[General] Reforged Loading Screen

[Bangsgaard]

How do i import loading screens into the Warcraft 3 Reforged editor?
Which resolutions work and what file name should i give it?

This is the picture i want as a loading screen:

Loading Screen

There is also a map picture before you start the map. How do you change that?

 

[Planetary]

This might help: Reforged loading screen size

I think it's still FullScreen.blp that you import as whatever you want the loading image to be.

 

[Eikonium]

I can't get the custom loading screen to work...

I imported a .dds file with DXT1 compression (as suggested in your linked thread) like this:

But my map still has the default loading screen.

When I go to Scenario -> Map Loading Screen, I can only choose between "Use Default Screen" and "Use Campaign Screen", while "Use Imported File" is unselectable.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks and best regards!

 

[Planetary]

I can't get the custom loading screen to work...

I imported a .dds file with DXT1 compression (as suggested in your linked thread) like this:
View attachment 352498


But my map still has the default loading screen.

When I go to Scenario -> Map Loading Screen, I can only choose between "Use Default Screen" and "Use Campaign Screen", while "Use Imported File" is unselectable.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks and best regards!

I actually think custom loading screens don't work at the moment in Reforged. There's a hack you can do to replace the minimap with the loading screen image but as far as I understand that's all you can do (0.5/10). Would have to dig through the threads to find the conversations about it.

 

[Bangsgaard]

Do you know how to put minimaps in then? When i replace the minimap in the mpq editor with "war3mapMap.blp" i just get a black screen instead of my minimap replacement

 

[Planetary]

I'm not sure. I found the thread I was referencing for my current knowledge of what's possible: [Import] - Minimap Preview

I think I misspoke, can't even change the loading screen minimap. 0.5/10.

 

[Macadamia]

Loading screens with the resolution you want work perfectly fine in Reforged :

- Import the attached loading screen model with the asset manager and remove the default path. It should just have the plain name of the model.

- Go to Scenario -> Map Loading Screen -.> Use imported file. Then choose the LoadingScreen.mdx

- Convert your loading screen to BLP with any tool found in these forums. I personally use BLP Lab : BLP Lab v0.5.0

Note : Don't use DDS, it produces huge files when it comes to loading screens, ans the resulting visual quality gain over BLP is not worth it.
I use BLP with 60% compression and NO MIPMAP (this one does not need to be scaled)

- Import it in your map with the asset manager, and change the whole path to simply name it "FullScreen.blp"

Save and test

 

[Bangsgaard]

Loading screens with the resolution you want work perfectly fine in Reforged :

- Import the attached loading screen model with the asset manager and remove the default path. It should just have the plain name of the model.

- Go to Scenario -> Map Loading Screen -.> Use imported file. Then choose the LoadingScreen.mdx

- Convert your loading screen to BLP with any tool found in these forums. I personally use BLP Lab : BLP Lab v0.5.0

Note : Don't use DDS, it produces huge files when it comes to loading screens, ans the resulting visual quality gain over BLP is not worth it.
I use BLP with 60% compression and NO MIPMAP (this one does not need to be scaled)

- Import it in your map with the asset manager, and change the whole path to simply name it "FullScreen.blp"

Save and test

I did everything you said but instead of my loading screen it was just a black canvas with my map description. Does the loading screen have to be in a specific format?

 

[Macadamia]

LoadingScreen.mdx just needs to be in the root of your asset manager, so no path.
LoadingScreen.mdx is a model expecting a texture called FullScreen.blp with no path either.

I see no reason why it wouldn't work unless you messed up the FullScreen.blp texture path / name.

If you get stuck I can fix that for you in seconds, I have do so many I lost count now. Just send me a pm and we'll exchange email.

 

[Eikonium]

Got it to work, hooray!

Thank you very much, Macadamia!!

Do you know, where the text box on the loading screen is placed?
I wondered that my loading screen text was displayed on the left side, while I expected it to be on the right.

Also, could you provide some tips on how to achieve the best compression/quality ratio with BLP Lab?
My image size pretty much exploded (1MB to 2,x MB) after converting my .dds picture to blp1.

Best regards,
Eikonium

 

[Macadamia]

Hello there.

Yes dds is an amazing and modern format to use for textures, but it is not appropriate for a loading screen that is quite big and only displayed once.

But I have never seen a loading screen reach such extreme sizes when converted to blp.
Can you post your screen here ?

As for the placement of the loading screen text, Blizzard changed it from right to left for unexplained reasons with the last patch.

 

[Eikonium]

Of course, thanks in advance!
I attached the wallpaper in both .jpg and .dds format. Both will convert to .blp with >2MB file size.
This is btw just a sample image, not the one I actually want to use.
I currently just want to understand how to reduce the file size effectively, when using BLP Lab.

What settings would you recommend in above BLP Lab Screenshot?

 

[Macadamia]

Well, when it comes to loading screens, considering the resolution and the absence of extra mipmaps, the problem becomes identical as with wallpapers in jg as this last one is the algorithm used in BLP compression.

It is all a matter of compromise between size and quality. Just for testing, I have attached a version of your wallpaper with as low as 30% compression.

Only you can judge if the quality is acceptable.

So try and error is probably the best way.

 

[Eikonium]

Thanks! It's still bigger than the jpg (which also had the best quality), but I see that I just have to go by try and error, until I'm fine with the result.

What filesize do you typically achieve for 1920x1080 pixel images?

Just for me to compare, how good my results are

 

[Macadamia]

Yes, I am unsure there is a way to convert to BLP with more control than just the compression % quality wise.

I even often face situations where my textures in PNG are much smaller than the BLP version

The loading screen for my map is only 300kb, but it does not fill the entire screen as one needs to leave space for the loading Text.