Custom 3D Models and Mods Compilation

[RockinHarry]

2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Great stuff. Do you keep it, sell it or what?

No doubt the Beaute weapons were nearly all they could find in the warehouses at this stage. I've even seen SS units with similar, and plenty of WW1 stuff got issued as well. So long as it had ammo and could shoot straight-ish it was good to go. 

I keep the better preserved stuff like those in my pics. Anything explosive will be reported to local EOD and anything illegal either reburied or given to someone who can make these "legal". So is german laws. I´d never sold any my finds.

Among my rifle finds were K98k (80-90%), old Gewehr 98 (WW1), Lebel, some scandinavian stuff (Springfield or derivate), Mosin Nagant (!), Lee Enfield and then single parts of MP40, MG34/42, Stg44 and lots of odd foreign stuff. I´ve none of these anymore and gifted to a friend collector who can legalize these. Just kept single legal parts like bolts, empty magazines and such.

Most our foreign weapon finds could fairly safely beeing associated to either Volkssturm or Luftwaffe.  Mostly by accompanying finds. There was no W-SS in Ruhrkessel but a corps HQ commanding regular Wehrmacht troops. So finds associated to these are extremely rare, in this area at least.

[Lucky_Strike]

39 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

I keep the better preserved stuff like those in my pics. Anything explosive will be reported to local EOD and anything illegal either reburied or given to someone who can make these "legal". So is german laws. I´d never sold any my finds.

Among my rifle finds were K98k (80-90%), old Gewehr 98 (WW1), Lebel, some scandinavian stuff (Springfield or derivate), Mosin Nagant (!), Lee Enfield and then single parts of MP40, MG34/42, Stg44 and lots of odd foreign stuff. I´ve none of these anymore and gifted to a friend collector who can legalize these. Just kept single legal parts like bolts, empty magazines and such.

Most our foreign weapon finds could fairly safely beeing associated to either Volkssturm or Luftwaffe.  Mostly by accompanying finds. There was no W-SS in Ruhrkessel but a corps HQ commanding regular Wehrmacht troops. So finds associated to these are extremely rare, in this area at least.

Well would say I'm envious. Most I've ever dug up is a bit of clay pipe, some bottles and old coins, plastic toys and occasional flint napped flakes. I do occasionally follow a couple of the metal detectorists on YT, always amazed at what they turn up.

[RockinHarry]

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Well would say I'm envious. Most I've ever dug up is a bit of clay pipe, some bottles and old coins, plastic toys and occasional flint napped flakes. I do occasionally follow a couple of the metal detectorists on YT, always amazed at what they turn up.

Most the time it´s not about finding something actually, yet it´s a bonus. I enjoy beeing out for some fresh air, moving my lazy *** and visit interesting history related locations. So whatever one finds and could connect to known historic actions is a great feel. Also one bits of walk in the shoes of those who were there like i.e at the battlefields of Op Veritable, hurtgen forest or my former home area, the Ruhrkessel.

[NPye]

12 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Most the time it´s not about finding something actually, yet it´s a bonus. I enjoy beeing out for some fresh air, moving my lazy *** and visit interesting history related locations. So whatever one finds and could connect to known historic actions is a great feel. Also one bits of walk in the shoes of those who were there like i.e at the battlefields of Op Veritable, hurtgen forest or my former home area, the Ruhrkessel.

Wasn't Kessel where the Tigers and King Tigers were made at the Henschel factory??? The last 9 where made there with a strange Octopus Camo, they went from factory straight into battle.... 

[RockinHarry]

2 hours ago, NPye said:

Wasn't Kessel where the Tigers and King Tigers were made at the Henschel factory??? The last 9 where made there with a strange Octopus Camo, they went from factory straight into battle.... 

you confuse Kessel (cauldron) with city of Kassel, the main home for Tiger production. Kassel is elsewhere, way outside the Ruhr Cauldron in april 45. Interestingly, the last Jagdtigers of JgdPzAbtl 512 had their employment in the last days of the eastern cauldron (surrender april 16th). English sub titles available.

