Mods managing, mod Packs and mod database organization

[Cabe Booth]

Hi,

I am a VERY new guy to all the CM games. I have been trying to get my mods all in order. Searching the forums comes up with great mod suggestions but most folks just need a way to keep them all in order. Since some mods are for CMMOS, others are not and others are just badly titled and have little or no documentation.... I thought I would start a thread so that users can describe their own formulas they use to keep their mods in order.

Here is what I came up with today. It is a bit of a chore but in the long run you will have a new hobby and will be saved looking over the forums for something that doesn't exist anymore or yet ( complete mod packs)

Remember this is for a mod library not a mod folder that interacts with the game. Just a means of sorting what you do have and what you don't. A way of looking at the mods you have downloaded and deciding what to keep and what to throw out. Then you take what you like and load it into your mod manager or overwrite the original CM, CMAK, CMBB bmp file directly.

so,

I am a big fan of GreenAsJade's McMMM program (documenation at http://www.gregories.net/McMMM/McMMM.htm and downloaded at http://www.cmmods.com/) and I wish someone would upload their simple CMAK and CMBB "Mod sets" to CMMODS and then we could use MCMMM to download the set. It is a function that, as GeenasJade has mentioned in other posts does not get used very much due to the lack of mods sets out here to download. I did see one on CMMods but it was for either a sealion mod or some such. I just want a basic mod pack for CMAK (CMBB and CMBO) for all the theaters and weather. I am sure some folks have some nice ones out there all spruced up with Mikeyd and the other's stuff.

All they need to do is upload the McMMM mods pack file with brief description and we will do the rest. But it just has not happened. So that is where the mod library comes in.

So until that happens I am making my own and it gonna be quite a small task. Here is how I am doing it.

Step by step:

goto the band of brother's website and download the "Unit Availability Chat" for CMAK at http://webandofbrothers.de/tablescharts.htm

Unzip it and it will look blank (it is an exel spread sheet) The text is there, u just need to change the color of the text to black for it to show up. No idea why it is like that to start off.

Now all the units in the game will be listed in this chart. I made a folder named CMAK mods and inside it made a folder for each country.

Then I made a folder for each unit on the chart (I used cut and paste from chart itself) inside each of those folders (UK, US, Germany, Italy, New Zealand ect.) You know put a folder for each German unit in the folder named Germany such as one for PzIIIJ and one for PzIIIL and one for Hummel.... you know each individual version of every unit (late, long ect.). Then repeat that for each country you want to mod.

Now you have your own database with all the units that can be modded. Takes some time but it is worth it.

Make another like it using the CMBB unit availability chart so you can have a CMBB mod database as well. You can probably just copy the CMAK unit folders (That you just made) over and add or subtract to it as you go along since many units will be found in both games.

Now for each folder do a search of the name of the unit on the CMMods page http://www.cmmods.com/ . Just make sure you search in the correct mods list (CMAK ect.) for each game you are modding and look at all the mods on the list. Review them, decide what ya like and dowload them into your folder for that unit. In the case of unit packs that have all units, I guess I am going to make an all "unit pack" folder as well, or use winzip extract them and separate the mods so I can divide the mods into individual unit folders to compare with other modding examples. Just make sure while searching you also get a mod for snowy vehicles and winter vehicles, Italian, N africa and east Africa campaigns ect. if necessary

Thing is you don't HAVE TO mod EVERYTHING. You can just pick the mods you like for what you play most. The trick here is that you have them sorted and know what you have and what you don't. Since the game already has default mods for units you will always have something load when you play, so don't panic. Just download em as you like them/ need them/ find them.

It's a freaking hobby dude.

After you assemble a collection of mods, let's say an all N. Africa section of mods you can make a McMMM mod set (like the one we all desire.) and upload it to CMMods for everyone to use in McMMM.

