Standing in Foxholes?

[RockinHarry]

10 hours ago, mjkerner said:

Harry, I have Corel’s PSP 2019 version, and have had earlier ones. You can save 32bit files in their “.pspimage” format for working with alpha channels, but you can’t save them in .bmp format. I was counting on Gimp or maybe Paint.net. No dice there, huh?

Old JASC version PSP worked well for me very long time. Or was it even older Photoshop 7.0..... Got to check on my WinXP machine again which now serves as backup and storage. It´s fairly long time since I last worked with CM´s 32Bit BMP files. No luck with latest Gimp as said.

 

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Sorry, Harry, I'm strictly a PhotoShop boy, I have to use it professionally so it's what I know and use for CM mods. I'm surprised Gimp doesn't handle the files easily. What about PhotoShop Elements, it supports import/export of BMPs according to this page. Used to come free with lots of cameras and the like, suspect older versions would still work under Win10. I'm sure I used it in the past on Windows to open mod files. Otherwise I've seen folks mention Pixelformer as an intermediary, it can open and export 32bit BMPs with alpha channels, but have never used it so can't vouch for it.

Thanks. Had a look at Elements but product page doesn´t tell on BMP 32Bit/alpha layer support. Like with Corel´s PSP I might try the free trial version and then see myself. Just installed Pixelformer which from earlier net searching I noticed before already. Wasn´t sure if it handles large files, but it does as I now just found out. Will see if I can get along and work with it. I won´t do major modding projects but need to go safe (any existing) alpha channels get loaded and saved back properly. Looks like Pixelformer will do.

 

53 minutes ago, JM Stuff said:

Don´t need a pro solution

Harry for my part,  Paint net dont accept the transparence or only when you save it in png, than save your file in bmp with a simple prg that I use myself, Greenfish icon editor, delete the part that you want it in transparence and save your file in bmp !

hope this help you !

JM 

yeah there´s surely some workarounds and expedients using different tools. Will see if Pixelformer does it and if not, Corels´s PSP trial will be next. If everything fails I still can power on my old WinXP machine and do some stuff there.

[RockinHarry]

Okay. I erred with regard to Paintshop Pro dealing with 32 Bit Alpha BMP files properly. Neither JASC version nor Corel does/did. It´s old Photoshop 7.0 that I used for that purpose. Now as well using free Photoshop CS2 which works fine in Win10.  Problem solved.

[Lucky_Strike]

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

free Photoshop CS2 which works fine in Win10.  Problem solved.

Free is alway good, glad you got it solved 

[RockinHarry]

On 5/9/2021 at 12:33 AM, Lucky_Strike said:

Free is alway good, glad you got it solved 

Thanks! And legally free I like to add.

[Lucky_Strike]

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Thanks! And legally free I like to add.

Never any doubt  Is this something that would benefit others? 

[beeron]

On 3/19/2020 at 1:33 PM, RockinHarry said:

trenches in my games (pic from a CMBN mission). -1 m ditches and no sandbag mod applied. (Note: sandbag geometry is still there though invisible). Ingame they´re offering usual (lack of) protection with bits of the terrain mesh added as extra. They´re also level with the ground, at least visually. Added to this my animation mod that keeps pixeltroopers low in majority of cases when not moving.

Concerns with FOW. If player cam remains at ground level (house rule), none. The AIP doesn´t care on "suspicious" terrain anyway, unless helped or made aware by use of terrain triggers etc.

Player tactics (also applicable for AIP setup). Foxholes and trenches are usually spotted (automatically) around the ~400m mark. Keep enemy at a distance as long as possible and/or place entrenchments on any sort of backslope terrain (behind terrain mesh or objects).

All measures combined at least provide me with an enjoyable and fairly realistic game experience. 

 

I installed your mod, and my sandbags are still there? I am not sure if I did something wrong but the BMP still has sandbag texture on it. Playing in CMFI

[RockinHarry]

3 hours ago, beeron said:

I installed your mod, and my sandbags are still there? I am not sure if I did something wrong but the BMP still has sandbag texture on it. Playing in CMFI

I don´t have CMFI but I´d guess file name for sandbag mod file would be the same (sandbags.bmp) as in other WW2 titles. Otherwise make sure the file is loaded as last one in case you have other sandbag mod files in data/z folder.

