Lesson 2: User Interface

[GrnEyedDvl]

This runs for me too.

EDIT: Attached is a screenshot of Icedie's transition screen.

[Hunter Makoy]

nope, it´s 55.9 mb.

yeah when i posted that i forgot i was looking at it compressed.

if its not wat i listed then u prolly will have to reinstall.

[♔Jean-Luc Picard♔]

wait... if his load screen is a jpg, not a tga, would that mess the game up?

Skan

[Icedie El Guaraní]

I have add 2 jpg files in it just for other reasons they are not the final product, it should look less sharp and has other modifications, but i will re install it. it might be that !!
EDITED:
Succes!! re-installing it solve the problem.
Splash

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Loading_screen

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Transition file

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

,

Thanks fo rthe help everybody, this is it.

[Hunter Makoy]

EDIT: if its running for GED and Absinthia then my ideas rn't right.

[musicdemon]

Well, I left the templates in the folder, so I know it's not those causing any problems. I'm going to have to agree with everyone here that a re-install would be a good way to start. If that still doesn't solve the problem, the easiest way to figure it out is to: 1) Detach palm from face and take a deep breath. 2) Start inserting each element of the lesson into the ModBasics folder, one at a time. It sounds tedious and annoying, but as soon as you run into a problem, you'll know that it had something to do with the last files you added. 3) If that doesn't work and it seems to be some kind of witchcraft, like with my problem, just post here and we'll try to help you figure it out

[Alex-ander]

Hmm seems this lesson is not as easy as the first one so i have some questions.

I cant find the splash.tga

How do i use the templates, the writeup mentions putting an image as a layer 
underneath how do i do that. I have done a bit of image editing in paint shop
pro but that has been just resizing and a bit of cropping. 

How do i put my screenshots on the forum. I know a way to do it using an 
image hosting site which i use for other forums. So is that the way we do it 
or is there an easier way.

Well i downloaded Why's splashscreen which i think is the one we use now. And put it in the menu folder and it works and shows when i start the game with the Bat file yey

Sorry if these are obvious questions but i am a newby

[musicdemon]

How do i use the templates, the writeup mentions putting an image as a layer
underneath how do i do that. I have done a bit of image editing in paint shop
pro but that has been just resizing and a bit of cropping.

I'm interested to see how people did this as well. The problem is that I don't know a way to make just a section of a picture transparent without having to make the entire picture transparent as well. I also tried cutting out the middle, but it just replaces it with more blank space. I never really figured it out, though, since one of the templates was simply missing the middle portion and my background image finally was shown after I moved it to the bottom layer. In GIMP, if there is no middle section to the picture, this will be represented by a gray checkered pattern, not white space.

The only other way to do it would be to cut each border out of the template and make it into its own layer, insert the picture, make it the base layer, and then delete the rest of the template picture. This seemed terribly awkward, and I'd like to believe there's an easier way.

How do i put my screenshots on the forum. I know a way to do it using an
image hosting site which i use for other forums. So is that the way we do it
or is there an easier way.

I think that's the only way to do it.

[♔Jean-Luc Picard♔]

Succes!! re-installing it solve the problem.

woot! great news mate. love the campaign screen, by the way.

Skan

[Icedie El Guaraní]

I figure it that my vanilla folder didn´t for mod folders but the vanilla worked normally thre were many changes i have made and i messed up with my original copy and the only reason the first mod folder work was because i made a wrong bat file, i add the line medieval2.exe @ModBasics.bat instead of .cfg so that is why it was not loading anything , but when i change it to .cfg it crashes so eventually i decided before quitting to re-install it, and luckyly it worked.

[Hunter Makoy]

Icedie u need to show a pic of the single player screen that shows how u changed the name of 'grand campaign' as well as a pic of the credits rolling.

[Icedie El Guaraní]

damn it i forgot!! thanks

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Augustus Lucifer]

Last but certainly not least, my load page and custom loadbar and quote.

