Custom 3D Models and Mods Compilation

[NPye]

5 minutes ago, JM Stuff said:

15 minutes ago, NPye said:

Cheers Harry  The sky is a .bmp for overcast skies, you can ad whatever you like, I change mine regularly depending on the mood i'm trying to achieve. Mate The ruins are good now but can be a lot better if all the textures are applied correctly... it would be soooooooo. gooood if we can get that looking as it should. Cheers

 

LMAO    I meany you bud, mate, Pal...lol

[RockinHarry]

1 hour ago, NPye said:

1 hour ago, JM Stuff said:

1 hour ago, NPye said:

Cheers Harry  The sky is a .bmp for overcast skies, you can ad whatever you like, I change mine regularly depending on the mood i'm trying to achieve. Mate The ruins are good now but can be a lot better if all the textures are applied correctly... it would be soooooooo. gooood if we can get that looking as it should. Cheers

 

LMAO    I meany you bud, mate, Pal...lol

lol ..things can happen.

Got to check out these ruins ASAP. Really looking great what you made of these on your own map Nigel.

Just had a look into the Zip file. I guess MDR´s get renamed then dropped to some the flavor object types and combined with anything of our liking (buildings, anything else). Interesting.

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by RockinHarry

[RockinHarry]

So I tried the basic layout first. Both the ruins are size 16x16m so cover 2x2 action spots square. Dropped the MDR´s into flavor object type "large fountain", but ATM it´s not of much concern which flavor type to use.

Tried the enveloping modular building method with 2 times 8x16, 3 story high placed next to each other. The left one is flat rubble (Shift+Alt Click x3) and right one has 1 upper story left (Shift+Alt Click x2). Nudged the fake rubble flavor object so it fits well around the hollowed out modular building (removed most walls and windows, CNTRL - Click).

2D Editor view and setup

The buildings play as one´s used too, but off course looks need improvements. Guess Nigel´s Berlin mod is better suited for this than stock game textures used in my example. Also when pixeltroopers move up/down the staircase their floating in the air effect is more apparent here. Otherwise these should all play like normal.

But it all has interesting possibilities and other flavor - terrain combos got to be tried out yet. I guess Nigel has found a good number already. 

[NPye]

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Tried the enveloping modular building method with 2 times 8x16, 3 story high placed next to each other. The left one is flat rubble (Shift+Alt Click x3) and right one has 1 upper story left (Shift+Alt Click x2). Nudged the fake rubble flavor object so it fits well around the hollowed out modular building (removed most walls and windows, CNTRL - Click).

 

So you have effectively placed the flavour into a mod build and deleted the walls and windows etc????? Interesting, in the folder that down loaded all the correct texture .bmps are there how do we get them onto the live model??? Cheers

[Aquila-SmartWargames]

Didn´t expect this thread to spark to activity again but I like it.

Custom Models and what to replace in relation to Draw Distance

When using huge custom models I replaced the biggest default flavour objects in order to prevent them from popping in/out, as they all have different draw distance/fov. Seems like you found out that the Large Fountain is good in this regard and stops vehicles. Never tested it. My not uptodate testing back then indicated that the best draw distance/fov comes from replacing non-flavour "hard stuff" like units/wrecks, walls, buildings, ammo depot(?). For the aircraft carrier I used an invisible wreck.

Placing Heavy Units inside Buildings/Upper Floors

Was intrigued by @RockinHarry´s method to place guns/vehicles(?) inside buildings/upper floors. Despite bringing heavy ordnance upstairs, by rubbling upper floors tanks/heavy guns might be placed in the base floor (ambush). Other map-related objects might work aswell (furniture, objects placed on roofs). This might open up entire new ways for map/scenario designers. And this without any mod download requirement for the end-user it seems.

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by Aquila-SmartWargames

[RockinHarry]

11 minutes ago, NPye said:

So you have effectively placed the flavour into a mod build and deleted the walls and windows etc????? Interesting, in the folder that down loaded all the correct texture .bmps are there how do we get them onto the live model??? Cheers

Yup. But better do the mod build editing first, then nudge/push the ruins flavor in place thereafter. Otherwise will be difficult using the Key click combos on them. Might hit the flavor and not the building instead. Or vice versa.

Haven´t looked at textures yet. Aquila included Blender files and guess that´s the place for detail texture placements and assignments.

