Battlezone Universe

Battlezone Universe => Battlezone 2 => Maps and Modding => Topic started by: TheJamsh on October 26, 2008, 12:12:29 PM

Title: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: TheJamsh on October 26, 2008, 12:12:29 PM
i want to make a few changes to the interface for serenesis, so ill start with the targetting arrows and other things like that, trouble is i looked through colorize.tga and target.tga but its in neither... i think its in object.tga

i also want to know what the:

cmnd_########.tga files are used for as i havent seen them in game. there seems to be one for each command type, could i get these to work with pb4a?

what select.tga is used for, target.tga, what parts of colorize.tga change what etc.

ill also be moving the radar/targetting etc around a little, all thats done in the HUD .cfg right? is it bzgame_interface.cfg??

oh and all those .tga files i just listed, they dont have to have everything either white or transparent do they? i wouldnt know how to do it...
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: Warfreak on October 26, 2008, 05:00:45 PM
"looks at colorize.tga"

From the looks of it, it controls F#, Base icon #, Timer #s, Radar icons, and the shape of a selected unit's command menu.

They MUST be transparent where transparency is present (helps the engine out so you can just point put a 4 point location of the texture for it to reference)

They MUST be white or else the engine blends the color they are supposed to be with the color you made them, white is easier to work with.

other than that, knock yourself out with whatever modding you do to them.
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: TheJamsh on October 26, 2008, 07:54:26 PM
now i look at it i think youre right...

btw, have you got any models done yet lol?
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: Tempest Storm on October 26, 2008, 10:15:05 PM
I would check the sprite table for stuff like the targeting arrows and such. (Check sprite.txt in the data.pak and if you find what you are looking for compile the changes to a new sprite.stb file in the mod's addon)
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: General BlackDragon on October 26, 2008, 10:39:53 PM
Quote from: Warfreak on October 26, 2008, 05:00:45 PM
They MUST be transparent where transparency is present (helps the engine out so you can just point put a 4 point location of the texture for it to reference)

They MUST be white or else the engine blends the color they are supposed to be with the color you made them, white is easier to work with.

Wrong. They "MUST" be nothing :)

You just have to know what you're doing :). Conventionally there are two ways to control the color of something. Either make the image grayscale and put the color in the odf/cfg code (like everything BZ2 does) or, make the image colored, and make the odf/cfg code white. (Like most BZC things do)

also, cmnd_########.tga ?

What? :P GSH can probably explain those better, but from the looks of it, they were intended for sattelite view but never used? They remind me of more old school RTS game symbols.
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: TheJamsh on October 27, 2008, 01:45:24 PM
id liek to use them somewhere, just wondering if i can incorporate them... maybe when i point at a unit i can see what ive ordered it to do with the icon next to the health/ammo bar
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: General BlackDragon on October 27, 2008, 01:57:14 PM
probably not.
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: TheJamsh on October 27, 2008, 11:43:15 PM
someone must know :)
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: Tempest Storm on October 28, 2008, 03:34:47 AM
Me and BZZERKER had tried to get those to work as command buttons at one point for BZ2RTS, although we really found nothing at all as to how to get them to work. I'd say its safe to assume that it probably can't be done without a feature request... :/
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: bigbadbogie on October 28, 2008, 09:16:29 PM
With dll it might be possible. It would require a lot of cfg work and every single unit in the game to be watched by the dll.
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: Nielk1 on October 28, 2008, 09:38:36 PM
Yes, since the DLL would be toggling the viability of extraneous CFG elements.
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: TheJamsh on October 28, 2008, 11:24:49 PM
shame. they would have looked good i think...

feature request it is then i guess =]. but ill save it for later to avoid getting GSH annoyed
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: OvermindDL1 on October 31, 2008, 02:03:01 AM
Yea, would have been easy by DLL, for the Host, to add client support would make it more... difficult, as you would need to setup another communication pipe...
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Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: Nielk1 on October 31, 2008, 03:54:37 AM
From what I can tell custom CFGs by DLL don't have an issue if they are read-only. I have to research this though.
Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: OvermindDL1 on October 31, 2008, 07:14:21 PM
You can display different IFace's to different people with no state issues to worry about, even have them interact with them, it just depends on how the DLL interacts with what the person does, hence you need a bidirectional communication pipe between the server and all the clients.
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Title: Re: modifying the in-game interface
Post by: Nielk1 on October 31, 2008, 09:48:22 PM
Ah good. I plan to have a ton of weapons with custom stats screens.