Halibutt and his toys

[captainjack]

Thanks Rezaf.

[Halibutt]

Also, I'm amazed at how little some things are modded. Plenty of 'what-if' ultra-rare units but I had to make my own Panzer 35(t)! I really hope you can add some nice Polish units, the 'minor' nations are still underrepresented at the moment.

On the other hand one has to be amazed by the number of mods available for Panzer Corps. It seems there is far more user-generated content for it than for many games with a fan base larger several times.

Most mods are pretty conventional though and by conventional I mean "Germans all the way".

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Wait, how many are there? I've never bothered counting, but my GME folder has about 6 in it, as well as a heap in development.

- BNC

[Halibutt]

Mine has 20-ish mods (counting from memory, I'm away from my desktop), and I didn't even try some of the older ones.
Cheers

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Mine has 20-ish mods (counting from memory, I'm away from my desktop), and I didn't even try some of the older ones.
Cheers

Wow!

- BNC

[Halibutt]

I'm constantly side-tracked by various mods of other people, but the project is slowly moving forward.

Anyway, I recently realized that there's plenty of great user-made units from Civilization III and their conversion to Panzer Corps format is really easy. They're not perfect, but not all of us are as skilled in 3D modelling as Bebro Here's how.

How to convert CivIII units to Panzer Corps

Software needed:

• GIMP (or paint.net, or any other 2D gfx software)

Time needed:

• Some 30 minutes at first, then even less

1. Find a CivIII unit you like. Civfanatics forum is a good place to start looking and units by Wyrmshadow have been an excellent source of units for all my mods ever since Hearts of Iron I.
2. Let's say we want to convert the Tatra OA vz. 30 Czechoslovak armoured car (more info on it here). The Civ III icon is by Wyrmshadow.
3. Download the unit and unpack it somewhere. Almost all downloadable CivIII units come either as a .rar or .zip archive. Inside you will find a couple of .flc animation files, a couple of .wav sounds and two or three .pcx images (they serve the same purpose as our BigIcons).
4. Open the .flc animations (any basic video player would do, even Media Player Classic). You'll instantly note that each file is a short animation (roughly 30 frames), repeated for 8 different angles. There's usually one file for attack animation (in our case it's Attack.flc, showing the AC firing its' guns), one for movement (Run.flc), one for neutral ("just standing there"; default.flc or fidget.flc) and a couple more.
5. Since our Panzer Corps units are not really animated and only "move" in two directions, all we need from the CivIII guys are actually two frames: one for our unit facing east and one for facing west. Usually the frames we're looking for are easiest to extract from the default animation (default.flc): there's no guns firing, no smoke from the smokestack, no additional bells and whistles, only plain icon. Open the file with GIMP. GIMP will ask you how many frames to import, just hit enter and import all of them.
6. All frames get imported as separate layers. Since we chose the easiest animation, we only have to chose from 8 frames. What's more, our unit is symmetrical, so no need to work on both sides separately, one would do. Copy frame No. 8 (AC facing east) into a new image (Ctrl+A, Ctrl+N, Ctrl+V) and close the flv animation, we won't need it any more.
7. Make sure the background of our new file is transparent, right click the layer in the layers window and select "add alpha channel" if it isn't yet.
8. Now the fun part. Select colour selection tool (Ctrl+O) and set tolerance to 1. Click on the pink background and delete it (hit Del).
9. Now select all remaining pinkish pixels with the same tool and float them to a new layer. You can call it "shadow", as those pixels will be our shadows. Hide and unhide the shadow layer to make sure all pinkish pixels are gone from the main image
10. Let's finish the shadows now. Select the shadows layer and pull the brightness & contrast (Colors menu) all the way towards black (full contrast, zero brightness). Looks choppy a tad? No problem, just use Gaussian blur (Filters > Blur > Gaussian blur) and set it to 1. Great, that's more like it. Now set the visibility of the layer to some 40 or 45% and that's it.
11. Now we're left with the ugly blue part. Why is it there? Civ III automagically converts certain colours the greenbox way. The pink is made transparent, while the blue marks the parts that are automatically coloured to follow the main colour of your civilisation. We don't need that in Panzer Corps, so we need to re-colorise the blue part to some acceptable hue. It's easy: just pick the colour selection tool again (Ctrl+O) and select all the blue (and blueish) pixels. Now use the Colors > Colorize or Colors > Hue and saturation menu and adjust the colour to resemble what you want the unit to look. It's not a perfect solution, but it allows you to pick a neutral olive instead of the idiotic blue - and preserve the finer details. It's done by trial and error, but the process is relatively easy and takes very little time
12. Once that is done, just merge visible layers (Ctrl+M) and you're ready to paste your newly-converted unit into the right spots to be used in Panzer Corps.

