[SYMPOSIUM] Removing intro and main menu background

Litcube · Post by **Litcube** » Thu, 23. Oct 08, 22:39

While it totally looks very pretty for the first two times, us modders and scripters are often having to quit and re-load X3TC in order to test a multitude of changes, features, and fixes.

Anyone have any insight into changing the following?:

1. Deleting intro movies
2. Deleting intro splash screen
3. Removing everything from the main menu background

Hopefully, this should speed up re-loads considerably, as that background has to load everytime you quit to main menu, or blow up.

Ideas, please.

Post by **Cycrow** » Thu, 23. Oct 08, 22:50

if all ur doing is testing stuff, just use a custom start, theres no intro played then

Litcube · Post by **Litcube** » Thu, 23. Oct 08, 22:52

Uhm. To start a custom start, you still have to load the game, see the opening splash screen, esc through the into movie, wait for the main menu backdrop to load.

Or do you have a command line method I'm unaware of?

Post by **Cycrow** » Thu, 23. Oct 08, 23:28

erm no u dont, if u start the custom start, u dont get the intro playing

Litcube · Post by **Litcube** » Thu, 23. Oct 08, 23:30

Dude, how do you start a custom start without going through the main menu and intro loading screens?

Dude!

shinyclef · Post by **shinyclef** » Thu, 23. Oct 08, 23:35

Actually this would be kinda nice in general regardless of testing. Getting through the main menu as fast as possible would be nice. I wonder if it's possible. But then again, maybe I wouldn't go to the trouble of involving mods...

Post by **Cycrow** » Thu, 23. Oct 08, 23:49

which screens are you looking about exactly ?

the loading screen you cant prevent, as its loading the game.

if you mean the terran about the terran and xenon war, then it shouldn't play in a custom game

Litcube · Post by **Litcube** » Thu, 23. Oct 08, 23:52

You know the main menu when you FIRST start the game? The one with the options, New Game, Continue, Options, Credits, Quit?

That menu. There's a scene in the background of that menu. That scene has to be loaded everytime you get to that menu. This can be changed, we saw it in XTM.

If we remove it, we will reduce loading times dramatically.

Also, the intro vids can also be removed, we just need to know the location of the biks.

Post by **Cycrow** » Fri, 24. Oct 08, 00:17

ah that one, afaik, its jsut one of the files in the mov directory

Litcube · Post by **Litcube** » Fri, 24. Oct 08, 00:18

Any ideas on the main menu background?

s9ilent · Post by **s9ilent** » Fri, 24. Oct 08, 00:49

The main menu is hard coded afaik, although, the objects in it are just the objects in the cats/dats.

As one time I messing around with the factories bod (On X3R) files and I noticed the station suddenly went invisible (As I had removed the bod file). I think... it might be a boron factory.. although tbh I have no idea any more.

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Fri, 24. Oct 08, 12:12

The Deepsilver logo is in 00830.dat and the Egosoft logo in 00831.dat.

Removing them helps very little, though, since you still have to hit ESC to get rid of the eternally repeated Words of Wisdom (tm).

The .DAT files are archives which could theoretically contain other data as well. In the case of company logos I seriously doubt that ES would mix them with game data.

Post by **Cycrow** » Fri, 24. Oct 08, 13:56

try removing mov/00800.dat

Litcube · Post by **Litcube** » Fri, 24. Oct 08, 20:24

Thanks, Gazz.

Also, the background scene during the main menu display was changed by the XTM team for their mod release, so it would suffice to assume that it can be changed now in the data files.

That's the real main menu loading time hog, right there. Not so much the intro vids (as mentioned by other patrons of this thread).

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

[SYMPOSIUM] Removing intro and main menu background

[SYMPOSIUM] Removing intro and main menu background