Load Screen

I reckon with the new map being all white, the load screen should be icy too (sorta like it was before the public betas were released). Just a thought, who's with me?

I want a new load screen, but no one is up to the task of making one; and I am not planning on learning how to. But uhhh, if anyone out there wants to do so, then have at it!

http://world-editor-tutorials.thehelper.net/loadscreen.php

looks really easy to do, all that needs to be done is to find an image and get warcraft 3 image extractor. If you want, I can got on to it

Actually on second thoughts I'm not that good with photo shop and stuff, It would probably look shoddy. Who made the current screen?

i have to work this weekend so i might play with this some...

The current one is built into WC3.

Generally you need some photoshop skills. If you can make avatars though, you should be able to make a loading screen. The problem is; all of the things I want. If one cant be made; then we can just get a good arena fight going and screen shot it; but screen shot loading screens are "Bleh" at best.

That plus, a decent loading screen is about 300-400 KB in size. The map is only 1000 KB currently, so it would be a very large increase in file size.

ive used GIMP which is basically photoshop for free but that was for photo editing not really this type stuff, but ill have time to kill and if it sucks then i wont waste ur time lol

What do u want in it? I can photoshop

My first attempt...thoughts suggestions etc... on my monitors 19" it comes out a bit fuzzy so i can tweak the pixels and quality if you guys think i should. higher quality = bigger file also im not sure what all you want IN it glorn as far as text so i used the previous load as a guide. I picked something simple yet cool looking since it has a lot of text that is in it.

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D :D:D:D:D:D:D . seems cool so far. i think it would fit fine. the text seems a little hard to read, not because of the quality but rather because of the font

well its a WC font, there are a couple others too but when its taking up your whole screen its not hard to read. at least not in my opinion but then im expertly skilled in bizarre fonts...


ok i made that last bit up. i found a sweet picture i am going to try something with tonight and i guess glorns out of town for the weekend so he can check them out whenever

I cant download and full screen it, but it looks pretty decent from the "clicky clicky" The font does seem a little hard to read though. Game resolution is what... 600X800? So everyone who has their resolution set to something up-to-date, like 1164X1280 or in the case of this awkward turtle laptop, 1600X900 widescreen. When you load up the game, it should look clearer.

Any rough estimates on the file size? If you check that there website, they say something about needing to break the photo into two different files, in order to set it as the loading screen.

i can look when i get home at the file size but basically one of those files is like a standard 1kb thing that tells the game its a loading screen.

i ran it full screen, actually used set it as a load screen for a blank map and loaded it and it was fuzzy. As far as the font goes, i can use whatever, i found 4 'warcraft' fonts and thought it would be cool to use an official font but thats not necessary. The next one I will try several different fonts on one screen so you guys can see which one is easiest to read.

also glorn, how much info are you gonna want to be able to put on the screen cuz i dont want to use some busy picture thats gonna have text all over it? additionally once the files are created i can email you the .blp file and you probably already know how to put that in as the loading screen.

basically the way the guy said to do the pictures was to use a square because thats how video engines see things or something and then it stretches it to fit each resolution. I think the fuzziness is being caused by stretching too far. but yea the better the load screen looks the bigger its going to be. is that increase in size going to increase the initial DL time for the map, or the actual loading time every time you play the game?

next effort, i included the names of the fonts but the only one thats really easy to read is the first one and the flaming one.

right now as u can see im just finding cool art via google and editing it up a bit then converting. eventually ill start playing with some of the other tools tho

lol Glorn2 looks like GIORNZ but im liking the 2 uve made so far

I'm really liking the above background. And my favorite font is the one "Custom Hero Arena" is written as.

If you wanna minimize text; Just use, "Custom Hero Arena Revolutions" written smaller under it, 'By Glorn2" then at the bottom have "Visit www.chao.forumotion.net for discussion." and if you want, under that in a smaller font, you can include that the loading screen was created by you.

Also, a loading screen only increases the initial DL time, so it doesn't worry me too much. With that said , I don't want a MASSIVE file, but I don't want a blurry picture either. A fine ratio, I'm sure you understand what I'm talking about.

i played with it some and i still couldnt seem to get a really crisp looking picture. i tried a few different pixel setups and qualities but ill mess with it more tomorrow. my biggest result so far has been 1MB just fyi.

1 MB is how big the map file is ><

Fuzzybanana was making them, at about 200-300 KB; with good resolution.

You gotta make sure the "basic" pictures you are using are a high resolution that you can scale down. Taking a low resolution picture and scaling it up, will just make it fuzzier.

ok the picture on the left is the lower quality one and comes in under 200kb...the one on the right is substantially (imo) crisper than the other but with great pictures comes great downloadability and it comes in at just over...2300kb

what i would propose is we test to see how much difference this makes in the download time of the map. I dont have any older betas anymore so im thinking i can dl like beta5, clock myself, then have u add in the new load screen and see how much time it adds. if it is alot, which i anticipate, we could use the lowerres one for now and then once you have a completely finished (yea right) version that you dont anticipate updating for a couple months then we could upgrade. anyways i think the picture is baaaaadassss but im starting to get the hang of this whole thing so if i need to do something else i can. also for what its worth the coloring effects were done by me and i have a full color version of the file still so if people dont like the colorization thing i did i can change that. feedback por favor

100 is considered a low file size, 400 is considered a lot. Anything over 400 is just silly though.

2300 is totally doable...i actually found that tournament vers u did for lab and it was unprotected so i save a version with the big file just to see how long it takes.

beyond that though what did u think of the pic itself

Looks more like a vampirism loading screen then a cha but I like the art work of it. The current loading screen you have is a little overused at the moment its used in a couple of others by fly by night map makers who make a map then get bored and quit making them. They love that Orc fighting MK banner screen for some reason. Voted indifferent its a loading screen it can have Barney the purple dinosaur I wouldnt care.

^^ Agreed that a loading screen means nothing about a game. Hence, I am not tripling the map size just for a loading screen. the 200 kb one doesn't look much different than the 2300 KB one; especially for an 11:1 ratio.

Also, ever play YOU TD? the reason it lags your computer for 10 seconds just to click the map, is because their icon is a high file size. Also, that instant lag on map init, could cause people with poor computers to lag out during the loading screen; when it first pops up.

I would rather start adding custom models than a 2300 kb picture.

but you still havent actually said what u think of the picture...

I liked the second posted picture the most; with the lone figure/person/object in the center.

Or, if on the first one; you could add in a ghostly blueish kil-jaden overtop of it; I think that could look cool also.

The 3rd one LOOKS good, just not really for CHA. Seems more HVHish IMO

thats fair enough, on a side note... i just ran a little test on the difference in downloading the map with the huge file, it was literally no more than a 3 second difference, granted i was using the tournament map u made back whenever and i dont know how its size compares to the new map but it was an interesting experiment, but you are right that it could potentially cause people to crash.

also in that 2nd picture it definitely has a bunch of buildings in the background, modern skyscrapers, i blurred them as best i could cuz i think they dont really fit the wc idea. how obvious is it that they are there??