Map Loading Screen generator

Confused

So, I thought it would be a good idea to write a little tool that looks into your maps, and outputs nice slides to using on the loading screen. Since it works mostly now. I thought the obvious choice would be to ensure that you all got to try it out and give me feed back about it.

Here is what it outputs, (using descent for the minimap and level):


Get it here


Thanks to OnosAteMe his level parse source is way way better than mine. Unfortunately, I am not using his code.

Please let me know if you have any issues, comments etc, running this. It should run in mono and .NET 4.0


Edit: updated download link

Twither

Man this will be awesome. I might give it a go on my map, could you possibly place a tutorial in this thread on how it all works (perhaps a video?). I think it would help clarify how to use everything.

Confused

I will try to get a simple tutorial up soon.

I have rather hectic 24 hours planned though.

basically, its setup to be a command line tool so its just run a command prompt, go to the directory with the program, run the program wiht you map name and the path to file root directory( ie: c:\programfiles\steam\steamapps\common ns2\) and it should go from there.

Confused

Changes:
compiled the whole thing into one .exe file
set it up to kick off the overview generator if the overview is not newer than the .level file
allowed you to pick a font.
implemented trying to not overlap locations.


So, here is how to use this bad boy.
1. download this bad boy.
2. extract the 2 files into your ns2 root (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Natural Selection 2)
3. run a command prompt (windowx +r, type cmd press enter)
4. go to the directory you have stuff setup in ( cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Natural Selection 2)
5. run loadscreens.exe ns2_my_fantastic_map "the coolest font i can think of" false
It should look like this:


I took a little time and put together a few screenshots of various maps/backgrounds for your enjoyment:





What the heck does this thing do?

It checks to see if you have the font you asked for. If not it shows a list of the fonts you do have.
It loads the level in /ns2/maps and pulls out the tech points, resource points, and locations
It checks to make sure the overview is newer than the level and regenerates it if we need to
It draws the contents of the png to all of your tech points
It writes the names of all your locations to the map. It will tell you if it thinks they are going to overlap.
It finds a back ground image either from /ns2/screens/your_map/src or from the concept art in /ns2/screens
It resizes that image to be 1920 wide.
It adds so effects to make things look cool and so tips show up.
It writes your overview with all the cool stuff to the image.
It adds the name of the map in almost exactly the right place.
It writes 4 images to the /ns2/screens/your_map folder called 1,2,3, and 4.jpg

Twither

Looking good so far, nice changes.

Mendasp

Shouldn't hardcode it to /ns2/. A lot of people will be working directly in their Launchpad folder (ie. Modname/output/maps/) so it'd be better if it took that into account or if we could specify map path/output directory.

Confused

Yeah, realizing that my hard coding is causing a few problems.

Trying to decide if the better option is a config file or just making everyone memorize a huge number of command line switches. Probably the config file is easier to edit and not significantly harder to pull off.

Also discovered that I don't deal with non square minimaps well, so stuff like mineshaft has tech points in the wrong place. So i will try to get the config file and the square fix in today

Edit:
I added a config file that should let you do all the cool things. I haven't really checked it though.
I also took the chance to fix the issues with nonsquare minimaps
I added the ability to specify the font size for the minimap from the command line

Some fonts are worse than others: