Here's a way to put video or motion graphic into any menu screen. You will have to undo the -nm shortcut extension and simply deal with the vanilla opening intro video for this to work though.
Guide to Placing Video into Menus
Tools: Notepad, Video Editing Program, Compressor (or a program than can compress or export to Mpeg1)
Resources: Modding Rome.LNT by Roman Man#3
**REMEMBER TO ALWAYS BACK UP THE ORIGINALS**
*I want to start off by saying, there's a lot of guess work here, but the steps work.*
First you are going to need to acquire your video media from someplace. For this test I used a fire effect found in Motion
Then exported it as a quicktime using the uncompressed animation codec, this created a .mov file.
Then I compressed this using Compressor to an Mpeg1 or .m1v file. I use this file because this is what the vanilla game used.
For the sake of the tutorial I am using a movie called fire_light.m1v with a pixel ratio of 160x120. If I did it right, you should be able to download the movie below. Its in .zip format.
Here are the steps to get this movie into the game.
1. Place your movie in to the folder Data/menu (for mod folders there will be not additional pathing. The game looks in the mod folder first.)
2. Open ROME.LNT with a text edit program like Notepad.
3. Use Find, Command + F and search for 'fmv_backdrop' you will find this piece of coding;
Code:
<fmv>Dump0000.m1v
<identifier>fmv_backdrop</identifier>
<left>0</left>
<top>0</top>
<right>1024</right>
<bottom>768</bottom>
</fmv>
I believe the <fmv> is a call out for a movie file. I will stress this later, but if you have -nm as an extension in your short cuts, no movies will play at all. (This is what killed me)
4. Copy that whole piece of coding and paste below it. Then change it to look like this;
[code]
<fmv>fire_light.m1v
<identifier>fmv_fire_light</identifier>
<left>0</left>
<top>0</top>
<right>160</right>
<bottom>120</bottom>
</fmv>
[code]
The first bit of text: <fmv>fire_light.m1v, I believe is a reference to your movie. This might not be the case, but the video works with this coding so...
The second bit of text: <identifier>fmv_fire_light</identifier> is the internal name used in the document. This will tell the game which movie to use.
The rest of the coding I think has to do with locating images on documents like FE where there are multiple images. Think of it as pulling out a square using the marque tool in photoshop. I believe you might be able to isolate parts of your video with this, but that would take further test. For now left & top are 0 for the starting point of the bounding box and right & bottom should be your video pixel size r = width and bottom = height.
5. Now use find again to once again find 'fmv_backdrop. You should find this code;
Code:
<UI object>fmv_backdrop
<type>art</type>
<UI region>art
<page>4will_hi.m1v</page>
<region>fmv_backdrop</region>
</UI region>
</UI object>
6. Again copy and paste it below the original then change the text to look like this;
Code:
<UI object>fmv_fire_light
<type>art</type>
<UI region>art
<page>fire_light.m1v</page>
<region>fmv_fire_light</region>
</UI region>
</UI object>
The <UI object> is the name you gave it in identifier. This is what the game wants to find when you code it into the menu. I'm not sure if this can unique.
<page>fire_light.m1v</page> I honestly have no idea what this does or how it relates since the vanilla coding has a different name than the dump000 referencing a file i can not find. But the coding works as I'm showing so it doesn't seem to be a problem.
<region>fmv_fire_light</region> again I think this relates to isolating parts of the video, but I'm not sure.
7. Now, use find again and this time search for the menu page you want to add your video to. The easiest way to do this is to search for '<lpage>'
each menu coding starts with this. I put mine of the main menu, so this is the coding I was after.
Code:
<layout>
<layout_width>1024</layout_width>
<layout_height>768</layout_height>
<piece_types_fname>rome_pieces.txt</piece_types_fname>
<piece_texts_fname>menu_text_descr.txt</piece_texts_fname>
<texture_path>guides</texture_path>
<texture_path>textures</texture_path>
<lpage>main_menu
8. Right after the line for main menu, paste in or write this code (I took it from the vanilla which you can find by additionally searching for '<lpage>background' its down at the bottom of the menu layout section.;
Code:
<UI piece>fmv_fire_light
<identifier>UIP_EMPTY_ART</identifier>
<Parameters>
<x>585</x>
<y>355</y>
<width>140</width>
<height>310</height>
</Parameters>
<object_id>fmv_fire_light</object_id>
</UI piece>
<UI piece> refers to the coding we did in step 6
<parameters> tell the game where to place your video on the menu screen, remember its 1024 x 768 starting from the top left. I use a lot of trial and error. This also allows ou to adjust the height and width of the video. It just stretched everything. In the case of the flame this was usefull to dial in the look I wanted.
<object_id> refers to the coding we did in step 4 and looks for the name you gave as in the <idendifier> line.
9. Its probably a good idea to go ahead now and find the coding for fmv_backdrop all the way on the bottom of the document using find and searching for '<lpage>background' it looks like this;
Code:
<UI piece>fmv_backdrop
<identifier>UIP_EMPTY_ART</identifier>
<Parameters>
<x>0</x>
<y>0</y>
<width>1024</width>
<height>768</height>
</Parameters>
<object_id>fmv_backdrop</object_id>
</UI piece>
and just go ahead and delete the whole thing.
10. Make sure you don't have the short cut extension -nm on your game short cut. Go ahead and launch the game and the movie should be there.
Here's how the end product looks that I did. Both the flames on either side of the buttons are actual motion graphics. Obviously you'd want to edit the location and size of your movie accordingly.
Let me know if I can make any of the steps clearer. -Rama