Lucky_Strike Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 (edited) A little preamble to this taster ... I grew up in rural Dorset in the south of England where our countryside is not so different than that of Normandy (though the Cider may be a bit stronger!). So whenever I fire up CMBN and gaze upon the monotonous green of the bocage, I start to dream of my younger days spent amongst the hedgerows of my native land. Those hedgerows, mostly long gone now, were so thick that we could actually burrow our way inside and create 'dens' where no adult, or rival gang, could find us. So, with some time to spare thanks to COVID-19, I got to thinking about the bocage in BN and wondered what could I do to make it into something like I imagined it to be. Well, the answer is not a great deal - the models for the bocage are hard to figure out, and even with new textures, it's not ever going to get close to what it probably should be, alas. But, having tinkered with the bocage for some time, and been inspired by @Falaise's treatment of those oddly uniform brush textures, I had a go at a lot of the other textures - trees, bushes, grass etc. So, to cut through the waffle, here are a couple of tasters (some caveats first: it's not ready yet, I just couldn't wait to share some goodness, it will be a couple of weeks yet as I'm trying to iron-out some of the strange in-game distortions; I think this 'plays' best at, or near, ground level just because of the way the game handles LOD and stuff, from afar it's not really going to have much of an effect; screen caps are taken whilst running ReShade, hence the colours are much more muted and some effects are, well, effecting the images (at the end is a pic without ReShade for comparison); I design these for my own gaming pleasure so YMMV will apply when released; I have quite a few other tweaked textures that I may release at the same time just to give the complete 'look' - these are mostly not my work but rather tweaks of mods by luminaries such as @EZ, Aris ( @Fuser ), @Flesh, @Vein, @Kieme(ITA) to name but a few; these textures will be high res and if you want to use the ReShade 'look' then you'll need a decent graphics card in a Windows machine, I will release a lower res version. Enough ... some pics: ( You can study high res versions in my DropBox folder here ) More below Edited June 21, 2020 by Lucky_Strike 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky_Strike Posted June 21, 2020 Author Share Posted June 21, 2020 Another ... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky_Strike Posted June 21, 2020 Author Share Posted June 21, 2020 (edited) ... and another That's all I seem to be able to upload for now, so for more look at the DropBox folder linked above ... LS Edited June 21, 2020 by Lucky_Strike 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danfrodo Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 OMG, that's amazing. So is this like you sending resume to battlefront? I vote to hire this person. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falaise Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 wow c'est magnifique !!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky_Strike Posted June 21, 2020 Author Share Posted June 21, 2020 3 hours ago, danfrodo said: OMG, that's amazing. So is this like you sending resume to battlefront? I vote to hire this person. Hah, that's something that I wouldn't say no to, but 'her indoors' may have something to say about it! I get 'why are you drawing flowers for a game?' quite often as it is! 1 hour ago, Falaise said: wow c'est magnifique !!! Merci beaucoup, monsieur. But I have to say that you were the inspiration for this, or rather your nettles and brambles were, so I dedicate it to you, and 'her indoors' of course. I hope you don't mind but I am chopping some of your brambles mod to add flavour to my Normandy soup. LS 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quakerparrot67 Posted June 22, 2020 Share Posted June 22, 2020 (edited) wow! seriously- when will this be available, please? i was just gloating to self and wife how good the game was looking with all the mods and shaders i've collected. now i can't stand looking at my cmbn screen until i have this. i think i hate you, or something. amazing work and really incredible looking-thank you for doing this when will this be available, again? cheers, rob Edited June 22, 2020 by quakerparrot67 wording 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockinHarry Posted June 22, 2020 Share Posted June 22, 2020 That´s all beautiful! Think even without Reshade it´ll look superior but I might try then. @Lucky_Strike you also might try importing bocage objects into Blender and do some optimizing there as well? Maybe you then get closer to what you´d have in mind initially. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexUK Posted June 22, 2020 Share Posted June 22, 2020 That is very, very cool. Brambles and nettles for sure. I'd love to see these incorporated into the game itself. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aragorn2002 Posted June 22, 2020 Share Posted June 22, 2020 That looks pretty spectacular, Lucky Strike! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JM Stuff Posted June 22, 2020 Share Posted June 22, 2020 Breathtaking @Lucky_Strike !!! With this kind of graphics we are in mood to admire the beauty of the nature, only the bullets whistling in ears remind us that we are on a battlefield !! I think with yours beautiful collage mods, you makes us awakes checking the config of our graphic card !! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky_Strike Posted June 22, 2020 Author Share Posted June 22, 2020 13 hours ago, quakerparrot67 said: wow! seriously- when will this be available, please? i was just gloating to self and wife how good the game was looking with all the mods and shaders i've collected. now i can't stand looking at my cmbn screen until i have this. i think i hate you, or something. amazing work and really incredible looking-thank you for doing this when will this be available, again? cheers, rob LOL! Thanks Rob. Sorry about that man! I knew I was onto something when I started tweaking the bocage. When I got fed up with that not giving me the results I wanted I moved to the trees, then flowers and weeds - starting to sound like a child of the 60's ... oh wait I am a child of the 60's. All this nature has me wandering around maps looking at the scenery and admiring the view now. I'm going to release this in a couple, possibly three weeks. I have about half of the doodads left to work on for the general release, then I'll probably do a few extras like crops and such for a second pack. I am also thinking of doing some ReShade ini's for various climatic conditions. The one I use at the moment is a kinda sunny hot dusty look, quite harsh light with some atmospheric bloom and distant haze, along with some DOF effects and framing for the screen shots. 11 hours ago, RockinHarry said: That´s all beautiful! Think even without Reshade it´ll look superior but I might try then. @Lucky_Strike you also might try importing bocage objects into Blender and do some optimizing there as well? Maybe you then get closer to what you´d have in mind initially. Thanks Harry. I test this without ReShade as well to make sure it's gonna work, the colours are quite strong, but that's what I see when I look at nature, it's definitely not washed out in our cooler northern climes. Actually I test it with your excellent tweaked War Movie shader much of the time, which saved me a bunch of time trying to reinvent that particular wheel. That is partly where I started from with this mod, and why ended up with no social life at all! I've been occasionally following along the amazing things that @Aquila-SmartWargames has been up to with 3D models and did wonder if there was something I could do with the bocage. When I've released this mod pack I may download Blender and see what I can do with it, though to say I'm a 3D virgin is an understatement, it'll be a steep learning curve fo' shizzle. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky_Strike Posted June 22, 2020 Author Share Posted June 22, 2020 6 hours ago, AlexUK said: That is very, very cool. Brambles and nettles for sure. I'd love to see these incorporated into the game itself. 2 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said: That looks pretty spectacular, Lucky Strike! 1 hour ago, 3j2m7 said: Breathtaking @Lucky_Strike !!! With this kind of graphics we are in mood to admire the beauty of the nature, only the bullets whistling in ears remind us that we are on a battlefield !! I think with yours beautiful collage mods, you makes us awakes checking the config of our graphic card !! Thank you kind people! I'd be really happy to get this to you all tomorrow, but alas it's a bit of a slog trying to correct some of the oddly distorted original textures. I had to get a calculator out and exercise my maths muscle to figure out some of the strangeness. I guess that @Battlefront.com had their reasons when the game was released, but I think with modern PCs, GPUs, CPUs etc we can afford to push things a little. @3j2m7 pretty much most evenings now I find myself wandering around the battlefield looking at the view, fighting just a distant memory ... the calming effect of nature no doubt. That and being locked indoors for several months pining after a vista or two. The hit on your GPU is only really felt if you go the full monty on ReShade. With most of that off these textures are not too heavy. They are mostly enlarged to 250% of original scale (don't ask why 250% - I don't know anymore why I chose that odd number). My gaming PC is fairly modest, just an i3 9350KF and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660, couldn't justify much more and I only play CM. With the heavy effects like DOF switched off in ReShade the game is perfectly playable. I'm going to release a few ReShade ini files for different conditions and I'll try to optimize what I can with LUTs to help with frame rates. Otherwise, a tweaked WarMovies shader like @RockinHarry's or @CarlWAW's also gives good results. I design my mods on an iMac - my work machine - and they work well in game on that as well. My main grumble is the way that the Radeon GPU / Apple handles things like mist / rain / snow - simply not as good as the Nvidia GPU in my PC ... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky_Strike Posted June 22, 2020 Author Share Posted June 22, 2020 Hey folks would anyone be interested in testing these for me - they're quite a lot of work which I want to be as close to perfect as possible when I release them, so another set of eyes just to check for any weirdness, distortions notwithstanding, would surely help. I actually think I've gone a bit more blind making these ... What may make sense is to post these in my DropBox as a kinda beta for people to grab and try. I don't know, maybe PM me and we can see what works best. Ta LS 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquila-SmartWargames Posted June 22, 2020 Share Posted June 22, 2020 (edited) @Lucky_Strike I´ve just found this thread and these screenshots are on another level. I would like to test the new looks and your reshade profile, furthermore I´d also like to make a video showcase/preview of it. 5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said: Been occasionally following along the amazing things that @Aquila-SmartWargames has been up to with 3D models and did wonder if there was something I could do with the bocage. When I've released this mod pack I may download Blender and see what I can do with it, though to say I'm a 3D virgin is an understatement, it'll be a steep learning curve fo' shizzle. The only thing I did with bocage models is to add them onto vehicles as addon 3D camo experimt but they can be modified on their own. Would be interesting to see the results and options. About LOS it might help your project to know that some of the LOD graphic degradation can be "modded out" by replacing the LOD files.mdr with copies of the original model mdr file although I am not sure if this option is available for all LOD-sensitive assets ingame. Edited June 22, 2020 by Aquila-SmartWargames 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falaise Posted June 22, 2020 Share Posted June 22, 2020 22 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said: I am chopping some of your brambles mod chop sir, chop.... I am happy to have inspired you !!! you managed to do what I wanted to do but I lack the technique !!! The without "ReShade" reminds me of Normandy in June, nature is fluorescent green, while with ReShade it gives a more Normandy atmosphere in August. it's really awesome !!! thank you, i am more than impatient to see this mod i send you a PM 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky_Strike Posted June 23, 2020 Author Share Posted June 23, 2020 5 hours ago, Falaise said: chop sir, chop.... I am happy to have inspired you !!! you managed to do what I wanted to do but I lack the technique !!! The without "ReShade" reminds me of Normandy in June, nature is fluorescent green, while with ReShade it gives a more Normandy atmosphere in August. it's really awesome !!! thank you, i am more than impatient to see this mod i send you a PM PM received thanks, message sent back to you ... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky_Strike Posted June 23, 2020 Author Share Posted June 23, 2020 7 hours ago, Aquila-SmartWargames said: @Lucky_Strike I´ve just found this thread and these screenshots are on another level. I would like to test the new looks and your reshade profile, furthermore I´d also like to make a video showcase/preview of it. The only thing I did with bocage models is to add them onto vehicles as addon 3D camo experimt but they can be modified on their own. Would be interesting to see the results and options. About LOS it might help your project to know that some of the LOD graphic degradation can be "modded out" by replacing the LOD files.mdr with copies of the original model mdr file although I am not sure if this option is available for all LOD-sensitive assets ingame. @Aquila-SmartWargames Thanks Aquila. I saw your camo experiment on YouTube a while back and was very impressed. A lot of what you’re doing is absolutely fantastic and way beyond my poor addled brain at the moment, but I will take a look at the mdr files when I’m done with this mod. I’m getting some files together for testing and will upload them later today so you can grab them. I’ll include the ReShade preset as well. LS 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockinHarry Posted June 23, 2020 Share Posted June 23, 2020 14 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said: Thanks Harry. I test this without ReShade as well to make sure it's gonna work, the colours are quite strong, but that's what I see when I look at nature, it's definitely not washed out in our cooler northern climes. Actually I test it with your excellent tweaked War Movie shader much of the time, which saved me a bunch of time trying to reinvent that particular wheel. That is partly where I started from with this mod, and why ended up with no social life at all! I've been occasionally following along the amazing things that @Aquila-SmartWargames has been up to with 3D models and did wonder if there was something I could do with the bocage. When I've released this mod pack I may download Blender and see what I can do with it, though to say I'm a 3D virgin is an understatement, it'll be a steep learning curve fo' shizzle. Interesting that the war movie shader file is in use by anybody but myself. In fact it contains just a slight increase in contrast and some lowering of color saturation. Also no use with Reshade (or similar), which I´ve to install and try out yet. Though still have it in use by default (always on) in all my games. Tinkering with trees and bocage objects in Blender can be a bit difficult, but seems doable. Thus far I use them as additional flavor objects to be put into "stump" category. Otherwise just looking at an imported bocage or foliage object gives a better idea about geometry, used textures and their projections on planes. I´m a noob at Blender myself, but I got everything working to my desires. It´s mainly a matter of dealing with just specific MDR file features which are manageable IMO. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky_Strike Posted June 23, 2020 Author Share Posted June 23, 2020 9 hours ago, RockinHarry said: Interesting that the war movie shader file is in use by anybody but myself. In fact it contains just a slight increase in contrast and some lowering of color saturation. Also no use with Reshade (or similar), which I´ve to install and try out yet. Though still have it in use by default (always on) in all my games. Tinkering with trees and bocage objects in Blender can be a bit difficult, but seems doable. Thus far I use them as additional flavor objects to be put into "stump" category. Otherwise just looking at an imported bocage or foliage object gives a better idea about geometry, used textures and their projections on planes. I´m a noob at Blender myself, but I got everything working to my desires. It´s mainly a matter of dealing with just specific MDR file features which are manageable IMO. @RockinHarry Your WarMovie shader was just enough for my liking. I tinkered around with the shaders for quite some time, but never really got a result I was satisfied with, yours, however is pretty much all I need. I have a few, yours, CarlWAWs and a few I made but I use yours the most as it's just about right. I use it on my Mac, when I'm making the mods, so that I can test the colours. When I switch to my gaming PC I use your shader or switch to ReShade. As you say the shaders clash with each other, but it's simple to switch on and off. I am going to try and work on some more ReShade presets once the mod is finished, it's a slow process though, about one doodad a night at the moment, with about ten left to do! I saw that you were having conversations with @Aquila-SmartWargames and @3j2m7. I'm definitely going to take a look at the mdr files when I've done the mod. I really would like to improve the bocage some more if possible. I get why Battlefront made it the way they did back whenever, but now it just seems very odd. Trees are not so bad, there was just one, if I recall correctly, that has a distorted trunk texture, which I think I have managed to mostly overcome. I'm posting a batch of files for anyone who's interested to download and test, let me know if you are interested and I'll let you have the link. LS 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky_Strike Posted June 28, 2020 Author Share Posted June 28, 2020 Hi folks, I've now made a second beta compilation. Anyone else interested in testing can PM me for a link. I should be on course to get the first proper release into your respective sweaty hands by next weekend. Then I can add a few extras as I make them - crops spring to mind. I did a quick test of the existing mod in CMFI and CMRT (demo). I could see straightaway that FI will need a lot of work to adapt the mod to it. There are many more very different terrains used so that'll be some time coming. RT is an easier ask, I don't have the full game yet (waiting for a bundle with FR - hopefully ). The mod worked quite well in the demo and added nicely to the overall look of the battlefield. Then there are the Low Countries, autumn and winter versions to come up with - anyone!? In the meantime ... there's something in the long grass ... LS 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aragorn2002 Posted June 28, 2020 Share Posted June 28, 2020 30 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said: Hi folks, I've now made a second beta compilation. Anyone else interested in testing can PM me for a link. I should be on course to get the first proper release into your respective sweaty hands by next weekend. Then I can add a few extras as I make them - crops spring to mind. I did a quick test of the existing mod in CMFI and CMRT (demo). I could see straightaway that FI will need a lot of work to adapt the mod to it. There are many more very different terrains used so that'll be some time coming. RT is an easier ask, I don't have the full game yet (waiting for a bundle with FR - hopefully ). The mod worked quite well in the demo and added nicely to the overall look of the battlefield. Then there are the Low Countries, autumn and winter versions to come up with - anyone!? In the meantime ... there's something in the long grass ... LS Low countries? Yes please! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexUK Posted June 28, 2020 Share Posted June 28, 2020 Looks fantastic! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky_Strike Posted June 28, 2020 Author Share Posted June 28, 2020 5 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said: Low countries? Yes please! @Aragorn2002 This should be relatively easy, some seasonal changes and a few differences in the vegetation. Anyone have suggestions for crops and flower types for this. I think I can use a tag for the Arnhem stuff to switch them in automagically. Enough here to keep me gainfully occupied for at least a couple of years ... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky_Strike Posted June 28, 2020 Author Share Posted June 28, 2020 2 hours ago, AlexUK said: Looks fantastic! Thanks @AlexUK 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.