I think it's EZ's, that also is part of it.  Additionally, I removed some of the helmet files as I really don't like a lot of variation in the Soviet helmet color.  All the real life helmets I've seen (I actually own a couple) seem to usually be a very uniform color.  I tried to stick with that by taking out a couple of the variant helmet colors.

[Lucky_Strike]

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Might be cool if BFC opens up the games for other data formats like GIF or MP3. I could image some graphic FX could likely be made with GIF animations. Maybe for the horizon files and skybox. MP3 would be cool if one could use them for playing certain stuff like "reinforcement arrived" messages, or somes cripted stuff for immersion. Background ambience sounds could also be kept considerably smaller, while increasing the loop length to couple of minutes. Briefing screens could also benefit from stuff like that.

I haven't really looked at sounds in a very long time, there's so many, it can take a long time trying to sort out a good soundscape. I must have another go at them.

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

I also don´t hestitate to (mis-)use textures for some their inherent capabilities. I.e make "mud" textures to look like simple "grass" (without the doodads unfortunately). This to "simulate" boggy terrain that´s not marsh nor swamp yet.

Yes like when there's been heavy rain, this is why we need different mod packs for different weather conditions. I don't know what happens to the game mechanics when we set the ground conditions to muddy but I think it triggers a tag to invoke [muddy] vehicles. So can the same tag be used to automagically trigger [muddy] ground textures? Would be cool if it can. You Hürtgen battles could really benefit from that ability.

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Yup. Anyway I mostly prefer missions having overcast or rainy skies. Here one can switch off shadows easily, as they look fairly unrealistic and provide various issues with shading.

I really like to use rain with mist, adding in a good dose of ReShade to produce some fantastic atmospheric effects. My biggest gripe with the shadows is that it's either all or nothing, whereas in RL shadows are always on they are just more subtle in overcast dull condition, they act as an important visual anchor. I really hate how objects float because they don't have some form of visual anchor when shadows are off, gets me every time. 

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Guess one can do something about that by tweaking shader files, but I don´t have time (nor interest) learning OGL scripting.

Yes, maybe. If it were possible to soften the shadows for overcast conditions and add some sort of light fall-off to them then we would have something that looked way better. But as you say OpenGL is a whole other massive learning curve.

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Doesn´t give your Mac AA issues like this shader file does on (my) PC? For me it adds aliasing ugliness that isn´t present when Movie mode is switched off. Even Reshade can´t fight it sufficiently when having some the AA FX activated. So movie mode now off all the time.

Oh I meant on my PC, on the Mac we don't have access to the drivers for the GPU in the same way as say an nVidia control panel, it's basically all done automatically, so the only control over AA is in game; I can't remember wether I have it turned on or not. Most of my mod development is done in my Mac where I tend to test pretty much exclusively in normal colour. It's odd, I know lots of people hate the saturation of the original game graphics but actually they are more true to life than the movie mode especially in BN. What is really needed is a way to render different lighting and atmospheric conditions as it's that which affects out perception of colours not a general overal filter to desaturate or shift the hue of everything. That's where ReShade really excels since it can do both light and atmospherics, as well as apply colour filters in a far more targeted way. And much of this with little or no perceptible overhead. Imagine if BF were to license ReShade for ingame use, having it optimised and built-in to control the look of the game to our desire ...

[RockinHarry]

8 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I haven't really looked at sounds in a very long time, there's so many, it can take a long time trying to sort out a good soundscape. I must have another go at them.

I found this channel beeing a good start. There´s number of other channels as well. I downloaded couple of files there, then looped (2 minute slices in Audacity) and saved for CM use. No need using the stock games very generic types anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/c/AMBIENCECHANNEL/videos

8 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes like when there's been heavy rain, this is why we need different mod packs for different weather conditions. I don't know what happens to the game mechanics when we set the ground conditions to muddy but I think it triggers a tag to invoke [muddy] vehicles. So can the same tag be used to automagically trigger [muddy] ground textures? Would be cool if it can. You Hürtgen battles could really benefit from that ability.

