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Lucky Strike's Mods: Hedgerow Hell - something for aspiring arborists ...


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Oh how easily he's distracted - my school reports often mentioned this trait. Partly window gazing, partly day dreaming, nevertheless curious. I am supposed to be working on my next big mod project but I got looking at some of last year's attempts in Blender to rework trees and such. Thinking I'd crack two proverbial nuts I decided to see what I could do now that I have a little more (dangerous) knowledge of Blender and the dark arts of 3D. I was going to look again at those beanpoles propping up the bocage when I came across a tree that I had started but could never figure out how to get in the game. I just couldn't export the damn thing from Blender to make anything more than floating broccoli in the distance. Anyway equipped with a bit more patience and a damp Sunday afternoon (though it's now very late into the small hours) I have finally squeezed something out of the Blender tube ... I give you a naturalistic oak ...

ppxB8Cf.jpg

1rjjxM4.jpg

... or at least the start of one. The shape is working and I think I can alter it whilst still getting a result out of Blender; what I'm struggling with at the moment is getting the texture-mapping figured out. I have some working whilst other parts are somewhat bedazzled, but I think it's solvable. My question is do you folks want it? A whole forest of these old, leaning trees is a bit much but I guess they could be combined with a straight version of the same tree type for variety. Also a similar model for them apples might be quite nice, ancient orchards and all that. Thoughts people?

In the meantime I'm back to the steppe to work on my latest, although I still need to look at the bocage beanpoles ...

 

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There is no doubt that those oaks are very beautiful.  They make for great pictures.  However, in the game, it's almost impossible to play with that sort of dense foliage - one cannot see one's units or anything else, without turning off the woods.  

I would recommend a version that gives 5%-15% translucency for near and far woods.  There already exists a mod that does that - but obviously for someone else's version of woods.  (It was made many years ago and apologies that I no longer recall the modder's name.)

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18 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:

At least there's no member of the Stewart family hiding in one of them.

Hahahahah, now I might just have to look into that, my bit of Blender knowledge might just stretch to at least getting a cardboard cutout of a certain royal up a tree. The latest tranche of liggers royals has a Charley that likes to play around with hedges, even has a special favourite coat for the occasion apparently.

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17 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Great start, LS! I love it. The lack of variety in trees (both in appearance and height) in CM has been an issue for me for a long time.

Yes I know what you mean. Problem with BN is it only has five tree types, so it limits what we can do to make a more diverse woodland experience. It's actually a bit odd, since all the games are supposed to be on the same engine which supports at least eight tree types. Some of the trees in SF2 even have individual parts, branches, twigs etc whilst some of it's 3D models use a very different approach for leaves. Maybe with the next engine upgrade (presumably for BN's release on Steam) we could get more tree types in BN, it would be nice, pretty please 🙏 @Battlefront.com, heck, you can even have some of my tree textures if you want ... 😉

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7 hours ago, Erwin said:

There is no doubt that those oaks are very beautiful.  They make for great pictures.  However, in the game, it's almost impossible to play with that sort of dense foliage - one cannot see one's units or anything else, without turning off the woods.  

I would recommend a version that gives 5%-15% translucency for near and far woods.  There already exists a mod that does that - but obviously for someone else's version of woods.  (It was made many years ago and apologies that I no longer recall the modder's name.)

Hmm, I guess this comes down to personal preference, I like that fact that I can't see everything and there are ways to find your pixeltruppen without having thinned out trees. I appreciate this is not for everyone, but this is my vision of how I want the game to be so I'm unlikely to make a semi-transparent version at the moment. What you want is actually quite easy and I bet there are other players who share your desire, so I think some kind soul might take this on for you. If I had two of me I might have the time but not just now.

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12 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Hmm, I guess this comes down to personal preference, I like that fact that I can't see everything

Yes, I agree with you on that. I want my woodland to look like woodland.

Meanwhile, here is a Royal Oak. And before anyone from USatia asks, no Charlie Stewart No.2 wasn't in 101 Dalmatians.

R.jpg

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Another quick Blender knockabout - I just can't leave those beanpoles alone ... 

piM6zLj.jpg

Okay, this one's pretty subtle but once I got a taste for it I decided we could probably do better than the beanpoles, and why not stress those GPUs a little bit more with some new textures whilst I'm at it. You probably can't see the difference initially, so for the less eagle-eyed out there I've done a version with nice colour-coded highlighting (no it's not a return of the Bazzer Bocage ) ... 

