Blaze's DFBHD/TS Mod (Beta 2)

Drop box is where I downloaded it and had no problem's at all.

Mod has been removed from DropBox (I needed space). Link on first page has been updated, now you can download the mod directly from Nova-Outpost.

Do anyone still have a link for this mod? Maybe someone could temporally upload it, and then I can share a Dropbox link as I have some free space there.

Hi Sam glad ya stopped in, Blaze has the download link in the very first post buddy try it ok then let my know.Take care and welcome to our forums, or get up with Blade and he my be able to help ya out man.

Many thanks for your answer. Unfortunately, that link isn't working. The server returns HTTP status 404 “resource not found”.

This is Blaze, though my official handle elsewhere is Menrva now.
Many years have passed and I decided to have a look at this forum, saw this post about the mod no longer being available, because the Nova Outpost site closed.
Well, I have good news. I plan to upload a slightly reworked version to ModDB sometime later this year. Of course, with due credits to Baldo, BLADE (who helped me convert terrains, such an amazing effort back then) and all whose works have been involved.

Wow, so many things have changed, back in 2016 I was just out of my teenage years. Now we've lived through a pandemic. Hopefully all of you guys are fine! If I ever get to upload the mod to ModDB this year, I'll let you know. Take care, everyone!

@Baldo, I saw you fixed the Colt's bump map textures. I have no account at NovaHQ so I cannot download your attachment there. If you could share it here via PM, I'd be grateful. This mod exists also thanks to your amazing Folly package.

Been awhile buddy glad your doing ok and keep us updated on the mod ok, take care my friend.

I've done a lot of edits on the version of Blaze's mod that I have.

Attaching a .zip with sidearm stuff, binoculars, and new bullet hole decals.

Included the .45 bumpmap and sight targas for both sidearms I made based on the clt45aim.tga. They're magnificent, and I love them. You'll see. Mount the brtaimS.tga at 224 384 800 768. Mount the clt45aimS.tga at 224 385 800 769. At the original DFBHD bullet velocities, they'll be zeroed at 50m.

The binoculr.tga is 717x537 pixels so that I could get the crosshair to accurately represent mil divisions. I've tested the accuracy on those divisions extremely carefully, too. It's 100 mils left, 100 mils right, 40 mils up, and 10 mils down. I worked in a pale green back up X, too, so you can use it in dim light.

If you'd rather have degrees, MOA, or Mrads, let me know, I like playing with these things.

Also, there's a screenshot of the Blaze's mod main screen displaying the mod title I added to the dfvmenus.mnu and menutxt.bin, just so you could see it, form an opinion.

I have strong opinions about your .wav formatting, but I'll save 'em for a different post.

I've had good fun playing Blaze's mod, and good inspirations while editing it, as well. I'm glad I can help!

Does anyone have an active link to the mod so it can be down-loaded? If so plz post the link thanks.

I'm not even sure how I got it. I vaguely remember a DropBox link (but I've used a lot of DropBox links), and I think the new files weren't in a .pff, just in a folder, 'cause in one backup or another, I found a game folder in a Novalogic folder called 'DFBHDnoTS' and Blaze's stuff was just in that folder with the game. I packed it all into a .pff which I'm constantly replacing with new, repacked, updated .pffs.

If I haven't miscounted, I have twelve different DFBHD mods installed, eight of them from other people, and I'm tweaking and cross tweaking half of them all the time.

Lately, I've been obsessing over red chevron ACOG reticles with bullet drop compensators. This has forced me to experiment with drag values. Today, I learned some things that blew my mind. Using extreme weapon.def and ammo.def edits, I put a 20x scope on the M16 semi mode, 999 max_age and NoGravity flag on the AMMO_M16_556, velocity 960, drag .99571. (Drag is misnamed as a value in Novalogic games. It's actually aerodynamacy. The default value of 1 means absolute aerodynamacy, bullets travel at full velocity as long as the max_age allows. Lower values decrease aerodynamacy, bullets get slower the longer they fly.)

Wikipedia states the M16 muzzle velocity is 960, effective point range is 550m, effective area range is 800m, and max range is 3600m.

I set up a test map with a firing position on the flat terrain, 3600m north, a tall silhouette target, and teleports so you can take the shot, move back into an area trigger, teleport to the target 3600m away, and watch as the round comes in (about a month ago, I figured out how to set the fog back 32000-some-odd meters, testing is awesome when you can see EVERYTHING!).

The mind blowing things:

With an overlong max_age, NoGravity, and drag .999, if it doesn't hit anything, the tracer will keep going for about 240 seconds, but when it completely stops moving, the game sysdumps.

But this bit here... drag at .99571, I fired the shot, teleported to the target, the round got close enough that I could run up behind it and walk with it to the target, where it passed the target about 5m to the left. I aimed carefully, and the map had wind and wind direction at 0, so I kept trying. I had to aim 1 pip to the right, and at 20x mag., that's 3.75 MOA. I couldn't figure it out 'til I realized it was not drifting left, it was drifting west! I shot back at the firing position from the target, teleported back, and watched the bullet float by to the west.

I think DFBHD has been programmed to add the Coriolis effect! But since since the default fog max range isn't extreme enough, and drag 1 negates all drifting forces, I never realized it was happening.

Or maybe I'm misinterpreting the situation, I need to do more testing.