Yes, "muddy" tag yet basically just adds mud/dirt to vehicle tracks (and bits to suspension). Hm... haven´t tried muddy texture tag yet, but believe these should work. Infantry uniforms should work as well if one likes pixeltroopers beeing particularly dirty. Once tried with one version of wet looking german uniform, but used "wet" tag instead. Worked.

8 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I really like to use rain with mist, adding in a good dose of ReShade to produce some fantastic atmospheric effects. My biggest gripe with the shadows is that it's either all or nothing, whereas in RL shadows are always on they are just more subtle in overcast dull condition, they act as an important visual anchor. I really hate how objects float because they don't have some form of visual anchor when shadows are off, gets me every time. 

Yes, results in Reshade are very nice. I´m still tinkering with settings for Rain/Fog. Though I still can´t get that Depth FX in SweetFx package working. Don´t even know if it´s the one creating depth of field FX. It´s the only one in SweetFX package. Maybe should try another package. Yep, CM shadows system simply does s..k. And there´s still the oddly lighted slopes in early morning hours. Just like BFC forgot switching off moonlight of a full moon beeing below the horizon.

8 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes, maybe. If it were possible to soften the shadows for overcast conditions and add some sort of light fall-off to them then we would have something that looked way better. But as you say OpenGL is a whole other massive learning curve.

I´d given it up long time ago reporting bugs or pointing to issues in the game. Or make improvement suggestions, let alone asking for info re shader files or META data. So Reshade all the time now and switch off the games more unusable stuff.

8 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Oh I meant on my PC, on the Mac we don't have access to the drivers for the GPU in the same way as say an nVidia control panel, it's basically all done automatically, so the only control over AA is in game; I can't remember wether I have it turned on or not. Most of my mod development is done in my Mac where I tend to test pretty much exclusively in normal colour. It's odd, I know lots of people hate the saturation of the original game graphics but actually they are more true to life than the movie mode especially in BN. What is really needed is a way to render different lighting and atmospheric conditions as it's that which affects out perception of colours not a general overal filter to desaturate or shift the hue of everything. That's where ReShade really excels since it can do both light and atmospherics, as well as apply colour filters in a far more targeted way. And much of this with little or no perceptible overhead. Imagine if BF were to license ReShade for ingame use, having it optimised and built-in to control the look of the game to our desire ...

Yeah that would all be nice. Likely requires a new graphics engine I guess. No idea if basing it all on OGL is a good idea. But I know little about all that coding and engine related stuff. So maybe all easier said than done. Thus far I´m fairly satisfied with Reshade and I´d just started exploring it. Wished I´d tried it earlier. No time wasted on CM shader file investigations and all that. 

[Lucky_Strike]

7 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

I found this channel beeing a good start. There´s number of other channels as well. I downloaded couple of files there, then looped (2 minute slices in Audacity) and saved for CM use. No need using the stock games very generic types anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/c/AMBIENCECHANNEL/videos

Cool, thanks will have to look into this.

7 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Yes, "muddy" tag yet basically just adds mud/dirt to vehicle tracks (and bits to suspension). Hm... haven´t tried muddy texture tag yet, but believe these should work. Infantry uniforms should work as well if one likes pixeltroopers beeing particularly dirty. Once tried with one version of wet looking german uniform, but used "wet" tag instead. Worked.

Well of course I had to go and try.  Didn't work, or at least I couldn't make it work how I expected in RT. I thought it was working at first. I made a [muddy] tagged grass which I thought showed up when I did muddy conditions, I'm certain it worked. But this may have been in summer. I then thought well if that works I'll get the muddy conditions all set up for operation Spring Awakening in March 45. Cold, muddy, raining. I made a quick muddy ground dirt, ground yellow grass, ground dirt road etc. Nada. I think what was happening was all the cold tagged stuff kicked in instead. Made the weather warm, still no dice, which suggests cold is also season/date related. I then added a cold tag [cold muddy] which does work. It might just be 'cos it was late, but I think it sort of works depending on theatre, year and season. I think the automatic tags that are used by BF are kind of half-baked, [muddy] should employ muddy textures for everything at anytime, with alternatives for seasons if needed, cold, spring etc. When I got it to work it looks good, but it means tagging the scenario and doesn't just happen like I'd hoped for. I think this also means QBs can't benefit from it as they do with say snow. Also means muddy vehicles driving around in non-muddy-looking conditions, which is harder for the player to comprehend esp. re bogging risk - if something looks muddy chances are one ain't gonna risk taking one's trucks across it. Need to experiment some more cos I really liked how it looked.

