Main Menu Replacement Project
2d0x
Join Date: 2013-03-16 Member: 184030Members, Reinforced - Supporter
Join Date: 2013-03-16 Member: 184030Members, Reinforced - Supporter
seems like my mod causing problems after new patch, again ... and this time i don't know why and how to fix it
please deactivate my mod and unsubscribe from it or you will get black screen every time you try load a map!
Developers change the game with each patch, and it's constantly affect the workability of my mod, and the most frustrating thing about this is that my mod is causing problems for users.
I make the decision to freeze the project for an indefinite period. I do not have skills to develop it and solve problems as they become available, and there is almost no training videos, so I will not be able to learn.
Once again I apologize for the problems caused by my mod, and I want to thank those who have used my mod.
Main Menu Replacement Project
I'm creating this topic for information, but I hope to get help here, because i started work on this mod only 2 days ago, and i do not have experience of modding before at any game. So i can use any help from people with modding experience.
Description:
The project is aimed at changing the default game menu. As you can see the current game menu (that we received with a Gorgeous update) is based on the Descent map style. Most of the replacements at Steam Workshop are based on this "default Gorgeous game menu", so there are not much to choose from. I want to change that. I'll try to give you a choice.
My main current goal is to create a different game menus, each with its own atmosphere, animations, actors, suitable music and style.
This includes changes in:
Background location - it may be any location\room\scene from any of 7 official ns2 maps, "recorded" from any position, with\without new\old features like shadows\lighting\objects etc.
Music - I want to find a suitable music for every scene to give a special atmosphere. There is enough suitable tracks in ns2 official soundtrack, so I will use them.
Actors - Different characters from Aliens\Marines will take part in the scenes at the appropriate time and in the right place. Skulk crawling up on the ceiling, Fade hiding in the shadows, a Marine on patrol etc.
Currently ideas are:
Thirsty Onos Bar
The tense scene for the viewer showing the danger to an unsuspecting Marine.
Music: NS2 OST - Simon Chylinski - Thirsty Onos
Actors: marine, skulk, fade
The general idea: Marine stands on patrol. It is surrounded by loud bar music. Enemies sometimes silently moved behind his back - skulk crawling on the ceiling. Fade for a moment looking out of the corner and then disappears into the mist.
Thirsty Onos Bar is updated to v0.4 on Steam Workshop
2 actors: marine and skulk
default music (this is temporary)
loading time is the same - 2 seconds
in the next update i will try to add some action, animation to the actors, and background music
I highly recommend you use "Newsbox be gone" by Elodea this will make your game menu clean as on my screenshot.
Generator at Docking
Scene showing main Khaara Hive, building and creatures. The scene shows the viewer what are Aliens is.
Music: not yet defined, possible suitable track is NS2 OST - David John - Hive
Actors: not yet defined.
The general idea: The scene shows the viewer what are Khaara is, details are not yet known.
Place is not yet defined:
Scene showing main Frontiersman base, buildings and units. The scene shows the viewer what are Marines is.
Music: not yet defined, possible suitable track NS2 OST - David John - Frontiersman
Actors: not yet defined.
The general idea: The scene shows the viewer what are Frontiersman is, details are not yet known.
I have two more ideas that I have thought later
1. The tense scene with marine and silent khaara in the shadows. Suitable track: NS2 OST - David John - Tarnished, maybe i will recreate this scene from alpha at one of the current map, but in suitable place.
2. Scene that showing beauty of Natural Selection 2 game
Maybe i will record some places with windows and space\stars\planets. Suitable track: NS2 OST - David John - The Future
By the way this song is perfectly fits to current in game Descent style game menu, there is a Main Menu Song Replacer "The Future" by Regnareb so you can subscribe and use it right now!
---MANY THANKS TO:---
Hypergrip
Regnareb
I'm creating this topic for information, but I hope to get help here, because i started work on this mod only 2 days ago, and i do not have experience of modding before at any game. So i can use any help from people with modding experience.
Description:
The project is aimed at changing the default game menu. As you can see the current game menu (that we received with a Gorgeous update) is based on the Descent map style. Most of the replacements at Steam Workshop are based on this "default Gorgeous game menu", so there are not much to choose from. I want to change that. I'll try to give you a choice.
My main current goal is to create a different game menus, each with its own atmosphere, animations, actors, suitable music and style.
This includes changes in:
Background location - it may be any location\room\scene from any of 7 official ns2 maps, "recorded" from any position, with\without new\old features like shadows\lighting\objects etc.