 

[NPye]

12 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

you confuse Kessel (cauldron) with city of Kassel, the main home for Tiger production. Kassel is elsewhere, way outside the Ruhr Cauldron in april 45. Interestingly, the last Jagdtigers of JgdPzAbtl 512 had their employment in the last days of the eastern cauldron (surrender april 16th). English sub titles available.

 

Ok bud , yep very similar name. Cheers

[RockinHarry]

14 minutes ago, NPye said:

Ok bud , yep very similar name. Cheers

silly german wordings. Interestingly there´s a german village named Kessel in Rhineland area near dutch border. It´s in immediate neighborhood of Hassum village where my grandparents lived for 40 years post WW2. They´re buried right around the corner at Asperden cemetary. R.I.P

That area saw some very heavy fighting during OP Veritable in february 1945. At last 51st Highlanders took it into possession. https://51hd.co.uk/history/reichswald

Still have that one on my mission make to do list. Til CMFB CW got released.

 

[TheFriendlyFelon]

Hey guys, 
I'm in the process of finishing up a new campaign for CMBS set in late February/early March of this year based around the VDV landings at Hostomel Airport and their subsequent push towards Kyiv at the opening of the Russian invasion and I could really use some help with the finishing touches. I don't really understand the process of creating new flavor objects even though I've tried to follow other peoples instructions multiple times. Is there any way somebody can please hook me up with a radio tower flavor object to replace one of the chimneys? Its a significant aspect of one of the missions in the campaign and it just doesn't look or feel right having a small monument or power pole representing the tower. I've spent literally four months of my life making 1:1 scale maps of Hostomel Airport, Hostomel, a town called Sosnivka, and a stretch of roadway pictured in the infamous Maxar images of the stalled Russian convoy and it would be awesome to not have to cut corners on this one final flavor object. I was hoping for something like the picture I included below if we can make it happen, but if not, literally anything tall that looks similar will work better than the current Monument I am using. Thank you very much for any help you guys can give. I am not sure how to post pics from my computer to the forum, but I'm going to attempt to post screenshots of the Airport map so you guys can see what I'm talking about as well. 

[Lucky_Strike]

2 hours ago, TheFriendlyFelon said:

Hey guys, 
I'm in the process of finishing up a new campaign for CMBS set in late February/early March of this year based around the VDV landings at Hostomel Airport and their subsequent push towards Kyiv at the opening of the Russian invasion and I could really use some help with the finishing touches.

Hey FriendlyFelon,

If we can find a suitable 3D model then this should be relatively simple. There's just one caveat with flavour objects - once they get hit in just the right spot by direct HE they will disappear from your scenario. They are quite robust with indirect HE barrages. So a question: is anyone going to be shooting directly at the mast?

If the answer is no then send me a PM attaching the model (mdr) file you are using and I can return your mast. Note I don't have CMBS so you'll have to do final testing though I can test it in a WW2 game as an FO so we should be okay.

How tall is the mast by the way - I should be able to make it the correct height for you.

[Lucky_Strike]

2 hours ago, TheFriendlyFelon said:

Is there any way somebody can please hook me up with a radio tower flavor object to replace one of the chimneys?

Are there FO chimneys in CMBS? One of those might be a good model for it, tallest would be best. Send me the mdr of that as well.

Meant to ask is that picture of the mast a 3D model you have access to? If so send that too.

[TheFriendlyFelon]

1 minute ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Hey FriendlyFelon,

If we can find a suitable 3D model then this should be relatively simple. There's just one caveat with flavour objects - once they get hit in just the right spot by direct HE they will disappear from your scenario. They are quite robust with indirect HE barrages. So a question: is anyone going to be shooting directly at the mast?

If the answer is no then send me a PM attaching the model (mdr) file you are using and I can return your mast. Note I don't have CMBS so you'll have to do final testing though I can test it in a WW2 game as an FO so we should be okay.

How tall is the mast by the way - I should be able to make it the correct height for you.

