Philippe Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 I just bought cmak and finally took a look inside. And was surprised at what I found. So I've posted a very simple mod that corrects an historical inaccuracy in the American unit portraits. The portraits that come with the cd consist of a photograph of a head superimposed on an American flag. Unfortunately the flag is the 50 star flag of Vietnam and Iraq, rather than the 48 star flag of WWI, WWII, and Korea. It's very easy to tell the two flags apart at a glance: you don't have to count the stars. The 48 star flag has its stars lined up in rows and columns. The 50 star flag has its stars in a quincunx, or staggered rows. I've kept the original images, but did trim off most of the ugly black-brown blurry halo outline around them. The result is much cleaner looking. What was BTS thinking ? I've also thrown in two bonus images of WWII tankers from what I think are period color photographs. The tank officer that comes with the cd (as opposed to the tank commander) looks a bit like an artillery observer to me, so you might want to renumber the current tank commander to make him an officer, and then use one or both of my two bonus images as replacement tank commanders. There are six bmp's involved, and I list the numbers in the readme file. I can't seem to get my computer to connect to Image Shack or I'd post a sample. If you want to see what I'm talking about I posted a before-and-after shot of one of the unit portrait at cmmods. And yes, this mod can be found in the cmak section of cmmods. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John D Salt Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 Originally posted by Philippe: [snips] So I've posted a very simple mod that corrects an historical inaccuracy in the American unit portraits. Vexillology grog. All the best, John. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 Philippe, Good catch and funny too! John D Salt, Vexillology grog? Now, that's groggy! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David I Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 Philippe, Got'em, love'm, use'm. Thanks, DavidI 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junk2drive Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 Glad you finally have CMAK. Let's see what else you can improve on. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philippe Posted February 14, 2006 Author Share Posted February 14, 2006 For the record, I am not really a vexillography grog, though I have tendencies. But I just happen to be old enough to remember reading about Hawaii and Alaska becoming states in National Geographic when I was a kid. And I remember the old flag (still see it around from time to time). Not much though, because where I went to school we flew the tricolor (a real hell-hole off Kalorama Road that has since been converted into an Algerian consulate -- revenge is sweet) . 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GasMask Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 All that energy wasted on CM when you could have been curring cancer. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philippe Posted February 18, 2006 Author Share Posted February 18, 2006 Here's a before-and-after shot of one of the American unit portraits: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junk2drive Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 Dagnabit, I just played a turn and noticed the flags. It never bothered me before. How about a late war set with green uniforms? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philippe Posted February 19, 2006 Author Share Posted February 19, 2006 I'll put it on the list. Switching existing elements in an image isn't too time-consuming: fixing the flags, for example, took about a day. Putting together new images, on the other hand, is much harder. It can take weeks of surfing to find what you're looking for, and you may never find it. Better to buy a few books and use a scanner, which is what I intend to do since my favorite German uniform site seems to have winked out (and it never had Italian uniforms anyway). As a compromise, I could take the existing late war heads, try to make their uniforms greener (increase the contrast and layer on some green), and remount them. And I'll admit that when I noticed that one of the two happy tankers was wearing green coveralls I had thoughts... I'm not sure when I'll be able to get around to it, but should the straps on the uniforms be contrasting khaki or olive drab? My real unit portrait project, for both CMBB and CMAK is to put faces on the Italian unit portraits. I may have intermittent access to a scanner when the weather gets warmer, and I've ordered a couple of Osprey books. The sad part is that I know that there are some really nice color illustrations of Italian soldiers that I've seen in miniature across the top of a military website. Italians do really nice work when it comes to high-end illustrations in publications, and some of those illustrations would make fantastic unit portraits. I suppose I could wander into Rizzoli's and see if what they have under Militaria, but those books would be prohibitively expensive, if they even get out of Italy. What we need is someone who lives in Milan or Turin with a good eye and access to a scanner... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junk2drive Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 Check out Hemicuda's US Portraits. Correct flag with shoulder photos of reinactors. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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