Music - I want to find a suitable music for every scene to give a special atmosphere. There is enough suitable tracks in ns2 official soundtrack, so I will use them.
Actors - Different characters from Aliens\Marines will take part in the scenes at the appropriate time and in the right place. Skulk crawling up on the ceiling, Fade hiding in the shadows, a Marine on patrol etc.
Currently ideas are:
Thirsty Onos Bar
The tense scene for the viewer showing the danger to an unsuspecting Marine.
Music: NS2 OST - Simon Chylinski - Thirsty Onos
Actors: marine, skulk, fade
The general idea: Marine stands on patrol. It is surrounded by loud bar music. Enemies sometimes silently moved behind his back - skulk crawling on the ceiling. Fade for a moment looking out of the corner and then disappears into the mist.
Thirsty Onos Bar is updated to v0.4 on Steam Workshop
2 actors: marine and skulk
default music (this is temporary)
loading time is the same - 2 seconds
in the next update i will try to add some action, animation to the actors, and background music
I highly recommend you use "Newsbox be gone" by Elodea this will make your game menu clean as on my screenshot.
Generator at Docking
Scene showing main Khaara Hive, building and creatures. The scene shows the viewer what are Aliens is.
Music: not yet defined, possible suitable track is NS2 OST - David John - Hive
Actors: not yet defined.
The general idea: The scene shows the viewer what are Khaara is, details are not yet known.
Place is not yet defined:
Scene showing main Frontiersman base, buildings and units. The scene shows the viewer what are Marines is.
Music: not yet defined, possible suitable track NS2 OST - David John - Frontiersman
Actors: not yet defined.
The general idea: The scene shows the viewer what are Frontiersman is, details are not yet known.
I have two more ideas that I have thought later
1. The tense scene with marine and silent khaara in the shadows. Suitable track: NS2 OST - David John - Tarnished, maybe i will recreate this scene from alpha at one of the current map, but in suitable place.
2. Scene that showing beauty of Natural Selection 2 game
Maybe i will record some places with windows and space\stars\planets. Suitable track: NS2 OST - David John - The Future
By the way this song is perfectly fits to current in game Descent style game menu, there is a Main Menu Song Replacer "The Future" by Regnareb so you can subscribe and use it right now!
---MANY THANKS TO:---
Hypergrip
Regnareb
Comments
//edit: ezekel seems that it is easier than I thought, I think I'll try to make an alpha version today thanks to the advice of hypergrip
hm, seems like i need do to more things after creating rectangle and applying texture with ambient light, because i cant see anything when setting level at cinematic editor, so im starting to watch basic tutorial videos about creating maps in ns2
//edit2: i watched tutorial about creation of map, and i was able to create my first playable map, but there is 2 problems
1. i record a wall from my new map through cinematic editor, but i get blackscreen on background game menu, dont know why, need spend some time to clear this out
Anyways, would be cool to see maybe an Onos bar main menu screen too, would love to see that place used.
Ok, let's create that texture (I'm currently at the office so no screenshots, sorry. But you should be able to follow along anyway):
0.) Download and install the NVIDIA Texture Tool, so you can export DDS files from Photoshop: https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop.
0.b) If you do not own Photoshop, you can use paint.net. Just search for "paint.net DDS export" and you should be fine.
1.) A quick google search for the artwork gives us this one here that we'll use as a base: http://www.lerk.de/bilder/artwork/ns2-biosphere-hive-room.jpg The image is 3000 × 1533 pixels which we can't use for textures. So...
2.) We resize the image to be 2048 pixels wide and 1047 pixels high. We then cut of a bit from the top and bottom to have 2048x1024 pixels
3.) Since I don't know if spark does handle texture above 1024x1024 well (it probably does, but I'm not sure right now and I want this to work). So I cut the image in half. I now have two images "hive_artwork_left" and "hive_artwork_right", each 1024x1024.
4.) Safe/Export these two images as DDS files. In the popup select "DXT5 ARGB 8 bpp | interpolated alpha". This is your "plain texture" = the albedo map.
5.) We can save the time creating opacity, normal and specular maps for now. We might get an error in the console but it's just a quick test.
6.) Time to create basic .material files. (hive_artwork_left.material & hive_artwork_right.material)
7.) Place the 2 DDS and 2 .material files in the output/materials folder of your mod
8.) Start Launchpad, Select your mod, open the Editor.