7 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Yes, results in Reshade are very nice. I´m still tinkering with settings for Rain/Fog. Though I still can´t get that Depth FX in SweetFx package working. Don´t even know if it´s the one creating depth of field FX. It´s the only one in SweetFX package. Maybe should try another package. Yep, CM shadows system simply does s..k. And there´s still the oddly lighted slopes in early morning hours. Just like BFC forgot switching off moonlight of a full moon beeing below the horizon.

I'll have to take a look at my setup for you, I don't think I'm using SweetFX DoF. I'll find out what it's called and post you some screens to show what I needed to set up to get it working. It's very cool when it works, focus shifts as the viewpoint moves from near objects to far objects.

7 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

I´d given it up long time ago reporting bugs or pointing to issues in the game.

I know, I should just focus on what I can do, not what BF missed and likely won't fix or improve in CMx2.

7 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Yeah that would all be nice. Likely requires a new graphics engine I guess. No idea if basing it all on OGL is a good idea. But I know little about all that coding and engine related stuff. So maybe all easier said than done. Thus far I´m fairly satisfied with Reshade and I´d just started exploring it. Wished I´d tried it earlier. No time wasted on CM shader file investigations and all that. 

Yes, OGL is very old now and I'm not even sure if much of what we'd desire is possible.

The new Enfusion engine that ARMA 4 is going to use looks astonishing. I hope that BF takes notice of it for CMx3.

[RockinHarry]

13 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Well of course I had to go and try.  Didn't work, or at least I couldn't make it work how I expected in RT. I thought it was working at first. I made a [muddy] tagged grass which I thought showed up when I did muddy conditions, I'm certain it worked. But this may have been in summer. I then thought well if that works I'll get the muddy conditions all set up for operation Spring Awakening in March 45. Cold, muddy, raining. I made a quick muddy ground dirt, ground yellow grass, ground dirt road etc. Nada. I think what was happening was all the cold tagged stuff kicked in instead. Made the weather warm, still no dice, which suggests cold is also season/date related. I then added a cold tag [cold muddy] which does work. It might just be 'cos it was late, but I think it sort of works depending on theatre, year and season. I think the automatic tags that are used by BF are kind of half-baked, [muddy] should employ muddy textures for everything at anytime, with alternatives for seasons if needed, cold, spring etc. When I got it to work it looks good, but it means tagging the scenario and doesn't just happen like I'd hoped for. I think this also means QBs can't benefit from it as they do with say snow. Also means muddy vehicles driving around in non-muddy-looking conditions, which is harder for the player to comprehend esp. re bogging risk - if something looks muddy chances are one ain't gonna risk taking one's trucks across it. Need to experiment some more cos I really liked how it looked.

Yes, if the tag is one the games hard coded ones then it won´t work (well) on terrain textures. But you could make a user tag then added to the mission tag list. [MyMuddy] or [Mymuddy Muddy] something like that maybe. Also to be combined with other hardcoded tags like [spring] for F&R i.e

Yep, the bits of dirt & mud bits of takes away from the oftentimes factory fresh looks. Same for pixeltrooper uniforms. Dirt or wet looks.

26 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I'll have to take a look at my setup for you, I don't think I'm using SweetFX DoF. I'll find out what it's called and post you some screens to show what I needed to set up to get it working. It's very cool when it works, focus shifts as the viewpoint moves from near objects to far objects.

That´ll be cool and I´d highly appreciate it! Thanks!

30 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes, OGL is very old now and I'm not even sure if much of what we'd desire is possible.

The new Enfusion engine that ARMA 4 is going to use looks astonishing. I hope that BF takes notice of it for CMx3.

Well...anything that is better than the old OGL one basically.

I haven´t purchased ARMA4/Reforger yet. Still too much lacking content and functionality. Okay... it´s early access something. But not yet worth paying the full price unless one is big fanboy. But from what I´ve seen it´s beautiful.

