CMFB (Unofficial) Screenshot Thread

[Phantom Captain]

I just love taking screenshots.  It's like a whole niche "photography" thing.  CM plays into it so well.

Fallschirmjagers in the snow and on the hunt.

 

[Lucky_Strike]

9 hours ago, Phantom Captain said:

I just love taking screenshots.  It's like a whole niche "photography" thing.  CM plays into it so well.

It's like being your own drone / landscape photographer / war reporter all rolled into one, the replay mode was made for it.

9 hours ago, Phantom Captain said:

Fallschirmjagers in the snow and on the hunt

Very nice job. Particularly like them running in column.

[Phantom Captain]

Thanks @Lucky_Strike! I think that's totally it.  CM gives us such a richness in the micro-stories/battles that happen it DOES almost feel like we are documenting it like some type of reporter.  I can re-watch some turns over and over and over.

[Lucky_Strike]

18 hours ago, Phantom Captain said:

Thanks @Lucky_Strike! I think that's totally it.  CM gives us such a richness in the micro-stories/battles that happen it DOES almost feel like we are documenting it like some type of reporter.  I can re-watch some turns over and over and over.

For sure! I can't tell you how many hours I've spent just wandering around empty maps in 3D view - I'm sure there's a word for it somewhere - if not we need to invent one.

[quakerparrot67]

On 10/10/2022 at 9:10 AM, Phantom Captain said:

I just love taking screenshots.  It's like a whole niche "photography" thing.  CM plays into it so well.

 this!!! 

great shots, phantom cap, and good to see  someone else who gets this aspect of cm.  i just might have to get an image host and start posting some of mine.

 

cheers,

rob

 

[Phantom Captain]

Rolbahn D, second battle, Leaving Lanzerath.  Falschirmjagers on the move.

The German's camo is rather effective in this environment... 

[JM Stuff]

17 hours ago, Phantom Captain said:

Rolbahn D, second battle, Leaving Lanzerath.  Falschirmjagers on the move.

The German's camo is rather effective in this environment... 

Beautiful screenshots, we can feel the cold !

JM

[Erwin]

+1  Great campaign as well.

[danfrodo]

39 minutes ago, Erwin said:

+1  Great campaign as well.

I remember that battle, it felt very real relative to the books I'd read -- infantry infiltrating through the thinly held lines.  And it's almost december, when I go on my annual pilgrimage to CMFB.  

[Phantom Captain]

2 hours ago, danfrodo said:

I remember that battle, it felt very real relative to the books I'd read -- infantry infiltrating through the thinly held lines.  And it's almost december, when I go on my annual pilgrimage to CMFB.  

Agreed.  That's a great idea as well!  I do the same with campaigns and times of year and such.  I'm really going to focus on this one and @George MC campaign for RT/FR, Kampfgruppe "von Schroif" after I finish Breakthrough to Kovel which has consumed me since April.  I'm also super looking forward to the RT/FR Battlepack as it includes George MC's new campaign, set in the summer no less (so apparently I play winter campaigns in the warm months and summer campaigns in the cold) and involving the same units I've become so familiar with in the Breakthrough to Kovel campaign.  Finally, I know @Lille Fiskerby has been working on new things to come too and am looking forward to those as Kovel has been a fantastic campaign with incredible maps.  It's all just like a wealth of CM goodness. 

Honestly really digging CMFB though too.  Playing as the Americans and both Falschirmjagers and Volksgrenadiers has been really satisfying.  

[RockinHarry]

US 9th ID in the green hell, october 1944. This is a prototype map checking certain things out. Mods in use: Worghern´s Blitzkrieg Environment for CMFB with bits of my own tweaks and some ReShade FX. https://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=3984

Contact!

Some german molehill defenses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lucky_Strike]

6 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

US 9th ID in the green hell, october 1944. This is a prototype map checking certain things out. Mods in use: Worghern´s Blitzkrieg Environment for CMFB with bits of my own tweaks and some ReShade FX. https://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=3984

this is shaping up nicely Harry. Liking the misty look especially in amongst the trees. Also really good to see the Yanks moving through the trees in a very neat formation, good discipline.

6 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Some german molehill defenses.

LOL, baby bird in his big nest!

[RockinHarry]

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

US 9th ID in the green hell, october 1944. This is a prototype map checking certain things out. Mods in use: Worghern´s Blitzkrieg Environment for CMFB with bits of my own tweaks and some ReShade FX. https://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=3984

this is shaping up nicely Harry. Liking the misty look especially in amongst the trees. Also really good to see the Yanks moving through the trees in a very neat formation, good discipline.