 

[RockinHarry]

8 hours ago, Aquila-SmartWargames said:

Placing Heavy Units inside Buildings/Upper Floors

Was intrigued by @RockinHarry´s method to place guns/vehicles(?) inside buildings/upper floors. Despite bringing heavy ordnance upstairs, by rubbling upper floors tanks/heavy guns might be placed in the base floor (ambush). Other map-related objects might work aswell (furniture, objects placed on roofs). This might open up entire new ways for map/scenario designers. And this without any mod download requirement for the end-user it seems.

Think the basic capability for placing stuff on any height building levels (roof excl.) was in all the time. In example flavor rubble objects beeing auto placed on damaged and destroyed buildings. BFC seems just´ve disabled this capability in editor. Beside other known restrictions (no vehicles/guns in buildings generally).

I guess my crude MDR hacks somehow outsmart or avoid the editor placement restrictions in some way. But the final hacked file placement method is still bits of awkward and laborous, so I´d be less optimistic for any other (non unit type) objects beeing placed in invalid ways. Placing furniture and such might be doable, but I´d forsee some possible side effects like floating in the air stuff and such. (we already have these for rubbled buildings occasionally, likely related to 1m ground mesh restrictions)

Furniture "could" likely be added to independent type buildings ground floor, since it´s single objects (unless modular ones) basically. This would be similar to i.e Pillboxes and their ammo crates added as child objects (with likely hard coded ammo storage capability). No idea how much these furniture objects would possibly mess with pixeltroopers path finding though. Might depend on META data content, but at least all entries set to "0" should be present, so the whole object can be exported successfully in Blender. That´s my "theory". Any takers? (for trying that out)

[RockinHarry]

9 hours ago, NPye said:

Interesting, in the folder that down loaded all the correct texture .bmps are there how do we get them onto the live model??? Cheers

So just had a look at imported MDR in Blender. Only textures in use seem pasbrick and pasbrick1 BMPs. Blender files seem be the ones taken from the net or something. One can use these for detail editing and texturing to ones liking. But then likely needs some efforts to make them ready for Blender export. The ready made MDR´s seem largely simplified and then merged for Blender export versions. So retexturing only with the above mentioned BMP´s which leaves little to no options. Unless you try on detail UV map editing I guess. The remaining BMP belong to original Blender file and objects more detailed single sub objects/childs.

I´d replaced the 2 pasbrick files with my own ones (copy and enlargement of brick wall stock game file). This looks like this then:

This version is on some rubbled mole hill sort of. No building, but some (interior) walls added for giving some protection. Normal low brick and high brick walls added in CM 2D editor.

So that is what you can do with the MDR file alone assigning a single "one for all" texture.

[NPye]

30 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

So that is what you can do with the MDR file alone assigning a single "one for all" texture.

Cheers for looking bud. Yep thats how I got mine working. All good so we can have multiple versions with different wall colours/textures. Although they would be randomly placed and not the same every time opened. 

Question bud...

Using the same .MDR file for the Tram, Train Carriage, Box Car how do I save them to make unique so the game sees them as unique files, because if I rename the .mdr file it doesn't work any longer. So basically  I want to place the tram etc at a certain place and want it to always be a tram and not switch to box car or carriage?????? How do I save each file???? Ta

 

[RockinHarry]

22 minutes ago, NPye said:

Cheers for looking bud. Yep thats how I got mine working. All good so we can have multiple versions with different wall colours/textures. Although they would be randomly placed and not the same every time opened. 

Yup, but at least we know how to get it work as flavor object basically. Considering the geometry is not thaat complex one can hand make similar stuff in Blender maybe. Though wouldn´t be me since I still suck at creating more complex Blender objects.

23 minutes ago, NPye said:

Question bud...

Using the same .MDR file for the Tram, Train Carriage, Box Car how do I save them to make unique so the game sees them as unique files, because if I rename the .mdr file it doesn't work any longer. So basically  I want to place the tram etc at a certain place and want it to always be a tram and not switch to box car or carriage?????? How do I save each file???? Ta

If I understand you correctly you have just one MDR but (at least) 3 different texture sets for it? Is it then just a single flavor object (i.e fountain2.mdr) or distributed to multiple (fountain3, fountain4 etc) with individual texture?

Normally you swap texture to one you like in Blender and then export to individual MDR file with individual texture file name saved. Before Blender we got to use the Hex edit MDR file hacking for those objects that use the random ingame texture swap if multiple sets are available. In Blender you can assign textures explicitely and then export. That you mean?

[NPye]

Hi Guys I feel stupid asking this but how do I import the .MDR files into blender 3.3.1 I have downloaded Python, latest version.