[RockinHarry]

18 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

20 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

I also don´t hestitate to (mis-)use textures for some their inherent capabilities. I.e make "mud" textures to look like simple "grass" (without the doodads unfortunately). This to "simulate" boggy terrain that´s not marsh nor swamp yet.

Yes like when there's been heavy rain, this is why we need different mod packs for different weather conditions. I don't know what happens to the game mechanics when we set the ground conditions to muddy but I think it triggers a tag to invoke [muddy] vehicles. So can the same tag be used to automagically trigger [muddy] ground textures? Would be cool if it can. You Hürtgen battles could really benefit from that ability.

Btw...just applied HH to CMFB and made my choices on the many sub options for a test map. Great stuff in there and one can adapt to anyone´s liking. Just got to bits of mod tagging where needed but that went fairly quick, considering it´s just ground textures.

Beside that I´d tried the (old) idea changing some ground texture terrain to look like something else. In this case it´s the creek bed looking like normal grass terrain. In fact it´s marshy terrain with grassy doodad option selected. Just changed your marsh terrain texture for your grass one and renamed "ground marsh [cold].bmp". So we´ve a heavier version soggy grass terrain in creek bed now. Marsh terrain from GM:

"Marsh is passable to infantry, albeit slowly. ..."

So we´ve a more difficult vehicle nogo type creek here for which I´ve a number of uses for mission design. It surely influences game play for both player and AIP. Yet the TacAi is always "aware" of this fake grass terrain type which is "marsh" and avoids these. At least vehicles do. It´s CMFB map, but it looks the same in CMRT + HH and particular doodads and other options selected. We´ve also lil bits of Reshade stuff applied in screen below btw.

[Lucky_Strike]

5 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Btw...just applied HH to CMFB and made my choices on the many sub options for a test map. Great stuff in there and one can adapt to anyone´s liking. Just got to bits of mod tagging where needed but that went fairly quick, considering it´s just ground textures.

Yep, should have some useful bits footprints FB. Obviously some foliage will need fixing, but the pine trees will work and bare trees don't look too bad. Ground textures can definitely be switched around. There are almost too many in the game, or at least there are some that I find no use for and some I wish we had instead.

5 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Beside that I´d tried the (old) idea changing some ground texture terrain to look like something else. In this case it´s the creek bed looking like normal grass terrain. In fact it´s marshy terrain with grassy doodad option selected. Just changed your marsh terrain texture for your grass one and renamed "ground marsh [cold].bmp". So we´ve a heavier version soggy grass terrain in creek bed now.

Hah. Great minds and all that ... I was using the same for grass/marsh switch in RT for Spring Awakening muddy terrain, until I got completely sidetracked by tags. Now I will have to do a report on what I found regarding tags, it's quite mind boggling. 

5 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

So we´ve a more difficult vehicle nogo type creek here for which I´ve a number of uses for mission design. It surely influences game play for both player and AIP. Yet the TacAi is always "aware" of this fake grass terrain type which is "marsh" and avoids these. At least vehicles do. It´s CMFB map, but it looks the same in CMRT + HH and particular doodads and other options selected. We´ve also lil bits of Reshade stuff applied in screen below btw.

Nice! We need these darker terrains. It's also quite reasonable to manipulate the terrain so that players and AI have to make smarter choices about their movements.

6 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

That´ll be cool and I´d highly appreciate it! Thanks!

This might develop into a video ... just might be easier than tons of screen shots.

[RockinHarry]

14 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yep, should have some useful bits footprints FB. Obviously some foliage will need fixing, but the pine trees will work and bare trees don't look too bad. Ground textures can definitely be switched around. There are almost too many in the game, or at least there are some that I find no use for and some I wish we had instead.

Exactly. There´s always a handful that I never have use for. Or very rarely. But I like some their properties to be used for something else, like mentioned marsh to boggy grass (looks). HH is quite ready for CMFB injection as is. Add some tags (cold, autumn, spring) and here you go. Just dumped my own bits of customized all rubble related textures in there. CMRT should be no different in this regard. So looking forward to when you publish your winter version(s) some day.