Thanks! I´m now getting closer to what I´d like these maps looking for an appropriate "green hell" feeling. Funny thing I´d @Worghern´s mod on my HD long time but didn´t bother with it since my WinXP days. (was too much of a strain for my old puter) Also forgot it wasn´t all winter and included really nice autumn stuff as well. Could almost plug that into FB without any change. Beside my "fake terrain" texture tweaks that make steep wooded slopes playable. Though CM pixeltroopers hate these. 

Also made the pine needle texture somewhat darker overally. What I need checking is some the terrains doodad textures for which I need something looking like fallen off pine tree branches and such. Imagine lots of trees bursts (or heavy storm) and a less tidied up looking pine forest on the ground. Pity that without appropriate shaders we can´t make CM terrains looking really wet. Skyrim and Fallout 4 have such nice FX like these i.e.

a well known hurtgen forest pic for comparison. Though it´s more mixed forest type likely at northern end of the forest and maybe GI´s of The Big Red One advancing here.

Btw. once FB CW module is available you´ll see the Tommies having a nice trip into Reichswald as well. Looks would be very similar (without the hills and gorges).

Edited October 31, 2022 by RockinHarry

[RockinHarry]

Armor (M10 TD) in the hurtgen. M10 textures by Aris, bits of tweaked for some wet looks.

with Reshade

and some pic from the net

who has those muddy dirt roads again? @Lucky_Strike

[JM Stuff]

6 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Armor (M10 TD) in the hurtgen. M10 textures by Aris, bits of tweaked for some wet looks.

with Reshade

and some pic from the net

who has those muddy dirt roads again? @Lucky_Strike

Who else as our Lucky guy, the master of the Nature.

Harry, your pictures are really nice and seem to be real, is really a wonder to use correctly the famous Reshade, when you have a good knowledge of a good setup !

JM

[Lucky_Strike]

11 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Thanks! I´m now getting closer to what I´d like these maps looking for an appropriate "green hell" feeling. Funny thing I´d @Worghern´s mod on my HD long time but didn´t bother with it since my WinXP days. (was too much of a strain for my old puter) Also forgot it wasn´t all winter and included really nice autumn stuff as well. Could almost plug that into FB without any change. Beside my "fake terrain" texture tweaks that make steep wooded slopes playable. Though CM pixeltroopers hate these. 

Yes I think I have the snow mod somewhere, assumed it would be redundant once we got snow in games but not the case. I think I was going to sort through it at some point, just another thing on the list. Really looking forward to seeing some of your maps in the flesh.

12 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Also made the pine needle texture somewhat darker overally. What I need checking is some the terrains doodad textures for which I need something looking like fallen off pine tree branches and such. Imagine lots of trees bursts (or heavy storm) and a less tidied up looking pine forest on the ground.

Yes I don't really like the brush doodads at all in forests, there's no way to stop them appearing if using the ground forest textures other than by making them invisible, which obviously affects ALL brush. Since they don't really provide much in the way of cover nor concealment my ideal would be to do as you suggest, turn them into something more akin to fallen branches and accumulated forest detritus, then to use low bocage and hedges for scattered brush in the forests. Choosing the angled corners, cross shaped sections and the gap sections provides a much more diverse and realistic look, PLUS they offer better cover and concealment than the brush, PLUS one can place them where one wants and where they might look more natural. 

12 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Pity that without appropriate shaders we can´t make CM terrains looking really wet. Skyrim and Fallout 4 have such nice FX like these i.e.

Yes, it wouldn't actually be that hard to have a few extra options in the shaders to at least create a darker look that targets a certain colour range, and which could be toggled in by the player. The game engine already adapts the palette slightly to alter the colours for different atmospheric conditions, more aggressively for dusk/dawn and, the most obvious, night. It would be nice to have another shader(s) for wet or dull.

12 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Looks would be very similar (without the hills and gorges).

Looks like something from WW1 almost.

Shame we only have the one (BN/FI) or two (FB/RT) pine trees, would be nice to have some shattered trees that aren't flavour objects. Though there's nothing to stop any of the trees being made into coniferous trees, heck we could have an all coniferous set if we wanted ... all shapes and sizes ... hmmmm there's a thought. All pines maybe one birch or alder ... hmmm ... takers?

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Armor (M10 TD) in the hurtgen. M10 textures by Aris, bits of tweaked for some wet looks.

I do like to try and recreate photographs in CM, good fun. Your ReShade version is really nailing it.