When and if you decide to use McMMM for your own use just add one mod at a time and give it a description. You can even rename the mod in the "Mod Name" feild so you can identify it easier without it changing the root name of the zip mod on your hard drive. Just make sure you only rename it in McMMM, not the actual mod library/folder or you will start downloading duplicates because your files names have been changed from the ones in the CMMods database. But heck, its your mod library, do what ya want. But when naming in McMMM give each mod a new name such as "German Tiger I early snowy by MikeyD" and so on. That way when you are in McMMM and use the "Mod name" Tab on the top of the column in McMMM it will sort it by country, then by unit (somewhat) then give you a clue/props to the designer. The you can use the "Edit Mod>>Mod details" tab in McMMM to give it a full description after the default Armor, Gun, Terrain ect. classification) just to give you a quick reminder of what it is.

Just don't get overwhelmed. For instance, just download all MikeyD's mods by doing an author search in CMMOd's CMAK mod section. Then Do a search for other popular designers mentioned.

When you have sorted those you can just goto these CMAK/CMBB/CMBO mod folder library/databases you have made, and if you open a file for...oh say German Wirlblewind and it's empty... then you know u need a mod for it. And a winter version as well. Just do it casually over time as you see mods you like or just download the most popular mods people can recommend for starters to get a nice basic beautiful mod set.

I would always make a backup of this personal database of mods in a safe place just in case your house blows up. ALWAYS copy and paste instead of cut and paste when moving the mods into a modding program from your personal mod library/database, that way u still know what mods you have and what you need.

If you cut your panzerIIIJ out of your mod database CMAK mods/Germany/Panzer IIIJ folder and paste it into a MCMMM mod folder or a CMAK/BMP file then how the heck are you going to know you ever had it or currently have it? I mean I guess you could use McMMM to look at it and such, but why not have them all sorted since these freaking file names can be so confusing in the first place when loaded into McMMM or just looking at them period.

Thank god for the McMMM mod info tabs.

If you really want to get deep, do what I am doing. I have a folder set up where I extract each zip file. Remove the Mac Extras folder that is so annoying for PC users and then use Winzip to make a new zip folder without the MAC stuff in it. I even went so far as to divide up the Mod packs. Such as, some of MikeyD's mods will have 2 versions of a tank in then such as PanzerIIIJ early and PanzerIIIJ late. I extract the zipped file and separate the 2 mods and make a new zip file for each of the 2 mods so I can put them in different sorting folders in my mod library.

Also sometimes a mod will have alternate markings, skirts or aerial recognition flags. I sort through the options, rename the optional files to overwrite the default ones in the original mod and make a new mod zip file mod that has all the options the way I like them.

But all that is beyond what you want, which is a basic mod set library. So make a mod library for each game. Starting with the suggested ones from some of the threads out there (Mikeyd, AndrewTK, Juju) and then once you have a working basic library you can get creative with other unique mods. Some mods work for both CMAK and CMBB so cut paste them into both libraries as you go along.

The bottom line here is just make a thorough catalog of unit folders for each country for each version of CM, that way you can check if you have any neat-o mods for a certain unit.Then you can either just directly overwrite a Combat Mission bmp folder permanently or use a mod manager to swap them out.

Just remember, when using a mod manager you have to take all your selected mods you like from the mod library you made and move them to a designated mod folder for McMMM or CMMOS to use. Because if you use my 3 folder deep method of sorting the mods, the McMMM program will not see mods that are inside other folders.

hope this isn't too confusing. Who knows, maybe I will get it all sorted out and have a DVD disk burned for people to request by mail. But since I am tinkering with the file names so much I doubt uploading my mods sets to CMMods would do anyone any good. They would have to have the actual files as I have them sorted/repacked(zipped)

So that's my crappy way of doing it.

Anyone else want to suggest a better way before I spend too much of my life time sorting it this way?

[Philippe]

Everybody does this differently, but I always sort my German vehicles into gelb/grau and summer/winter sub-categories.

[Cabe Booth]

probably what I need to do as well after I make all my basic unit categories.

What is the definition of gelb/grau?

The CMAK camo types I see most often are:

Ambush, Yellow, North Africa, E Africa, Italy, tri-color, snowy, winter, winterized and white washed.... wondering which ones are the same.

