[Y_Less]

The HUD graphics have already been converted but thanks anyway.

Also, please don't double post. If you have something extra to say, edit your last post.

*First post edited and last deleted*

[ModelingMan]

Got a bit of progress with hacking the menu. I managed to load the different backgrounds for each menu. Works surprisingly well. What I have to do is load my own TXD (models\menu.txd) and from there load the appropriate texture for the current menu page.

Here is a movie demonstrating my results:
http://modelingman.no-ip.com/Movies/GTA/gtalc_menu1.avi

[Y_Less]

Which codec does that use, my windows media player won't show it.

[ModelingMan]

QUOTE (Y_Less @ Feb 4 2006, 21:41)

Which codec does that use, my windows media player won't show it.

DivX 5.2.0

[Craig Kostelecky]

I can view it fine.

EDIT by Ben - Nothing of any great importance to note here.

Everything basically stands still until MM returns.

Unless Y_Less has any updates with his pager conversion .

This post has been edited by benisablink182fan on Friday, Apr 28 2006, 05:58

[ModelingMan]

Righto, currently I'm working on a pager. As you know VC does not use a pager of any sort, therefore a pager needs to be created from scratch, but what you may not know is that R* have left in a few of the CPager class functions and even a declaration of a CPager class. Why? I have no clue, the pager process function is referenced in the main game loop but there is no way possible for the pager to be drawn (those were the functions that were taken out). Porting these functions from GTAIII should be no problem.

Also the menu still needs some work; font scaling, positioning and such, this should be done pretty soon.

I still have a plan (non-graphics related) that, if successful, will save a lot of time for a certain aspect for this mod. I don't want to say just yet, I want to see if I can actually get it working first. I'll keep you posted.

[Craig Kostelecky]

Excellent. Good to see developments still happen. And since some of the code is still there, we might be able to get the pager working exactly as it should. Maybe we can throw the sound back into the SFX archive as well so we don't have to use one of the play_wav slots (as only two can be loaded at once if I remember right).

[ModelingMan]

I have some visual progress. So far I have the text scrolling as it should, technically I didn't implement the scrolling this was one of the functions left in by R*. Here's a small movie clip of the scrolling text. Now I just have to get the pager sprite to scroll in from the side of the screen, shouldn't be too hard, could probably directly port the code over from GTAIII. And also get the proper pager font added in as well.

ETA for pager, possibly tomorrow.

[Craig Kostelecky]

Looking good so far. I look forward to seeing more.

[Ben]

Excellent work James .

If I'm reading this right, does that mean that we might be able to have the scrolling text displayed on the billboards around the place? I'm not sure of exact locations, although I do know there's one on the sign at Easy Credit Autos in GTA3. What do you think ?

@Craig - Add the pager to the list of the other 3 (if you combine the train SFX) general sounds to convert, as well as your background noises which have to be finalised - I forgot to on the list I sent you . Cheers .

EDIT - By the way James, you spelt "actually" wrong !

This post has been edited by Ben on Monday, Jun 26 2006, 07:52

[ModelingMan]

QUOTE (Ben @ Jun 26 2006, 08:49)

EDIT - By the way James, you spelt "actually" wrong !

Yeah, I thought something like that would happen. It's not exactly noticeable when I declared the text like this (at 2am):

CODE

u16 text[35] = {'T', 'h', 'i', 's', ' ', 's', 'c', 'r', 'o', 'l', 'l', 'i', 'n', 'g', ' ', 't', 'e', 'x', 't', ' ', 'a', 'c', 't', 'u', 'l', 'l', 'y', ' ', 'w', 'o', 'r', 'k', 's', '.', 0};

QUOTE (Ben @ Jun 26 2006, 08:49)

If I'm reading this right, does that mean that we might be able to have the scrolling text displayed on the billboards around the place? I'm not sure of exact locations, although I do know there's one on the sign at Easy Credit Autos in GTA3. What do you think ?