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

who has those muddy dirt roads again? @Lucky_Strike

So at the moment I have one section of straight paved road 1 looking very rutted and muddy. No chance of bogging on the road but surround it with soft ground and setting conditions to muddy with some precipitation should mean the going will be tough off road.

I haven't finalised the style I will go with, but will try to get that done this week. Also have a few textures working for ground dirt and ground dirt road. These three alone can create a really muddy looking terrain. The dirt road texture is just one texture for all shapes, so that's quite quick. Paved road requires a whole range of shapes so will take longer. Puddles actually look okay if purely cosmetic; real water ... don't think it's going to be possible, could probably make the stream look like a very water-logged track but I think the use is so limited that the effort involved is not worth it, at least not until I get some other stuff out the door.

[quakerparrot67]

21 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Mods in use: Worghern´s Blitzkrieg Environment for CMFB

just installed this, makes an already pretty rich visual environment even better. now i wish i could live in belgium in autumn...

 

cheers,

rob

[RockinHarry]

6 hours ago, JM Stuff said:

Who else as our Lucky guy, the master of the Nature.

Harry, your pictures are really nice and seem to be real, is really a wonder to use correctly the famous Reshade, when you have a good knowledge of a good setup !

JM

Thanks JM! I´m still experimenting with settings but didn´t yet achieved 100% satisfaction. So tips on what FX package to use and settings is still highly welcome!

Edited October 31, 2022 by RockinHarry

[RockinHarry]

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes I think I have the snow mod somewhere, assumed it would be redundant once we got snow in games but not the case. I think I was going to sort through it at some point, just another thing on the list. Really looking forward to seeing some of your maps in the flesh.

Snow is a different challenge and does sound boring at first, but think last words aren´t spoken on this yet. Haven´t tested Worghern´s snow option terrain yet but the foliage and flavors, as well as building detail stuff remains a challenge I guess. Yup... hope it all works out well with my map WIP´s. Next challenge will be teaching the AIP how to get along with these. The AIP usually prefers fast move terrain and hates obstacles (..and thus "cover" terrain). But I remain confident getting it to do things I want it to do.

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes I don't really like the brush doodads at all in forests, there's no way to stop them appearing if using the ground forest textures other than by making them invisible, which obviously affects ALL brush. Since they don't really provide much in the way of cover nor concealment my ideal would be to do as you suggest, turn them into something more akin to fallen branches and accumulated forest detritus, then to use low bocage and hedges for scattered brush in the forests. Choosing the angled corners, cross shaped sections and the gap sections provides a much more diverse and realistic look, PLUS they offer better cover and concealment than the brush, PLUS one can place them where one wants and where they might look more natural. 

Exactly, yes. If low bocage is mostly used in forests, in my case mostly coniferous types, then I´ll likely use my pine needle bocage type for the mentioned purposes. That to "simulate" fallen trees and such. Another option is taking hedges of which one can create some fake bocage by placing them on +1m ditch lock tiles.

Btw. general purpose/multi use textures can be relinked to individual MDR by using the Hex Editor hacking technique. It´s beeing used for quite some time now and avoids mentioned Blender exporting hassles.

I also like adding more variety to forest interiors by scattering a number of Blue +1m ditch lock tiles to them. If placing 2 or more of these blue ditch locks side by side, they also give pixeltroopers the cover it loves so much in the game. Small berms and such. Combined with bocage you can create real mazes giving lots of opportunity for hand to hand combat range forest combat. You can see bits of it in good old YEG mission of mine. That tiny forest to the west of Dreisenhof farm building.

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes, it wouldn't actually be that hard to have a few extra options in the shaders to at least create a darker look that targets a certain colour range, and which could be toggled in by the player. The game engine already adapts the palette slightly to alter the colours for different atmospheric conditions, more aggressively for dusk/dawn and, the most obvious, night. It would be nice to have another shader(s) for wet or dull.

One could guess it shouldn´t be thaaat difficult adding stuff like that. IIRC shader files can be mod tagged as well. So they then can react to and beeing loaded automatically when certain environmental conditions are set. Or programming directly in the OGL files. Environmental conditions don´t change during mission times (non dynamic) anyway so would be one shot and good to go through all of a mission.

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Looks like something from WW1 almost.

Shame we only have the one (BN/FI) or two (FB/RT) pine trees, would be nice to have some shattered trees that aren't flavour objects. Though there's nothing to stop any of the trees being made into coniferous trees, heck we could have an all coniferous set if we wanted ... all shapes and sizes ... hmmmm there's a thought. All pines maybe one birch or alder ... hmmm ... takers?