I know that Winter, winterized and white washed are.... but what about snowy? Is it considered a winter unit or a unit for late fall?

[Philippe]

Until early 1943 German vehicles usually rolled out of the factory with a base coat of grey (grau in German). For the rest of the war they usually rolled out of the factory with a base coat of yellow (gelb in German), though very strange things started to happen late in 1944. This used to be a favorite topic of armored vehicle websites, and is of great concern to modelers.

In-game there are parallel sets of bmp's with different numbers for each base color. Winter vehicles are the same as summer vehicles except that their bmp's have a slightly different prefix. The presence or absence of snow on the ground in a winter month governs whether the game engine will choose a winter-prefix vehicle or a summer version. You can make a whitewashed snow- covered vehicle appear in mid-summer by removing its prefix. And you can make a non-whitewashed vehicle appear in the middle of the Siberian winter by adding the snow prefix to its bmp. Or by not having a whitewashed (or snow-covered) version of it in the first place.

[Cabe Booth]

what is the prefix?

Oh and thanks,

Though I am a huge ww2 buff I didn't know the paint scheme history/translation.

I spent all my time on the planes of ww2 mostly as you can see from my website, but now finally getting back into the tanks

so a snowy vehicle has the same prefix as a whitewashed one?

and Crete, N Africa, E Africa and Italy all have the same prefix?

What are the prefixes? just so I know when sorting those mods that have little documentation.

I am sure there is a modding website that covers this thoroughly, but with all the dead links these days, it can be a chore

[Philippe]

Go to cmmods, pick a vehicle, and look at the bmp listings for the different mods. It will become immediately obvious what the prefixes are. If the bmp numbers for a summer vehicle start with something like 6240, the series for the winter version of the same vehicle will probably start with something like 16240. Something similar happens with the grey version of German vehicles.

[Cabe Booth]

ah good idea.

My brain is garbled with all the sorting I am doing so I am not using common sense at all.

Thanks.

[Cabe Booth]

Hmm I thought I would have this all worked out when it came to prefixes. I will cut and paste my notes from a notepad I had open while going through the CMMods search by CMAK BMP portion of the website.

I see that you note that a "1" will make a unit appear in winter but.......

I am completely confused and frustrated by the lack of info. If just perusing the BMPs would have done it for me (and at times I thought it did) I would have the whole thing down by now.

I went through the WHOLE LIST of BMPs for CMAK and here is what I came up with. I remind you. This is pasted from my notepad to show my confusion and lack or WTF is going on.

I cannot find a list of prefixes anywhere on the web, most websites are down and every post I read has people telling other to go find out themselves. So please, explain what is right in front of my eyes. Because I know it is. I am just not getting it.

I think the major problem here is that I don't know how many prefixes there are.

Are there 2 or 5?

Are the 3 or 6?

Meaning is Mediterranean the same as desert and Italian?

Is winter the same as whitewashed and snowy/dusty winter?

Is ETO the same as Italy? Thereby ruining my thought that Italy was the same as N Africa and E Africa?

What is there is no prefix and it is a winter unit?

Ok here is my notepad. Laugh away them give me a clue. It really shouldn't be so hard to find this stuff out in such a large gaming community, but here ya go.

5/6 dusty winter, snowy?

16/15 winter& whitewash?

10 italian,sealion, grau (warm weather)?

11 ETO?

3/4 7/8 is desert or N.africa 12???

1 is eto and italy in front of 4 or more numbers

6! and 5 is snow

And if you think that is hilarious go look at the CMMods BMP list youself.

Ok, I am just teed off now even having to re-read 5 hours of work that someone could just post in the forums or on a modding website. Having all the BMP numbers is great, but when a mod set for one unit has mixed prefixes then you can understand why newbies get confused. I am looking to become a full time mod fella here. I paint WW2 artwork for a living along with many other things. I would like to think my contributions would be helpful in the area of supplying mods that have yet to appear, such as an Italian marked Stug or shermans with kangaroos on them... I don't know. Someone please give me a heads up here. It's like I bought a really nice model kit that has not decals or instructions.