Baldo_the_Don wrote:I've done a lot of edits on the version of Blaze's mod that I have.

Attaching a .zip with sidearm stuff, binoculars, and new bullet hole decals.

Thank you so much, Baldo! I'll be looking at the stuff now!

Do know that the mod also includes the MK 23 from NSO (just because the PS2 version of Team Sabre adds it among the other three primary weapons), so sights targa textures for it in the same quality as yours are needed. For now I won't add those.

It would be cool to have a rework of the Colt's skin using the black one I included in the previous mod release, it seems better than the stock grey one.

If only we could easily convert 3d models of objects and weapons from later NovaLogic games, because animation files for those work just fine if copied to DFBHD.

As for the mod's title, I was planning to change it to a more generic "Delta Force Operations". If all goes well, before the end of the year it will be uploaded to ModDB.

I cannot provide any download links to the old version, because I had removed it from my DropBox and Nova Outpost has closed.

Any improvements are well received, Baldo! Feel free to PM me with some more things related to the mod. About wav files, do know that I had much expanded the original sound list; each MG has got specific relaoding sounds, among many other things, exactly like in later NL games such as Joint Ops and DFX. That's where many of the filenames come from, stock NL stuff. I know formatting sucks big time. Editing the lwf file equally sucks as well, it was so troublesome to add new sound data flawlessly in it.

Blaze wrote:Do know that the mod also includes the MK 23 from NSO (just because the PS2 version of Team Sabre adds it among the other three primary weapons), so sights targa textures for it in the same quality as yours are needed. For now I won't add those.

I'll see what I can do about that.

Years of using Irfanview (of all things) to figure out channel count, sample and bit rates, and Audacity for actual editing, I can tell you this about DFBHD and .wavs:

The thing about .wav files is that DFBHD can play .wavs sampled at 44100Hz, it just cannot play them well. DFBHD will also play stereo .wavs, but glitching can occur when it attempts to mix stereo .wavs with mono .wavs.

Sound mixing is a big problem in DFBHD. A lot of .wav files in mods and even the original game aren't necessarily bad for DFBHD, they're just suboptimal. DBHFD seems optimized for 22050Hz, 11025Hz, and 8000Hz sample rates in 16-, 8-, and even 4-bit .wavs.

Dialogue .wavs are 22kHz, IMA ADPCM, which defaults to 4-bits per sample. They're small for .wav files, but this format doesn't mix well, so it's not for weapon sounds.

A few environment sounds and distant weapon sounds are 8kHz, unsigned 8-bit PCM. Many environment .wavs are 11kHz, unsigned 8-bit PCM, Most distant weapon sounds are 22kHz, unsigned 8-bit PCM, and nearly all close weapon sounds are 22kHz, standard Microsoft 16-bit .wavs.

The .wavs should always be mono, and the shorter a weapon's sounds are, the better they'll mix at high fire rates. If you've ever tested new weapon sounds and notice they cut out after a few shots in full auto, what's happening is the game's sound mixing is getting overwhelmed by the flood of sound info and skipping a few waveforms. Shorten the sounds a bit, and that may help.

I've experienced in some mod or another a weapon with stereo close sound that completely blocked the far sound. It was weird.

The vanilla G36 has glitchy sound 'cause the close and far .wavs are both 22kHz, 16-bit. The vanilla G3 also has 22kHz, 16-bit .wavs, but its fire rate is slow enough for the sounds to not glitch. Granted, I also tested the vanilla CAR-15, and it got sound dropouts, too, but it also has three .wavs in its fire soundset.

The map I test this on has me and four AIs. 50m away and 8m up, there's an invisible target object. Left of me is a somali with the one AK, a somali with the other AK, to my right is a Delta with a CAR-15, and a 10th Mountain with an M16 (while confirming this, noticed a Ranger with a CAR-15 that sounds like an M16. That needs looking into). I use this map a lot tweaking weapon sounds. With so many weapons going off so close to the player, the mixing gets heavily stress-tested. When everyone is shooting, reload sounds drop out all the time, too, especially after a mag dump.

I've edited up versions of the G36 sounds that are few (dozen) milliseconds shorter and less bassy. In a different mod, I got sounds from YouTube videos of guys testing their P90, G36, and XM8, heavily tweaked them, and got excellent results. I pulled the bass down a little bit in the G3 as well.

I try to be very careful about editing sound 'cause a Gen X metalhead's hearing is questionable at times, and the tinnitus in my left ear never goes away, but I think I do great stuff.

So, guys, modders in my circle, know that the will to upgrade DFBHD is noble and necessary, but it's stymied by the limits of the game itself. I assert that sounds should always be mono, and the sample rate should never exceed 22050Hz. 8-bit/11025Hz is acceptable in some circumstances. DFBHD struggles with 44100Hz quality, and I'm convinced it's too much for smooth mixing.

Hi guys i added a link below to the Mod. Sry i dropped the site at beginning of year but had a backup of it...

http://www.nova-outpost.com/files/dfo_inst.exe

2DNED wrote:Hi guys i added a link below to the Mod. Sry i dropped the site at beginning of year but had a backup of it...

http://www.nova-outpost.com/files/dfo_inst.exe

Thanks! In any case, me and Baldo are working on a new version, it's going to be better!

Thanks buddy down-loading now.