6Cs2hYo.jpg

So what you got is the original beanpoles circled in yellow, not liked. Next to these I have inserted some brush into the bocage model (circled in red), this is part of my brush texture adapted for use inside bocage, it is incorporated into a straight bocage section model. Also in that model are two branchy things which I guess are like bare, mini trees or bushes, these are circled in pink. They are models based on something I grabbed from the SF2 demo and are buried deep inside the bocage, sporting a new bark texture which is essentially hawthorn but scaled to fit these models.

There you have it boys and girls, a single new bocage model which get's us away from wild french beans. There are perhaps thirty or so bocage models to alter, so I'm gonna be busy for a while with that little lot. I'm also going to try things like adjusting the height and width of some sections, maybe adding some tall, spindly stuff and thinning out some of the textures to create a bit of variety. Perhaps add a decimated stump to a section, or a small tree. The possibilities are now endless ... 

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So just a quickie, as a proof of concept, big bocage ...

K5uvYPa.jpg

An ash sapling incorporated directly into the bocage, the normal bocage which it's combined with should still show variations but the ash will always be an ash, it could employ the bocage textures but then it would have some weird stuff like brambles and strangely oriented mixed foliage. Here it is in my test scenario mixed with a standalone tree and more variety of ground ...

ovKR5si.jpg

I think that if I mix in all sorts of different heights we can have something truly rambling and less council-trimmed-hedgerow. The only downside is that the leaf texture has to use the 1-bit mask so it's a little clunky compared to proper trees, but some refinement might improve this. Also got me thinking thickets again ...

Thoughts ...

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2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Rightly so, nothing better than a stressed royal.

Sadly, The Royal Oak pub in my hometown got demolished in 1975. Either, they wanted to build a new office and shop development, or they still hadn't gotten over the fact that the Parliamentarians won the battle fought here during the Civil War. In the words of a fictional politician, "I couldn't possibly comment."

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On 8/4/2021 at 11:53 PM, Warts 'n' all said:

Sadly, The Royal Oak pub in my hometown got demolished in 1975. Either, they wanted to build a new office and shop development, or they still hadn't gotten over the fact that the Parliamentarians won the battle fought here during the Civil War. In the words of a fictional politician, "I couldn't possibly comment."

Should have replaced it with a King's Head ...

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4 hours ago, Falaise said:

a new step
I was happy to have completed my June July August with live verification and using as much as possible of your great mod !!!! you add a new

Have to keep you on your toes, plenty more ideas to come now that the Blender genie is out of his lamp. None of this is going to be ready for prime time yet, so in the meantime I think we need some variations on the theme of a Norman summer countryside. Speaking of Normandy countryside, didn't someone request a recording of Norman birdsong last year?

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it's @Erwin moment I finally understand droopbox and its strange ergonomics !!🙄
here are the cicadas, personally that annoys me 😬 and explains in large part why I rarely descend more to the south of the Loire river

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/re1eho8d0rmqga9/AACP7xLilsEc5xv-hiGcictPa?dl=0

 

yes I want to test your sound
Edited by Falaise
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Thank you.  I maintain a GENERAL SOUNDS folder and in it are dozens, maybe hundreds of BG sounds.  After a couple years one gets tired of the BG sounds of shots and combat.  So, now I only use as BG sounds (in the appropriate scenarios):  Bird calls, Jungle sounds, Dogs barking, Owls, Cicadas, Wind/Snow/Thunder/Rain, and combinations of the preceding... or complete Quiet.  However, my (I think they are) Cicadas or Crickets are louder than yours for the same volume setting.

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9 minutes ago, Erwin said:

.  However, my (I think they are) Cicadas or Crickets are louder than yours for the same volume setting.

I reduced them to the maximum just to leave a background noise because as I said I can not stand and it tenses my nerves !! 😬
and this noise with a part where I lose could lead to the destruction of my pc 😁

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2 hours ago, Erwin said:

So, now I only use as BG sounds (in the appropriate scenarios):  Bird calls, Jungle sounds, Dogs barking, Owls, Cicadas, Wind/Snow/Thunder/Rain, and combinations of the preceding... or complete Quiet

This sounds (pardon the pun) like Erwin's natural sounds mod, appropriate for when I'm wandering around the bocage countryside like some tourist, you gotta release it ...

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