Result?

We just converted this beast...

Attack.gif (230.48 KiB) Viewed 7500 times

...into plain usable unit:

tatra.png (3.13 KiB) Viewed 7500 times

Now take a look at Zombiehunter's tutorial and you'll have a working unit in no time.

Tatra OA vz. 30 armoured car

Tatra OA vz 30.png (10.87 KiB) Viewed 7500 times

[Halibutt]

And another source of great models - the Civilization 5. The game uses 3D models in .gr2 + .dds + .xml, but .blend files are also provided by unit creators. Here's a sweetie then, the Polish heavy tank prototype commonly dubbed the 25TP. Historically, it never left the drawing boards, in part because Poland did not have an engine powerful enough to power it and the German Maybach was not really willing to sell a license. The PZInż company built a wooden mockup and the type was to initially enter service by 1940, but in the end the project was scrapped as too ambitious.

The 3D model by danrell is loosely based on all three proposed variants. The most probable would be armed with both 75mm and 40mm in the main turret, plus two MGs in the smaller turrets.

render

25TP - render.png (146.53 KiB) Viewed 7472 times

25TP heavy tank

25TP halibutt.png (30.04 KiB) Viewed 7472 times

[Halibutt]

And another tank from the same set, the 10TP. This one is much more historical as a prototype was built in 1937 and underwent extensive test. Technically it was a crossover between the 7TP (turret and gun), with Christie's suspension and road traction (kind of similar to the Soviet BT class of cavalry tanks). It was fast (even the underpowered 240HP engine used in the prototype gave it 75 km/h on paved surface), well armed. However, Christie's suspension was problematic and prone to malfunction, which is why historically the project was abandoned and instead the Poles focused on the 14TP - more akin to British cruiser tanks.

10TP tank

10TP halibutt.png (26.17 KiB) Viewed 7466 times

[Akkula]

Very very nice icons halibutt!. Are you going to include them in your campaign right?

[Halibutt]

Glad you like them That's the idea, though the Polish campaign might take a really long time to finish - unless I find people to help me with it when the time comes. I always wondered where do people get all the free time to finish extensive, well-tested and well-researched campaigns.

Anyway, I'm still not sure what would be the best way to go. On one hand I'm tempted by a 100% historical campaign where you follow Colonel Maczek and his armoured brigade, from Silesia all the way to the Hungarian border. On the other a hypothetical scenario where the Polish player can halt the German attack at the Vistula river line and hold out until winter is also tempting.

[guille1434]

Indeed, very good icons, Halibutt! Thanks for sharing!

[Halibutt]

And another icon from the same source (and one of my favourites). I guess any Polish boy would recognize this unit. Polish Navy before WWII was so small that most of us here know all of its' vessels by heart - especially that books on their WWII service are part of the canon of books every boy should read when he's 10 or 13. This one here is ORP Grom, the lead ship of the class that also included ORP Błyskawica, now a museum ship.

ORP Grom was noted as one of the destroyers the German land forces fighting in Norway hated the most. In the spirit of "walk an extra mile", the Polish crew spent hours lurking the coast and hunting even a single German, just for the sake of it. She was lost on May 4, 1940 by a lucky hit from a German Heinkel 111 - the bomb hit an armed torpedo launcher and the ship broke in two and sank in under three minutes, with 59 of her 192-strong crew.

Interestingly, although both Grom and her sister ship Blyskawica were evacuated in 1939 to the United Kingdom to prevent her capture or sinking, the Grom class played also its' part in the 1939 war. The class was to be extended by two more ships, this time built in Gdynia: ORP Orkan and ORP Huragan. The keel of ORP Huragan was laid on August 15, 1939, just two weeks prior to the outbreak of World War II. When the war started, the armour plates of Huragan were used to build an improvised armoured train "Smok Kaszubski" ("Kashubian Dragon"), probably the most "naval" land vehicle ever. It was built from armoured plates of the destroyer, armed with 40mm Bofors AA gun from ORP Mazur torpedo boat, 47mm gun from the ORP Bałtyk protected cruiser, and the crew were armed with rifles and heavy machine guns from the ORP Wicher destroyer. Plus most of the crew were sailors from the Naval Base.

