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UnholyLiberator

Tutorials and in-game notifications

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Wonder what files control tutorials and in-game notifications like EVA dialogues that game comes with disabled? Is it possible to activate again to show on screen? For some unclear reason game contains a lot of mission dialogues seems disabled for retail version, so I want to get this fixed and make use of them. There should be some hidden config somewhere, I cant seem to find anything in the MOD SDK folder.

 

update:

checked also INI files and no single one contains references to DIALOGEVENT, nor SCRIPTS labels (those contain all of the text I am looking for)

Edited by UnholyLiberator

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Check the campaign maps. It's all there.

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Following the message I send to @Lauren, while awaiting response, I decided to give a final push with my efforts to discover where dem, files that deal with EVA dialogues for the tutorial mission, if not for the whole SP campaign, lie in the game. As those experienced peeps have pretty much figured all the means to mod this certain game know, TW emphasizes the use of live-action "radar sequences" for its story campaign. What hampers the experience in my case with dead sound card (well, gotta buy new mobo anyway soon), only audio support; that means your playing blindfolded most of the time. 

 

While I can live with that, I really like to put back those captions what are well hidden in the game's language container for two reasons:

 

have greater understanding of the third tiberium war arc (meaning I never played TibWars right until completion lol, I think far as I ever got is ninth mission on GDI)

as well improve the overall experience of that tough as nails language mod I tackled to do, bringing more fun to the game by allowing use of different text and audio in all-in-one mod package

 

To keep things less technical. I did, I did what Lauren suggested. Opening SP campaigns BIG archive, taking every map file out then applying Bibber's Asset extractor magic. Unluckily these assets seem somewhat tied to the BIG

 

GameScriptList.PlyrGDI_Blue.asset

(taken from SP/1.0/SPMaps.big)

 

This one weighs at 4,708 bytes of data, biggest one with MapMetaData.SinglePlayer.asset (11,986bytes). Well I by no means know if I am looking where I should be looking. Again doin what I've been told by Lauren, as she seems pretty well into this than anyone else. I have her trust.

 

As usual stuck into opening PlyrGDI_Blue.asset, put some HEX looking without getting actual clue what contains, by that I mean I suck at values, that most of the time I am like trapped again in math class but sometimes filenames or part of those pop up.

 

At this time of writing, I have looked over every file in the MOD SDK dir and those ones I've had success unpacking from game's folder. Say, Libraries/Misc/WBData bigs, adding patch files from SP folder. I guess the folder structure is the same for both standard & Deluxe Edition that I only have working. Only that I stumbled upon Missions config file.

 

Sorry I cant post its content right now, my game is broken to pieces, folders and files flying everywhere. Huh where did that one go....

 

I've got to admit, I love to have missions supplied with audio and texts for both conventionality when playing (currently doing the Pentagon mission) and for that long coming extension I plan but it wasn't brought to the table up until now I dusted off my discs to play again.

 

What I look forward to enable is one of following lines:
 

DIALOGEVENT:MTut_TrainingOfficer01subtitle
TRAINING OFFICER: Welcome to the battlefield training simulation, Commander. This scenario will help you get familiar with the basics of our Command and Control system.

 

Once I find where to do it, I think I can do the rest on my own. I did everything else already, configured the required fonts, movies captions (these need some more work through the weekend), menu textures to modify after I finish with this bogus thing, launcher done with great help of @Laurenagain. Its like have my mind reversed and I'm missing something way obvious, dunno.

 

There's some script text used instead one in the DIALOGEVENT group, leads me to think it was made to be used in some point through the final course of release, after which got scrapped for those Objective warnings where camera pans in to the spot you gotta reach or destroy some buildings, though the radar transmissions were originally planed to be accompanied by text. Were cut and only audio left out.

 

If anyone has broken the case, please respond. Any feedback is taken seriously.

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Going by the content, I think I found the file responsible for all of the in-game captions. TheStringTable.xml that comes out of stringhashes.manifest.

