[Psico]

Okay, I have my mod almost working now, but there are still a few things I need to edit to give it a complete feeling. In skirmish/lan/net games after you click the start game you get a screen that talks about your country and a couple of pictures. I know how to edit the text on these screens, but can I change the unit it shows? example is the russian screen shows the tesla tank, I want to replace it with a picture of my new russian terror tank (names in my mod also need work, but not important).

If this can't be done, can I remove the picture of the unit as some of the side specific units are now general units for allied/soviet teams or no longer a part of my mod?

Also i recently downloaded a few new mods just to see what others have done (don't fear, I don't use the work of other without there consint) and a few mods have had words or text on the main loading screens. An example of this is deezire's mod, his name is on almost every screen; how can i edit that?


Thanks for any help in advance. If i finish my mod and i like it ( the last few i made have been rather pathetic :S ) it will be released to everyone soon.

[Infraid]

- for the loading screen thing, there you go : LINK (look at DeeZel's post)

- everything's that's text is in the CSS
Hint : look in NAME, LOADBRIEF, STT, etc.

- what's you mod's name ?

[Pirosom]

To alter the Russian loading screen - you must convert ls800russia.shp to .pcx via XCC mixer (.pcx can be read by most art related software).

The loading screens are one layer templates meaning you cannot replace the Tesla Tank with, say, the Desolater, because the Tesla Tank is already pre-set to the loading image, instead you must blanket over the old unrequired section with whatever replacement image you wish, heres an example:

Say you wanted to give the illusion of a new country.



You would need to cut-out something like the above, remove all colours (except green) and fill in whichever appropriate areas of land and placing over the old image, like this case, China:



Although what your asking for can be more tedious, depending on how much detail you intend to go to, and limitations of that countrys loading palette.



I suggest you experiment, as you will see some colours just aren't 'agreeable' with the loading templates.

For instance in my Switzerland image, I chose currency for a special because the French loading screen palette (I'm replacing France) doesn't support gold or similar based colours, at first the coins were gold, but it automatically chose the closest thing, if you want a flexible, 'agreeable' loading screen, edit Cuba.

Anyway I'm sure I've rambled enough, I'm not the best at explaining so please feel free to ask any questions.

*edit* I was already typing a reply before Infraid had replyed, so if his link covered your question, ignore my post.

Oh, and don't forget to palette your new masterpiece with mplsr.pal (which is the Russian equivalent palette).[/b]

[Psico]

thanks for the link.

ya know, i haven't given it a name yet. i named my other mods and they turned out really bad, so i didn't give this one a name; i've just been refering to it as 'my mod'. I'll give it a name once i decide to release it or not.

edit

okay, thanks pirosom. so i just change it to pcx then edit it the best i can. sounds like fun

thank you all for your help.
end edit

[Infraid]

my only backdraw : should have replaced Germany instead of France
else perfect explanation Pirosom

[needleman]

Keep in mind also that if you can't paste something in because of the color palett, you can always make a new pallet that works. In Photoshop (assuming that's what you use), just change it to RGB mode, make your changes, and then change to Indexed mode (setting to either Exact or one of the Nearests) and save. Then, in XCC Mixer, use the Export as PAL command on your new PCX and use it as the pallet.

[Renegade]

Originally Posted by Infraid

my only backdraw : should have replaced Germany instead of France
else perfect explanation Pirosom

Nah, replacing France is fine...

[Psico]

Hey, thanks again for all the help. I now have a decent loading screen image saved as both Is800russia.pcx and Is800russia.shp. But I have one more question...

What do i do with it? :scared: I tried putting it into my expand mix file and nothing happend, same with my echache mix file (i probably spell that wrong here but it is spelled right on the file). I have also tried to just throw it into the game directory itself and that didn't work either. Whats the problem here? any help is appreciated.

[Pirosom]

The .pcx isn't necessary, the .shp must be named Ls800russia.shp (doesn't have to be upper-case).

It will be ok to test loose in your RA2 directory but if you intend to release your mod you should place it in the expandmd.mix (although it doesn't make much difference).

And provided you paletted it fine, that should be just about it.

[ComradeJ]

Originally Posted by Renegade

Nah, replacing France is fine...

Replace 'em both. There's tons of countries with more military power... like the Netherlands.