Think the hurtgen, Reichswald, some Ardennes and many eastern front forests didn´t really look different from WW1 ones.

Shattered trees would be nice, instead of the entire removal if enough damage is applied. Just tested one my maps yesterday putting a whole 10 minute load of a US 105mm Arty battalion on a forest section. Result was the known deforestation of affected map area. Just craters, nothing else. So the last step of shattered trees should not be complete tree removal, but leaving one tree stump which we´ve in the game already (flavors). Should be easy implemetation IMO, even if there´s none of the fallen trees and branches to be seen at last. It would be an improvement IMO and don´t eat as much computer resources as unharmed trees do.

For my maps I use CMFB tree types 2, 5 and 8 for pine forests and get some good natural looks already. Though would be nice having small xmas type fir tree ones in bushes category as well. Bush 2 seems beeing a good base since it´s fir tree type already. Maybe can bits of shift & turn branches objects Mark?

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I do like to try and recreate photographs in CM, good fun. Your ReShade version is really nailing it.

Yep, that´s good motivation and guideline even if it´s sometimes hard to compare with just greyscale footage, which oftentimes is low res as well.

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

So at the moment I have one section of straight paved road 1 looking very rutted and muddy. No chance of bogging on the road but surround it with soft ground and setting conditions to muddy with some precipitation should mean the going will be tough off road.

No hurry. Yep, and setting either crew experience below average or making the leader a bad one (-1 or -2) helps as well here. But one got to weight that for how one wants the guys to perform in other (combat) situations as well.

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I haven't finalised the style I will go with, but will try to get that done this week. Also have a few textures working for ground dirt and ground dirt road. These three alone can create a really muddy looking terrain. The dirt road texture is just one texture for all shapes, so that's quite quick. Paved road requires a whole range of shapes so will take longer. Puddles actually look okay if purely cosmetic; real water ... don't think it's going to be possible, could probably make the stream look like a very water-logged track but I think the use is so limited that the effort involved is not worth it, at least not until I get some other stuff out the door.

Sounds good. Think dirt road is the same beeing used for "dirt lot" and foot paths. Though the latter is just an alpha layer (maybe 50-60%) put on top of other terrain and having some additional effects (doodad removal IIRC and terrain mesh alteration, as well as negating any NOGO terrain types).

Puddles and water might be difficult. Also got to match environmental conditions to make them look credible IMO. So clear blue skies would give them different reflections (or color change) than grey skies. Rain and storm also creates ripple effects. Streams though could simply use a mod tag when a stream mod set is available. Like this one in example https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/combat-mission-shock-force-2/cmsf2-scenery/cmsf2-street-scene-rubbish-brown-stream-amended-rubble-and-rural-wall-and-wooden-48m-bridge/

Edited October 31, 2022 by RockinHarry

[Lucky_Strike]

4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Snow is a different challenge and does sound boring at first, but think last words aren´t spoken on this yet. Haven´t tested Worghern´s snow option terrain yet but the foliage and flavors, as well as building detail stuff remains a challenge I guess.

For sure, snow has it's very own set of issues. I did mess about with some trees and bits a couple of years ago. Other than the issue I mentioned wrt pine tree leaf branches facing most of the rest is not too hard to visualise. It really depends on whether I go for the full Christmas card winter wonderland look or something a bit more restrained. I really enjoy playing FB snow battles, fond memories of battles in CMx1, so it's hard not to want the full winter wonderland.

4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

The AIP usually prefers fast move terrain and hates obstacles (..and thus "cover" terrain). But I remain confident getting it to do things I want it to do.

I tried a quick night fight against the AI on a small section of Berlin map, just testing my Panzer IV bunker. AIP had one objective - destroy my bunker and occupy the location. Waited 30 minutes, the length of the scenario, for the AIP to show up. Not a single AI pixelnik nor tankski showed, at the end of the game I found them all clustered in a side street out of sight!  Think they found a bottle of vodka there or something.

4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Exactly, yes. If low bocage is mostly used in forests, in my case mostly coniferous types, then I´ll likely use my pine needle bocage type for the mentioned purposes. That to "simulate" fallen trees and such. Another option is taking hedges of which one can create some fake bocage by placing them on +1m ditch lock tiles.

Will eventually make some textures for these. Have already shown the bocage and hedges can be remodelled with all sorts of stuff, so turning them into fallen branches should be fine.

4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Btw. general purpose/multi use textures can be relinked to individual MDR by using the Hex Editor hacking technique. It´s beeing used for quite some time now and avoids mentioned Blender exporting hassles.

Still too scary for me!!!