 

Even though it has the "proper" labels:

 

		<StringAndHash Hash="3501755394" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer01"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="4126502146" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer02"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="12836339" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer03"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="1736556294" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer04"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="3170489492" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer05"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="2882959985" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer06"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="3591091890" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer07"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="705344837" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer08"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="1411405841" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer09"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="708622007" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer10"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="1570397282" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer11"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="2872389880" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer12"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="2326933793" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer13"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="836062047" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer14"/>
		<StringAndHash Hash="1225505619" Text="MTut_TrainingOfficer15"/>

 

what seems missing is any "subtitle" suffix at the end, so it goes like MTut_TrainingOfficer01subtitle and in cnc3.csf the event is described like Label:MTut_TrainingOfficer01subtitle (put DIALOGEVENT for Label). Ta-da. Hard part to figure, it's nothing more than hash number and the call, which brings the question, was this advanced EVA dialogue system ever done so it can be used like beta feature or it's halfway coded for that they left it out.

 

That's all I could achieve so far, lots of unknowns.

 

------------------------

 

Back at home and getting to work, gotta beat it! Like they say, It's DO or DIE right! lol

 

Man, so much to learn about modding newer C&C titles.. Feels like having my head up my ass all the time. Little did I know... Immediately after I posted here, incidentally I clicked on some XML file called UIComponentInGameText.xml (CnC3Xml/UIInGame). It seems to me that what I discovered is so far with StringsHash thing more of an index rather something else to tweak by yourself, y'know.

 

Check dis out:

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<!-- * Manages Tooltip Transactions for the InGame UI                      * -->
<!-- *********************************************************************** -->

<UIComponentInGameText xmlns="uri:ea.com:eala:asset"
	Priority="300"  
  AdjustFactor="1.0" 
  TextIndent="0.40" 
  TooltipAppearDelayMS="2000"
  TooltipDisappearDelayMS="3000"
  AptTokenTitle="APT:TOOLTIP_TITLE"
  AptTokenPrereq="APT:TOOLTIP_PREREQ_"
  AptTokenCost="APT:TOOLTIP_COST"
  AptTokenTime="APT:TOOLTIP_TIME"
  AptTokenEnergy="APT:TOOLTIP_ENERGY"
  AptTokenShortDesc="APT:TOOLTIP_SHORT_DESC"
  AptTokenLongDesc="APT:TOOLTIP_LONG_DESC"  
  ProductionTextConstruction="CONTROLBAR:ConstructionDesc"
  ProductionTextUpgrade="CONTROLBAR:UpgradingDesc"
  ProductionTextRecruit="CONTROLBAR:RecruitingDesc"
  ProductionTextScale="0.66"
  SubtitleStringLabelPrefix="DIALOGEVENT:"
  SubtitleStringLabelSuffix="SubTitle"
  SubtitleStringExclusionChar="*">
  <StatusTextPosition x="0.05" y="0.05"/>
  <ProductionTextColor R="1.0" G="1.0" B="1.0"/>
  <ProductionTextFont Name="RussellSquare" Size="14"/>
</UIComponentInGameText>

 

Let's focus on SubtitleStringExclusionChar, well there it is that symbol meaning. Yikes again, from there on problem seems to be ModSDK stuff comes with only brief samples about how the game is structured. To further gain any results if this is what I was looking for past few days, locating this file in the game's packages is necessary.

 

I think I am almost there with finishing at this. Any clues where I head at looking? APT.big that I checked here and there,  HUD apt's got the basic UI elements and textures but not like this. Are MOD SDK filenames identical to game's ones? Might be different file name when packed.

Edited by UnholyLiberator
edits..edits

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So I was crazy these past days tear apart the whole game, I decided to clear my head before doing anything further.

 

Is anyone interested in this and has figured stuff out?

 

From what I know to date, TalkingHead is the system that manages them dialogues, every audio file comes supplied with text then this each line should be uncommented in the CSF. As you can see the pic, it displays in a box. All fine, but then comes that problem. It stays stays too long, even overlays Objective screen... well, it does not overlay ID (Intelligence Database screen). In conclusion, if we get the proper XMLs this surely can be fixed or even better, improved.

 

I think I will dig to get this done until I manage it at the end. F*cking stubborn me. I've spent a whole weekend messing with the game so either this way or the highway.

cnc3t.jpg

cnc3to.jpg

Edited by UnholyLiberator

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