ORP Grom

ORP Grom.png (14.6 KiB) Viewed 7455 times

[Halibutt]

And another unit - one I really like, perhaps because it took more than just mechanical work to complete it. It's Polski Fiat 508 "Łazik" ("tramp"), a Polish staff car. Loosely based on Italian Fiat 508 Balilla (license-built in Poland in the 1930s), the Łazik was an excellent all-terrain vehicle. Durable, light, with excellent all-terrain capabilities and cheap, it was a perfect army car. Over 1500 were built.

The icon is based on this SketchUp model of Fiat 500 Topolino. Modified and skinned in C4D, it was further skinned in Camo Sprayshop (I'll post the mask in Camo Sprayshop's thread for all to use).
Cheers

Fiat 508

Fiat 508 halibutt.png (12.9 KiB) Viewed 7446 times

Fiat_508_v2_halibutt_1936 camo.png (13.44 KiB) Viewed 7446 times

Fiat_508_v2_halibutt_plain green.png (12.95 KiB) Viewed 7446 times

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Glad you like them That's the idea, though the Polish campaign might take a really long time to finish - unless I find people to help me with it when the time comes. I always wondered where do people get all the free time to finish extensive, well-tested and well-researched campaigns.

My 3 released campaigns took 3+ months each, so it's no surprise!

- BNC

[rezaf]

And another source of great models - the Civilization 5

I did some conversions of italian Civ5 units long ago - the main problem with them is their often VERY low polygon count and the pretty lousy textures. Depending on the unit in question, the end result can range from barely acceptable to half-way solid - at least in my experience.
Did you already convert everything worth doing from BF42?
_____
rezaf

[Halibutt]

And another source of great models - the Civilization 5

I did some conversions of italian Civ5 units long ago - the main problem with them is their often VERY low polygon count and the pretty lousy textures. Depending on the unit in question, the end result can range from barely acceptable to half-way solid - at least in my experience.
Did you already convert everything worth doing from BF42?
_____
rezaf

Yeah, they are nowhere near as detailed and the textures are crappy, that's for sure. But when at times it's the only way to go as I can't seem to find any better models. I'm focused on models from SketchUp warehouse now. Still 4 more days in my 3ds max (which can import Bf42 files), so I'll have to re-visit the FH models and check if everything is there. After that date I'll be left with Blender and cinema 4D (for another 21 days ).

Speaking of SketchUp Warehouse, here's a sweet little recce aeroplane for Poland: the PWS-10. The plane has a great history. PWS stands for Podlaska Wytwórnia Samolotów - Podlachian Aircraft Factory. The factory was founded by Stanisław Różyczka, baron de Rosenwerth literally in the middle of nowhere: near the town of Biała Podlaska. To this day the area is scarcely populated and there's not much industry there. Yet, Różyczka de Rosenwerth obtained a license to build Potez XXV fighters and started serial production for the Polish Army. And, to the surprise of everyone, followed that up with production of home-designed planes, the first of which was the PWS-10. A classic parasol high-wing monoplane, the fighter was a decent interim design before the PZL P.11a could enter service - and was much, much better than the SPAD 61s French-built death-trap until then used by the Polish Air Force. Seriously, the SPAD 61 had an unfortunate habit of literally disintegrating mid-air. Between 1926 and 1931 the SPAD killed 26 Polish pilots - quite a feat considering there were only 280 planes in Polish service and the country was not at war. Anyway, by 1939 the PWS-10 were obsolete and were relegated to reconnaissance and pilot training. BTW, after WWII the commies sentenced the baron to 15 years in prison for... basically for being a baron. He was released in 1954 after Stalin died, but he died soon afterwards.

PWS-10

PWS-10 halibutt.png (20.71 KiB) Viewed 7413 times

PWS-10 render

PWS-10-regiment-Toru_-1932.png (36.37 KiB) Viewed 7413 times

[rezaf]

Hailbutt, I'm curious, how do you go about giving the SketchUp models a more ... "grainy"? look?
I tried using Sketchup models in the past as well, but when directly using the view from the editor, everything looked terribly uniform and when using a 3D renderer, everything looked weird and grainy until a LOT of rendering cycles were complete.
I never managed to replicate the look you get when you preview SketchUp models on their site - the view you can rotate around the model. That one doesn't look half bad, but like I wrote, I never managed to replicate it.

Aww, only 4 days on your 3DSM left? I had hoped you own a license. I guess it's too much to ask to set up your computer from scratch?
Not a serious request, seriously, but I was reminded of a company where I used to work - it wasn't 3DSM, but we used the same tactic for a year or something back then. I always thought we might as well hunt down a crack or something, as I believe "extending" the trial period in this regard can't be intentional either. Heh, those where the days.

Guess we won't be seeing many of the FHSW units after all - there are a number I'd have liked to see in PzC. Maybe I'll be forced to install trials and try my hand on assembling those models myself after all. We'll see.

Thanks for all your hard work and the nice units, though.
_____
rezaf

[Halibutt]

Hailbutt, I'm curious, how do you go about giving the SketchUp models a more ... "grainy"? look?
I tried using Sketchup models in the past as well, but when directly using the view from the editor, everything looked terribly uniform and when using a 3D renderer, everything looked weird and grainy until a LOT of rendering cycles were complete.
I never managed to replicate the look you get when you preview SketchUp models on their site - the view you can rotate around the model. That one doesn't look half bad, but like I wrote, I never managed to replicate it.

I'm a complete newbie when it comes to 3D modelling. I completed one 7TP tank back in the days of HoI 1 and that's about as much as I can do myself. Plus I'm not even sure how I do the things I do, really. It's mostly trials, errors, plenty of tutorial reading and some luck.

With that caveat in mind, what do you mean by "grainy look"? If you refer to the large-scale render above, I merely exported it from SketchUp as .png and that's about it. So if you mean that one, I gather it's a trait of the 3D model itself, not some later correction (of which there was none). In this case, the model uses no textures whatsoever, only materials. Which is why it looks a tad "sketchy" when exported to .png, a bit like cardboard model. Also, another way of working with SketchUp models I used in the past was re-texturing them in Cinema 4D. SketchUp exports nicely to .obj or .fbx (I prefer the latter), but often drops textures in the process. Then you just repaint the model with C4D materials rather than original textures the model came with, which works slightly better when rescaling the final render down to 70 pixels or so. If however you mean the resulting Panzer Corps icon, I guess it's a matter of scaling the 2D render down to size, which eliminates plenty of excess details.

Aww, only 4 days on your 3DSM left? I had hoped you own a license. I guess it's too much to ask to set up your computer from scratch?
Not a serious request, seriously, but I was reminded of a company where I used to work - it wasn't 3DSM, but we used the same tactic for a year or something back then. I always thought we might as well hunt down a crack or something, as I believe "extending" the trial period in this regard can't be intentional either. Heh, those where the days.

Those were the days indeed... back in the 1980s and early 1990s we still had the good ol' copyrights law of the 1930s (even the commies didn't change it). In practice it meant that in every town there were CD shops where you could provide them with your own VHS casette and they would fill it with the latest release of whatever band you wished for a small charge. And it was all perfectly legal

Guess we won't be seeing many of the FHSW units after all - there are a number I'd have liked to see in PzC. Maybe I'll be forced to install trials and try my hand on assembling those models myself after all. We'll see.

Let me know what you need and I'll see what I can do. Plus I can export the models to .fbx now and work on them in C4D later. BTW, here's an entire list of what's available in both FH and FHSW mods.
Cheers

[Halibutt]

With lots of help by Bebro I finally managed to render the C7P artillery tractor. Let me know what you think. Are the shadows ok?
Cheers

The attachment C7P-halibutt-plain.png is no longer available

Ok, I revisited the C7P tractor and did the original FH version, with their skins. It's not really historical (the camo looks odd, Polish colours were lighter), but it looks much less sketchy than the self-skinned version I did earlier.
Cheers

C7P artillery tractor - new version

C7P-halibutt-icon.png (28.22 KiB) Viewed 7344 times

[Halibutt]

And my second unit for Czechoslovakia - the Skoda T21 tank. Doesn't ring a bell? You probably know its' close cousin, the "Hungarian" 40M Turan. The Czechoslovak Skoda company developed this beauty in late 1930s as a successor to the LT vz. 35 (better known as the Panzer 35(t)). As a light tank turned into a medium tank it was fast, it was relatively well-armed and definitely among the best designs of the epoch preceding the World War II.

After the fall of Czechoslovakia the Hungarians bought the prototypes, upgraded the armour and started serial production. But what if..?

BigUnit

Skoda T21 BigIcon L.png (156.99 KiB) Viewed 7269 times

Czechoslovak camo

Skoda_T21_halibutt_czechoslovak camo.png (20.54 KiB) Viewed 7269 times

plain green

Skoda_T21_halibutt_plain green.png (16.07 KiB) Viewed 7269 times

BTW, I posted a plain grey (Wehrmacht-ish) version along with a mask in the Camo Sprayshop thread.
Cheers