9.) Create two square faces in the editor next to each other and use the two textures we created.
10.) Place an Ambient Light next to the faces you created, set the Intensity to 150 or 200 and set the Max Distance to something really big. Play around with these values until you find something that looks good. ( Intensity 150 and max distance 700 look fine if the faces you created are 128x128 units IIRC)
11.) save the map, load it into the cinematic editor, aim your camera.
12.) Marvel at your greatness!
Edit: forum doesn't like my [CODE] tag it seems...
Well, it would appear if the forum would accept my upload...
Here is a link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/v4k80y
(can anybody recommend a good simple file hoster that doesn't clutter it's page with banners so much? Something like imgur but for other small files?)
Are the textures in the right place, too?
Open the console after your game started and have a look. There should be two error messages, because the textures/materials I created for you are missing the normal maps the shader expects. but that should not prevent from the textures to show up at all. Look for "file not found" errors that could pinpoint the error.
The output folder of your mod directory prepresents to the \Steam\SteamApps\common\Natural Selection 2\ns2\ directory and its subfolders.
The source directory contains the files that you work with and are automatically taken, converted and/or copied by the builder application into the output directory.
When you publish a mod, you basically publish your output folder (think of it as copying the output folder and then renaming it to the Steam mod-id)
When you activate a mod, the files in the subfolders of the mod directory are treated as if they were in the corresponding folders under \Steam\SteamApps\common\Natural Selection 2\ns2\
If the problem you have is related to missing files, the builder might not have copied over all required files from the source to the output folders, or you referenced something in your files with a wrong static path?
Have you published your mod? If so I can have a look at it, maybe I can find the error. Can't promise anything though, I keep struggling with builder, too, and right now copy files manually for testing my map.
As I said before I didn't bother to create a normal map for the hive artwork texture (I was kinda hoping you'd do that yourself
1.) Create an image and fill it with solid grey. Apply the NVIDIA Normal Map Filter and you should now have a solid purple-ish image. We can use that for both of the two artwork materials, so let's save it as "hive_artwork_both_normal.dds".
2.) Add the following line to the two .material files:
Those line should now be gone.
btw: There may be a better choice for the material shader than Level.surface_shader, but I haven't looked deep enough into that to give a recommendation, maybe someone else here can.
(updated material files with normal map: http://www1.datafilehost.com/d/6d68ea10)
Today I tried to replace the main menu music for Thirsty Onos Bar, spend some time in FMOD Designer, unfortunately without success. Getting errors in ns2 console.
I also edited all my posts in this thread, because of the recent problems with the editing of old messages.
added 2 actors: marine and skulk
default music has changed to Simon Chylinski - Thirsty Onos (many thanks to Regnareb, I could not have done this without his help)
loading time is the same - 2 seconds
in the next update i will try to add some action and animation to the actors
Picture
Video
damn, this is a serious problem, i will try to fix it as soon as possible, but to be honest i have no idea where to start
there is a console error log, maybe someone can help me
my mod is hidden right now, i apologize for the problems caused by my mod
//edit. it seems that this problem is caused not only by my mod, but also with any Main Menu Music replacements
//edit2. it seems that this problem is caused by just one aspect - when I click on the server in the server browser
//edit3. Regnareb helps me find another way of changing main menu music, this method is much easier, but i need some help with lua
there is a dev post with explanation if i want to change game menu music in my mod by this method, so if i understand correctly, i need MainMenu.lua and these lines:
/**
* Plays background music in the main menu. The music will be automatically stopped
* when the menu is left.
*/
function MenuMenu_PlayMusic(fileName)
if mainMenuMusic ~= nil then
Client.StopMusic(mainMenuMusic)
end
mainMenuMusic = fileName
if mainMenuMusic ~= nil then
Client.PlayMusic(mainMenuMusic)
end
end
also i have music file: ThirstyOnosCut.wav (or maybe i can use .mp3?), i need to put it at mymod\source\soundsrc right?
which lines in MainMenu.lua and how i should change with my music file name? somebody can show me an example please
i asked about this in 2 forum topics a week ago, but there is no answers
version 0.4 is released
2 actors: marine and skulk
Simon Chylinski - Thirsty Onos music has changed to default ns2 music (it is related to serious problems which, unfortunately, I can not solve yet)
loading time is 2 seconds
I apologize for the problems that my mod could bring after update 0.3
Version 0.4 should not cause any problems. If you have a problem related to my mod, please let me know immediately!