[RockinHarry]

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Never any doubt  Is this something that would benefit others? 

hm....what do you mean? Here´s the source site btw https://archive.fo/255q5

[Lucky_Strike]

20 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

hm....what do you mean? Here´s the source site btw https://archive.fo/255q5

 ... Hah ... Does it work on Win 10?

I love that they have a version for Mac PowerPC G4! That takes me back. I might just grab a copy and install it in VMWare, I think I have a disk image that's got MacOS 10.2 - old skool! I bet, even under emulation, it runs faster that the new versions of CS. Adobe really excel at making bloatware these days.

Great stuff Harry! Cheers!

[RockinHarry]

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

 ... Hah ... Does it work on Win 10?

I love that they have a version for Mac PowerPC G4! That takes me back. I might just grab a copy and install it in VMWare, I think I have a disk image that's got MacOS 10.2 - old skool! I bet, even under emulation, it runs faster that the new versions of CS. Adobe really excel at making bloatware these days.

Great stuff Harry! Cheers!

Works perfectly fine on my Win10 machine. Off course UI is dated, considering it´s still a WinXP/2000 app. But does the purpose working with 32 Bit BMP´s. I remember I once found a NVidia bump map creation plugin for old PS 7.0 Maybe there´s a plugin that works in CS2 too. Found it beeing a handy tool for CM bump map file creation.

[Lucky_Strike]

21 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Works perfectly fine on my Win10 machine. Off course UI is dated, considering it´s still a WinXP/2000 app. But does the purpose working with 32 Bit BMP´s. I remember I once found a NVidia bump map creation plugin for old PS 7.0 Maybe there´s a plugin that works in CS2 too. Found it beeing a handy tool for CM bump map file creation.

For free I think I can put up with a bit dated, still easier than trying to use Gimp and abunch of other software just to write out a file.

I can't remember how I was doing bump maps a few years back. The terrain stuff I did last year didn't need them. I know that recent versions of PS can make then natively, there's a whole load of built in 3D functions it the newer versions, not sure when that was introduced. I'm sure there will be a normal mapper plug in somewhere ...

Maybe this - says it's for legacy versions.
 

[chuckdyke]

On 5/3/2021 at 4:52 PM, RockinHarry said:

like Photoshop and the like.

Did you have a look at Affinity Photo? It is like Photoshop, but you pay less then Euro 40 no subscription. 

Edited May 13, 2021 by chuckdyke

[Lucky_Strike]

23 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Did you have a look at Affinity Photo? It is like Photoshop, but you pay less then Euro 40 no subscription. 

There are definitely some worthy contenders to PS these days, Affinity is a good'un, does it do 32 bit bmp with alpha channels?

[chuckdyke]

18 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

There are definitely some worthy contenders to PS these days, Affinity is a good'un, does it do 32 bit bmp with alpha channels?

Yes I actually rate it higher than PS. Masking and selections were a puzzle in the beginning it is where it is a little different. It is available in the Microsoft store if you are a window user. 32 bit for full HDR editing. Something like US$ 40 and it is yours, no subscription. I live in Australia and our $ is 74 cents I think. 

[RockinHarry]

On 5/13/2021 at 2:18 AM, Lucky_Strike said:

For free I think I can put up with a bit dated, still easier than trying to use Gimp and abunch of other software just to write out a file.

I can't remember how I was doing bump maps a few years back. The terrain stuff I did last year didn't need them. I know that recent versions of PS can make then natively, there's a whole load of built in 3D functions it the newer versions, not sure when that was introduced. I'm sure there will be a normal mapper plug in somewhere ...

Maybe this - says it's for legacy versions.
 

thanks! Found it must´ve been NVidia texture tools I guess. Downloaded, though not installed yet. Got to look on my old computer´s PS 7.0 again and check if it´s the same PI.

On 5/13/2021 at 2:37 AM, chuckdyke said:

Did you have a look at Affinity Photo? It is like Photoshop, but you pay less then Euro 40 no subscription. 

No yet. Sounds interesting though. ATM Gimp (for bread and butter works) and PS CS2 (BMP alpha layer stuff) seems sufficient for my current needs. Graphics and modding is not my main interest and I usually get to it for scenario design purposes only. So I prefer remaining with free stuff, at least for the time beeing.