Hey Lucky_Strike, 
I appreciate you getting back to me! I didn't know that about the FO's disappearing if they get hit by direct HE, but honestly, that's even better. The mission that involves the radio tower is the Ukranian retreat from the airport on the second day of the invasion when Russian land forces broke through and a second wave of VDV airborne forces were brought in by helicopter. As far as I can tell from my research of the battle, the Ukranians fired artillery and dropped bombs on the airport as they were retreating and destroyed the runway to make the airport unusable for the Russian's to land more VDV soldiers. The mission in that scenario is for the Ukranian player to pull back his forces while attempting to destroy key buildings around the map (radio tower, fuel depots, and hangars) to render the airport unusable. If the tower actually disappears around the same time the building near the base of it gets destroyed, that's fine with me.

I'll get that DM sent over to you momentarily. Thank you very much! 

As far as the height is concerned, I am not actually sure. There aren't a ton of pictures or videos from the northern part of the airfield so it's hard to really tell. I suppose I could look at the satellite imagery where I first noticed it and do some math calculations based on the length of the shadow, but let me see if I can find it in Google street view from the main roads around the airport and get a rough estimate first.

[TheFriendlyFelon]

14 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Are there FO chimneys in CMBS? One of those might be a good model for it, tallest would be best. Send me the mdr of that as well.

Meant to ask is that picture of the mast a 3D model you have access to? If so send that too.

Yes, but they're really just short little stove pipe looking chimneys that are like two stories tall. 

I believe that radio tower was a free model. Let me figure that out and I'll get you some files sent over.

[TheFriendlyFelon]

Based off this video, I'd guess it's 5 or 6 stories tall?
You can see it at 1:18
 

 

[Lucky_Strike]

19 minutes ago, TheFriendlyFelon said:

Based off this video, I'd guess it's 5 or 6 stories tall?
You can see it at 1:18

Are there any small independent buildings you're not using in your maps? Only needs to be one square and preferably flat roofed? If so I can make you a little building/generator/transmitter hut with mast attached to it. Much better for targeting. And could even be defended if you wanted.

[TheFriendlyFelon]

Just now, Lucky_Strike said:

Are there any small independent buildings you're not using in your maps? Only needs to be one square and preferably flat roofed? If so I can make you a little building/generator/transmitter hut with mast attached to it. Much better for targeting. And could even be defended if you wanted.

Yeah, I could easily make the tower building a flat roof one square structure. What would you need from me?

[Lucky_Strike]

3 minutes ago, TheFriendlyFelon said:

Yeah, I could easily make the tower building a flat roof one square structure. What would you need from me?

Hehe, two conversations at once, kinda Jekyll & Hyde!

The mdr of the chosen independent building and all its bmp textures, including the ruined building textures - it has to be something you're not using on the airport map though as once modded it's going to appear everywhere as that building.

If it shares textures I'll need those - they might not be in the same folder. I won't mod shared textures it's just so that I can open the mdr and not get errors when exporting it from Blender.

Ikve just been working on a similar model for the Berlin map for CM Red Thunder ...

Added a tall chimney to the factory model to replace some rather small ones. Process is pretty simple, adding new textures takes longer but but hopefully we can keep your model pretty simple ... famous last words!

Just going to eat, will be back later.

[RockinHarry]

@TheFriendlyFelon, @Lucky_Strike

Made a quick test in CMRT (doesn´t matter much where doing it). Placed a 4x8m wooden barn indi build, then pushed a concrete type tel pole FO into the middle of it. Plastered the structure with some direct fire 152mm HE (JSU 152). Barn goes down with 1st shot (could be directly targeted with area fire). Tel pole still standing. Took some additional near misses from 152mm to get it vanish as well. (152mm blast radius suffices, no direct hit necessary). Okay, that´s known procedures.

Now to something more interesting. If I understand correctly UKR player got to "destroy" his own sructures. So mission setup would be "Terrain Objectives" - Destroy - known to player, for full endgame reward.
My obvious try was placing a friendly sapper squad and let it do the destroy thing with a blast move command. Well... easier said than done. This tiny 4x8m barn just got a wall blown out. But the tel pole vanished instantly. Fine. The barn was still standing. So some more blast moves into/across the barn just got its remaining walls blown out. Lol. This took half a dozen satchel charges with that meagre results. So to finish this all to resilient barn off, I´d put some normal target area fire onto it. Range below 30m so hand grenades would be used as well. No satchel charge throwing btw. So then took some additional hand grenades to bring it down finally. Interestingly it was hand grenade (F1 I think) that exploded about 10m away from the hollowed out barn. WTF moments x2.