14 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Hah. Great minds and all that ... I was using the same for grass/marsh switch in RT for Spring Awakening muddy terrain, until I got completely sidetracked by tags. Now I will have to do a report on what I found regarding tags, it's quite mind boggling. 

Ah so you´re working on (more) CMRT stuff already.

14 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Nice! We need these darker terrains. It's also quite reasonable to manipulate the terrain so that players and AI have to make smarter choices about their movements.

That´s the idea. Whether many players will like that, I don´t know. Will mainly use stuff like that for my own missions. But map play choices will increase and thus replayability IMO. Also adds requirement to make bits more of a terrain reconnaissance, both for attacking and defending players. The AIP won´t care since it´s always aware of actual terrain under the hood, but can be guided by proper scripting  in (different) AI plans.

14 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

This might develop into a video ... just might be easier than tons of screen shots.

Reminds me that there s/b couple of YT videos dealing with Reshade stuff already. Got to look and maybe find something I need knowing. ATM I´d like having DoF FX for some my hurtgen forest stuff I´d just revived.

Edit: Bits of read in Reshade Wiki and other places. So my likely issue re DoF is related to certain depth buffer settings. Made some changes and now I´m on right path I think. Still some fiddling required and that on various maps with different weather settings etc.

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/ReShade

Edited October 28, 2022 by RockinHarry

[Lucky_Strike]

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Exactly. There´s always a handful that I never have use for. Or very rarely. But I like some their properties to be used for something else, like mentioned marsh to boggy grass (looks). HH is quite ready for CMFB injection as is. Add some tags (cold, autumn, spring) and here you go. Just dumped my own bits of customized all rubble related textures in there. CMRT should be no different in this regard. So looking forward to when you publish your winter version(s) some day.

Yes FB has some very similar terrain to Normandy, much of the mod pack can be ported over with some renaming here and there. RT summer will be quite straightforward and I've experimented with autumn/spring stuff already so have some ideas. Winter is a real tough one. Specifically one of the biggest issues is how snow on tree leaf branches works. It's okay on very bare branches but with the pines the normal solution breaks down since the leaf branches have two faces using the same texture - we end up with snow on the bottom face of leaf branches. There may be a workaround with two textures but so far I haven't had a great deal of success.

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Ah so you´re working on (more) CMRT stuff already.

Sort of, yes, been looking at some ground textures and have already made a few trees. Need to revisit a lot of the work I was doing previously with trees as so far the results are not quite what I want.

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

That´s the idea. Whether many players will like that, I don´t know. Will mainly use stuff like that for my own missions. But map play choices will increase and thus replayability IMO. Also adds requirement to make bits more of a terrain reconnaissance, both for attacking and defending players. The AIP won´t care since it´s always aware of actual terrain under the hood, but can be guided by proper scripting  in (different) AI plans.

Well, first please yourself for sure, if players moan there are plenty of other choices for them. Terrain reconnaissance is an absolute must, peeping round corners, checking LOS and ground conditions are critical to success for the human player - as you say the AI has an absolute advantage, doesn't need visual clues nor tricks. We shouldn't necessarily be able to tell if ground is too soft to support a 50 ton tank just because it's a certain colour on the map and has this doodad or that.

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Reminds me that there s/b couple of YT videos dealing with Reshade stuff already. Got to look and maybe find something I need knowing. ATM I´d like having DoF FX for some my hurtgen forest stuff I´d just revived.

There's a mass of ReShade stuff on YouTube and elsewhere on the web. A lot is irrelevant to CM 'cos of the age of the engine but you'll be able to learn stuff for your other games. I'm actually going to take the plunge and install a newer version of ReShade in BN then do a video from that, it'll be more relevant. Also it's very easy to uninstall and reinstall, there's no harm me trying it, just a time issue really.

[NPye]

Berlin V2 Mod coming Soon...

[RockinHarry]

11 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes FB has some very similar terrain to Normandy, much of the mod pack can be ported over with some renaming here and there. RT summer will be quite straightforward and I've experimented with autumn/spring stuff already so have some ideas. Winter is a real tough one. Specifically one of the biggest issues is how snow on tree leaf branches works. It's okay on very bare branches but with the pines the normal solution breaks down since the leaf branches have two faces using the same texture - we end up with snow on the bottom face of leaf branches. There may be a workaround with two textures but so far I haven't had a great deal of success.