4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

I also like adding more variety to forest interiors by scattering a number of Blue +1m ditch lock tiles to them. If placing 2 or more of these blue ditch locks side by side, they also give pixeltroopers the cover it loves so much in the game. Small berms and such. Combined with bocage you can create real mazes giving lots of opportunity for hand to hand combat range forest combat. You can see bits of it in good old YEG mission of mine. That tiny forest to the west of Dreisenhof farm building.

Yes, s'what makes that map flow well and look natural. Nature is full of amazing patterns and surprising maths but it's also very untidy at times.

4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

One could guess it shouldn´t be thaaat difficult adding stuff like that. IIRC shader files can be mod tagged as well. So they then can react to and beeing loaded automatically when certain environmental conditions are set. Or programming directly in the OGL files. Environmental conditions don´t change during mission times (non dynamic) anyway so would be one shot and good to go through all of a mission.

Exactly. I did try the FI shader folder in RT to see if it made any difference, sadly I couldn't see anything noticeable save for the movie mode.

4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Result was the known deforestation of affected map area. Just craters, nothing else. So the last step of shattered trees should not be complete tree removal, but leaving one tree stump which we´ve in the game already (flavors). Should be easy implemetation IMO, even if there´s none of the fallen trees and branches to be seen at last. It would be an improvement IMO and don´t eat as much computer resources as unharmed trees do.

Yes it's a shame really that there is no nature damage modelled beyond the loss of leaves and complete disappearance.

4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Though would be nice having small xmas type fir tree ones in bushes category as well. Bush 2 seems beeing a good base since it´s fir tree type already. Maybe can bits of shift & turn branches objects Mark?

Yes these are on my list of stuff to create. I already looked at the scaling of the bushes as the stock models are too uniform for my taste. They all look a bit too much like someone's garden shrubs. I have some already that are more like small trees, whilst others are like thickets. It's a shame that bushes and trees can't coexist on the same tile, but we can use our friends low bocage and hedge  to compensate to an extent. 

4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Sounds good. Think dirt road is the same beeing used for "dirt lot" and foot paths. Though the latter is just an alpha layer (maybe 50-60%) put on top of other terrain and having some additional effects (doodad removal IIRC and terrain mesh alteration, as well as negating any NOGO terrain types).

Yes they are, though the footpath is barely recognisable as the same texture because it's scaled and has a degree of transparency as you say. The dirt lot is dirt road scaled down a bit.

4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Puddles and water might be difficult. Also got to match environmental conditions to make them look credible IMO. So clear blue skies would give them different reflections (or color change) than grey skies. Rain and storm also creates ripple effects. Streams though could simply use a mod tag when a stream mod set is available. Like this one in example https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/combat-mission-shock-force-2/cmsf2-scenery/cmsf2-street-scene-rubbish-brown-stream-amended-rubble-and-rural-wall-and-wooden-48m-bridge/

Yes I like the dirt street open sewer mod. It could be worked on to make an extremely narrow water course with a rutted road effect perhaps. Will have to look at it.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Lucky_Strike

[RockinHarry]

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

For sure, snow has it's very own set of issues. I did mess about with some trees and bits a couple of years ago. Other than the issue I mentioned wrt pine tree leaf branches facing most of the rest is not too hard to visualise. It really depends on whether I go for the full Christmas card winter wonderland look or something a bit more restrained. I really enjoy playing FB snow battles, fond memories of battles in CMx1, so it's hard not to want the full winter wonderland.

Count me in for winter wonderland! We´d so little of it during past years here. So at least having it in some CM game would be nice. Other winter foliage mods are more of the compromise type IIRC. Got to check Worghern´s again. He did sort of mixed best of both worlds. With unchanged MDR´s though.

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I tried a quick night fight against the AI on a small section of Berlin map, just testing my Panzer IV bunker. AIP had one objective - destroy my bunker and occupy the location. Waited 30 minutes, the length of the scenario, for the AIP to show up. Not a single AI pixelnik nor tankski showed, at the end of the game I found them all clustered in a side street out of sight!  Think they found a bottle of vodka there or something.

lol ...or they didn´t find their own @ss in the dark, who knows. Hope you got it working now.

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Exactly. I did try the FI shader folder in RT to see if it made any difference, sadly I couldn't see anything noticeable save for the movie mode.

okay, so it´s not the shaders making the difference.

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Though would be nice having small xmas type fir tree ones in bushes category as well. Bush 2 seems beeing a good base since it´s fir tree type already. Maybe can bits of shift & turn branches objects Mark?

