Adding Quotes and Loading Screens

[Legio]

AESTHETICS
QUOTES AND LOADING SCREENS TO MAKE A MOD FEEL MORE UNIQUE
Title: Aesthetics- A How-To on Adding Quotes and Loading Screens to Make a Game feel more unique
Author: Legio Caesar
Platform and Version: Rome (all versions, expansions, mods and patches)
Content Overview: Small Touch-Ups That Make a Mod Feel More Unique
Necessary Files: data\text\quotes
data\loading_screen
descr_transition_text
Required Programs: Notepad, GIMP
Optional Tools: PaintShop
Summary: This tutorial is how to do one of those tiny things that nobody really thinks baoout doing when they are modifying their game. These are the quotes and loading screens that go with the game. Sometimes the mod is completely different from vanilla ( and who wants to see a Julius Caesar quote in a mod about Ancient China?) or if the player just wants to add some of their own flavor to the game without drastically changing it. You must edit the quotes text file and the loading screens using GIMP. Without further ado, here it is.
Latest Update: July 21, 2008
Contents:
Cheers, Legio Caesar here! Today I will show you how to make small and simple adjustments to add flavor to the game.
I will add the quote "My dog has fleas" by Anonymous.
First, you must know the necessary files for loading screens and quotes. The quotes file is located in data\text\quotes.
The loading screens are in data\loading_screen
The quotes are more complicated than you would think! There are three ways in which they are listed. The most complicated way is this:
{quote_80}
Veni, vidi, vici
{trans_81}
I came, I saw, I conquered
{quoted_82}
Gaius Julius Caesar
Next is this:
{quote_86}
We make war that we may live in peace
{quoted_87}
Aristotle
Finally, the easiest but longest way:
{Quote_1}
I think the slain care little if they sleep or rise again
...
{Author_1}
Aeschylus
There are 225 quotes in total, and they are divided in groups of 77. I know it is uneven, but that is how it is.
The quote number is the first line, and is in brackets.
***GOOD RULE OF THUMB****Never change anything in brackets.
There are two ways the number is listed, like this
{Quote_1} OR {quote_80}
The second line is the quote itself.
Here is where you can copy and paste the quote that you want included in the game. But make sure it is not too long, becaus ethere are hardcoded limits. The limit is three lines.
In the first case however, there is an additional line that is not used in many other quotes. When a quote is not in English, it MUST HAVE A TRANSLATION LINE like this:
{quote_80}
Veni, vidi, vici
{trans_81}
I came, I saw, I conquered
If the quote remains not in English and without a translation it will cause the game to crash, lag, etc. I learned this the hard way.
Finally, there is the author. In the easiest but longest way to edit quotes you must do the following. but ONLY IF IT IS A QUOTE BETWEEN 1 AND 77:
-Edit the quote and remember its number
{Quote_1}
My dog has fleas.
-Scroll down to below {Quote_77}
-Find the line {Author_x}
-Edit to add the appropriate author.
{Author_1}
Anonymous
If the quote is not from 1 to 77, then you have some easier ways. The quote and author are bundled together nicely for you. But not really. The author is not known as Author but as
{quote_130}
So ends the bloody business of the day
{quoted_131}
Homer
You just change it as normal. On to loading screens!!!
LOADING SCREENS
All loading screens are located in the folder data\loading_screen.
They are in TGA format, and are scaled at 1024 by 768 pixels.
Any other format or pixel size will cause nasty crashes!
-Okay, first you need to have GIMP. You can get it here.
-Find a picture you would like as a laoding screen, and save it to your computer by right clicking on it and clicking save as picture.
-Open GIMP, and open the picture.
-Click the little arrow thingy between the scales, under File and Edit buttons.
-Find Image, highlight it, and click Scale Image
-DO NOT MODIFY X OR Y RESOLUTION.
-In Image Size, type 1024 in the width box.
-Type 768 in the height box.
-Sometimes the scaler does not accept your numbers. Please click the little paperclip chain thingy on the far right between height and width. And be sure to keep it as pixels.
-Next, save your image as a TGA file.
-Copy your entire loading_screen directory and paste into a separate folder in case.
-Next, delete the file loading_screen_1
-Paste your new image into the loading_screen file.
-Rename it loading_screen_1
-Repeat for all loading screens.
-There are only 19 screens in vanilla, use only 19, do not add more!
-Fire up the game and enjoy your new quotes and screens!

Another note on quotes:
It has been brought to my attention that you can edit the number of quotes, which is helpful alot! (Thanks Nero666).

First of all, there is the descr_transition_screen.txt file, from here called DTS. In this file you can code the quotes that appear when loading the game, a campaign and battles.
Each quote requires at least the quote itself. You can also add an author (this you usually do) and a translation (when the original quote is in e.g. latin or greek) in this simple format:


Code:
quote "quote_xxx"
trans "trans_xxx"
quoted "quoted_xxx"Where xxx stands for the quote number. RTW vanilla seems to iterate through the number suffixes even within the same quote, but that's a leftover of earlier versions so you can just give the three parts of the quote the same number suffix.
The parts between quotation marks must only contain alphanumeric characters and underscores [a-z, _, 0-9] and must also be mentioned in descr_quotes_lookup.txt (enums file, not entirely necessary) and of course in text\quotes.txt.

[Sebulba]

Nice tutorial Legio Caesar this is very usefull.

[Nero666]

Nice tut, but atm it omits the ability to edit descr_transition_screen.txt, which is the file where you can write down which quotes have translation or not, and you can decide the amount of quotes.

Here's a short guide on that, hope u can work it into yours:

First of all, there is the descr_transition_screen.txt file, from here called DTS. In this file you can code the quotes that appear when loading the game, a campaign and battles.
Each quote requires at least the quote itself. You can also add an author (this you usually do) and a translation (when the original quote is in e.g. latin or greek) in this simple format:

	quote    "quote_xxx"
	trans    "trans_xxx"
	quoted    "quoted_xxx"

Where xxx stands for the quote number. RTW vanilla seems to iterate through the number suffixes even within the same quote, but that's a leftover of earlier versions so you can just give the three parts of the quote the same number suffix.
The parts between quotation marks must only contain alphanumeric characters and underscores [a-z, _, 0-9] and must also be mentioned in descr_quotes_lookup.txt (enums file, not entirely necessary) and of course in text\quotes.txt.

Just work it into the tutorial in a presentable way, I'm quite busy with my job atm so just typed this quickly and in too techy words prolly.

[Legio]

Thanks, Nero666, I will do that now!