[Lucky_Strike]

9 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

I guess my crude MDR hacks somehow outsmart or avoid the editor placement restrictions in some way. But the final hacked file placement method is still bits of awkward and laborous, so I´d be less optimistic for any other (non unit type) objects beeing placed in invalid ways. Placing furniture and such might be doable, but I´d forsee some possible side effects like floating in the air stuff and such. (we already have these for rubbled buildings occasionally, likely related to 1m ground mesh restrictions)

Does beggar the question what else can be done by moving the origin on models. I was certainly easily able to drop the level of the Panzer IV bunker I made, which then affected the crews LOS etc.

9 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Furniture "could" likely be added to independent type buildings ground floor, since it´s single objects (unless modular ones) basically. This would be similar to i.e Pillboxes and their ammo crates added as child objects (with likely hard coded ammo storage capability). No idea how much these furniture objects would possibly mess with pixeltroopers path finding though. Might depend on META data content, but at least all entries set to "0" should be present, so the whole object can be exported successfully in Blender. That´s my "theory". Any takers? (for trying that out)

Should be a fairly quick hack, I'll try it later if nobody else has already given it a go - to be clear, parenting an object (furniture) to an independent building ground floor. 

[Lucky_Strike]

1 hour ago, NPye said:

Hi Guys I feel stupid asking this but how do I import the .MDR files into blender 3.3.1 I have downloaded Python, latest version.

Nigel, we can only import / export from Blender 2.79. It's a limitation of the script/addon.

Put simply one needs to install Python (not sure of version, instructions are in this thread somewhere), then install the script/addon, then hopefully import .mdr. The original script was made by @sbobovyc, if you do a search on the forum you should find links to his installation instructions and a couple of YouTube videos. He hasn't been around for a while to update the script so we work with what we have. It's pretty stable on MacOS but I'm on Big Sur so can't vouch for its stability on anything later. Once it's all running it is then possible to save your model as a .blend file and open it in more recent versions of Blender, but if you do this you have to make sure the model is compatible to append back to a model in 2.79 as that is the only way to export an mdr. Most projects don't really benefit from memory recent versions of Blender and it can actually introduce other more complex issues into the mix. My suggestion is get 2.79 working and see if you can import/export successfully first, then think about using other versions of Blender.

For your tram do you want three versions with specific textures, one for each version?

If you let me have the latest model and textures I can do that for you. In the meantime you can start to read/watch about how to explore Blender.

And PS don't feel stupid about this stuff - it's not easy and none of us are experts, mostly we just get results by trial and error 

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by Lucky_Strike
PS

[JM Stuff]

48 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Nigel, we can only import / export from Blender 2.79. It's a limitation of the script/addon.

Put simply one needs to install Python (not sure of version, instructions are in this thread somewhere), then install the script/addon, then hopefully import .mdr. The original script was made by @sbobovyc, if you do a search on the forum you should find links to his installation instructions and a couple of YouTube videos. He hasn't been around for a while to update the script so we work with what we have. It's pretty stable on MacOS but I'm on Big Sur so can't vouch for its stability on anything later. Once it's all running it is then possible to save your model as a .blend file and open it in more recent versions of Blender, but if you do this you have to make sure the model is compatible to append back to a model in 2.79 as that is the only way to export an mdr. Most projects don't really benefit from memory recent versions of Blender and it can actually introduce other more complex issues into the mix. My suggestion is get 2.79 working and see if you can import/export successfully first, then think about using other versions of Blender.

For your tram do you want three versions with specific textures, one for each version?

If you let me have the latest model and textures I can do that for you. In the meantime you can start to read/watch about how to explore Blender.

And PS don't feel stupid about this stuff - it's not easy and none of us are experts, mostly we just get results by trial and error 

 

Lucky this is exactly what I want to say...

But in my way not "really British"

 

And PS  Nigel don't feel stupid about this stuff - it's not easy and none of us are experts, mostly we just get results by trial and error 

this I forgot

JM

Edited November 2, 2022 by JM Stuff

[NPye]

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

For your tram do you want three versions with specific textures, one for each version?

 

Yes bud, how shall i send the files???

[NPye]

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Nigel, we can only import / export from Blender 2.79. It's a limitation of the script/addon.

 

Yep installed the sript and am now able to open .mdr files thats it so far...lol

[NPye]

9 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Yup, but at least we know how to get it work as flavor object basically. Considering the geometry is not thaat complex one can hand make similar stuff in Blender maybe. Though wouldn´t be me since I still suck at creating more complex Blender objects.

9 hours ago, NPye said:

Id love to able to do that... I may give it ago... Cheers bud

[RockinHarry]

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Does beggar the question what else can be done by moving the origin on models. I was certainly easily able to drop the level of the Panzer IV bunker I made, which then affected the crews LOS etc.