Yes these are on my list of stuff to create. I already looked at the scaling of the bushes as the stock models are too uniform for my taste. They all look a bit too much like someone's garden shrubs. I have some already that are more like small trees, whilst others are like thickets. It's a shame that bushes and trees can't coexist on the same tile, but we can use our friends low bocage and hedge  to compensate to an extent.

Exactly. And yep, they exclude each other. Here´s bush2 ported over to be a flavor object. Put it into handcart for now. Adapted branches to have same coloration as trees (somewhat darker and less saturated). With casting shadow ability they might be bits of a performance eater when placing too many of them. Maybe less than ported tree objects. Shape wise off course there´s little semblance with small fir trees. Here´s where you can work your magic. 

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes they are, though the footpath is barely recognisable as the same texture because it's scaled and has a degree of transparency as you say. The dirt lot is dirt road scaled down a bit.

so they shouldn´t get into the way of each other. I rarely use dirt lot and just changed the texture to be somewhat darker so they fit better with my other uses for foot paths.

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes I like the dirt street open sewer mod. It could be worked on to make an extremely narrow water course with a rutted road effect perhaps. Will have to look at it.

I could imagine various uses for it, not just weather/ground condition adaptions. The actual small stream FX width seems to be more like 3-4 meters, while it more looks like 1m on the map. So one can maybe create texture sets reflecting this width. Also changing associated sound FX file is a possibility when i.e changing the textures to look like a muddy ditch etc. Think I´ll tackle this one to look more like 4m width. I´d have a number of uses for it on my hurtgen map. I.e the Kall creek would be roughly this size, although normal 8m size shallow water would come closer in many parts. But small creeks adapt to slopes while whater does not. Here´s an old mud tile to shallow water adaption. Not thaaat convincing.

to compare with Kall creek in hurtgen forest area (at "famous" kall creek bridge)

 

[RockinHarry]

US troops entering the green hell, autumn 1944.

(ARIS US tanks, bits of adapted to muddy conditions)

[Lucky_Strike]

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Count me in for winter wonderland!

Hehe,  We rarely get anything that lasts more than a few days now, I'm with you on this one.

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

lol ...or they didn´t find their own @ss in the dark, who knows. Hope you got it working now.

It was just a test, I left them to their party!

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

okay, so it´s not the shaders making the difference.

Yeah, reckon it's something hardcoded into the app bundle. But at least shows more is possible. Now if only BF would stretch themselves a bit more ...

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Here´s bush2 ported over to be a flavor object. Put it into handcart for now. Adapted branches to have same coloration as trees (somewhat darker and less saturated). With casting shadow ability they might be bits of a performance eater when placing too many of them. Maybe less than ported tree objects. Shape wise off course there´s little semblance with small fir trees. Here´s where you can work your magic. 

These are quite effective and with your flavor objects test we can easily see which are best suited for small trees and bushes.

The biggest drain on resources that I've noticed wrt trees and foliage is primarily the complexity of the models, with resolution of the textures compounding the issue. Complex models cast complex shadows, so switching shadows on when there are a lot of complex models in view certainly adds to the strain. Fill a map with lots of tanks and vehicles and the engine will soon grind to a halt. With some careful modelling I'm getting much better results with more realistic looking trees that can still perform all the movements and carry the lighting effects with reasonably good performance. Optimising LODs and keeping texture resolutions to a sensible level also really help here.

It should even be possible to have different resolution textures for different levels of LODs. At the moment the game uses the same textures for all tree LODs except the furthest billboard type. This is fine for the original low res textures, but with the higher resolutions for improved near views being employed at a distance of more than 20m resources are being wasted. The LODs for trees kick in quite quickly so I'm thinking I will start to experiment with reducing the resolution of their textures to match the reduction in 'resolution' on the models with increased distance. I can't affect when the last poster type LOD kicks in, but between that and the nearest view there's definitely something that can be done to improve performance. Of course the best results would be achieved if BF would pull their finger out and get on with an optimised engine to at least take advantage of the power of modern CPUs/GPUs. It may of course be outside of their capability in which case they should seriously consider employing outside help in this instance. The more players they attract through platforms like Steam the higher the demand for these improvements in performance will be, ignore them at their peril.

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

I rarely use dirt lot and just changed the texture to be somewhat darker so they fit better with my other uses for foot paths.

Yes it's a bit of a wasted texture, would be much better employed as something else. It's quite high res, would be good to know what movement across it is like compared to others, I need to investigate ...

