New ETO Terrain mod

[Vossiewulf]

This is something I've been working on for a while, which is now in the process of being uploaded to cmmods. It's not meant to look like any specific area, it's just my take on a generic ETOish terrain.

And I know there are fabulous mods of all of these things already, I just enjoy doing my own versions.

What I'm uploading now is the summer terrain, gridded and non-gridded. I've done the fall stuff also, just need to get it organized and uploaded.

Below are a buttload of screenshots. Obviously from the gridded version of the terrain.

I'm also uploading the combination big photoshop .PSD file and some actions that allowed me to largely automate the process of generating new base terrain (grass, sand, arid rocks, etc.) tiles. Below is from the instructions (included in a text file in the zip) which explains what it is and how it works (hopefully).

Merry Christmas and happy holidays everybody!

CMAK Terrain Generator:

As you can see, there are two parts to this: the .PSD file and an action set.

The PSD file is 512 x 10240 (512x20) pixels, and therefore can contain a complete set of terrain tiles for any ground type.

First extract the .PSD file to wherever you want on your machine, it doesn't matter as long as you can find it and open it in Photoshop.

Then extract the CMAK Terrain Generator.atn file to your Photoshop\Presets\Photoshop Actions folder, restart Photoshop, open the CMAK Terrain Generator.psd file, and look at the Actions palette. There should be two new actions:

Tile Terrain - this action allows you to tile a single 512x512 tile into all the slots in the terrain generator .PSD file. To use it:

1. Place your terrain tile in the far leftmost slot in the PSD file in its own layer.

2. Open the Actions palette and play the Tile Terrain action.

Pretty tricky eh? It will copy your tile all the way across to all of the slots.

Next you have to set the right endpoint. There are two layers in the .PSD file which do this, one a hue/saturation/lightness adjustment layer, and a brightness/contrast adjustment layer. Both use layer masks such that they have no affect on the leftmost tile, and full affect on the rightmost tile, increasing its affect 5% for each tile across.

Double click on either or both of those layers, and it will bring up either the hue/saturation/lightness or brightness/contrast dialog. Fiddle the sliders until you're happy, and hit ok.

When you're satisfied with the way the rightmost tile looks, you're ready to use the terrain save action. This action selects each tile of the PSD file in turn, does a copy merged, opens the appropriate CMAK .bmp file, pastes the new tile in, and then flattens and saves the .bmp. It repeats this process for all 20 tiles, and all 20 .bmp file of a given terrain range.

Unfortunately, the way Actions open files, the paths and file names are explicit. So if your installation of CMAK is not E:\program files\Battlefront\CMAK, as it is on my machine, the terrain save action will not work out of the box. To make it work:

1. Go to the Action palette and expand the Terrain Save 1550-1569 action.

2. Double click on each of the Open steps in the action, and browse to the correct file fir each Open step (wherever they are on your machine), select the correct file, and hit OK.

It's a pain in the butt, but once it's done you will like the results. Once the paths are corrected, you just hit the Terrain Save action, and it will automatically copy a complete set of terrain tiles to CMAK. Photoshop will automatically save the changes to the action, so you should only have to do this once.

Since the Open step of the action controls what set of .bmp files you're saving to, you can use this .PSD file for any of the CMAK terrain- grass, arid rocks, sand, etc. Just make a copy of the Terrain Save 1550-1569 action, and edit the Open steps to open the files for whichever terrain you want to change.

[Stardog765]

That looks awesome!!!

Cant wait to try it!

[Vossiewulf]

Well I'm trying to get the non-grid and terrain generator zips uploaded, cmmods is fighting me atm.

And thanks Stardog!

[Vossiewulf]

I think I killed cmmods, have got nothing but connection refused for the couple hours. Guess I will try and upload the non-grid terrain and terrain generator tomorrow.

[Larry Thorne]

Awesome work Vossie!

[David I]

Vossie,

You killed CMMODs! You bastard!

DavidI

[Gen Von Television]

hehehe, so NOW we know WHO is the culprit for breaking CMMODS-DB!!!

[ December 23, 2005, 07:32 AM: Message edited by: Gen Von Television ]

[Gen Von Television]

...but hey, HE IS GENIUS!

Thanks: I will try your method... as soon as I'll be able to get access to CMMODS...!

[painfbat]

Vossiewulf Occupation: Consultant

If your mods killed CMMODS, what happens to your clients after your consultancie????

[Vossiewulf]

Originally posted by painfbat:

Vossiewulf Occupation: Consultant

If your mods killed CMMODS, what happens to your clients after your consultancie????

They are charged double if they die, for causing pain, annoyance, and extra paperwork.

[painfbat]

Besides your modding I enjoy your humor too. It took me 5 minutes to get in my chair again.

Cheers

[Vossiewulf]

Originally posted by painfbat:

Besides your modding I enjoy your humor too. It took me 5 minutes to get in my chair again.

Cheers

The non-gridded terrain and the terrain generator thingy have been uploaded to cmmods.