Yup, one the "easy" things which is not that many. Good that eyesights move properly as well as otherwise would be rather unusable.

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Should be a fairly quick hack, I'll try it later if nobody else has already given it a go - to be clear, parenting an object (furniture) to an independent building ground floor. 

Thanks. You´d likely just need 5 minutes, where I´d still need 5 hours at least.  Really got me to force apply a more elaborate Blender course now. Hate when any my inabilities hinder creativity.

2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Nigel, we can only import / export from Blender 2.79. It's a limitation of the script/addon.

Put simply one needs to install Python (not sure of version, instructions are in this thread somewhere), then install the script/addon, then hopefully import .mdr. The original script was made by @sbobovyc, if you do a search on the forum you should find links to his installation instructions and a couple of YouTube videos. He hasn't been around for a while to update the script so we work with what we have. It's pretty stable on MacOS but I'm on Big Sur so can't vouch for its stability on anything later. Once it's all running it is then possible to save your model as a .blend file and open it in more recent versions of Blender, but if you do this you have to make sure the model is compatible to append back to a model in 2.79 as that is the only way to export an mdr. Most projects don't really benefit from memory recent versions of Blender and it can actually introduce other more complex issues into the mix. My suggestion is get 2.79 working and see if you can import/export successfully first, then think about using other versions of Blender.

For your tram do you want three versions with specific textures, one for each version?

If you let me have the latest model and textures I can do that for you. In the meantime you can start to read/watch about how to explore Blender.

And PS don't feel stupid about this stuff - it's not easy and none of us are experts, mostly we just get results by trial and error 

 

This!

Sorry Nigel, thought you´d be aquainted with some Blender MDR basics already. So you´re doing all your mods "just" by texture creation and editing? I´m just aquainted with mentioned Blender basics as well. Moving stuff, deleting, META data entries changing and texture swapping. But that´s it basically.

[RockinHarry]

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

My suggestion is get 2.79 working and see if you can import/export successfully first, then think about using other versions of Blender.

exactly. I´ve both 2.79 and 3.2 on my HD. But working and learning in 2.79 only. V3.2 has such a different UI and stuff that it rather confuses me ATM. Once I got learned my desired Blender knowledge it then should be comparably "easy" to switch for 3.2 and more elaborated stuff. Off course 2.79 remains required for MDR stuff.

[Lucky_Strike]

2 hours ago, NPye said:

Yes bud, how shall i send the files???

PM'd you an email addy, you can send them direct or use wetransfer

[Lucky_Strike]

2 hours ago, NPye said:

Yep installed the sript and am now able to open .mdr files thats it so far...lol

That's an achievement in itself  Next try exporting an mdr that you maybe only do one thing with, just to see how the export mechanics are handled. Remember for most mdr's you need to have the metadata option checked when you import AND export the mdr. You will get errors, so have the info window/pane open in Blender to read what it says, then try to resolve. The forum and Googling are your friends. There are lots of instructional videos on YouTube for 2.79, they're a few years old but nevertheless helpful. As Harry mentioned, 2.79 and most later versions have very different GUI so always try to watch videos and read up on issues specific to 2.79 or earlier, so that you can apply what you learn in 2.79.

[Lucky_Strike]

52 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

Yup, one the "easy" things which is not that many.

Ain't that the truth!

52 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

Good that eyesights move properly as well as otherwise would be rather unusable.

Yes the pixeltruppen seemed to respond properly to the revised depth of the model, no weird behaviour other than we can't see sh*t!

54 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

Thanks. You´d likely just need 5 minutes, where I´d still need 5 hours at least.  Really got me to force apply a more elaborate Blender course now. Hate when any my inabilities hinder creativity.

Fo'sure! Blender 5 minutes ... LOL!

56 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

META data entries changing

That's one more step than many of us!

[RockinHarry]

15 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes the pixeltruppen seemed to respond properly to the revised depth of the model, no weird behaviour other than we can't see sh*t!

Yes, pixeltroopers have their own eyesight calculations as otherwise my animation file mod would not work. But I sacrificed "see all, shoot all" with bits of self preservation so me and pixeltroopers like it.

18 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Fo'sure! Blender 5 minutes ... LOL!

okay, 50 minutes would be equally stunning. From my own POV.

20 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

That's one more step than many of us!

It´s just entering numbers like in Xcel and stuff. And then hoping the game won´t crash thereafter. lol

[Lucky_Strike]

7 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Thanks. You´d likely just need 5 minutes, where I´d still need 5 hours at least.  Really got me to force apply a more elaborate Blender course now. Hate when any my inabilities hinder creativity.