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

I could imagine various uses for it, not just weather/ground condition adaptions. The actual small stream FX width seems to be more like 3-4 meters, while it more looks like 1m on the map. So one can maybe create texture sets reflecting this width. Also changing associated sound FX file is a possibility when i.e changing the textures to look like a muddy ditch etc. Think I´ll tackle this one to look more like 4m width. I´d have a number of uses for it on my hurtgen map. I.e the Kall creek would be roughly this size, although normal 8m size shallow water would come closer in many parts. But small creeks adapt to slopes while whater does not. Here´s an old mud tile to shallow water adaption. Not thaaat convincing.

I tried streams as a basis for a rutted, muddy road/track. It's easy to adapt it, duplicating the actual stream bed and making the water texture much less using the alpha channel to represent two wheel ruts on a muddy track, but the overall look was not that effective. The water element is not like the river/lake water so just ended up looking like someone had spilt paint along the ground. On the plus side it does offer enough tiles to create complex routes but I don't think the net result is worth pursuing. I also tried it in a ditch-locked ditch beside a road to simulate a drainage ditch, but it seemed to interact in a strange way with the ditch, levelling it out. There's certainly no reason why the stream is so narrow, it's only a mask creating that so far as I could tell. Most of the tile is not used at all in game so making the water course much wider is easy.

5 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

US troops entering the green hell, autumn 1944.

Seriously sloped!

Edited November 1, 2022 by Lucky_Strike

[RockinHarry]

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Hehe,  We rarely get anything that lasts more than a few days now, I'm with you on this one.

yup, and that of the muddy sort.

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

These are quite effective and with your flavor objects test we can easily see which are best suited for small trees and bushes.

The (unsuited) trunks are all the same more or less. Think branches is where one can optimize the best. As long as overall object size remains the same more or less its META data can be preserved from original I think.

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

The biggest drain on resources that I've noticed wrt trees and foliage is primarily the complexity of the models, with resolution of the textures compounding the issue. Complex models cast complex shadows, so switching shadows on when there are a lot of complex models in view certainly adds to the strain. Fill a map with lots of tanks and vehicles and the engine will soon grind to a halt. With some careful modelling I'm getting much better results with more realistic looking trees that can still perform all the movements and carry the lighting effects with reasonably good performance. Optimising LODs and keeping texture resolutions to a sensible level also really help here.

Yep, exactly that. I sometimes switch some the game options to "balanced" and it helped some, while preserving most of the quality. And LOD´s appearance then is nearer as well. Maybe consider optimizing towards the lower settings as in game terms, setting all to "best" is rarely "best" considering the old graphic engine´s limitations.

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

It should even be possible to have different resolution textures for different levels of LODs. At the moment the game uses the same textures for all tree LODs except the furthest billboard type. This is fine for the original low res textures, but with the higher resolutions for improved near views being employed at a distance of more than 20m resources are being wasted. The LODs for trees kick in quite quickly so I'm thinking I will start to experiment with reducing the resolution of their textures to match the reduction in 'resolution' on the models with increased distance. I can't affect when the last poster type LOD kicks in, but between that and the nearest view there's definitely something that can be done to improve performance. Of course the best results would be achieved if BF would pull their finger out and get on with an optimised engine to at least take advantage of the power of modern CPUs/GPUs. It may of course be outside of their capability in which case they should seriously consider employing outside help in this instance. The more players they attract through platforms like Steam the higher the demand for these improvements in performance will be, ignore them at their peril.

Your concept sounds promising so it might well be worth the effort and try. Re poster type LOD see my previous comment.

Guess we got to wait for next generation CM game and graphics engine. IIRC OGL aint´even well supported anymore (graphic cards developers) nor developed further so BFC might be at the limits already? IDK. I dislike admitting it, but Steam seems beeing the future. Didn´t bother with it til 2020 when I got my new Win10 computer. Now my games list is full of stuff that I never could play without Win10 and Steam. Also one the reasons I was very inactive at BFC boards and CM games since then. 

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes it's a bit of a wasted texture, would be much better employed as something else. It's quite high res, would be good to know what movement across it is like compared to others, I need to investigate ...

Think it comes close to or is the same like dirt, gravel or grass maybe. Fairly good going non pavement type terrain. Unlike foot paths which gives different effects and benefits.

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I tried streams as a basis for a rutted, muddy road/track. It's easy to adapt it, duplicating the actual stream bed and making the water texture much less using the alpha channel to represent two wheel ruts on a muddy track, but the overall look was not that effective. The water element is not like the river/lake water so just ended up looking like someone had spilt paint along the ground. On the plus side it does offer enough tiles to create complex routes but I don't think the net result is worth pursuing.

