**TUTORIAL** Add custom splash screens to your mods

Wed Apr 02, 2003 3:48 am by prplx

Haven't seen this discussed before. REALLY.

There are 2 splash screens that show up when freelancer is loading. The first is black and white, and shows before FL switches to fullscreen. The second is in color, has planets in it and is in fullscreen.

There are 2 files for the first splash screen. They're in the \EXE\ folder:

00000000.016
00000000.256

The first is 4-bit greyscale, the second is 8-bit greyscale. In my experience, only the second one is used.
So if you want to edit this screen, open 00000000.256 in MS paint, do whatever you want (yes, colors are in grey, this is a greyscale image), save your modifications, and VOILA, custom splash screen.

If you want to edit the fullscreen, color splash screen, There are 4 files to consider. They're in the \DATA\INTERFACE\INTRO\IMAGES folder:

startupscreen.tga
startupscreen_1280.tga
startupscreen_16.bmp
startupscreen_1280_16.bmp

In my experiments, editing the .bmp files has no effect. You would have to edit the .tga files. I dont have a capable editor, so i can't garantee this works.

Finally, still in \DATA\INTERFACE\INTRO\IMAGES, there are a few files used in the multiplayer server select screen that i havent tried editing yet.

Enjoy!

i prplx

Wed Apr 02, 2003 11:22 pm by The Almighty Cheese

Interesting find. I will have to try the *.tga files cause I have photoshop. Will make this for cheesemod beta 4. Running out of numbers! Also..anyone else having trouble with the speed of the forums?

Tue Aug 26, 2003 6:40 pm by C.Kork

i edited the 0000000.256 file, but where does it show up? i never saw it.. hope anyone knows..

Tue Aug 26, 2003 6:48 pm by Kendo THM

WEll, you can use Paintshop Pro as well

Wed Aug 27, 2003 5:34 am by Glock36

Yea I hate to tell you but Kendo is right. I have Paintshop Pro 8 and it will create and save tga layered transparent files.

Thank You. Glock 36.

Wed Aug 27, 2003 8:16 pm by BlazeME

I tryed to change the pictures and the game loaded with them upside-down.
Its soooo annoying. It was going to be for Serious Sirius.

Fri Aug 29, 2003 6:56 pm by Gregstar2k

everyone should ALWAYS modify the splash screen for EVERY mod pack, in my opinion. Or, at least, FLMM should insert a splash screen reading "modified with FLMM" whenever a mod without its own splash screen is activated with FLMM. =P this way we'll have less players who truly "accidentally forget to turn off their mods" when going gaming in MP on unmodded servers (obviously this wont help those who simply state that as an excuse!)...

Tue Sep 02, 2003 2:20 pm by mipu

folks, you can also change the animation (THN-file) running behind the main menu screen. See an example here :

http://freelancer.mipu.de/freelancer-16.html

imho the different pictures are for certain desktop resolutions and color depths :

startupscreen.tga 800x600 px 32bit
startupscreen_1280.tga 1280x960 px 32bit
startupscreen_16.bmp 800x600 px 24bit
startupscreen_1280_16.bmp 1280x960 px 24bit

cu mipu

Wed Sep 24, 2003 9:21 am by downwind_thief

You can edit any of the files in the folder:
DATA\INTERFACE\INTRO\IMAGES

The different resolutions are differnt load screens that are loaded by oe's graphics choice....

It's pretty cool waht you can do.... Makes a mod feel better....

Sat Oct 04, 2003 10:14 am by enmac

nice, I'll use it for my trade council mod, now I gotta phone blaze_me...

Eat sunslayer nomad *****!

Sun Oct 05, 2003 4:41 pm by Victor

Another handy file is: DATA\Interface\Intro\Images\front_freelancerlogo.tga

The image will appear to be all white because it uses the alpha channel, so be prepared. This is the "Freelancer" logo that appears above the main menu, and it's an even better place for your mod name than a splash screen. Also, if this is the only graphics file you modifiy, once it's packed up with your mod it's really small, around 16k I think.

Fri Oct 10, 2003 11:36 am by downwind_thief

Yes of course, it allowed me to put a big skull and cross bones to sit in front of the normal activity in the background... It started like that for fun then I used it in my mod...

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