OT -- Question for a fanciful mod

[patboivin]

I tried doing a silly mod of some infantry, but found that the game engine stretches and re-shapes everything to give people a human profile.

I guess there is no way of overcoming that.

For example I wanted to model some Cylons, but their helmets aren't shaped like caps or the usual WW-II helmets.

Also their face is not human, they look kind of funny when the bitmap is forced in the shape of a human face.

I replaced two rifles with new bitmaps, but one of them shows up in the game with the pink background -- do I have to do something special with the outline of the gun to make it show up properly? I compared the two I made, and couldn't find anything that I did differently.

Is there a bitmap for the actual shells and bullets we see flying across the screen?

I wish there was a way we could set our own paremeters for the various units, that would open the game up quite a bit -- e.g. what would stop us then from re-modeling some terrain as sand, or other desert features, create desert mods for the units and go to it. Better yet, some of us could start creating modern mods for CM, with all that entails.

I guess though that if there was too much flexibility, the game would no longer have standards. At least now when we face say a Stuart, we know it's a Stuart and what its capabilities are.

[Guest Madmatt]

All textures are mapped over an underlying 3D model. There is no wayto mod the shape itself and we have no intention on making that doable.

Tracers, bullets, shells and a variety of other shapes are hard coded and can not be moded. There was a recent post on the main forum that I belive listed all the un-modable graphic elements in the game.

Madmatt

[patboivin]

Thanks MadMatt.

[Olle Petersson]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by patboivin:

1) I tried doing a silly mod of some infantry,

2) I replaced two rifles with new bitmaps, but one of them shows up in the game with the pink background -- do I have to do something special with the outline of the gun to make it show up properly?

3) what would stop us then from re-modeling some terrain as sand, or other desert features, create desert mods for the units and go to it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>1) I suppose you've seen my stormtrooper mod?

My very first mods were to make one clown face and one face with striped camo, just to see what happened.

2) The "invisible" pink has the RGB properties 255 red, 0 green and 255 blue. Any other shade will be visible.

3) You can change the visual properties for for example grass or grain into sand, if you wish. But I think changing the gaming properties would twist the game too far. (I've got such an unit editor for Panzer General II, and making some of my troop types nearly invincible makes the game dull.)

Cheers

Olle

[MikeT]

MadMatt, I do wish BTS would reconsider making the modeling feature open to gamers. The Interplay game StarFleet Command does make modeling available for gamers and that has open up the game to so many new ships that it is staggering.

I believe that this would open up the game and greatly enhance the number of types of units, both inf and vehicle. Now this would possibly create problems in email gaming since a gamer might create a vehicle that cannot be destroyed. This might be solveable by a bit of code that prevents such gamer models from being used in any other than single player games.

Imagine having avaiable a MAUS for games or a gamer creating early war AFVs. BTS would still have to write code for new features such as special terrain or command/control ability. But the vehicles could easily be done by us gamers.

MikeT

[patboivin]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MikeT:

MadMatt, I do wish BTS would reconsider making the modeling feature open to gamers. The Interplay game StarFleet Command does make modeling available for gamers and that has open up the game to so many new ships that it is staggering.

I believe that this would open up the game and greatly enhance the number of types of units, both inf and vehicle. Now this would possibly create problems in email gaming since a gamer might create a vehicle that cannot be destroyed. This might be solveable by a bit of code that prevents such gamer models from being used in any other than single player games.

Imagine having avaiable a MAUS for games or a gamer creating early war AFVs. BTS would still have to write code for new features such as special terrain or command/control ability. But the vehicles could easily be done by us gamers.

MikeT<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have been fooling around with Cylons, but I'm not sure it's such a great idea.

If I could model my own vehicles... the Maus would be modeled really quickly I suspect (great bunker for intersections), the Tiger E.100, new Allied tanks, and other prototypes.

The game would be out of control!

How could I resist trying to model an Ogre, as in the G.E.V. pocket games, hovertanks, you name it.

One of the great facets of this game is that it is historically accurate (as far as I can tell). I can complain about minor things all I like, but I know that the rules and the unit specs won't change.

What if players start playing with the specs? It would never end, and eventually people would get turned off I think.

It wasn't a computer game, but Star Fleet Battles suffered from this -- at first the races had very distinct technologies, but lo and behold within five years every race had access to other races' technologies, and eventually all the fleets resembled each other. Task Force Games kept publishing SSD manuals, but eventually it got a little boring. Everything was the same! Yawn...

I am waiting for CM2, I want to play Kursk (I like tank battles). I imagine Wild Bill will have fun designing that one. An operation perhaps? Start with some tanks; ok. Now you get more tanks. Good. Ok, more tanks. Oh, you can't maneuver anymore, too many wrecks on the field? Doesn't that make the game more interesting???

As for Sci-Fi, and opening modeling, maybe that could be released as a separate product eventually. I strongly suspect though that since CM is so popular, copy cats will appear within two or three years and one of them is bound to open the modeling engine to players.

Here I go making predictions again... bad habit.

If people disagree please post, the more discussion the merrier.

Oh I forgot to mention: I left the Cylon BMP's in my game, and forgot about them. I was playing Villers-Bocage operation, and I noticed that some of the tank commanders had Cylon faces! I'll have to change that back -- Cylons in Tiger E tanks; they would never use such inferior technology, ha! What a joke. Better to polish up the armour to be shiny and walk in straight lines, in plain view... How stupid can machines be.

[This message has been edited by patboivin (edited 11-28-2000).]

[Olle Petersson]

After reading this post more thoroughly:

What's a Cylon?

The first time I read this thread I just thought it was a misspelling of Cyclops, one-eyed men, but it seems not.

Cheers

Olle

[patboivin]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

After reading this post more thoroughly:

What's a Cylon?

The first time I read this thread I just thought it was a misspelling of Cyclops, one-eyed men, but it seems not.

Cheers

Olle<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A Cylon is a bronze-plated tin can of a soldier (a robot) that shoots without aiming and gets picked off easily during Battlestar Galactica reruns on TV.

http://webhome.idirect.com/~tk421/cylon.htm

This URL is better, but it's one BIG JPEG file: http://www.gate.net/~starbuck/cyloncomp1.jpg

[This message has been edited by patboivin (edited 11-30-2000).]

[Olle Petersson]

Seems like Cylons have a lot in common with Imperial stormtroopers.

I've never seen Battlestar Galactica, so no surprise I didn't know it...

I think the long "skirt" is the hardest part to make look good in CM. The arms will also be difficult to get right. I managed to do a passable stormtrooper though, so this one shouldn't be that much more difficult.

Cheers

Olle

[Guest Mikey D]

One thing I really really miss is civilians! I hope when the Eastern Front version of MacMod comes about in a couple years that the AI has the capability for some AI-controlled cowering/running/surrendering civilians on the board. Hey, maybe in two years our 1,000mHz machines will be able to handle the necessary added procesing.