Load Folder Mystery ;)

[Jawa_Killer]

does anybody know for what the Load folder is useful? It is in your Data_modid folder....i recognized that the folder doesn't appear for space maps! Oo any suggestion? Maybe you can put a tga in it and it changes you LOADingscreen

[Penguin]

already tried and it doesn't work, theres no load luas or munge things

[Jawa_Killer]

oh but you munge the load......you can make a sign in visual munge

[[RDH]Zerted]

It is for the loading screen, but no one knows the format. According to extract, the Load.lvl file holds a "loading" image, a "loadtipsbox_pieces" image and 6828 bytes of unknown data.

[Epena]

Spooky.

I recall one of the PAN guys saying he'd release to us a laoding screen munge, but he dissapeared shortly thereafter.

[[RDH]Zerted]

From what I heard, LA told PAN to stop giving out info on SWBF2. I don't expect to see another developer on here again (but I hope I'm wrong). Here is most of what I've figured out about Load so far. For this example, the map will be named XXX. It is assumed that this map has been created and has been munged at least once.

1) goto data_XXX. If you do not have a Load folder (data_XXX\Load), create it.
2) Create a tga picture named "loadscreen.tga" and put it in your Load folder. Recommended size of 1024x1024 (haven't tested other sizes yet).
3) Create a text file named "Load.req" and place it in the Load folder too. It should contain the following:

ucft
{
REQN
{
"texture"
"loadscreen"
}
}

4) goto data_XXX\_BUILD\Load
5) open munge.bat (open not run) and remove all the @.
6) override the old munge.bat with this edited one (meaning save).
7) goto data_XXX\addme and open addme.lua
8) scroll to the end of addme.lua and add the following lines (note: the comment is not needed but recommended):

--loading screen to append to main loading screen
ReadDataFile("..\\..\\addon\\XXX\\data\\_LVL_PC\\Load\\Load.lvl")

9) open up VisualMunge.exe for your map.
10) press "Unselect All", then check Load. Now press "Munge".
11) when the munge process has finished goto data_XXX\_LVL_PC\Load
12) copy "load.lvl"
13) goto [SWBF2 install directory]\GameData\addon\XXX\data\_LVL_PC
14) create a "Load" folder (GameData\addon\XXX\data\_LVL_PC\Load)
15) paste into your new "Load" folder the "load.lvl" (GameData\addon\XXX\data\_LVL_PC\Load\load.lvl) which you copied in step 12
16) run SWBF2 and closely watch the screen as it starts up

These steps don't add an image to the screen you see when a custom map is loading, but it does display your image every time the game rescans the addon folder. Each map which has followed these steps will have their picture display as the map is scanned. I have only done this with two maps in the addon folder with Load.lvls, so I'm not sure if displaying the picture has a negitive effect on the game's loading times. It is also possible to replace those little red loading dots and the tip boarder, using these steps with different file names.

Tip: if a map you downloaded contains extra files such as Load.lvl, you can saftly delete/rename them if their changes become annoying
Tip: the addme.lua can read much more than just load.lvl and core.lvl.

[Penguin]

eh?

[[RDH]Zerted]

eh?

What?

[Jawa_Killer]

hey zerted very thanks! Nice tutorial i gonna test it now......

[Jawa_Killer]

ERROR[levelpack Load.req]:Expecting bracket, but none was found.
File : munged\pc\loadscreen.texture.req(1)...

ucft <--
ERROR[levelpack Load.req]:Expecting bracket, but none was found.
File : munged\pc\loadscreen.texture.req(1)...

ucft <--

2 Errors 0 Warnings

thats what it says! any idea?

PS: I looked up in the uta1.lvl (in the Load folder) that there are always little informations.....i think your req does not work completly how we want it because there is no "lvl" entry.......i found some little informations....maybe this is the way how the req must be build:

lvl_x
tex_h
INFO
uta_1
DXT1FMT_@
DXT1
FACE
BODY

[[RDH]Zerted]

hmm, make sure you didn't make any typos. Be sure you removed all the @'s from the munge.bat.
The Load.req I posted does munge and work. It doesn't display the picture when we want it, but the picture does get displayed.

edit: to see an example of a map which has gone through this processs, go here: http://www.gametoast.com/index.php?name ... pic&t=5217