1. Satchel charges are too wimpy bringing down a 4x8m wooden barn.
2. a hand grenade exploding at 10m distance does the finishing off.

I´ve noticed these odd blast effect oddities before and that in all WW2 titles. Buildings and walls are far too delicate when it comes to even small charge HE exploding at a distance. You can bring down a whole building (or stone/brick walls) by just making a couple near hits. This counts for structures that accumulated some damages before. Considering that these effects are fairly much abstracted internally it still looks wrong and unrealistic. However...

In Black Sea it´ll be interesting to see if satchel charges have a larger effect and whether similar small size builds are equally resilient.

If it always works this way, then sappers/demo teams are just good for removing the FO and do some inital damage. For the whole structure to come down, something bigger is needed or wasting ridiculous amounts of small arms ammo for doing the job.

So after all, creating a single unique building + radio mast object might be way to go I guess. How to get this structure down (destroy for reward) efficiently is another question. Maybe with some sort of RPG or heavy gun (direct or Arty) doing the job. Some interesting mission design challenges and I learned a couple things that were knew to me.

 

 

[RockinHarry]

7 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Hehe, two conversations at once, kinda Jekyll & Hyde!

The mdr of the chosen independent building and all its bmp textures, including the ruined building textures - it has to be something you're not using on the airport map though as once modded it's going to appear everywhere as that building.

If it shares textures I'll need those - they might not be in the same folder. I won't mod shared textures it's just so that I can open the mdr and not get errors when exporting it from Blender.

Ikve just been working on a similar model for the Berlin map for CM Red Thunder ...

Added a tall chimney to the factory model to replace some rather small ones. Process is pretty simple, adding new textures takes longer but but hopefully we can keep your model pretty simple ... famous last words!

Just going to eat, will be back later.

Mark you can grab most (not all) stuff from BS Demo files. Might save you guys some time maybe.

[TheFriendlyFelon]

6 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

@TheFriendlyFelon, @Lucky_Strike

Made a quick test in CMRT (doesn´t matter much where doing it). Placed a 4x8m wooden barn indi build, then pushed a concrete type tel pole FO into the middle of it. Plastered the structure with some direct fire 152mm HE (JSU 152). Barn goes down with 1st shot (could be directly targeted with area fire). Tel pole still standing. Took some additional near misses from 152mm to get it vanish as well. (152mm blast radius suffices, no direct hit necessary). Okay, that´s known procedures.

Now to something more interesting. If I understand correctly UKR player got to "destroy" his own sructures. So mission setup would be "Terrain Objectives" - Destroy - known to player, for full endgame reward.
My obvious try was placing a friendly sapper squad and let it do the destroy thing with a blast move command. Well... easier said than done. This tiny 4x8m barn just got a wall blown out. But the tel pole vanished instantly. Fine. The barn was still standing. So some more blast moves into/across the barn just got its remaining walls blown out. Lol. This took half a dozen satchel charges with that meagre results. So to finish this all to resilient barn off, I´d put some normal target area fire onto it. Range below 30m so hand grenades would be used as well. No satchel charge throwing btw. So then took some additional hand grenades to bring it down finally. Interestingly it was hand grenade (F1 I think) that exploded about 10m away from the hollowed out barn. WTF moments x2.

1. Satchel charges are too wimpy bringing down a 4x8m wooden barn.
2. a hand grenade exploding at 10m distance does the finishing off.

I´ve noticed these odd blast effect oddities before and that in all WW2 titles. Buildings and walls are far too delicate when it comes to even small charge HE exploding at a distance. You can bring down a whole building (or stone/brick walls) by just making a couple near hits. This counts for structures that accumulated some damages before. Considering that these effects are fairly much abstracted internally it still looks wrong and unrealistic. However...

In Black Sea it´ll be interesting to see if satchel charges have a larger effect and whether similar small size builds are equally resilient.

If it always works this way, then sappers/demo teams are just good for removing the FO and do some inital damage. For the whole structure to come down, something bigger is needed or wasting ridiculous amounts of small arms ammo for doing the job.