Help if you can. I am not mad at anybody in particular, just understand I am frustrated at the lack of info. I am aware that this games community is old and most sites are down. Not to mention CMMOds being re-built thank god.

Just look past my anger and give a guy a break.

Oh and I have all the band of brothers charts and the Unit availabilitys chart ect. I need someone to explain the prefixes or send me a document that can do so. Charts in Linux format do me no good.

I do thank you in advance as I know this question has been asked way to many times by others over the years, and waaaay to many times by myself.

[Cabe Booth]

I think I got it finally

If someone could give the same BMP rules for CMBB I would be grateful.

found this post on CMMods forums

"you add 50000 to the bmp number,

when snow is present in parameters the game engine looks for a bmp number above 50000.

the game does not come with any so it defaults to the stock number.

a tank that is 17640 tan in north Africa is 117640 green in Italy is 67640 in snow.

-Junk2drive"

I found later that the same tank with the number 167460 will be an Italy ONLY winter tank, useful for certain camo styles if you want them to be Italian winter default.

I will explain this many ways so that folks can understand. As I said I also discovered another bmp number, the 150000 and up, that I myself didn't know what it it was until now.

a base (default) bmp number is under 50000

leave it at base bmp number for normal-for CMAK that would be N. Africa

add 50000 to make it a winter vehicle or 150000 for Italian winter

add 100,000 to make Italian theater only unit

add 50000 to the Italy theater number and you get a snow unit that shows up for winter in Italy ONLY. Or just add 150000 to the base number that is, any number <50000

I have to say this just to be thorough even though it is obvious:

Obviously changing the BMP number doesn't magically transform a unit into a snow covered unit, it just makes it show up in those theaters/weather. So theoretically u could change the number of a desert tank and make it show up in winter by adding 50000 to all the bmps in the file.

I will make up a generic bmp for example

let's say a unit has a bmp of 6600

leaving it at 6600 will allow it to show up in N. Africa----for other player made mods it will be ETO as well

Adding 50000 to it makes it show up in winter.

So all winter units will be the base unit plus 50000

That unit with 100000 added to make it 106600 will make it show up only in Italian theaters. This may include East Africa. I have yet to confirm. Some would call it it Mediterranean camo mod?

Add 50000 to an Italian/Mediterranean theater mod to make it 156660 and I THINK it makes a winter mod specific to Italian/Mediter/E.africa theaters only.

so my thoughts are

6600 N Africa

56600 winter.... it don't snow in desert fool

106600 Italy and maybe E.Africa

156600 winter Italy

if this is wrong someone plz correct me.

more examples I found

On CMMods website:

An afrika Korps tan desert kublewagon was labeled 3790

A normal ETO winter kublewagon was labled 53790

An Italian kublewagon was labeled 103790

a dirty White washed Italian kublewagon was labeled 153790

a normal wirblewind chassis BMP is 4110

a winter is 54110

50,000 has been added to make a winter mod

a wirblewind for Italian theater is 104110

ALL ACTUAL ITALIAN NATIONAL UNITS ARE NUMBERED NORMALLY LIKE OTHER COUNTRIES... under 50000.bmp

All units can be designated as an italian theater ONLY unit by adding 100000 to it.

150000 and above is a snow Italian theater unit

only. non Italian units use the 100,000 addition to become Italian theater units only,

if no 100,000 unit is found by the program it defaults to...

the base unit. In the case of the wirlblewind it would be the 4110 bmp, never the snow 54110 unless it was winter in Italy......... then yes, you get the winter mod 54110 loaded by default.

so to designate default CMAK units as Italian theater units only, add 100000 to them. To make em winter Italian add 150000. A good way to sort your camo styles.

Just remember that actual Italian army unit are numbered just like all other countries and show up as default in all theaters they are present in historically, unless you made a special "Green" Italy mod and wanted it to be in Italy only then you add the numbers above to keep it from popping up in the desert.

