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Please follow these guidelines for any and all submissions to the following Combat Mission HQ Sections: Pictures of the Day (POTD) 3rd Party Mods After Action Reports Articles Heroes Corner Scenarios and Operations Not currently accepting these submissions
Pictures of the Day First off let me say that I am VERY picky about the POTDs and rarely use submitted pictures. Is it because I think most of the submissions suck? Well, YES and here is why. Look at the POTD's that I have run in the past. You will never see upscaled units or bases or any sort of artifical game device in sight and that is the key. When you take a screenshot to be used as a POTD you must approach it as a photograph. Frame the shot and make sure you have a specific target of focus centered and doing something interesting. Anyone can take a picture of a Tiger but it is much better if it is DOING something. Here are some guidelines below.
Set units to Realistic Scale Turn off unit bases Turn off Detailed Hit Text Use Camera Positions 1-4 Use Zoom when needed for detail or close ups Do not show a unit firing, it does not look realistic more often than not Explosions are fine and look very good Crop out the bottom game interface portion of the picture Do not show targeting, LOS of movement lines Make sure weather is set to full Set horizon distance to full Do not show tracers, they do not look good in pictures The MDMP-1 pack works best for screenshots and should be installed as it dramatically improves the trees and treebases For a good example of how to properly format a MOD have a look at any of the recent offerings from Maximus (David Molinarolo). He does it all except for the thumbnail picture and that's something I just added.
3rd Party Mods In the past few weeks I have been getting bombarded by mod submissions. Some have been very good while others I wouldn't spend the time wiping my butt with. Listed below are a few guidelines which I would appreciate everyone following from now on.
Interest: Please try and make your MOD interesting. Do we REALLY need 17 winter mods of a truck? Well maybe but just try to make your stuff significantly different than everyone else's. Quality: To Hi-Res or not to Hi-Res. You can use a higher texture size if you would like. This has been discussed on the forum and I won't go into it here. The upside, much higher level of detail can be applied to the textures. The downside, may slow game down slightly. Documentation: Yes! This needs to happen, like NOW. With every submission you must include a readme file. It should say WHO you are, WHAT you did, WHY you did it and even possibly HOW. If the MOD is based on a historical unit or building for instance you might want to provide a little background as well. Mod Manager Support: Please let me know if all the necessary files are included in your mod for Mod Manager Support. Check the documentation of the Mod Manager program to find out what is needed for full integration. Included Screenshots: Each mod should have a TWO screenshots. One should be a in-game picture of whatever the mod really is. You can name it whatever but it should be specific. Panther.jpg is NOT sufficient. I am now asking for a SECOND picture which will be the same as the first but the size needs to be shrunk down so the width is 300 pixels and the height is in correct proportion. This file should have the SAME name but with the letters "tn" added to the end. So if you had a Tiger mod of Wittmanns tank you might have Wittmanntiger.jpg (which would be the regular sized one and then Wittmanntigertn.jpg which would be the smaller thumbnail version. Quality Assurance: Also called, DIDN'T YOU EVER THINK TO CHECK THIS PIECE OF CRAP!!!! Please double, triple and quadruple check your mods before sending them in. I am much too busy to be providing first level QA for your work. Test it on your system and your buddies too. The most common mistake is the notorious PINK SPOTS. These are caused by inadvertently adjusting the default transparent masking color on a texture. When the game sees this it no longer paints it as transparent and instead you get an ugly pink splotch where it should be clear. The usually happens around the road wheels and muzzle brakes of vehicles and can pop up around edges of terrain textures. Take the time to view your mod from every angel and zoom level before sending it in. Format: Zip files only for PC files. Include the textures, screenshots and documentation into one zip file compressed using the maximum setting.
After Action Reports On average AAR's take more time than any other feature on CMHQ to prepare. By following the guidelines listed below that level of work can be dramatically reduced. There are two types of AAR's, Digest Style and Individual Turn Style. Digest Style is when you only devote a few paragraphs to each turn and basically wrap up the entire fight on one or two pages of text. Small QB's are best for these types of reports. Another use of Digest Style would be a AAR written in first person or prose style. These style reports are usually quick to write and easy to post. They also can be told from only one side although reports from both sides are always desired. These reports are commonly posted all at once or in several very small parts over a week with each part covering 5 turns or more. Individual Turn Style is where each turn is broken down into a planning and execution section. Great detail is provided into the thinking and tactics of the orders given and how they play out for each turn. These usually take a great deal of time to prepare and are also much more time intensive to post however the appeal is also quite large. A good example would be in the excellent reports done by Fionn Kelly. He excels at this style of AAR. These reports commonly span several weeks and become very large. Movies: These are a MUST and even if if you can't get your opponent to get off his/her lazy ass and write about how you smashed his face in on turn 3 we need BOTH sides movie files. That's also means we need BOTH passwords for the movie files. This is the single most left out thing and it drives me nuts. If you plan on writing a AAR and don't want the world to see that you always use FionnRulez as your password then use SOMETHING ELSE! Screenshots: For a Digest Style try and limit to maybe 10 pictures tops. Any more than than and the page will load to slow. For an Individual Report you may include up to 6 pictures per turn. Follow the guidelines below for screenshot submissions. With these types of screenshots it is perfectly OK to have LOS lines and markers and all the normal game stuff in the picture. Sometimes it is necessary to show this stuff when describing something that happened in the game. You can also edit the pictures to emphasis a certain area or make notations. When submitting After Action Reports we would greatly prefer that the battle in question already be complete and that ALL of the reports be turned in simultaneously.
Articles Usually I just ask that you keep the formatting to a bare minimum (Word .doc file is fine though) and please DO NOT EMBED pictures. Just include them along with the document and reference where they go in the article body. You can include as many pictures as necessary but please follow the screenshot guidelines as listed below.
Heroes Corner The focus of this section has changed significantly recently. I am no longer interested in overall kill stats. What I want is tales of bravery. Have a look at the current submission and you will see what I mean. Of course a single Sherman that kills a dozen King Tigers is worthy of praise but I am much more interested in HOW he did it and it will be up to you to tell the story. Please attach a screenshot with your story showing off something from the battle but I don't need the Kill Info screen anymore. Please follow the guidelines for the POTD and screenshots below.
Screenshot Guidelines When taking screenshots please ensure that the pictures are:
Scenarios and Operations
That's about it! Follow those rules and help make CMHQ better and faster! Thanks! Madmatt
If you have any questions on how to accomplish any of the requirements above, Please contact me and I will be happy to explain exactly how to do this or even recommend software to help do it easier.... You can email me by clicking HERE
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