Splash

One caveat to add here: It seems that in the absence of a nationality folder in the Program Files/../"current environment", the sim does divert to the Program Files/../woodland/nationality folder forgoing the relevant winter, desert or autumn folder. Example: Desert map, DE1980 selected camo. There is no file for the LeoAS1 in the player's de1980 desert mod folder. The sim looks next for a de1980 folder in Program Files/../desert. There is no such folder, so rather than staying in the desert folder (where there is an Australian LeoAS1 texture, by the way), it looks next to Program Files/../woodland/de1980, and finds a texture in that folder. End of search. Load German texture. But, in a winter theme, after finding no texture in the player's de1980 winter mod folder, it looks next for a de1980 folder in Program Files/../winter. It finds a folder but no LeoAS1 texture there, so it loads the snow-covered Australian camo skin living in the Program Files/../winter folder, rather than jumping to the Program Files/../woodland/de1980 folder as it did in the desert map. It is for this reason that I have copied eSim's German skin for the LeoAS1 to my winter/de mod folder, so I don't have a snow-covered Aussie tank in the Bundeswehr. 😉 Sorry that's vastly confusing, and again, all of this is moot if you just stick to the mod folders for mods ... but I understand now why Maddin25 was seeing what he saw. Stated slightly more simply: In his case, the de nationality folder in the winter folder causes the sim to look for a file in the winter folder before moving on to the woodland folder. If there were no de nationality folder in the winter folder, the sim would forgo the winter folder altogether and load what's in the woodland/de folder.

Yeah, it seems something weird is going on there. I think the Wiki entry (actually from the 3.002 release notes) has steps 3 and 4 inverted. IOW the path, in your situation, runs from mods/../winter/de (no file) to ProgramFiles/../winter/de (no file) to ProgramFiles/../winter (finds a stock file), and thus doesn't move on to ProgramFiles/../woodland/de, where your desired skin is located. Try as I might, I've never been able to locate a "complete search sequence (as) described in the user's manual." But in the end, it's best to heed the dev's advice to use the mod folders as intended. I say that even though I'm not a fan of the need to copy multiple iterations of the same file into various folders in cases like this. A one point, I wished for changes in the pathing that would poll all the MOD folders first ... (iow defaulting to the player's mod/woodland folder in the absence of a mod/winter, mod/desert, or mod/autumn file before polling any of the Program Files folders) ... but eventually realized that would present a similar need for duplicates in the event you wanted to use, say, a modded skin for woodland but were happy with the stock skin for winter or desert. Maybe a better system will come with version 5. Possibly using different filenames for season-specific and/or modded textures? and allowing skins to be somehow chosen individually by vehicle type or left as default. And if it were possible to have that selection made in the Planning Phase rather than baked into the sce., a lot more flexibility might be possible. Who knows?

Here:

Ok, color me naïve, but is that legit or just your version of Oleg Maddox's "two weeks, be sure"? 🤔

Absolutely. No one wishes for SBProPE to remain stagnant -- visually or aurally -- out of deference to modders. After all, modders, I think, generally aim to offer improvements where they think improvements are warranted. Indeed it seems there is agreement that certain sound improvements were warranted, as from the Release Notes it appears changes are coming that mirror what Ruki has been working on for all these many months. What I was saying, in case there was any miscommunication, was that I empathize with seeing a longterm project rendered moot before it's even shared. I think a lot of us are still interested in what Ruki is doing, so I hope it sees a release anyway -- and users can choose whether they think it enhances their experience or not. Likewise, the prospect of eSim upgrading a model for which I did a vehicle texture isn't going to discourage me from continuing to make vehicle textures I'd like to see in-game. Just hopefully the timing won't jerk the rug out from under me. 😏

Of course we all look forward to, and are thankful for, upgrade improvements ... but for some they can come as a kick to the nuts. I hope your hard work isn't all for naught.

Yeah, that works, and I like how you think. Cuts down on copy/pasting by about 75 percent. And, other than it being unsanctioned by eSim, it's unlikely to be an issue until patch/upgrade time rolls around -- and, even then, the files would be left behind when you uninstall, and not overwritten on installation of the new version. Probably. And there's the rub. If you should ever need eSim to troubleshoot some sort of user issue, they might take a dim view of modded files installed in unsanctioned places. They give us a dedicated mod folder structure for a reason. So, take that for what it's worth.

Here:

"A supported game is required to use this filter." SBProPE is, apparently, not supported.

Seems pretty clear to me. Say you have a dismounted missile team and rifle team at a position, and want to mount only the missile team, (maybe to reload or maybe to transport the team to another position) while leaving the rifle team in place. You can do this manually with the vehicle's icon context menu ... But to answer the original question, I don't believe it is possible to script this for the AI to do it.