Yup. Re snow covered trees I think that issue was tried to be solved from modders for various years now. None went beyond with what can be done with stock games geometry and textures. And then came F&R and stuff looks similar to what modders have done before. A little satisfying situation. Maybe one could pull over sort of textured "snow cover" overcoat or umbrella geometry (slightly larger than leaf object) on existing single leaf branches and attach it to them? Jut a fuzzy idea. And there´s hundreds of objects already I would not like messing with, not to forget the likely serious performance hit ingame. In case Blender doesn´t pop errors when try exporting. Oh well...

11 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Sort of, yes, been looking at some ground textures and have already made a few trees. Need to revisit a lot of the work I was doing previously with trees as so far the results are not quite what I want.

Good to hear. You likely need a second life or 48h day, like me.

11 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Well, first please yourself for sure, if players moan there are plenty of other choices for them. Terrain reconnaissance is an absolute must, peeping round corners, checking LOS and ground conditions are critical to success for the human player - as you say the AI has an absolute advantage, doesn't need visual clues nor tricks. We shouldn't necessarily be able to tell if ground is too soft to support a 50 ton tank just because it's a certain colour on the map and has this doodad or that.

Exactly. A player can always decide for not loading a customized mod of this sort. But in game things then will look very ugly and confusing. That´s the place for the briefing screen´s designer notes section, telling of a map´s pecularities and its game play consequences. One can also integrate some info in briefing, intel section to preserve FOW. Or mark stuff on the tactical map.

12 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

There's a mass of ReShade stuff on YouTube and elsewhere on the web. A lot is irrelevant to CM 'cos of the age of the engine but you'll be able to learn stuff for your other games. I'm actually going to take the plunge and install a newer version of ReShade in BN then do a video from that, it'll be more relevant. Also it's very easy to uninstall and reinstall, there's no harm me trying it, just a time issue really.

Yup. Learned quite a many of things now, but still can´t get DoF working despite my efforts. If it´s a driver and related setting (Nvidia control panel) or something I´ve overlooked I still can´t tell. But the other (working) Reshade filters give me 100% visual improvement already. 

[Lucky_Strike]

12 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Yup. Re snow covered trees I think that issue was tried to be solved from modders for various years now. None went beyond with what can be done with stock games geometry and textures. And then came F&R and stuff looks similar to what modders have done before. A little satisfying situation. Maybe one could pull over sort of textured "snow cover" overcoat or umbrella geometry (slightly larger than leaf object) on existing single leaf branches and attach it to them? Jut a fuzzy idea. And there´s hundreds of objects already I would not like messing with, not to forget the likely serious performance hit ingame. In case Blender doesn´t pop errors when try exporting. Oh well...

Hehe it's an idea, we do talk of a blanket of snow ️ I can quite easily redo all the leaf objects/meshes in Blender, trouble is this needs to be handled careful so that we retain features of the game like sway with the wind, leaf branches that stay attached to the tree in windy conditions, leaf branches that don't turn partly transparent at different view points etc. I discovered how to prevent some of these up issues from occurring but there are of course caveats attached which make it doubly difficult to figure out a satisfactory outcome. It may just be that we have to live with the limitation imposed by the engine and just rearrange all the leaf branches so they lay down properly rather than being all at arbitrary angles. This way the undersides would be less visible and therefore less offensive. This really only affects pines and conifers which tend to look more like this anyway.

12 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

You likely need a second life or 48h day, like me.

Ain't that the truth! 

12 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

One can also integrate some info in briefing, intel section to preserve FOW. Or mark stuff on the tactical map.

Absolutely, again makes it more like RL.

12 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Yup. Learned quite a many of things now, but still can´t get DoF working despite my efforts. If it´s a driver and related setting (Nvidia control panel) or something I´ve overlooked I still can´t tell. But the other (working) Reshade filters give me 100% visual improvement already. 

