Custom UI For One Player?

[Silverfish423]

Hello everyone! I was wondering if it is possible make one player have a custom UI? For example.....
I have the Undead Nerubians and Burning Legion in my map. It would be fantastic if they could have these custom UI's each, respectively:

Undead Nerubian UI

Burning Legion UI

Yet, the Undead Nerubians only take up one player spot (gray) as does the Burning Legion (brown).

So, I was wondering if there was a way for me to make it so that one custom UI affected gray, one custom UI affected brown, and if I could do this for other players (with different UIs).

Thanks a lot!!

 

[I3lackDeath]

As far as I know, you can't specify the UI for players, only for races (--> you can replace the original Undead, Orc, Nightelf and Human UI), though I don't know if it could be done via triggers in the World Editor.

 

[MiniMage]

Just fix it through import. Import one UI to the orc. So if you have for example the nerub tile, you rename the NerubUITile01.blp to OrcUITile01.blp
As the path you've specified is the same as the other one, your import will replace it. As long as you still got the import with that name, it will work.

Then after that you make these players different races, like I3lackDeath said.
Leave the human UI for the rest. Or replace that UI yourself. Anyhow, I wrote down the paths to the general needed UI parts for your convenience, enjoy.

UI\Console\Orc\OrcUITile01.blp
UI\Console\Orc\OrcUITile02.blp
UI\Console\Orc\OrcUITile03.blp
UI\Console\Orc\OrcUITile04.blp
UI\Console\Orc\OrcUITile-InventoryCover.blp
UI\Console\Orc\OrcUITile-TimeInidcatorFrame.blp

UI\Console\Undead\UndeadUITile01.blp
UI\Console\Undead\UndeadUITile02.blp
UI\Console\Undead\UndeadUITile03.blp
UI\Console\Undead\UndeadUITile04.blp
UI\Console\Undead\UndeadUITile-InventoryCover.blp
UI\Console\Undead\UndeadUITile-TimeInidcatorFrame.blp

Btw, how come I can't see the burning legion UI or the Nerub UI? I'm assuming the nerub is by urkelwich.. I think that was his name.
But the Burning Legion UI intrigues me. :O

 

[Silverfish423]

@I3lackDeath: Darn :/ thanks for the help anyways
@Minimage: Well, I know you can replace it for races, but I was trying to figure out if I could replace it for specific players?

 

[MiniMage]

@I3lackDeath: Darn :/ thanks for the help anyways
@Minimage: Well, I know you can replace it for races, but I was trying to figure out if I could replace it for specific players?

Well, that's the only way to change it for different players. At least that's the only way I know how to do it.

 

[Adiktuz]

sadly, you cannot do it per player... unless the player uses a certain program which changes his UI...

 

[NhazUl]

You can always set each player to a different race if you have 4 or less factions.

 

[Adiktuz]

I dont think he will have 4 or less as he's already using the gray and brown player... and since he know that he can do it per race, I'm sure he knows that he could always do that...

 

[Silverfish423]

Yeah....there are going to be about 17 different factions. about 5-7 of those i would of liked to have custom UIs :/
aw well. atleast it was a valiant wish, haha xD

 

[MiniMage]

Yeah....there are going to be about 17 different factions. about 5-7 of those i would of liked to have custom UIs :/
aw well. atleast it was a valiant wish, haha xD

You do know that an UI is about 500kb each?

Just for the UIs you would spend 500 x 7. Then units. It will become a big map if you manage to pull this off.

 

[De.Facto]

Mh, is it possible to change the race ingame? Would be interesting.

 

[MiniMage]

Mh, is it possible to change the race ingame? Would be interesting.

I seriously doubt that.

 

[I3lackDeath]

I seriously doubt that.

Well, you COULD do that, by triggering changing models like in the RoC-Campagin (remember the Orc one? Replacing Shamans etc with Chaos units), but that would be.... much work? And I assume that you would have to use custom models (depends on the race you would want), so that would seriously exceed the map limit.

 

[Silverfish423]

But would changing the race ingame make this possible?

 

[MiniMage]

I am pretty sure the swapping of units and such is do-able. But the race itself, the race which specifies which UI you will have. That can not change. I have not seen anyone ever successfully pulling that off anyhow.

 

[I3lackDeath]

I am pretty sure the swapping of units and such is do-able. But the race itself, the race which specifies which UI you will have. That can not change. I have not seen anyone ever successfully pulling that off anyhow.