[Aragorn2002]

The screenshots are looking great, but I can't determine whether this mod will make CMETO look like Normandy even more. Does it? And if so, what are the improvements? I ask this because I'm curious and would like to install it, but first would like the opinion of those who already did.

[Lawyer]

Beautiful work. What does it include? Trees? Buildings? What?

Thanks, because CMETO is more important than ever now that the next game is Iraq.

Jake

[Vossiewulf]

It includes about everything except buildings.

I just got a new LCD monitor for christmas, and boy do things looks different. Much brighter, but the thing that really bugs me is lots of very hot pixels in the trees...are other folks seeing that also, or do I need to keep fiddling with this monitor's calibration?

[Vossiewulf]

Anyone who's downloaded this able to let me know how it looks? With the new monitor I had to kick the gamma in game down to Low to get things to look roughly as they had on my old monitor. Trying to figure out if I need to do a patch of this terrain, darkening things down.

[Erik Springelkamp]

I downloaded the mod and watched some scenario's in it.

It is technically a fine and beautifull mod, but the landscape is a bit monochromous and kind of depressing (even the buildings are ill maintained).

If for instance the grain was a bit more yellow, the whole thing would lighten up a bit. Or the dirt roads from yellow sand. Or a flower here or there.

I don't know where you envision this, but probably France when it is summer, and my image of France is that there is more brightness in the landscape.

Still a very fine mod, but just my personal emotional impression.

[Vossiewulf]

I appreciate the feedback Erik, even if I don't get it. I didn't do any of the buildings for example, so I don't know whose buildings you're looking at.

All of the terrain has considerably more detail and color than the default terrain...I don't see how I could add more without it becoming gratuitous.

If that's the consensus, ok. Less work for me, no need to upload the fall or winter versions of this terrain.

[Zwollo2003]

Originally posted by Vossiewulf:

If that's the consensus, ok. Less work for me, no need to upload the fall or winter versions of this terrain.

Vossie,

please do continue. I for one find your mod a big improvement and would greatly appreciate fall and winter versions.

Zwolo

[David I]

Vossiewulf,

Hold on there buddy! You've got fall and winter versions in the works? Let's have them.

DavidI

[Erik Springelkamp]

I overloaded your mods into CMETO, so the buildings are probably from that mod.

Maybe they picture Southern Belgium and the Ardennes, that might explain the shabby look of it.

But I viewed an Italian scenario in this combined mod, and it went from rather colourfull in the standard CMAK to a very finely executed but more generally green impression. Especially the wheatfields were much browner.

I guess for the Ardennes this is OK.

Furthermore this is a question of personal taste, and I don't want you to stop modding, because the work is very good (and I have seen very colourfull work from you in the past).

[Erik Springelkamp]

Vossie,

Compare standard CMAK:

With the combination CMETO with your mod:

Then there is just a bit more colour differentiation in the standard, although your trees and brush is apparently superior.

That's why I suggest adding a highlight here or there (maybe in the roads or so), and the general impression from a distance might become 'fresher'. The details are already superior.

[Erik Springelkamp]

I have been babbling around the point I think: it is the sun I am missing. In the upper one I can imagine the sun shining (with a bit of fantasy), in the lower one I get the impression of overcast.

(or is that the effect of the background picture).

[Vossiewulf]

Thanks Erik, that is helpful.

However, one of the problems we're seeing here is the difference in how raw screenshots come out of the game vs. how they actually appear in game with the gamma overlay used by the game, which does not get applied to screenshots.

When I paste raw screenshots into Photoshop, they come out much darker and more blue than they appear for me in game...I always apply some standard brightness/contrast, a slight boost in red, and a teeny gaussian blur to imitate the FSAA of newer video cards, to get them to match what I'm seeing in game.

Below are some screenshots showing raw screenshots and after my fiddling to match my in game view- I alt-tabbed back and forth with these, and the "after adjustment" versions are very close to what I see in game, with gamma set at Low.

The in-game view is, of course, what I'm working from. I'm not concerned with what the .bmps themselves look like, I only focus on what the end result in game looks like.

So...please compare the adjusted views to what you are seeing in game. My nightmare would be that other folks are seeing something different from me. That's not just Erik- David, Zwollo, please take a look at these also and let me know how they compare to what you're seeing in CM.

[Erik Springelkamp at work]

There is a definite difference especially in the shot with the grain.

But for my taste the mod would gain if the grain would go into the bright yellow at least as much again. Late summer grain is often called golden and can be striking in it's effect on the eye. In your mod you hold back on that effect.

Another suggestion I have is for instance using stones for the little roads to introduce some brightness. The use of natural stones (6" size or so) was very common in France and Belgium, and they can be shiny blue, or bright grey to almost white, and it could give the landscape just a touch out of the green brown.

Even the macadamized grey road in the original CMAK mod helps to liven things up (in the colour department) compared to your beautifull, but greenish, dirt road, which would by the way be perfect in the deep forest of the Ardennes.