editing the end of turn screen? anyone?

[smellymummy]

you know what would be really great?

a way to change that image that you always see at the end of the turn... don't know about you, but the same planet over and over..

maybe even stick some sort of animated gif, and have that ani rotate a bunch of planet pictures, that would be interesting, but doubtfull the game could show a gif animation.

if anyone knows where to look and what kind of compression is used by the game files, that would be great pointers for where I and anyone else could start off from!

thanks

[ChaotikVisions]

The file is in the graphics.mob, the compression on which is a zip file. What you do is: Open up graphics.mob with the the program of choice(I prefer Winrar). Go into the UI directory inside it, then to Playing Game directory, and then extract the pic_waitingbkgd.png file to the *****\GameDataSets\Classic_01\GameAssets\Common\Gr aphics directory(you may have to create the graphics directory yourself, and ***** is your main MoO3 directory).

After that, just replace the file with another similiarly named one in .png format, or edit the current one. I'd recommend keeping it the same size as the current graphic, not sure how it would look smaller/larger then the one originally intended.

[smellymummy]

thanks for the tip ChaotikVisions

after a little playing around I noticed that trying to use an animated file won't work at all. the game just doesnt read it. the game won't crash or anything (the game is real stable.. asides from that alt-tab issue) like that, its just that moo3 will display black if it can't read the file.

the only real way to get some diversity in that background image during gameplay is to do something like this:

first off unpack the mob files. the game runs fine by just seeking for the directory name and then reading the file directly out of the directory. in fact, i'd wager its faster since there is no compression at all to deal with.

once unzipped you just need to change dir to:

moo3\GameDataSets\Classic_01\GameAssets\Common\Gra phics\UI\PlayingGame

the background file is pic_waitingbkgd.png

the game doesnt cache that picture into memory, so everytime moo3 has to display the picture, it reads it. to see how this works all you need is two or three png's files handy. put them in the same directory as above and name them, for example: 2.png, 3.png, etc.

next, load the game up, then click on 'quick start' at which point you'll see the regular background image.

next alt tab to win explorer and rename the background file (pic_waitingbkgd.png) to temp.png or whatever you fancy, and next rename your png file (ie the 2.png or the 3.png) to 'pic_waitingbkgd.png'

finally alt-tab back to moo3, press shift+enter (or click end turn), and you'll see your replacement picture! you can reapeat this over and over.

so basically to make the background different, there would be 2 things needed:

1- a library of nice background images
2- a program running in the background that renames the files on a preset interval, or even better: a program that monitors the read/access to the background image and performs the operations after moo3 fetches the file.

the only complications I could think of that could happen, is if the renaming of file happens right at the same time moo3 reads the PNG (going by a time interval), kind of like a file lock issue. On the other hand, if it would do the file renaming after moo3 reads it, then this wouldnt really be a problem

getting a library of images is pretty easy, and just about any image thats in png format works. the size doesnt matter, but it would remain nicer if everything stays in 800x600 (and i'd imagine a huge file might make a PC lag a bit). Color doesnt seem to be a problem either, at least colors in the same amount as the background image and less (grayscale works fine)

a windows program though is another issue. maybe a bat file could do it, or maybe something in vb or c++.

like i wrote above, the same picture over and over... it gets tiresome, so I like the idea of being able to have it change. anyone else think so, and would anybody like to help?

[Unspeakable Horror]

An Idea: Create a bat file and use windows "Tasks manager" (I´m not sure if that´s the name in english... ) to run the bat every 5 - # minutes.
I do that to create a back up of some important files in "My Documents" in the other HD every Friday for example.

[Rockstone]

Originally posted by ChaotikVisions
The file is in the graphics.mob, the compression on which is a zip file. What you do is: Open up graphics.mob with the the program of choice(I prefer Winrar). Go into the UI directory inside it, then to Playing Game directory, and then extract the pic_waitingbkgd.png file to the *****\GameDataSets\Classic_01\GameAssets\Common\Gr aphics directory(you may have to create the graphics directory yourself, and ***** is your main MoO3 directory).

After that, just replace the file with another similiarly named one in .png format, or edit the current one. I'd recommend keeping it the same size as the current graphic, not sure how it would look smaller/larger then the one originally intended.

Where do i Download it?

[smellymummy]

i made a utility and assembled images for this, its on the atari support forums:

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=277115