Starsiege2845 Menu Conversion (Preview)

[PlagueDog]

I've been working on a Starsiege2845 Menu conversion for Starsiege. I've got it running stable so far but its far from finished.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWX6LWQAnHU

[Snow]

I just jizzed a hole through my pants and past the roof. Very nice. Would you mind making a copy of it for the Starsiege: Retribution mod? (if it'd be able to be compatible with the single player gui that is.). That would just be the honey-glazed icing on the long-john for me. =D.

[Sky]

Jul 9, 2010 23:24:19 GMT -6 PlagueDog said:

I've been working on a Starsiege2845 Menu conversion for Starsiege. I've got it running stable so far but its far from finished.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWX6LWQAnHU

Wow that is just jaw-dropping PD. I was thinking of doing something similar, but it looks like you beat me to the punch. Your version is far better than the one I was going to do.

That menu would be awesome for a 2845 mod for Starsiege, which I'm currently working on (skins, textures, and sounds mostly).

Great job Plague! I can't wait until it is finished for download. ;D

- Sky

[PlagueDog]

Here is an update on the menu and a comparison to the SS2845 game menu.

[PlagueDog]

what are you using to: make these / add extra buttons / extra functions?

[just gltoolbar???]

I use
ClientTree(); -> gui is in <GuiName>gui
EditGui(); -> For sending objects behind other objects
GuiSave(); -> To save the gui

You can embed console commands and variables in buttons but there is a 80 character limit on each field.

[Vern :e:]

anyway of taking out the man and putting a starsiege tank/herc?

[PlagueDog]

Argh. This menu will need to be entirely redone if I can figure out how to make smk objects keep the movie properties I apply.

Standard converted PBMP image using the mfd palette.
Lack of colors and poor shading.


SMK Object using its own palette with its own dedicated 256 colors. More colors available with better shading.

[PlagueDog]

Here are some screen shots of the revamped menu.

[Ozz]

Dead Wind Rising?

=\

[Cpt.Raynor]

Wow that looks cool PD, I'd love to use it once it gets done.

[PlagueDog]

Changing the embedded gui colors is tricky. Those colors are completely dependent on the palette. The only decent way to change those colors without messing up the bitmaps in the menu is to use a smacker video.

Set a Simgui::SmackerCtrl to 1 by 1 pixels. Then mess with "Place at pal index" and "Colors used" to change the colors in the gui.

(Newly created smacker controls cannot be saved so you must copy the Simgui::SmackerCtrl's that are in the main menu and modify those)

Buttons can execute functions when clicked on by adding the function name to "Console Command:" property.

To make custom buttons you must make 3 frames of the button.

A buttons pba functions like this-
Bmp 1 - Idle
Bmp 2 - Pressed
Bmp 3 - Released

So you make the 3 frames as 24bit bmps.

Button01.bmp
Button02.bmp
Button03.bmp

They then need to be converted to phoenix bitmaps using Picanew using the ShellImage103 folder.

Once done those 3 bmps need to be compiled into a PBA. Using PBACreator "add" the 3 bmps then build the pba file.

THEN to have this button show up as a pba to pick in the properties we need to add it to the simtags.

(Simtag IDs and numbers MUST be unique)
IDPBA_BUTTON_NAME = 00170075, "NewButton.pba";

(Rare PBA tool! Don't think this is on the internets anymore. Can compile PBA's and extract bitmaps from PBA's)

Attachments:

[PlagueDog]

having issues using smacker to make *.smk movies

Starsiege won't be able to render those videos made with Smacker 4.2e without the newer smackw32.dll

Just overwrite the one that came with Starsiege. This will play older smacker videos as well.

I recommend making the background a smacker video consisting of 1 frame. If you dont, you'r image will get its colors reduced down to fugly'ness when converting it to a phoenix bitmap.

Attachments:

[PlagueDog]

The splash screen displays a Bitmap before it plays intro.smk.

It displays logo.bmp. It is defined in gui.strings.bmp
IDBMP_LOGO = 00160001, "logo.bmp";

Comment it out to get a black screen before the video.

[PlagueDog]

Logo.bmp is a phoenix bitmap.

StarSiegeToolsv3 has a bmp to pbmp converter.
For smacker videos, set the "Colors Used" to 256.

The main menu music, SHELL1.WAV, is located in Shell.vol

[PlagueDog]

"Colors Used" is in the Simgui::SmackerCtrl object and not the smacker program.