Editing the main interface

[ReinierK]

Hi there,

I've looked all over the forum and searched till a almost died, but I can't find it anywhere: where do I find the graphics that contain for instance the loading screen, the progress bar and the background texture of the main interface (the one when you're looking at the world map)?

I'm starting with modding and I don't seem to be able to find these items (although I do find almost all the other textures).

Thanks in advance!

ReinierK

 

[Swyter]

Hi there,

I've looked all over the forum and searched till a almost died, but I can't find it anywhere: where do I find the graphics that contain for instance the loading screen, the progress bar and the background texture of the main interface (the one when you're looking at the world map)?

I'm starting with modding and I don't seem to be able to find these items (although I do find almost all the other textures).

Thanks in advance!

ReinierK

I asked this when I started to modding this game, nobody seem pretty interested. This time I can help you, but not with good news. The M&B user interface is heavily hardcoded. And, moreover the resources, meshes, materials and texture references can't be altered without retouching stuff in CommonRes.

What's the main problem? Well, there are various ones:

[+] We can't touch, add, remove or replace the

core_*.brf

resources through the

module.ini

, they're loaded before everything, can only be altered directly replacing them for ALL the mods.

[+] We can only customize a small amount of text colors in buttons, menus and so (take a look to

 game_variables.txt

). So you're limited to the black text color palette.

[+] You can only alter the textures used by those resources (

core*.brf

and

 user_interface_b.brf

, etc) So the result is often unprofessional and choppy.

[+] You can replace the propietary bitmap font format with the help of my program

Font Customiser

(look at my signature). Isn't easy at all otherwise. And it was far from modular in the original game, together with the Data folder (see

Iron Launcher

for more info).

[+] Good news for you if you're trying to edit the main menu. You can alter the position of everything, also its colors and size, also you can make animated backgrounds (even dynamic ones) with the help of a presentation called exactly "

prsnt_game_start

" non-existent by default.

Used all this in SWC, as you can see I do my best for turning this hack and slash thingy into a futuristic feeling.
At least in the graphical part.


Have fun. 

 

[ReinierK]

So if I understand you correctly: the buttons in the main bar (character, party, etc...) can be altered (in CommonRes), but the background texture of the bar itself is hard coded?
And so are the loading bar when the game starts up?

That's... awkward...

Thanks for your help though!

 

[Swyter]

So if I understand you correctly: the buttons in the main bar (character, party, etc...) can be altered (in CommonRes), but the background texture of the bar itself is hard coded?
And so are the loading bar when the game starts up?

That's... awkward...

Thanks for your help though!

Nonono... the texture reference are hardcoded, not the texture itself. You can modify the texture maps located in the base

 \Textures

, and place them in your module's texture folder.

But the simple meshes that compounds the GUI system cannot be safely altered.

Take a look to

bg2.dds

,

interface.dds

,

user_interface_b.dds

, and the

*_window.dds

for the different backgrounds in the different screens, particularly

quest_window.dds

for the strategic map bar in the lower part, the upper part of the image is deprecated tho.

As you can see we can only RESKIN the existing stuff, and not CREATE our own.
Once that

core_*.brf

resources become modular, everything will be mostly moddable.

PS: Beware with some texture maps and their compression format (DXT1, DXT5), most part of them don't even accept transparencies. Because of the material flags configuration (without any kind of blending activated)

PS2: Also some of the meshes as the loading bar uses reclycled parts of another textures and even vertex shading. A good example is the red coloring of the progress/loading bar, that uses the scroll bitmap with tuned colors.

 

[ReinierK]

Thanks, I actually figured that out late last night!
Reskinning is fine for now, I'll just have to check how transparencies are handled in the game and how far I can go with making different buttons and such.

By the way: the download link for the module system for M&B seems to be down, can I get it anywhere else? The module system for WB corrupts the game

 

[Swyter]

Thanks, I actually figured that out late last night!
Reskinning is fine for now, I'll just have to check how transparencies are handled in the game and how far I can go with making different buttons and such.

By the way: the download link for the module system for M&B seems to be down, can I get it anywhere else? The module system for WB corrupts the game

Yoshi made a cute thread only for that, look in the pinned topics:

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,111706.0.html

The repository is a good place for searching older versions of the game and some other mirrored downloads.

 

[ReinierK]

Okay thanks!
Edit: I found the progress bar, the material names and file names don't match every time, which makes it a pain to find the corresponding textures

Also, the engine seems to apply hue shifting on elements, this is going to be a challenge

 

[Swyter]

Okay thanks!
Edit: I found the progress bar, the material names and file names don't match every time, which makes it a pain to find the corresponding textures

Also, the engine seems to apply hue shifting on elements, this is going to be a challenge

The material name can be different than the texture name. Look to the

DiffuseA

entry. It has an hyperlink. Click on it.
It will get you into the correct final texture, even if it's located in a different BRF.

The properties panel has changed again, this time shows the texture's format, and a little button named "open it", it opens a Windows Explorer window with the file highlighted.

Props goes to Marco Tarini for the great software.


About the changed hue, I told you in the upper post that vertex coloring is used often. Find "

progressbar_handle

"
Move the camera until you see the mesh from above.

Switch between the Vertex color and No color radio buttons. You'll see the difference. If it's located in a core resource it shouldn't be altered.
You can modify vertex coloration of every mesh right-clicking on the mesh entry in the list and selecting Tune colors HSB or Color uniform. Some of these will do the trick.

Enjoy!

 

[ReinierK]

That's a great tool indeed, thanks!
So, I shouldn't actually mess around with the progressbar_handle object because it's located in a core_ resource?
Can't I just alter the object and make my module replace the core_ resource? (Backing up the original of course).

I really think the entire UI can do with a good overhaul

 

[Swyter]

That's a great tool indeed, thanks!
So, I shouldn't actually mess around with the progressbar_handle object because it's located in a core_ resource?
Can't I just alter the object and make my module replace the core_ resource? (Backing up the original of course).

I really think the entire UI can do with a good overhaul

I suppose you can distribute it as an optional feature without too many problems.
But people already find installing mods pretty hard. I've been thinking to do it myself, is still a lot of work for a small player-base.

I know that only the ~7% of our players are using our custom font. This together with a GUI overhaul would require a completely independent installation.
And that breaks completely the sense of modularity that M&B itself has. You know.

Use the Iron Launcher if you want. I'm not giving support anymore, but it comes with simple documentation.
Maybe it can be useful for you to a certain degree.

 

[ReinierK]

Edit: I think I found the font.
it was in fact the font I thought wasn't the one lol, until I applied the alpha channel.

Darn, it's full of Cyrillic and Turkish, that's going to be another challenge

 

[Victor94]

Hello.

I have made an animated background in different images. How replace these dynamic images to the background image of the game menu?

Cheers.

 

[Swyter]

Hello.

I have made an animated background in different images. How replace these dynamic images to the background image of the game menu?

Cheers.

With shaders or a custom presentation called "

game_start

". You'll have to add it, as it doesn't come in

module_presentations.py

by default.

Con sombreadores o una presentación personalizada llamada "

game_start

". Tendrás que añadirla,  ya que no viene en

module_presentations.py

por defecto.