Cold East Ground Objects Bonanza.

[yakarov79]

For the last 3 months, I was out of town working quite far from home so was not able to work on my main projects. But i had my crappy laptop with me...and evenings were quite productive. As you may know (or may not) i was working on a few ground objects.. and even the first batch (S-125 SAM) system was uploaded. I am currently working on new S-75  and S-200 SAMs . And of course many others.  (generally trying to cover all east cold war SAMs).

Also, some other big projects came up..and I am in the middle of something. So those ground objects will find a way to be on the virtual frontline one day. 

But back to the topic.  I have made a few (and few more to come) replacements for stock TW objects from the red side. 

The list is not long so far.

Idea was....and still is in my mind to create objects and edit targets.ini and types.ini so airfields for example in  East Germany or Czechoslovakia will have specific national background objects etc.  But I am generally lazy to do ini work (which is bloody important - but I am prioritizing models for now. 

Also, I think we disused this already ( but i can not find that thread)  I am interested in making 'era'  ground objects appearance.  So for example old Zil-157 wil not appear as fuel truck let say in 1995 anymore.  And in 1954 it place will be taken by some older soviet truck etc, etc. 

Someone said it is possible to edit this...but i do not remember how..or I am doing something wrong. Anyway, my priority is models..hope someone will solve this ini issue for me.

 

So far i've made the following objects:

ATZ-4-131 and ATZ-157 - or simply Soviet Fuel truck. Also, have pre-1958  ATZ-3-151 - but ZIS-151 is not painted yet....so. not for showing yet.

Standard trucks for different era and situations (also some more specific eyecandish for few countries )

GAZ-66, Zil-157, Ural 375D, IFA W50L, (Praga and Star - wips)

Some command truck replacements...these are actually radios but It gives nice touch now. 

R-140M on Zil-131 and Zil-157 and few other models that are in wip stage still (R-160 on Zil-131,  R-142 on GAZ-66)

 

And there are also other ground objects, mean fighting machines. 

BTR-60PB (plus maybe 2-3 variants in future)

 

BRDM-2 and few variants based on that chassis.

9P122 Malyutka-M

and 9P133 Malyutka-P 

and new 9M14 Malyutka to add to the weapon folder

 

and Strela-1 9K31

with new  9M31 Strela-1

venerable ZU-23-2

also mounted on some trucks and APCs

BMP-1

BMP-2

BTR-50PK

and its Czechoslovakian copy OT-62 TOPAS with few variants and some middle eastern mods for use with specific terrains.

and Czechoslovakian- Polish OT-64 SKOT

 

also, new PT-76 found its way here...

 

More to come. I have more than 20 wips in this project.  some East Germany and Czechoslovakian builds too. More soviet tanks (54,55,62,72,) APCs, some heavy haulers and FROGs.

Of course, this still needs a lot of work. lIke double-checking data, adjusting hitboxes, userlist, and generally ini-ini mambo jumbo. So one day hope it will be ready. Definitely not two weeks. 

Regards.

J.

 

Edited September 12, 2020 by yakarov79

[Nighthawk117]

Wow, these look VERY nice. Hope to see more in the future!

[NIELS]

Fantastic! Will be a great addition to the objects in theater. Fantastic! Will be a great addition to the objects in theater.👍

[Wilches]

Man, you don´t belong to this planet!

[+Gepard]

Great job!!!!

[+whiteknight06604]

I can't tell you how excited i am about these ground objects. Thank you so much.

[Wrench]

you can change an object's year appearence (and disappearence) in the _targets.ini

Obviously, they must be listed in the _types ini with their "ActiveYear=" statement, but you can turn off and on individual entries in the targets ini

This, for example, is from the unfinished Modern Hawaii rebuild:

Target[081].Type=IOWA
Target[081].Offset=105.00,587.00
Target[081].Heading=310
Target[081].ActiveYear=1998

TK did something similiar on the IME map, where he turned off an entire airbase (down in the southeast corner of Israel)

So, you can have a Zil from say, 1955, and replace with a GAZ (or whatever) in 1985 -these years are just examples. It would look something like this:

 

Quote

Target[081].Type=SovietTruck
Target[081].Offset=105.00,587.00

Target[081].Heading=310

Target[081].ActiveYear=1955
Target[081].InactiveYear=1985

Target[082].Type=GAZ66
Target[082].Offset=105.00,587.00

Target[082].Heading=310

Target[082].ActiveYear=1985
Target[082].InactiveYear=1999

 

stupid copy/paste isn't formatting right, but you get the idea

[+Menrva]

To do what Wrench says manually, for hundreds of target areas, is too time consuming. TFDtool by gerwin automatizes the process, it's very easy to use. Just read the included documentation on how to use it.

Edited September 13, 2020 by Menrva

[yakarov79]

1 hour ago, Menrva said:

for hundreds of target areas, is too time consuming

for my own use, I have all the time. 

For the public release, I will not do that - as my terrains for sure differs from public releases...and I do not want to screw someone's terrains.  Making updated public targets/types ini is not my intention I simply do not have time for that.  

