How to do a custom loading screen in reforged editor ?

[Elrismir]

Hey !
I found lot of tutoriel to do a custom loading screen, but i think they are all old and outdated for most of them. Maybe i have wrong.
I mean, they explain how to do custom loading screen in 1024*768, but with warcraft 3 reforged, i'm pretty sure that loading screen can now be in 4K.
So, i did some research on the internet to find more recent tutoriel, but I found nothing.
So, did reforged added new way to do custom loading screen ? Or we still need to cut image in 4 and convert them into BLP to have a low resolution loading screen ? There is no other way for now ?

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day !

 

[Swatosj]

Hi ! It seems they didn't change the old loading screen system at all and tutorials telling how to make a HD loading screen are still up to date.

That sounds weird to me because it's not that expensive in dev cost to make a simple HD loading screen feature within the WE, but you know with Reforged everything is possible, not in the good way.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Use traditional single texture loading screen model. Use 4k or whatever DDS as texture. Really that simple.


DDS using DXT1 or DXT5 must have dimensions that are integer multiples of 4. This is due to the lossy block compression used.

 

[Gnuoy]

can anyone tell me where the download single texture.mdx is?

edit: i followed this tutorial, it seems it's putting the .blp skin (originally 512x512 .blp file), it's stretching it vertically to the top and bottom of my load screen but not horizontally, about 1/4 of the screen is black on the left and right. I hate to ask on such a covered topic but i just can't figure it out.

Creating a Custom Loading Screen

Warcraft III World Editor, Warcraft III Map Making Tutorials, Warcraft III Scripting, Warcraft III Maps - World-Editor-Tutorials.thehelper.net. Dedicated to Warcraft III and the Warcraft III World Editor. Has tutorials and FAQ. Covers map making, maps, trigger codes, JASS, GUI, models, skins...

world-editor-tutorials.thehelper.net

 

[Dr Super Good]

edit: i followed this tutorial, it seems it's putting the .blp skin (originally 512x512 .blp file), it's stretching it vertically to the top and bottom of my load screen but not horizontally, about 1/4 of the screen is black on the left and right. I hate to ask on such a covered topic but i just can't figure it out.

That is so it maintains the 4:3 aspect ratio of the original loading screens, as Warcraft III used to only support 4:3 (any other ratio was done by stretch).

 

[Gnuoy]

thanks for explaining that. i guess what i'm trying to ask is why is it not stretching to fit my entire load screen?

 

[Dr Super Good]

i guess what i'm trying to ask is why is it not stretching to fit my entire load screen?

So that it maintains a 4:3 aspect ratio as the functionality is still used by old custom maps with (or at least should be with) 4:3 loading screen images.

I do not know how to create widescreen aware loading screens at the moment. It may be a feature of HD mode.

 

[Gnuoy]

i'm not really on a wide screen, atleast i don't think so

 

[Dr Super Good]

i'm not really on a wide screen, atleast i don't think so

If that screenshot is native resolution, then your display is 16:9 wide screen. Most displays are at least 16:9 today, with the odd one being 16:10 in mobile devices. 4:3 displays are very rare, and mostly see use in various productivity applications (which need the form factor) or for retro purposes (most legacy CRT displays are 4:3).

The pillar boxes to the side are to pad the screen so the loading screen image is 4:3 in the middle of your display. As I said I am currently not aware of a way to bypass this, and hopefully some other person has found a way to use the wide screen loading screen support added with Reforged.

Just to be clear, legacy versions of Warcraft III only support 4:3 loading screens, even ones from after basic wide screen support was added. Apparently Reforged (latest release version) should try to maintain aspect ratio of the loading screen appropriate to the loading screen itself. I am not sure if this is in reference to the loading screen texture, or the model.

 

[Gnuoy]

this looks worse than 4:3 to me this is a square.

 

[Dr Super Good]

this looks worse than 4:3 to me this is a square.

You are right, it is square. (1440x1440).

Are you using the latest version of Warcraft III (Reforged)? If so then I wonder if this is due to the underlying loading screen model being square. If that is the case you could try using Retera's model studio to resize it to be a 16:9 aspect ratio and hopefully it will then be full screen (on 16:9 displays, which is assumed the standard).

 

[Gnuoy]

yes using Reforged. i only own Reforged so i could have the mount on WoW. Looking into Retera's Model Studio. idk anything about model editing so wish me luck. Also wondering what if a player isn't using 16:9 display, maybe it will be messed up for them.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge on this topic @Dr Super Good

edit: got it working with this mdx file: High Resolution Loading Screens

 

[Dr Super Good]

Also wondering what if a player isn't using 16:9 display, maybe it will be messed up for them.

It should preserve the 16:9 aspect ratio then, using bars or pillar boxes as required. This is the ideal result as it gives you full control over how the loading screen looks without worrying about it being distorted due to different aspect ratio displays.

An example of why this is important is so that shapes that are meant to be square remain square when viewed by everyone, and are not stretched to be rectangles.