[everclear]

Hi all,
New here, and this place is just what I've been looking for. Been reading for a couple of days, and still have a bunch of (goofy?) questions:
1. The main game menu & popup windows - wish i could change the color. Are they buried somewhere in one of the dll's, ore are they accessible for editing (as in files in a separate folder with non-standard extensions, or simply bitmaps or tifs I'm not finding? I know this is a bit of an odd question, but there are so many people here that seem to know IL-2 inside out...
2. Is there a faq or a thread somewhere describing the file organization, file functions & file structures? I know absolutely nothing about modding IL-2, other than skinning, so ... bear with me?
3. I'd really love to *learn* about modding, so any pointers to info, utils, instruction archives etc. would be really neat. (I'm OK in C/C++, Perl, 80xx asm (cough - reaches for geritol), photoshop, no java/java script, just to give you an idea where i'm at).
Again, this place is amazing (and humbling). Looking forward to hanging around here...
-d.

[hoover]

Hi all,
New here, and this place is just what I've been looking for. Been reading for a couple of days, and still have a bunch of (goofy?) questions:
1. The main game menu & popup windows - wish i could change the color. Are they buried somewhere in one of the dll's, ore are they accessible for editing (as in files in a separate folder with non-standard extensions, or simply bitmaps or tifs I'm not finding? I know this is a bit of an odd question, but there are so many people here that seem to know IL-2 inside out...
2. Is there a faq or a thread somewhere describing the file organization, file functions & file structures? I know absolutely nothing about modding IL-2, other than skinning, so ... bear with me?
3. I'd really love to *learn* about modding, so any pointers to info, utils, instruction archives etc. would be really neat. (I'm OK in C/C++, Perl, 80xx asm (cough - reaches for geritol), photoshop, no java/java script, just to give you an idea where i'm at).
Again, this place is amazing (and humbling). Looking forward to hanging around here...
-d.

i would like that to im tired of that blue after all these years.
hell i think my interface should show the battle scars :lol:
blood rust dirt tears bullet holes.

[karstele]

Using the search function of this forum leads you to this:


viewtopic.php?t=16755

and this:

viewtopic.php?t=9915

Hope that helps you . . .



greetings karstele

[everclear]

Hi and thanks a bunch! Still haven't figured out what changes the main menu color (looked through the mod .tifs, and was hoping to see the actual "panel", the main thing... Nope. But the guy who did the mod changed it, so... And then I haven't read all the posts yet, just didn't want to seem ungrateful...
-d

[fly_zo]

Hi and thanks a bunch! Still haven't figured out what changes the main menu color (looked through the mod .tifs, and was hoping to see the actual "panel", the main thing... Nope. But the guy who did the mod changed it, so... And then I haven't read all the posts yet, just didn't want to seem ungrateful...
-d

well... i have more thorough PSD templates if you're interested ...drop me a PM

reg
Z

[everclear]

Edit to last post:
Read through the thread(s), and got what i was looking for (thanks), but a new question: THE .MAT files.
Text files, but i wish I knew exactly what the tags mean, especially how to set the transparency...
This place is ... love it!
-d

[everclear]

well... i have more thorough PSD templates if you're interested ...drop me a PM

reg
Z

Hello! I'm sorry, but how do I PM you? Email? Never really used boards before, i'm still back in the "news group" era... Thanks so much for the work & kind templates offer. If i don't figure out the PM thing, my email is: an.unusually.long.name@hotmail.com (make sure to include the periods...)
Thanks again,
-d

[fly_zo]

well... i have more thorough PSD templates if you're interested ...drop me a PM

reg
Z

Hello! I'm sorry, but how do I PM you? Email? Never really used boards before, i'm still back in the "news group" era... Thanks so much for the work & kind templates offer. If i don't figure out the PM thing, my email is: an.unusually.long.name@hotmail.com (make sure to include the periods...)
Thanks again,
-d

i see you've figured it out just fine .... PM has been answered

reg
Z

[everclear]

Hi all,
Fly_zo has shared his GUI templates, and i've been playin' around with them, and the mysterious .SFS & .mat files. I'm a raw beginner at hacking (...errr... "modding") IL-2, so ...
I've wondered where the texture on the GUI panel came from (the cross-hatchy thing that is either trying to be "wrinkle paint", or I don't know what..), since it wasn't in any of fly_zo's GUI mod files. Digging through the .SFS files, i noticed a 128x128 texture file, "detail.tga", which looked just about right. I've loaded it in Photoshop, scribbled a black line on it, saved it in the mods/fly-zo's gui mod/gui/game folder, along with it's .mat, and, sure enough, it showed up. Increased the size to 256, worked. 512 worked (now we're getting somewhere). 1024 worked! Color? Not quite. Bummer (though you can tint it with the .mat file).
Aynyhow, the panel can have a B&W graphic on it (see screen shots below). This is not a polished GUI, the choice of graphics & blatant plagiarization of fly-zo's buttons & all, but a "proof of concept", as self-important folks call half-finished projects. There's also the associated .mat file below, with some stuff i managed to learn by trial & error. Any help on .mat & .SFS files would be awesome.
-d.

(had to use my hotmail photos thingy - for the first time in my life, *no server*.)
This is it - you can see the screenshot used for the panel background, with fly_zo's bttons (slightly modified & sitting in those annoying brit-style slot-nuts (ala early marshall, sound-shitty, vox etc. - the kind you have to take off with sharpened needle-nosed pliers, since you're too cheap to buy the slot-ring tool). They are very British, though, which is neither here nor there...