[chuckdyke]

The topic is standing in Foxholes. How can you stand in a Foxhole if somebody lobs a grenade in it? My latest creation with Affinity Photo. 

[chuckdyke]

Foxholes2 Windows +Alt+Print Sc is much more versatile; it gives you a library for post processing. 

Foxholes gave the crew a place to hide. T34 quantity is a quality in its own right. The T34 in the background took him out. The crosscountry of this tank is outstanding attacks where the enemy least expect it. Post processing, high pass filters and curves you don't need PS for this job. 

[Erwin]

It's useful to know that one can target over a wall to lob grenades (blind), but one cannot target further into woods than regular LOS and Area Fire.  However, since fire continues our of lOS, one can still suppress enemy if they are along the line of fire even if out of LOS.

[Lucky_Strike]

15 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Post processing, high pass filters and curves you don't need PS for this job

Fo' sure. PS is overkill for most jobs, problem is it's become the go-to for so many folks and Adobe have managed to create a virtual monoculture based on it. But it actually sucks quite a bit, it's a complete bloatware behemoth, but sadly a necessary evil for now.

Now, if only they took a leaf out of the T34 note book, built for a specific job and does it exceptionally well, oh and relatively cheap.

[chuckdyke]

2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

PS is overkill for most jobs, problem is it's become the go-to for so many folks and Adobe have managed to create a virtual monoculture based on it.

I don't use PS but Affinity Photo now I got used to it I rate it higher. Take it from me you can do anything what PS could do. I paid AUS$ 40 and no subscription. Kind regards. 

[RockinHarry]

On 5/13/2021 at 2:37 AM, chuckdyke said:

Did you have a look at Affinity Photo? It is like Photoshop, but you pay less then Euro 40 no subscription. 

had a look at their page now. Really interesting and quite a pro software for creative and artistic people. Though at last would be another investment in software where I maybe use 5% of given features at best. Like is now with Gimp and CS2 already.

[Redwolf]

I am 99% sure that GIMP supports BMP files with 8 bits per color channel plus alpha channel (= 32 bits). If you point me to a test file I'll have a try.

What exactly fails when you try GIMP?

Edited May 15, 2021 by Redwolf

[RockinHarry]

1 hour ago, Redwolf said:

I am 99% sure that GIMP supports BMP files with 8 bits per color channel plus alpha channel (= 32 bits). If you point me to a test file I'll have a try.

What exactly fails when you try GIMP?

Plain technically you are right. Yet first problem is you can´t load (import) a typical CM 32 Bit BMP file by default. The alpha channel simply doesn´t get recognized and then discarded, leavin you with a 24 Bit file. Off course you then can add an alpha channel manually and export it properly maybe (haven´t tried). But in most the cases I need the original alpha channel loaded. As said PS CS2 does it one step for me and I don´t need to consider additional steps, for which I don´t have time usually. Gimp (2.10.24 ATM) remains my main app for working with 24 Bit files though.

Edited May 15, 2021 by RockinHarry
replaced layer by channel. 2 different things.

[Redwolf]

10 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

Plain technically you are right. Yet first problem is you can´t load (import) a typical CM 32 Bit BMP file by default. The alpha layer simply doesn´t get recognized and then discarded, leavin you with a 24 Bit file. Off course you then can add an alpha layer manually and export it properly maybe (haven´t tried). But in most the cases I need the original alpha layer loaded. As said PS CS2 does it one step for me and I don´t need to consider additional steps, for which I don´t have time usually. Gimp (2.10.24 ATM) remains my main app for working with 24 Bit files though.

I wonder whether the underspecified nature of the BMP file format is responsible. Can you point me to such a file? I want to see what ffmpeg has to say about it.

[Redwolf]

Net find:

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/issues/461

"[...] First, among all three bmp files attached here, only 240849 is a "real" 32bpp-RGBA file. It's a BITMAPV5HEADER BMP file.

The two others files are ambiguous since BMP specification (BITMAPINFOHEADER) is not clear about the alpha channel in 32bpp files. There is no way to know if 4th channel bits must be read or ignored. Thus it's best to ignore the extra bytes and this is what GIMP 2.8 does"

So you would be fine editing in GIMP if you were to find a program that converts random BMPs to BITMAPV5HEADER BMPs and then load in GIMP. I bet ffmpeg can do that, the question is whether it in turn reads the alpha channel data on the input side.