Please consider this copy of readme.txt as a image:

SWBF2 Load Screen Utility
August 20th, 2007 beta
by [RDH]Zerted


What it should do:
The Load Screen Utility provides an easy-to-use interface to adding loading screen images to SWBF2 mod maps. Loading screen images are the pictures a player see while the mod map is loading. No program is perfect for everyone. The Load Screen Utility has been extensively tested, but it can damage/destroy your map if you don't know what you are doing or if something unexpected happens. It is always recommended to make regular backups of your work and additional backups right before and after major changes.


How to use it:
1) Run the program.
2) A dialog will pop-up asking for 'Files which contain Load Screen properties'
3) Select the files and or folders, then click 'Process Selected'. Clicking 'Cancel' will close the program. If a folder is selected, the Load Screen Utility (tool) will attempt to process every file/folder inside that folder. At the moment, there is no main graphical user interface (gui) to the tool, that is why all the properties must be defined in files. An example property file is shown below.

#Start of the example property file: name it whatever you want to
#Note: Lines starting with the character: # are ignored by the tool
#Note: \\ or / must be used in directory structures, a single \ will not work
#Note: The order of the fields/values does not matter, but they all must have a valid value.
#The example's mod map is DEL
#The example's BF2_ModTools is installed in d:\development\
#The example's game is installed in d:\games\BattlefrontII\
#

#The CurrentImageLocation is the path to the image file you want to be displayed when the map is loading. The image must be in the correct format (whatever that is...). The image file may be copied or moved to the mod map's Load folder, so do not expect it to stay in the folder where it started out.
CurrentImageLocation=D:\\development\\BF2_ModTools\\data_DEL\\Load\\loadscreen.tga

#The ModMapRootDir is the path of the root directory for the mod map. That is to say, all the mod map's files are contained within this folder. If using the official SWBF2 mod tools, the folder should be named "data_<short map name>".
ModMapRootDir=D:\\development\\BF2_ModTools\\data_DEL

#The AddToScripts is the path to the Lua script files which define the map's different rounds/modes/levels/battlefronts. The tool can handle multiple script files at the same time, just make sure to separate their paths with a comma: ,. The example AddToScripts value has two script files.
AddToScripts=D:\\development\\BF2_ModTools\\data_DEL\\Common\\scripts\\DEL\\DELg_con.lua,D:\\development\\BF2_ModTools\\data_DEL\\Common\\scripts\\DEL\\DELc_con.lua

#The GameAddonFolder is the path to SWBF2's addon folder. It should be located in <SWBF2's installed folder>\GameData\addon. If the addon folder does not exist, feel free to create it or the tool will attempt to do that for you. This path doesn't have to be the game's addon folder, but it should point to wherever VisualMunge puts its munged maps.
GameAddonFolder=D:\\games\\BattlefrontII\\GameData\\addon

#
#End of the example property file

4) If a file already exists at a location the Load Screen Utility wants to move another file to, it will prompt the user. Read, then answer any prompts.
5) The tool will prompt you to 'munge Load' and provides basic steps on how to do that. When VisualMunge has finished, click 'Ok'. If VisualMunge had an error or mishap while munging Load, the Load Screen Utility might fail, work, or prompt you again.
6) When the tool is finished, it will let you know.
7) If you want to review or backup the program's log, it is stored at <system temp directory>/SWBF2_LoadScreenUtility_Log_<#>.txt.


Why it was written:
Some modders were having a hard time figuring out how to manually add load screen images to their maps. This tool allows you to add an image without learning all the ins and outs of the process. However, to better understand your own map, it is recommended that you take the time to do it manually at least once. Also, [RDH]Zerted likes programming.


What you can do with it:
Anything you want except sell it to others, claim yourself or somebody else other than [RDH]Zerted as its author/developer, or use it in/with/for a professional company or group without approval from [RDH]Zerted first.


How it does what it does:
The readme author does not feel like typing all this out right now. Checkout the LoadScreen HowTo topic at Gametoast to learn more. The Load Screen Utility follows almost the same process outlined in that topic.


Known Problems/Issues:
-There is no main graphical user interface (gui).
-If you run the program and nothing happens or it seems to hang at any point, switch through your open programs and see if the Load Screen Utility opened a pop-up behind one of them. The pop-up (and entire program) has no button on the task bar, but deos show up in Window's Alt+Tab screen.
-Load Screen images cannot be removed through the tool. To remove the load screen image, checkout the LoadScreen HowTo topic at Gametoast.
-There are no cancel options for any of the user prompts. If you want to exit the program before it finishes, change your file structure to cause an error or terminate the program's process.
-Its possible to crash the tool by not having a munged Load lvl file and always clicking 'Ok' then 'Yes' a few thousand times.
-Problems/Issues listed in the Gametoast discussion topic.
-Words in this scntimze ane sqeIIcd wnorg bvt yeu cen still umdertsnad tehm.
-The message saying the map is finished looks like an error message. Reason: Java must think all messages are bad.


Change Log:
Version: August 20th, 2007 beta
-Changed everything as there was nothing before


Possible Roadmap:
-Easy user requests
-Change user prompts to show what map is being processed
-Add the ability to remove a Load Screen image from a mod map
-Release another beta version
-Add a main graphical user interface
-Add the option to cancel in all user prompts
-Add better logging controls
-Release another version
-Disable/Enable gui controls based on possible, valid actions
-Add value guessing to the gui fields
-Add auto-competition to the gui fields
-Release another version
-???