6 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Blender 5 minutes ... LOL!

Famous last words and all that.

So first tried a random object gathered off the interweb. Typically this cuckoo seemed to hamper export even with everything I could think of corrected.

Also, as an aside, weird issue with the independent buildings - when I import an independent building mdr into Blender none of the textures were linked despite all being there and in same folder as per SOP (happened on two different buildings - so by the rules of slack scientific proof - they'll all be the same). Exporting without textures is a big zero. Connected the textures to their various building materials parts; all good in Blender; exported without metadata 'cos of the cuckoo inside; in game whole building appears as a black void. This tells me textures are not linking despite being there in Blender. I note that independent buildings have strange naming of textures eg building200-floor (00).bmp, building200-floor (01).bmp presumably the (00) and (01) suffix representing the texture variations. So me thinks take off the (00) suffix from the texture names, thus the name for a texture is for example building200-floor.bmp; link those to the texture slots in Blender. All still looks okay in Blender, but export still has to be without metadata 'cos of cuckoo. This time the building appears correctly in game, with all originally named (00), (01) suffixed, installed, click-change textures working etc, but no cuckoo inside, nada.

So, try again this time with newly selected objects from game - 1. Opel Blitz, 2. the three wine barrel flavor objects. All parented to a big one storey barn independent building 200. Place objects to block easy movement and block the small door. Again textures for the building need the (00) suffix removal change but otherwise they showed just fine. All objects parented with building, all exported without fuss and WITH metadata. Building showed in game perfectly, but was empty ...

I know this isn't exhaustive and maybe this will work with some more experimentation. Since we can already place flavor object in buildings, it's easier to just do that with disguised objects which give best cover/restrict movement etc.

Five minutes, pah, 50 minutes, I wish, 5 hours more like ...

[RockinHarry]

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Also, as an aside, weird issue with the independent buildings - when I import an independent building mdr into Blender none of the textures were linked despite all being there and in same folder as per SOP (happened on two different buildings - so by the rules of slack scientific proof - they'll all be the same). Exporting without textures is a big zero. Connected the textures to their various building materials parts; all good in Blender; exported without metadata 'cos of the cuckoo inside; in game whole building appears as a black void. This tells me textures are not linking despite being there in Blender. I note that independent buildings have strange naming of textures eg building200-floor (00).bmp, building200-floor (01).bmp presumably the (00) and (01) suffix representing the texture variations. So me thinks take off the (00) suffix from the texture names, thus the name for a texture is for example building200-floor.bmp; link those to the texture slots in Blender. All still looks okay in Blender, but export still has to be without metadata 'cos of cuckoo. This time the building appears correctly in game, with all originally named (00), (01) suffixed, installed, click-change textures working etc, but no cuckoo inside, nada.

Yup it´s all placeholder texture file info in there needed for randomn(?) loading of alternative texture sets if there´s any. I told @sbobovyc about it if the exporter could allow exporting without changing the placeholder. And same time make the importer look for actual files to be addressed by placeholder, so one can can load & see textures in Blender. But then he vanished and wasn´t seen again....

Explicitely addressing textures in Blender does work and exports but then building textures get f*cked up in game as you say. Only work around is mentioned hex editing of filename in MDR to change to original placeholder. That without killing the files data integrity. Someone invented that method couple years ago and works for most objects having alternative texture sets but haven´t yet tried on buildings myself. Edit: Think the hex editing stuff was mentioned here first

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

So, try again this time with newly selected objects from game - 1. Opel Blitz, 2. the three wine barrel flavor objects. All parented to a big one storey barn independent building 200. Place objects to block easy movement and block the small door. Again textures for the building need the (00) suffix removal change but otherwise they showed just fine. All objects parented with building, all exported without fuss and WITH metadata. Building showed in game perfectly, but was empty ...

Hm... pity. I´d likely check out the pillbox object again and look at ammo crates in there. Maybe there´s a clue on how to do the child assignments right. Okay, both are different object classes (vehicle vs building), but principles should be similar I´d guess.

3 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

I know this isn't exhaustive and maybe this will work with some more experimentation. Since we can already place flavor object in buildings, it's easier to just do that with disguised objects which give best cover/restrict movement etc.

Five minutes, pah, 50 minutes, I wish, 5 hours more like ...

Think we´re not at the end of the path with that...yet. But if it´s META data related things, we´re stuck.

Edited November 3, 2022 by RockinHarry