So this is pretty minor as far as issues go, but it got my attention: There seems to be a bulb out on the multi-launch control of the Danish Leopard 2A5's. 🤨 The area that (based on my guess of the pictograph) indicates smoke is dark, while the one that appears to represent HE grenades is lit. By comparison, both are lit on the Leopardo, which has the same unit. That makes me wonder if it's supposed to be lit on the DK Leopards? I realize it's not a fully clickable/functional control, as smoke/HE don't appear to be selectable on either unit (although the covered switch does control whether you can launch smoke or grenades, and the arrow buttons do govern which side of the turret the smoke salvo is launched from).

For reference, here are some screenshots of the un-altered stock textures in-game.

I believe if text an arm's length away is out-of-focus, you need glasses. On that premise, I've been reworking the interior panels of the Leopard series so that I don't feel like I need a new prescription. Elements of these files appear in all crewable Leopards (with the exception of the Leopardo and Strv 122, which have their own language-specific graphics, and are not covered by this mod). I can't improve on the lit buttons until I can solve the voodoo of the "changertexture" graphics file. But what I have done is re-do the blurry text on panels viewable by the gunner and commander, added a few details and some text missing from the stock textures, recreated some of the manufacturer labeling, and upgraded much of the fastening hardware (bolts, screws, etc.) The textures -- leo2A5_hi1 and leo2A5HI2 -- are not "higher-rez" but rather the same size (2048x2048) as stock. Sources were mostly Google images and a couple of YouTube vids of the interior of a Polish Leopard 2A5. Plus a clue from Ssnake (thanks) which I was able to confirm via one of the videos. The work is based on the stock 4.363 graphics files and some 15-year-old textures by (apparently former) community member Hase, so it's not 100 percent my own art. Click on the images for full detail.

Another issue that might be a bug, common to all the post-2A4 Leopards, is that the TIM on/off switch is set to OFF initially ... even though the unit is clearly ON. You can use the clickable switch to turn it off ... but only after first turning it to the EIN position. From that point it works as one would expect.

Thank you, very much. These look correct?

I guess I'll shelve the idea of higher-rez buttons, since the changertexture.dds is such a mystery. But I'd still like some help updating the higher-rez interior panels for the Leopard. For now, a couple of issues (screenshots below): On the commander's display, there's a box below the nameplate that seems to contain a series of alpha-numerics; with the lower left one in blue. Top line appears to be something like x0 x1 x2 x3 x4, with x being maybe a letter? Bottom line similar, same letters but with different numbers. It's hard to tell from the blurry stock texture, and I can't find a web image clear enough to decipher. On the other display (made by AEG; don't know what it's called), the field for speed in km/h is missing a label on the stock texture, but from a video I found showing a Leopard 2A4 interior, it should have one -- I just can't tell what it should say. It appears in the vid to be about the name number of letters as HOHE above it -- maybe a little longer. I assume from the SBWiki the label should be "Speed" ... but the abbreviation for Geschwindigkeit I've used is too long. Could "GESCH." be right? Or could "SPEED" be appropriate in German? Would appreciate any help.

I would be surprised if this hasn't been reported before, but I couldn't find mention of it so ... The gunner in Leopard 2A5-DK and 2A5A1-DK cannot reach the Normal/Emergency/Manual switch by looking to rear-right using Mouse View. (Screenshot below; crosshair showing extent of movement). The switch can be reached in the other Leopard 2's (including the 2A5A2-DK) using mouse view. It also can be reached using Track-IR in all Leopards, because the mouse isn't locked to the view. Worth noting is that in the affected tanks, you can reach the switch if you first pan to your LEFT, ZOOM (N), then pan back to the rear-right. Starting head position just a wee bit too far forward in those two tanks, maybe? I don't know if this existed pre-4.3xx, since I normally use Track-IR, but I assume it did. I suspect most just use the hot keys, anyway.

Thanks. I've been saving without mip maps all along. I've tried no compression, DXT1, DXT3 and DXT5. My DDS plugin for GIMP doesn't offer a 4 bpp | no alpha option, only an RGBA4, which was another fail. I've been using RGB8 -- though I also tried RGBA8 once with no luck. Converting the image to 4 bit in another app just seems to lose all color detail. You sure it's supposed to be 4 bit? The original seems to be 8 bit.

I'm trying update/rework some higher-rez Leopard interior graphics based on some outdated files in the download section. Specifically, the works by Hase. A problem I've encountered is that while I'm able to upgrade the various illuminated button labels by modifying the "changertexture.dds", doing so causes a loss of the displayed telemetry. I've tried several approaches, all unsuccessfully. I'm hoping someone at eSim can clue me in to the necessary export settings for the file ... or perhaps another modder has already cracked this nut.

Tried. You do appear to be able to set the formation for a battle position (Hold/Defend/Guard) waypoint, but regardless of the formation set, a platoon fans out into a line formation upon reaching it. They follow formation orders at a Stay waypoint, as the manual says.

The 2A4 has a gunner as of 4.357. Evidence in the posts and pic above. It, the 2A6Ma2 and Leopardo2 have the gunner crewman modeled now. The 5's and the 6 don't, which is the odd thing since the 2A6Ma2 uses the 5/6 model and view for F7. If I'm not mistaken (might be) the current 2A4 is of similar or older vintage than the 2A5's in SB.