Well the pager text is only 2D, but things like that are drawn on a 3D vector, I'll have a look into it.

[Craig Kostelecky]

The scrolling text seen in game should be convertable from VC. After all, they used that procedure in the Stadium in Vice. We would just have to update the text and the location for it to work. And we might have to duplicate a few things. But it should be doable.

[ModelingMan]

More progress. Clicky!

I was actually surprised when the pager sprite was drawn, I was expecting the game to crash. Now all that's left is to get the pager font in and test out the text_pager scm command to see if that works (currently I'm using a keypress to test it).

I was thinking of replacing VC's CHud::Draw function with one that draws all the HUD text, sprites, etc. just like they are in GTAIII. Isn't that hard, in fact I started doing it back in February when I was working on the menu.

[Ben]

@Craig - cheers, sounds promising .

@James - looking super good . Just the minor issue of the text starting outside the pager to fix in that clip. Have you got the pager sprite and the font in the hud.txd and fonts.txd respectively? Or are you calling them from another location?

Anyways, I'm looking forward to the final version of this .

[ModelingMan]

QUOTE (Ben @ Jun 27 2006, 07:32)

@James - looking super good .  Just the minor issue of the text starting outside the pager to fix in that clip.  Have you got the pager sprite and the font in the hud.txd and fonts.txd respectively?  Or are you calling them from another location?

The font overlaps the pager sprite because the proper font isn't being used. I used the same algorithm GTAIII uses to set the X and Y scale and positions of the text, therefore once I get the font ported it should look fine.

As for adding the pager sprite and font textures to the proper TXDs, well this causes none of the textures in those TXDs to load (same happened when I put the menu background textures in either of the frontend TXDs). I have no idea why it does this. For now I'm just using my own TXDs in a folder called Custom (I can change this to whatever you please).

Craig:
Will you be so kind and compile a SCM that uses text_pager command? Just a basic script that creates a player at any position, and have the text_pager command happen when the player goes into a marker or something simple like that.

[Ben]

Ah rightio. I guess that'd be up to Craig (the folder/file names), but I don't suppose it really matters too much . Keep up the good work .

[Craig Kostelecky]

Looking good so far. Have you got the code to look into the gxt yet, or is it just reading the arrays you hard code? And have you done anything with the sound yet? The pager sound is here if you need it. You can either have it in the audioLC folder and call it with the play_wav procedure (it's scm name is pagring) or you can stick it in the SFX archive somewhere. If you take the SFX approach, let me know first as I'd need to talk to you about possible conflicts with other sounds.

I'll get you the code when I get home. I'm at work right now (but am just waiting for the phone to ring.)

[ModelingMan]

QUOTE (Craig Kostelecky @ Jun 27 2006, 23:28)

Have you got the code to look into the gxt yet, or is it just reading the arrays you hard code?

The pager is now fully compatible with the SCM, the code reads the GXT entries fine using VC's internal functions. Now all I need is to get the pager font implemented.

As for audio, I still haven't looked into it, but after I get the pager font in that will be my next task.

[Ben]

Just out of curiosity - is anyone interested in updating the outro screen? The work should be simple for anyone who's ever done texture work of any kind - it's going to be more fiddly than difficult (collecting everyone's avatars, etc.). The team list is up-to-date, and doesn't change too often (I'm the only one who updates it because I need to update the HTML Readme with any changes). So if you're interested, just let us know and then start work . It doesn't have to all fit on one screen either - preferably it would fit on two screens, but if that isn't possible at ALL, then I spose it'll have to be three. The EXE hack to get more than one outro screen is difficult for those with the know-how either - don't let that deter you from doing the work .

@James - about the stats stuff I sent you earlier. Are you going to fix all that up once you're done with the pager and menu? If you could, that'd be great .

Cheers .

[Ben]

Rightio - seeing as no-one's interested in the outro screen, I'll do it myself . I've made a start - I've got a new background sorted, so now it's just a case of grabbing everyone's avatars. Depending on how I go for time, I should have it done by early next week .