So after all, creating a single unique building + radio mast object might be way to go I guess. How to get this structure down (destroy for reward) efficiently is another question. Maybe with some sort of RPG or heavy gun (direct or Arty) doing the job. Some interesting mission design challenges and I learned a couple things that were knew to me.

 

 

I think I understand what you and Mark are both explaining with the building... Unfortunately I am pretty sure  I used pretty much every single building available in the game at least once on that map. 

 

As far as destroying the structures on the map, I made a full artillery and full mortar battery available to the Ukranian player expecting that those would be the chosen method for destroying the buildings. 

[RockinHarry]

6 minutes ago, TheFriendlyFelon said:

I think I understand what you and Mark are both explaining with the building... Unfortunately I am pretty sure  I used pretty much every single building available in the game at least once on that map. 

 

As far as destroying the structures on the map, I made a full artillery and full mortar battery available to the Ukranian player expecting that those would be the chosen method for destroying the buildings. 

likely best choice anyway. Put some TRP where needed and Kaboom. Flavor object radio mast will be good for looks only, but maybe it goes down (vanished in thin air) as well when beeing lucky. Since scenario goal(s) is "destroy" building it suffices when building got flattened. Assume (possibly) still standing mast as beeing out of order for the purpose. It´s main electronics and gear got destroyed with the building. Just useless scrap metal still standing there.

[TheFriendlyFelon]

On 11/21/2022 at 1:52 AM, RockinHarry said:

Assume (possibly) still standing mast as beeing out of order for the purpose. It´s main electronics and gear got destroyed with the building. Just useless scrap metal still standing there.

EXACTLY!!!!!! Thats what I was thinking too. Realistically, the Ukrainian player would need to destroy sections of the actual runway to make it match with the real life events, but since it's not possible to do that in any quantifiable way, I settled with the next best thing; destroying key buildings around the airport like the radio tower/radio tower hardware in the building at the base, the control tower, two "signals" buildings with attached solar panels for powering the emergency runway lighting, and the electrical substation on the airport grounds. Thanks for doing the testing and contributing to the project. I appreciate it!

[RockinHarry]

3 hours ago, TheFriendlyFelon said:

EXACTLY!!!!!! Thats what I was thinking too. Realistically, the Ukrainian player would need to destroy sections of the actual runway to make it match with the real life events, but since it's not possible to do that in any quantifiable way, I settled with the next best thing; destroying key buildings around the airport like the radio tower/radio tower hardware in the building at the base, the control tower, two "signals" buildings with attached solar panels for powering the emergency runway lighting, and the electrical substation on the airport grounds. Thanks for doing the testing and contributing to the project. I appreciate it!

Sounds all good to me and should put the UKR player into the picture sufficiently if beeing addressed in mission briefing. For "flavor" one "could" possibly put an "invisible" light building (a small wooden barn i.e) on the runway. This then gets blasted away when plastering it with a heavy HE type barrage and thus counted for mission goal. You can mark action spots as terrain objective (TO) as usual, even if the building can´t be seen onmap. Might confuse the player maybe, but... surprise..surprise. For additional "difficulty" mark the TO´s as being of the "known to none" types.

Btw. I´ve tried experimenting with some heavy type "ammo dump"
(either weapons type or some disembarked truck from mortar Coy i.e) beeing placed into a building for easier blowing up when a breach team does the "blast" command on it. But ammo dumps are beeing silently removed at games start in my current CMRT. And that at "Iron" game play mode. Could you check if it´s beeing same issue in CMBS? I noticed this issue in CMFB and RT, but not in CMBN. Strange.

For easier building destruction one can also add some destruction levels in CM 3D editor (CNTRL click on the facades or SHIFT+ALT click on the roof). Then maybe just the breach team method can get to work as well (not just blowing out walls and leave the building standing).

Edited November 24, 2022 by RockinHarry

[TheFriendlyFelon]

Already posted this in the general mods/maps forum, but figured I'd include these here as well. 