If the DoF FX you are using is anything like the one I use then it will rely on the game's built-in depth map. From my fuzzy understanding, games in a 3D world use a depth-map for various purposes, it's sort of like a visual break down of the near, mid ground and far distance. It can be seen by using some sort of special FX, but for the life of me I really can't remember what or how this is done. I need to go back to my original ReShade stuff, see if I have any notes or links to what one needs to do. It's one of those things one does once and then forgets. I do know that the depth map in CM is very simple. In the meantime have a look at LUTs as well if you get a chance. They are great ways to colour grade your game that use next to nothing in terms of resources. There are plenty of ReShade FX that employ them.

[Rinaldi]

Played through (a slightly edited) Getting Ugly. Likely would've been a bloodbath if the Germans hadn't done the old "immediate counterattack" schtick one times too many. Made a little vignette of the final attack. Read it here:  Springboard: A Red Thunder Vignette AAR (rinaldiaars.blogspot.com)

Some of my favourite shots from the blog:

Consolidating behind Chernverka.

Aftermath.

Dying hard. 

[danfrodo]

4 minutes ago, Rinaldi said:

Played through (a slightly edited) Getting Ugly. Likely would've been a bloodbath if the Germans hadn't done the old "immediate counterattack" schtick one times too many. Made a little vignette of the final attack. Read it here:  Springboard: A Red Thunder Vignette AAR (rinaldiaars.blogspot.com)

Some of my favourite shots from the blog:

Consolidating behind Chernverka.

Aftermath.

Dying hard. 

Cool, thanks!  That was one of my favorite battles of all time.  What a slugfest w combined arms. 

[RockinHarry]

8 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Hehe it's an idea, we do talk of a blanket of snow ️ I can quite easily redo all the leaf objects/meshes in Blender, trouble is this needs to be handled careful so that we retain features of the game like sway with the wind, leaf branches that stay attached to the tree in windy conditions, leaf branches that don't turn partly transparent at different view points etc. I discovered how to prevent some of these up issues from occurring but there are of course caveats attached which make it doubly difficult to figure out a satisfactory outcome. It may just be that we have to live with the limitation imposed by the engine and just rearrange all the leaf branches so they lay down properly rather than being all at arbitrary angles. This way the undersides would be less visible and therefore less offensive. This really only affects pines and conifers which tend to look more like this anyway.

looking forward to what you come up with! Was just a fuzzy idea as said. So as well shouldn´t be big resource eaters. My maps are very forested. Likely won´t play as good as I hope they´d do. My past test was loading one of @George MC bigger beauties, which with new Win10 PC do load and play now. A 2x2 or 2x3 heavily forested map could bring me in troubles again. lol

8 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

If the DoF FX you are using is anything like the one I use then it will rely on the game's built-in depth map. From my fuzzy understanding, games in a 3D world use a depth-map for various purposes, it's sort of like a visual break down of the near, mid ground and far distance. It can be seen by using some sort of special FX, but for the life of me I really can't remember what or how this is done. I need to go back to my original ReShade stuff, see if I have any notes or links to what one needs to do. It's one of those things one does once and then forgets. I do know that the depth map in CM is very simple. In the meantime have a look at LUTs as well if you get a chance. They are great ways to colour grade your game that use next to nothing in terms of resources. There are plenty of ReShade FX that employ them.

Thanks, I´ll do. Anyway I just scratched surface of what´s available re Reshade presets and FX packages. Might find other or better stuff, if I find the time.

[Lucky_Strike]

5 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

A 2x2 or 2x3 heavily forested map could bring me in troubles again. lol

A few of his newer maps have some good chunks of forest so should stress test us a bit., if we ever get to see them 

8 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

Thanks, I´ll do. Anyway I just scratched surface of what´s available re Reshade presets and FX packages. Might find other or better stuff, if I find the time.

Yeah there's no rush, so much to explore in it and they're always coming up with new stuff.

[RockinHarry]

35 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

43 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

A 2x2 or 2x3 heavily forested map could bring me in troubles again. lol

A few of his newer maps have some good chunks of forest so should stress test us a bit., if we ever get to see them 

With George beeing more of the EF armor kind of guy I think forests will still play a minor part. But we´ll see. Though nothing to compare with my projected hurtgen forest and ardennes type maps.  Will be interesting to see my next  "map stops loading near 50-80%" occurance. Though I don´t hope these will happen. Fingers crossed!