But you don´t want using them as a real road? The TacAI sees them as obstacle and you´d rarely get these moving along the course, but rather crossing it if no other option is available. Another option road might be gravel road, likely similar in effect like dirt road. IIRC it´s among least used but don´t know exactly. But it shares texture with normal gravel terrain. Sand would be another candiate for optional modding I think. Maybe a dusty/sandy road for EF high summer setting. I remember I´ve seen and read about those roads in 1941 campaign but maybe more unsuited for 1944 Belarus. But suits north africa and southern italy for sure. Though got to test sand some more. Both its movement obstacle and terrain shaping abilities if these exist (like mud i.e).

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I also tried it in a ditch-locked ditch beside a road to simulate a drainage ditch, but it seemed to interact in a strange way with the ditch, levelling it out. There's certainly no reason why the stream is so narrow, it's only a mask creating that so far as I could tell. Most of the tile is not used at all in game so making the water course much wider is easy.

Yeah tried as well. No good results and likely best to us in N-S and E-W matrix like pattern. I got to check these again with my 1m ground mesh overlay grass mod to see actual terrain deformations better. I know what foot paths do in this regard, but have lilttle experience with streams admittedly. So fire it up and make some tests. https://www.dropbox.com/s/bxbbgrc122rqzhc/ground grass.rar?dl=0

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Seriously sloped!

Definitely. Though have discovered certain difficulties that requires me to make additional flavor and object modding. (see fences in screens above) Flavors do not work well in sloped terrain, since they always stand upright. So in case of flavor type bushes I need making some tilted versions additionally. Trees do adapt automatically but there´s limits as well. If terrain is too steep, trunk bases start sticking out of the the terrain mesh. Same with doodads/billboards which only work well in level terrain. So I´ll likely remain with 5m height between action spots although more would be doable without showing and making cliff terrain.

[Lucky_Strike]

6 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

And LOD´s appearance then is nearer as well. Maybe consider optimizing towards the lower settings as in game terms, setting all to "best" is rarely "best" considering the old graphic engine´s limitations.

Yes, that hard line drawn across the map shows one LOD level. With trees it varies quite a bit with the rendering set to Balanced 3D Texture Quality and 3D Model Quality set to fastest the first LOD kicks in at less than 25m, with 3D Model Quality set to balanced it's under 40m, and this remains the same for the 'better' quality settings. The biggest differences in distances happen with LOD 2 and LOD 3 as these tend to be the most commonly displayed models. If a map has a lot of trees then LOD 1 can be displayed almost to the point at which the viewer is effectively stood next to it. The most optimisation can probably be made with LODs 2 and 3. I always try to produce a set of my textures that will suit most tastes, and am keenly aware that if I start to slow down the game for players they will not want to use my mods, that's why there are multiple resolutions included.

6 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

But you don´t want using them as a real road? The TacAI sees them as obstacle and you´d rarely get these moving along the course, but rather crossing it if no other option is available. Another option road might be gravel road, likely similar in effect like dirt road. IIRC it´s among least used but don´t know exactly. But it shares texture with normal gravel terrain. Sand would be another candiate for optional modding I think. Maybe a dusty/sandy road for EF high summer setting. I remember I´ve seen and read about those roads in 1941 campaign but maybe more unsuited for 1944 Belarus. But suits north africa and southern italy for sure. Though got to test sand some more. Both its movement obstacle and terrain shaping abilities if these exist (like mud i.e).

Yes and there's that of course. We'd be hard pressed trying to persuade troops and vehicles to drive along a stream bed even if it's dried up! 

I tried to widen the stream to see how well that can work and it's certainly easy enough - looks quite a bit better as well. So that will be another addition to the terrain at some point.

Gravel is similar to dirt roads, it's a generic texture without any directional ability so texture-wise it's a bit limited - certainly won't work for rutted tracks. Of course the one that would really slow down most vehicles is railways - that'll cripple trucks and other soft skins if they try to go fast on it and should slow down tracked AFVs, but again I suspect keeping them on it will be a real struggle, though the Loco Protze stayed on it's rails in testing. Course the AIP will likely avoid disguised railways.

7 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Trees do adapt automatically but there´s limits as well. If terrain is too steep, trunk bases start sticking out of the the terrain mesh. Same with doodads/billboards which only work well in level terrain. So I´ll likely remain with 5m height between action spots although more would be doable without showing and making cliff terrain.

We could make the tree root balls deeper - I imported plenty of third party models with much deeper roots, though it may still look a bit odd - a test would be neede I think. What angle is the terrain about 45 degrees?