This is kind'a of a problem - by default, the GUI *tiles* the texture (if you're old enough to remember early windows wallpaper, it was all "tiled", to save the precious ram). Tiling bites, but could be disabled in the .mat file, which makes the thing "pull" the last (right-most) row of pixels. Not too much of a problem, though, 'coz you can either vignette the picture, leaving the right row black (smooth transition), or simply draw a color (shade of gray?) line at the right edge.

The pain o making mats is ... You can never see them, unless you go out of your way to shove things on the *very* edge. If someone could tell me how to work on meshes & where they live, I'd love to make over the menu from scratch. Anyhow, here's the .mat file:

//********************************************************************************************
//---------------------- detail.mat, and what i got from it by trial & error... ------------*
// The "//" are, obviously, comment tags, so stuff which follows after them is ignored by *
// whatever mysterious java thingy parses these files... *
// If anyone could point me to *real* info on .mat files, i'd be grateful. This is what *
// i've got so far: *
//********************************************************************************************

[ClassInfo]
ClassName TMaterial
[Layer0]
TextureName detail.tga
// ColorScale 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
ColorScale 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.99 //was 15. The last 2 digits are mask (or layer) "hardness",
// - 0 being transparent, 99 being full-on. 2 digits only. The other number pairs,
// AFAIK, are RGB color values, but not 0-256.
tfModulate 0 // was 1. 1 seems to act as a mask, 0 as a transparent layer. If set to 1,
// detail.tga shows up as a negative.
tfNoWriteZ 1 // ?????????
tfNoDegradation 0 //?????????
tfMinLinear 0 //?????????
tfMagLinear 1 //?????????
tfBlend 1 //binary, 1=blend, 0=noblend
// tfNoCompressARB 1 ??????????????????
tfWrapX 0 //1 repeats (tiles), 0 "drags" (repeating the last pixel row). Same below.
tfWrapY 0

[fbv200]

Hope this is of interest to someone.
-d

[fly_zo]

... it looks cool :thumbsup:

keep it up , we need more options when GUI is concerned

and thanks for sharing

Z

[everclear]

Well, if anyone is interested in yet another GUI, or ... a GUI kit (dead simple for anyone who knows photoshop basics like layers and channels, and could read a few paragraphs of instructions (english or russian), i can upload the GUI (just extract into the MODS folder, just like fly_zo's.
Here are the few differences which may make this an interesting GUI to play with:
1. Complete control of transparency of *all* the elements, including the main panel.
2. No longer stuck with the original "crosshatch" texture - it can be replaced with anything from a different pattern (like wrinkle black paint with chips down to aluminum), to a B&W vaseline-lens publicity shot of some WW2 starlet (up to 1024x1024).
3. (i'm an electronics geek, so the original GUI was a bit ... unnerving) Got rid of the 80's style micro toggle switches - since folks try for, at least, period consistency, those were really out-of-place in a WW2 sim. The same goes for the "locked out" switches in the "view difficulty" panel. Loockouts like that just don't make any sense. Ditto for pilot lights used as pushbuttons. Was too lazy to change the green flush-mount pilots in the "quick mission builder", but they're ... an indian mistake. here are a few screenshots just to give an idea of how the thing behaves:



I've resized the screenshots by guesswork (photoshop script thingy asks for numbers), so the images shouuld be about 15% wider.
One of the buttons on the left is being pressed (under mouse cursor). The "pattern" is a screenshot of of a truly amazing plane (next time you fly it, look over the wing as you hit the rudder - and they talk about lateral instability! (grin))



You can see a bunch of different transparencies here, from the top bar being totally transparent, to partial on set text, to almost none on drop-down menu. Changing that is as easy as changing the gray level in the alpha channel (which i've marked out, so you won't have to guess what's what). BTW, the brown buttons with arrows *are* period, though they are elevator call buttons, which were mounted in a painted aluminum plate. Nothing military. The green buttons are actually indicator lamps, but they shoo' look like buttons. The brown "slide" button is most likely supposed to be a roller wheel (kind'o like the ones in tube testers which scrolled the chart). Since there were no slide controls 'till late fifties (early mixing boards had knobs instead of slide pots), there's not much to be done about that.



This is my solution to the "lockout" on the "view difficulty" thing. They're safeties that were used in everything from aircraft to shop machinery.

I guess that's about it - the GUI's complete, easy to modify, and, of course, the background is a sign of a deranged mind, and could be easily replaced by a more current fleshly...

[EasyRider]

Looks really cool everclear...

would you have a link to your GUI Template kit please?

mediafire is a good upload place to become a member to upload your mods to, so as to be able to link them to a forum to share.
http://www.mediafire.com/

Thanks

Easy

[everclear]

Hi -
I'll post a link tomorrow (just have to clear out the dead-wood from the folder, and throw in some .psd files to make life easier).
Glad you like it - it was fun making it. PM me if there are any glitches.
-d

[KG64_Ðørvånski]

It looks goood
I think it would also be cool if on the difficulty menu the lights were red and green, red for off and green for on

[everclear]

Here's a link to the GUI. The .rar is a bit on the large side, 'cos it has a bunch of .PSD files, the "kit" part. Post any problems or questions.
Oh, KG64_