All units are handled the the same. even the actual Italian national units. I cannot say this enough

50000 and under are normal N. Africa and ETO units

+50000 winter

+100000 Italy ONLY

+150000 Winter Italy ONLY

if no Italy or winter Italy mods are present for a unit, then you get the default unit BMPs loaded.

I said it enough ways.....

it isn't too confusing right?

someone explain CMBB to me now.

[Philippe]

If I were a vehicle modder I would answer your question (correctly) off the top of my head. But with the exception of a now-defunct and unpublished CMBO vehicle mod I leave that kind of thing to those most accustomed to dealing with it.

In the old days I just would have looked inside my CMBB mod files and told you what was in there. Unfortunately my old computer died last summer in a freak accident, so that's not an option. But what I find peculiar about this is your insistance on a global formula. I think there is one, I don't remember what it is, and I don't need to, because when (and if) I rebuild my vehicle files I'm going to do it one vehicle at a time, as needed. There are so many vehicles and bmp's involved here it just doesn't make any sense to proceed otherwise.

If nothing else, even the file lists are suspect. CMMOS lists were released hastily as placeholders, and only got updated to something resembling accuracy if the editor remembered that the lists probably weren't accurate when he converted a mod.

So how do you tell what the correct list for a given vehicle is? Generally you download as many different versions of mods for that vehicle and put each in its own separate folder. You do the same for the BTS original (it is, in effect, just another mod). By comparing these to each other and to any CMMOS file lists that might happen to exist you can usually figure out what the list should be for that vehicle, and from that you'll create the contents of the BTS mod folder. There are generally four versions of German vehicles (summer grey, summer gelb, winter grey, winter gelb). There are discreet numbering series for each. If you put together a collection of SPW 250-1's in grey and gelb, summer and winter, it will become very obvious very quickly what is what. You do this by actually reading the middle column of the CMMODS vehicle sort and downloading accordingly. You'll find the occasional mistake, and sometimes vehicle mods are listed in collections rather than separately. But global formulas don't really matter that much because no one needs to remember them on anything other than a case by case basis.

If you're really losing sleep over the nomenclature drop one of the whitewashing specialists a line and they'll explain it to you. I think part of your problem is that you're confusing mod style terminology (e.g. Greece, ETO) with game structure. Game structure is all that matters -- you can repaint it anyway you want.

[Cabe Booth]

Yes getting theater semantics correct has been the sticker here.

But today I did check my theories and saw my buddy's Tiger tank come crawling out (I hate that) in Italy. I identified the camo and went into McMMMM to see what camo styles, sure enough it was a Tiger VIe mid with a bmp of 14660.

So, since we are playing by email I am goign to take the time to unpack a different Tiger MID mikeyD mod and add 100000 to all the bmps and see if it overrides the artwork in game since we are in Italy. Or I will just search all the CMMods for a CMAK tiger mid that already has the 114660.bmp

and see what happens. Then I might try to force a snow mod to show up.

I wish there was a program out there that when playing by email it sent a McMMM mod set file to the other player, that way if we had matching mod files it would load the mods I had selected, and then when he sent back his first email it did the same for him out of my mods.

[Philippe]

Originally posted by Cabe:

I wish there was a program out there that when playing by email it sent a McMMM mod set file to the other player, that way if we had matching mod files it would load the mods I had selected, and then when he sent back his first email it did the same for him out of my mods.

I think it already exists, but it's called IL-2 Sturmovik...

Nothing prevents you making mod recommendations to your PBEM opponents, but because no two people have the same preferences and visual sense, what may look good to you will look awful to someone else. To get a sense of what I mean, do a little research into the aesthetics of bright vs. drab palettes in CMBO, or gridded vs. non-gridded terrain in any of the games.

One solution is to take screenshots while you play the game, and then swap image collections after the game is over. CMBO looks surprisingly good when reduced to sepia-toned pseudo-snapshots (so good that I usually become more interested in finding aesthetically interesting compositions than in actually playing the game).

[Cabe Booth]

Yeah, I did a bunch of IL2 online gaming and playing with mods.

Presently trying to find a website or book that has pics of german armor camo in crete