Yep, precisely. I don't know where the ingame information for race-UI-Connection lies (the MPQ files don't tell us anything), but every custom "race" simply consists of custom models.
But, as I said, if an WE-Expert joined the discussion, we might get info on whether it's doable with triggers there or not.

 

[Adiktuz]

it is not doable via triggers... but a user can do it using a certain tool which lets you change the UI on your comp...

 

[Silverfish423]

hmmmm
so it would require the use of a third party tool outside of the original map?

 

[Adiktuz]

there is a tool that enables the user to change the (UI, main menu background, sounds, etc)

 

[I3lackDeath]

there is a tool that enables the user to change the (UI, main menu background, sounds, etc)

There's also an exectuable file that that enables Warcraft 3 to load its files from your harddrive instead of each MPQ. That way, you can rename them and easily replace units, UIs, sounds, voicesets and stuff.

 

[MiniMage]

This is all nice and all, but the question was if it could be done with the world editor, so that it happened automatically. I don't think it's helping the guy if we point out that it's possible with any second party program, that merely changes it for the user in question while that program is active. As anyone else with the same race, without the program on, will still be unaffected.

 

[Adiktuz]

We already said that it was impossible on the WE... so its fine to point out the other possibilities...

 

[MiniMage]

Yeah, I did too. I merely point out that although it's fun that there's a program that does this for you, it's not really helping. We've tried and failed. He suggested to wait until the time when someone did know.
As we clearly do not, why are we still posting here? It may potentially be possible if you know how, we do not. For us, it is impossible. The creator of this thread suggested us to wait for someone who did know..

Until then, what point is there to reply in this thread? XD

 

[Silverfish423]

I never said that, I3lackDeath said that. But with that thrown out there
Would anyone know of a WE expert that may be able to figure this out?
And now seeing where this thread is going, I don't think it should be here. It should be in the triggering section, haha xD

 

[Adiktuz]

I tell you, this really isn't possible on the normal bounds of the editor... sadly that's the limit of wc3 for you...

unless you could code a program like that exe file that could replace the UI, and import it into the map, and make it run without user permission (so something like a virus-like method)...

but I don't suggest it because UIs take a lot of space... approximating each set to be 500kb would be 3.5MB for the 7 UIs...

and that 3.5MB for the UIs are really a waste of space...

 

[Magtheridon96]

I have a way to make an infinite number of custom UIs for any player in ANY case.

First of all, delete the Human/Orc/Night elf/Undead UIs from your map (Just remove the paths from the game interface. Second, you shouldn't be using a UI, but images!
You'll need an awesome image system to create certain images of the UI for a certain player depending on his race.

Ofcourse, the images should only be destroyed when switching between races
I hope this helped

 

[Adiktuz]

Aside from vJASS knowledge, that would require a great deal of calculation so that the images will follow correctly (considering you'll be using Image Utils)... ^_^

and it might show considerable lag...

 

[GhostThruster]

I doubt images go over the UI layer.

 

[Adiktuz]

I doubt images go over the UI layer.

me too... but if the UI is alpha, won't the layer beneath be seen?

anyway, you could always try the virus-like method, but if ever Blizzards fix the loophole which enables such methods, then it won't work anymore...

 

[Deolrin]

unwirklich's UIs are about 2 MB each. If you really want to use seven of them, your map will not be playable on Battle.net. And no, there is no way I can currently think of for using two different UIs for the same race.

 

[Softmints]

You do know that an UI is about 500kb each?

Just for the UIs you would spend 500 x 7. Then units. It will become a big map if you manage to pull this off.

unwirklich's UIs are about 2 MB each. If you really want to use seven of them, your map will not be playable on Battle.net. And no, there is no way I can currently think of for using two different UIs for the same race.

Those numbers are exaggerated. The .blp format War3 uses contains bitmaps of the original files at various compressions and uses the appropriate one based on how far away the camera is. This is why .blp icons are roughly 10kb compared to 3kb for their .jpg counterparts: they need to have sizes for abilities (64x64) right down to the tiny ones used in multiboards (8x8).

However, UI only requires one resolution because it's only ever visible at one zoom level. It is possible to cut out all the other resolutions and as a result get a vastly reduced filesize. I've done this for unwirklich's Legion UI and it sits at a comfortable 317kb. I believe I used a tool called BLP Lab to do this.

Alpha UI just becomes black to the best of my knowledge. Changing races around in-game seems implausible. You've got four UIs available, so just use them wisely. Good luck.