Chapter Text Screen Tutorial

Hello again

Thought I would post a quick tutorial on how to make a new chapter screen for the game. You might need one for your mod, but arent sure how to do it. Relax, its EASY!

You will need a blank chapter screen. You can either export an existing one from the game, decompress it and save as an image file, then erase the current picture.... or

You can take either of these:

 BlankChpScreen.psd   532K   617 downloads
(Photoshop document with uncompressed layers)


(JPG, where you can erase the white)

Now you will need to come up with some concept art. For this tutorial I browsed the web for some simple clip art.

 castle_2.bmp   580.13K   575 downloads

 peek3_copy.bmp   12.54K   634 downloads


Next I put them together on a blank file, used a brush to color some hills, used a simple circle colored orange for a moon, and used a polygon selection tool to color some night clouds.



I then want to get the same effect as some of the other SoA chapter screens by converting the image texture to mozaic.



Now I can layer my concept art onto the blank MOS text screen. You can either erase around the image or select "Screen" on the layering display. Trim and erase as needed to fit the image neatly in the screen, then merge the layers and save. It is best to save as a BMP, but most image files will work.



Now you can either use the MOS plugin for Photoshop if you have it, or open up MOSWorkshop and create a new MOS file. The file dimension for this one will be 649 X 483. Save the file using whatever name you wish (but try to keep it under 8 characters). I called my file 'CVTXT'.

Now you need to snag an existing chapter screen .2da and copy it. Rename it to the same name. Open the file and edit it. Right below 2DA V1.0 is where the name of your MOS file should go.

2DA V1.0
CVTXT
						0		   1
SWITCH				  DEFAULT	 DEFAULT
DEFAULT				 1001		1001

I have entered some arbitrary numbers for the string refs. We will change these when we install with WeiDU.

Next we want add to our TP2 the code needed and create an entry in a TRA to show some text.

TRA-

// Text Patching for CVTXT Chapter Text Screen

@1001 = ~Chapter 23: Kitty Goes to Calamity Castle

Finally!  You can see the castle in the moonlight and certainly the source of the sound.  You are still drawn inexplicably toward the grinding...then you realise what it is: It is the sound of an electric can opener.~ [AFT_M02]

This is the string that will be generated to replace the string ref in the CVTXT.2DA. I've also added a little sound attachment to this brief narrative.

TP2-

COPY ~CVChap/2DA/CVtxt.2da~
	 ~override/CVtxt.2da~
	REPLACE ~1001~ @1001

Next we will need some way to play the chapter screen. So here is a quick script that will do the trick. You can copy this into a .BAF and have it compile to a .BS... and send it directly to your SCRIPTS folder on install.

IF
	HotKey(D)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		ClearAllActions()
		StartCutSceneMode()
		CutSceneId(Player1)
		FadeToColor([30.0],0)
		Wait(2)
		MultiPlayerSync()
		FadeFromColor([30.0],0)
		TextScreen("CVtxt")
		EndCutSceneMode()
END

Just create a Bs folder for your install and have it go right where you need it for debugging.

COPY ~CV0001/Bs/CVtxt.bs~ ~scripts~

Run your install and start up the game. Go to Customize--> Scripts --> and find the script name you made and assign it to your PC. When ready, hit "D". The cutscene will fire and take you right into your new chapter screen.




I hope you have enjoyed this really quick tutorial and I hope it helps. Feel free to post any questions or comments you might have.

Cuv

Edited by Cuv, 18 July 2007 - 10:39 AM.

Wow! I believe that this Chapter Text would deserve a total conversion, just so it could be used
On a more serious note, I will try to look at it tomorrow (or simply anytime I am awake) and tell you if I can do my own chapter text following it. If I can´t, be sure that I will hound you for additional information!

Wow! I believe that this Chapter Text would deserve a total conversion, just so it could be used

Yes... of course!!! The Chronicles of Kitty: Dark Furry Fury. LOL

On a more serious note, I will try to look at it tomorrow (or simply anytime I am awake) and tell you if I can do my own chapter text following it. If I can´t, be sure that I will hound you for additional information!

Sure, post or PM me if you have any problems. I didnt mention it in the tutorial... but don't use 1 and @1 in your TRA to replace as it will replace all the instances of '1' in that .2da: V1.0, 1 over Default. will really mess things up. Learn that the hard way.

Cuv

Repeat after me: "Everything is easy once someone shows you how."

In other words, thank you for the extraordinarily concise, lucid tutorial! I have lost my fear of text screens!

Had a bunch of fun with this tutorial between yesterday and today. It all went well, but it took a bit of doing, mostly with the custcenes. And then there was that enlightening hour when I was trying to figure out why I kept getting a CTD instead of a text screen, until I realized that the text screen MOS and 2DA both have to have the same name.

Later on, I'll see if I can put something together to make going from a hot-key triggered text screen to a script-triggered text screen a little easier.

Here is my Textscreen, nice Tutorial but nothing is told about the compilation of the mos file, you can simply put your mos file in the "Pictures" repertory and it will be compile !

In BGEE, islon.2da (sailing to werewolf isle) calls the mos named '8', which I cant find

Does anyone know what the game does here please?

And, as there are no TRA files in original game content, how does the game decide what music is played when it runs Textscreen() please?

The Infinity Engine games never use any tra file. The games use the dialog.tlk file. A tra file entry is more or less a human readable conversion of a tlk file entry and is only used in a mod.

The islon.2da file contains a reference to a string in the dialog.tlk file, at position 23355. This entry holds the text that is displayed and the reference to the associated sound file. This is equvalent to what you can do in your tra file when you write a mod. Once installed the tra entry will become a tlk file entry.

 

Regarding the MOS file, according to Argent77 in the IESDP forum, they now often point to PVRZ files. So number 8 might correspond to MOS0008.PVRZ. You can view it with the latest development version of NearInfinity.

Edited by Isaya, 24 November 2013 - 12:42 PM.

Thankyou so much for the help Isaya

 

oddly, it's not MOS0008 but MOS0000.pvrz that plays

(for the record the return to mainland screen is MOS0090)

 

Any idea what the game does here please anyone?!

Sent you a message about this at the BGEE forums, but will put here too

 

That is done in the build process and modders have no control over that.  However, you can extract the original MOS file from BG1/TotSC and it will work in the override.   I think on that the designation of "8" is hardcoded.. but you can get around that by editing the islon.2da and entering in the mos name.  I believe its called LEAVE.mos in TotSC.

 

And glad you liked the tutorial,  that was a long time ago.. but it still works    The mos size has changed though.... so I would suggest that you export the mos from BGEE in dltcep (it will just look solid black), get the exact size it is, then resize the LEAVE.mos to that size and rebuild the MOS in dltcep.

 

If its already using the correct MOS in the EE,  you might be able to attempt to edit the pvrz if you have the tools and override it and just use the same 2da.  Up to you.  But normal MOS files will still work in the override, so you can create your own and use it.