 

Edited September 13, 2020 by yakarov79

[+Piecemeal]

19 hours ago, yakarov79 said:

 

Also, I think we disused this already ( but i can not find that thread)  I am interested in making 'era'  ground objects appearance.  So for example old Zil-157 wil not appear as fuel truck let say in 1995 anymore.  And in 1954 it place will be taken by some older soviet truck etc, etc. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had a working system in place on a terrain where objects would be automatically replaced when they were supposed to: 

Target[019].Type=SovietTruck
Target[019].Offset=185,456
Target[019].Heading=170
Target[019].InactiveDate=12/31/1972
Target[020].Type=SovietTruck2
Target[020].Offset=185,456
Target[020].Heading=170
Target[020].ActiveYear=1973
Target[020].InactiveDate=12/31/1983
Target[021].Type=SovietTruck3
Target[021].Offset=185,456
Target[021].Heading=170
Target[021].ActiveYear=1984

For the _TYPES.INI file, "SovietTruck" would (of course) be the ZIL-157; "SovietTruck2" would be the GAZ-66; and "SovietTruck3" would be the UAZ-375. 

I also had a similar system in place with "SovietAAATruck", "SovietSupplyTruck", "SovietFuelTruck", etc. 

Actually, just out of curiosity, but have you done any Soviet jeeps like the GAZ-69 or UAZ-469?

[yakarov79]

10 minutes ago, Piecemeal said:

UAZ-469?

Yes. 

But '69' is also scheduled. 

Also UAZ-452, Zil-130, ZiS-151, Praga V3S, Tatra 805 and 813,  Robur LO2002, Star 66/660 and 266 are in different stages of progress.  As for cars

[+Piecemeal]

9 minutes ago, yakarov79 said:

Yes. 

But '69' is also scheduled. 

Also UAZ-452, Zil-130, ZiS-151, Praga V3S, Tatra 805 and 813,  Robur LO2002, Star 66/660 and 266 are in different stages of progress.  As for cars

 

Ooooooohhhhhh!!!!!  

[yakarov79]

Bobik aka UAZ-469

 

ZSU-23-4M

 

and older variant ZSU-23-4V1

think will go all the way, and do two more older versions.

[+swambast]

Great stuff Yakarov.  Just curious, are these 100% from scratch builds or "borrowed" models?    Wondering because there's a ton of "cold war model packs" already existing (perhaps you already leveraged) and could easily be converted. 

Edited September 19, 2020 by swambast

[yakarov79]

40 minutes ago, swambast said:

Just curious, .......

Mostly scratch builds, some models have borrowed parts from my friend's models who was working on some OFP mods years ago. 

If you will take a closer look at the model - many parts (tracks, wheels, lights, hatches, periscopes, some turrets, etc..are just swapped from one model to another...to save time on modeling, maybe not 100% accurate for some models but good enough to resemble original.  All trucks share the same frame with wheels, "transmission", etc   (just stretched if needed for a particular car. 

[+swambast]

Got it - if you're looking for something in particular that you could leverage just PM me.  Decent chance I might have something already permissible that I could share.

[yakarov79]

9K32M Strela-2 killer team

and  new 9M32M

[+swambast]

Nice.  Check scale of jeep guys, looks off to me (guys too big) but might just be screenshot.

[yakarov79]

On 25/09/2020 at 9:38 PM, swambast said:

Check scale of jeep guys,

a guy is around 1.75m (average height of Russian conscript male in 70s)

 

 

Osa-AK.

[+Gepard]

On 25.9.2020 at 9:16 PM, yakarov79 said:

9K32M Strela-2 killer team

 

In real life the Strela shooters were not using UAZ jeeps. They were part of the motorized infantry units. The shooters were placed on BTR or BMP vehicles as you see on following picture:

Strela 2 on BTR-60 (SPW-60PB) during fire exercice at Zingst training ground near Baltic Sea.

Strela 2 on BMP-1 during a parade.

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by Gepard

[yakarov79]

Thanks.

That UAZ is part of some specific era/region mod...just converted into 'soviets'. I will go with BTR-60 then...

 

Anyone knows if lines in texture.ini:

Nation=

works for ground objects? Was thinking about making some extra skins for middle-east mods...where many nations were using the same vehicles..but different paint would be a nice touch. 

[+Gepard]

For ships it does not work. For groundobjects like tanks or so it was working in WOE. So i guess it should work in SF2 too. But this has to be tested.

EDIT:

Seems to be that i was wrong. The NATION in texture.ini does not work with ground objects.

BUT it is possible to place insignias and numbers on the tanks.

Screenshot: czech and polish T-54

Edited October 10, 2020 by Gepard

[+Menrva]

34 minutes ago, Gepard said:

Seems to be that i was wrong. The NATION in texture.ini does not work with ground objects.

Yep, the fact is that each terrain's .ini file has got a "GroundObjectTexture=" entry, and it usually is set to Tan or Green depending on the geography of the terrain. So, during single missions, only Green or Tan folder skins are read. Name the skin folder differently than Tan or Green, and the game completely ignores it. So, the nation entry has no value for how ground object skins are selected and loaded, it's how the game is coded.

However, multiple skins would be cool to have in any case, since in the campaigns' data we can specify different ones for each ground unit that is defined in it.

Edited October 10, 2020 by Menrva

[Wrench]

the vehicle's userlist and the terrains' limited nations list doesn't effect that?? (something I've never thought about!!)

[+Menrva]

7 hours ago, Wrench said:

the vehicle's userlist and the terrains' limited nations list doesn't effect that?? (something I've never thought about!!)

It effects the spawning of ground objects, not the skin they use. For ground object skins, what I said above applies. Only Green and Tan skin folders are read by default in stock terrains. Say you want a different Green skin for Germany, you name its folder Green2, but it's not Green, so the game does not load it, simple as that. For campaigns this is not an issue, and I think the campaign is the core of the game. Single missions, those you can always save them and edit them with Notepad and assign different textures to all of the ground objects you wish.

Edited October 11, 2020 by Menrva