Random Facts:
The program is about 13,000 lines of code (including comments and white space).
The name for that visible no-name player is:


Random Characters?: ap98ehfp34hP(*#HRP(RH;JRB#UhG:*RO:KJWB?jb"oduiHD'obP|:mds,.


Resources:
Download Link (under Programs): https://www.se.rit.edu/~dpk3062/swbf2 (172KB)
MediaFire (SWBF2_LoadScreenUtility_Jan-25-2008.zip 272KB)

Gametoast (a modding community): http://www.gametoast.com
Gametoast discussion about this tool: http://www.gametoast.com/index.php?name ... ic&t=11040
PC Gaming Clan: rdhclan.net
[RDH]Zerted's email: [email protected]
[RDH]Zertes's XFire: zerted

I don't know if I'll have time to complete the gui, so I'm posting this version of the tool. If I get the gui running, I'll post it in the Released forum.

Suggestions/Tips/Feedback?

Wow...Just plain wow.

Probably your best work yet, Zerted..and that says a lot. Even looks nice. Can't see any problems with it, except that Java is slow to load on my BF2 computer, which isn't your fault. (Also, when I tried to load a PNG image, it closed itself with no error, so you might want to add that the files have to be TGA.)

Other than that, great work! Could an admin add this to the "Everything you need" sticky in BF2 Modding?

when i get to the first screen and select a file it just crashes? can you plz help?

Only one question that I want to know since you never released it publicly because 'people would go crazy' with it, Can this add multiple load screens? (Have 5 screens that are selected at random when you go to load the map) ?

If not then For the next version you should think about it xD, Maybe a limit to the number of ones that you can add to stop the crazy screenload people

Hmm, it shouldn't crash without an error. For anyone having problems, post your log file. Its in your system's temp directory, normally: . Note: Local Settings may be a hidden folder. If it crashes when you are first selecting a file, it might be empty .

I don't even remember how to add multiple load screens anymore. I think you if add more ReadDataFile() with different images they would flash on screen, but thats not the 'correct' way to do it. You need to use extract and peak inside the official Load lvls to copy their structure. Another way to do it would be to use Lua's random number generator and select a different lvl file to read depending on the number.

I never really liked that video how to. It even has an extra step (no need to edit the bat file).

Does anyone else have to scroll to the right to read all these posts, or is that just my browser?

Everyones but mine, Mine can jsut fit it in, You have an unbreaking line in there on line 40.

shouldn't this be in the Released Maps/Mods topic?

when i clicked on the filetoast link I got an invalid download link error. So could someone upload this to filefront

What I wanted for loadscreens was a specific one for each mode. THe only way I could do it was mungeing a separate Load\whatever.lvl for each mode and loading it for the proper mode.
ReadDataFile(load.lvl,
"hero_assault_image") didn't work.

So, Zerted, you like to program? Theres plenty of room for some easily coded
mini-apps in swbf 2 modding. One example that I came up with but never got around to making (One Directory Explanation: bf2_modtools/data_ACE) was:

A little app that would read in all of your lyr and wld files for objects and then compare it with all the odfs in a specified directory, to check for missing and unneeded assets. It could also read the odfs for extra/missing mshs, and possibly the mshs for the .TGAs. If you want to try this I could give you my JAVA lyr 'parsing' function for a small head start. (Its basically a couple of loops and array that grabs the Object Name Line based on the location of the quotation marks and the presence of brackets or something in a Line ( been a while). It could easily be tweaked to grab the object type line.

I didn't put it in the Released topic and only uploaded it to FileToast because this is still a beta.

School starts for me in two weeks and I still have to get the next FakeConsole out as well as finish this. I don't know if I'd have time for other apps.

Impressive. Most Impressive.
:vader:
I'll try it out and report back later.
Now if only some one could make one of these for adding missing sounds....

How are the sounds missing?

Since FileToast is gone, I changed the download link. Now its downloadable again. If the Loading Screen HowTo is in the "Everything You Need" topic, I think this should be too. As its easier to use the program than to follow the HowTo.

[RDH]Zerted wrote:If the Loading Screen HowTo is in the "Everything You Need" topic, I think this should be too. As its easier to use the program than to follow the HowTo.

Done
It's in the Miscellaneous section near the bottom.

I didn't read over it all but this is great. I didn't really like the video tutorial (maybe I'm stupid but I had to keep restarting it because it wouldn't pause) so this makes things much easier and faster for me. Thank you!

I've been working on a GUI for this over Christmas break (I need two networked computers with SWBF2 on them to work on the FakeConsole mod). I was going to embed the state of the program into its jar (Java programs run from jar files) if the program uncleanly exited or if you wanted to set default directories/settings. However, I haven't had much success with keeping everything cleanly packaged up as a single file. I can store some things in the Window registry, but then the program would leave traces of itself on whatever computer it was on and you would only be able to store info on a single map (instead of possible storing the info for all your maps).

Does anyone even care about having the ability to save/store directories and file locations (you can always browse each file or type them in manually) or am I wasting my time on this feature?

Edit: I'm going with saving the program's state in the Windows registry and only editing one map at a time. The program is in a wizard format. Its a little weird as there are only two pages/main steps in the wizard, but when I started the design there were four. Four pages made more sence to do in a wizard format. (I removed the multiple maps page and the prompt page. The prompt page would of allowed you to set default selections for all the prompts, so you wouldn't have had to click or see any of them.)

That sounds like it'd be a nice feature. I'm always annoyed when programs don't do that. However, just do what you think is important (I know programming can be a little strenuous )

Keep up the good work

No longer a WIP, so locking this topic.

See http://www.gametoast.com/forums/viewtop ... 35&t=12745