"Map creators/scenario designers... Have you ever been trying to make a map of an urban area and run into a building or buildings that have garage doors on them and had trouble deciding how to make the building look right? If not, I envy you. I definitely had that issue while creating my maps for Hostomel and Antonov Airport in Ukraine for an upcoming campaign I'm planning to release, and it was driving me nuts. Since I knew asking Battlefront for things accomplishes absolutely nothing, I got in touch with my man @Lucky Strikeand asked him for some help turning the "poster" flavor objects into a garage door or two for my maps since the poster flavor objects are basically worthless. Being the nice guy he is, he agreed to help, and then proceeded to turn my request for "1 or 2" doors into 12 beautiful garage door flavor objects in various sizes ranging from "backyard storage shed" all the way up to "aircraft hangar". They're pretty epic.

After obtaining his permission, I created a PDF document showing what each of them looks like and highlighting the "sweet spot" where you click each of them to rotate it, move it, delete it, etc. You can find both at the link below, or attached to this post (maybe?) along with the PDF showing the doors. I also included some screenshots from my Antonov Airport map showing some of the garage doors in use. 

**NOTE**
These doors are significantly easier to place than the posters were. They DO have a front and a back side, which can be identified by looking at the top of each door. One side of them will be textured, and the back side of each door will have an invisible part you can see through. The invisible side faces the building. I have found if you get them lined up in front of the building where you want them, then "nudge" them towards the building, they will sometimes latch themselves to the side of the building. If not, Lucky Strike made them thick enough that you can get them close and it still looks great. Also, you will need a mod to create more flavor object buttons. I included that as well."

https://1drv.ms/u/s!As9rnkvqZG0viIZ83msyyUnH3kEhgg?e=NMMz63

[RockinHarry]

8 hours ago, TheFriendlyFelon said:

Already posted this in the general mods/maps forum, but figured I'd include these here as well. 

"Map creators/scenario designers... Have you ever been trying to make a map of an urban area and run into a building or buildings that have garage doors on them and had trouble deciding how to make the building look right? If not, I envy you. I definitely had that issue while creating my maps for Hostomel and Antonov Airport in Ukraine for an upcoming campaign I'm planning to release, and it was driving me nuts. Since I knew asking Battlefront for things accomplishes absolutely nothing, I got in touch with my man @Lucky Strikeand asked him for some help turning the "poster" flavor objects into a garage door or two for my maps since the poster flavor objects are basically worthless. Being the nice guy he is, he agreed to help, and then proceeded to turn my request for "1 or 2" doors into 12 beautiful garage door flavor objects in various sizes ranging from "backyard storage shed" all the way up to "aircraft hangar". They're pretty epic.

After obtaining his permission, I created a PDF document showing what each of them looks like and highlighting the "sweet spot" where you click each of them to rotate it, move it, delete it, etc. You can find both at the link below, or attached to this post (maybe?) along with the PDF showing the doors. I also included some screenshots from my Antonov Airport map showing some of the garage doors in use. 

**NOTE**
These doors are significantly easier to place than the posters were. They DO have a front and a back side, which can be identified by looking at the top of each door. One side of them will be textured, and the back side of each door will have an invisible part you can see through. The invisible side faces the building. I have found if you get them lined up in front of the building where you want them, then "nudge" them towards the building, they will sometimes latch themselves to the side of the building. If not, Lucky Strike made them thick enough that you can get them close and it still looks great. Also, you will need a mod to create more flavor object buttons. I included that as well."

https://1drv.ms/u/s!As9rnkvqZG0viIZ83msyyUnH3kEhgg?e=NMMz63

Cool stuff! Kudos! It´s always great if you´ve a vision and can put it to practice, then working in the game nicely. It makes mission and map design so much more fun if you know what you can do and what rather not. Thus far only our imagination is the limit as proved by lots of creative CM fans during past few years.

[TheFriendlyFelon]

2 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Cool stuff! Kudos! It´s always great if you´ve a vision and can put it to practice, then working in the game nicely. It makes mission and map design so much more fun if you know what you can do and what rather not. Thus far only our imagination is the limit as proved by lots of creative CM fans during past few years.

All Kudos for these goes to @Lucky_Strike! I only came up with the idea, he is the man that made them a reality in such spectacular fashion.  I do agree with everything else you said though! I'm continuously impressed by the work that everyone has put into learning how to mod and create new things for guys like me to use.