That was the least adult content quote i had and it took like 5 tries to get it up, lol.

Skan

You should replace the censored word with ****. I'm not going to infract you for it if it is removed, but we have a policy against using words that would be censored on the forums in images, even if they're of educational nature. All it takes is a simple edit in the quotes.txt file.

Either way, I got it to work, so don't question a good thing, right

Trying to piece together what could cause a problem is always good for later cases though. In this instance, my bet is that the first symbol in the file had an error. With the text files, you need to encode the file properly or it won't run even though the symbol is the same, because it's funky like that.

I cant find the splash.tga

How do i use the templates, the writeup mentions putting an image as a layer
underneath how do i do that. I have done a bit of image editing in paint shop
pro but that has been just resizing and a bit of cropping.

How do i put my screenshots on the forum. I know a way to do it using an
image hosting site which i use for other forums. So is that the way we do it
or is there an easier way.

You got the splash screen, it was Why's file.

You will need GIMP or Photoshop to do layered images. You can get GIMP for free, just google it and download the latest version and the documentation. Then you'd create a background image and open the template as a layer over top it(check it first though to see what dimensions to make the background image based on the template dimensions). It is something that you will take time to learn and isn't taught in this class.

Photobucket or ImageShack is the way to go.


EDIT: He changed his image but your quote still led to the original, so I removed it - GED

[♔Jean-Luc Picard♔]

You should replace the censored word with ****. I'm not going to infract you for it if it is removed, but we have a policy against using words that would be censored on the forums in images, even if they're of educational nature. All it takes is a simple edit in the quotes.txt file.

see if you like this one better. if this one wont fly i will just black out the quote.

Skan

[atraps]

Ok, here is what I've done.

Click to view content: 

[musicdemon]

Trying to piece together what could cause a problem is always good for later cases though. In this instance, my bet is that the first symbol in the file had an error. With the text files, you need to encode the file properly or it won't run even though the symbol is the same, because it's funky like that.

Yeah, I really did try to find what caused the error. The text in the files matched 100% perfectly and all of the text was formatted the same. I didn't mean to be cavalier in saying "whatever", I just didn't want to seem really concerned why it worked. I'm used to sifting through lines of C# and Java trying to find where that "}" should be a ")". Thanks for explaining about the symbol, though, that will come in handy for future debugging

Then you'd create a background image and open the template as a layer over top it(check it first though to see what dimensions to make the background image based on the template dimensions).

I actually tried this first. However, all of the templates but loading_screen_template2.tga obscured the background image. How would one go about removing the white space in the middle of the other templates so that the background image will show through?

[Hunter Makoy]

I actually tried this first. However, all of the templates but loading_screen_template2.tga obscured the background image. How would one go about removing the white space in the middle of the other templates so that the background image will show through?

here's wat i do to not worry bout the white space. use this attachment, its a box outline, the inside of the box is the dimensions of the white space. copy/paste the box on the part of the pic u want to copy over. use rectangular select to cut out the inside of the box, then copy and paste to the template, it should line up perfectly on its own.

hopefully when u open it in gimp it has a transparent middle. if not, select only the black area, then copy/paste to the pic and center on the area u want to cut out.

[♔Jean-Luc Picard♔]

i just use paint.net and select the areas i want to remove and delete it. this makes it transparent so the layer underneath shows through. it is a lot simpler than gimp in that respect.

Skan

[Hunter Makoy]

but it can also be heard to pull an area the exact size u need. and using just a background layer only lets u use the middle of the picture.

[GrnEyedDvl]

I meant to save those as .tif so they would have the transparent spot, but for some reason I saved as .tga's so the transparent area is white. Here are the tif files.

In Gimp or PhotoChop you can just insert something else as a layer then stack them so the template is on top. Whatever is underneath will show through in the middle. I really didnt think so many people would use the templates, I figured everyone would do their own thing.

If I need to write a quick tutorial on doing this with Gimp then I will.