Note: This is temporarily a work in progress, changes may be made as we work out the "best" method of doing this.
So, you may have noticed that all the "official" maps that came with JB have their own custom loading screens with a nice polished look to them. This thread will detail exactly how that's done with explicit instructions to follow along the way. You'll need a fairly recent version of Photoshop though, and I'm going to assume a decent skill level with image editing, if you need more help just ask.
If you need reference of what the original loading screens look like fire up UEd, open the texture package "JBTexLoading", and export your favorite loading screen, then you can keep it at hand for comparison.
Much of these instructions come courtesy of ZedMaestro, he's done most of the work so you don't have to, so worship him or something
The first thing you'll need to do is take a screenshot of your map, it needs to be at least 1024*768 pixels (more is fine, just scale it down, but keep the 4:3 aspect ratio). Obviously you'll want to choose a nice looking part of your map, people on low-end computers will be sitting watching this for upwards of 30 seconds, so make it look nice.
Now, you need to download some resources, see the attachment at the bottom for the banner that goes down the side. You can download the UT2004 Logo and UT2004 Characters from my hosting. Please only download those if you're going to make loading screens, to take it easy on my hosting.
You're going to be pulling several images off of colored backgrounds, so I'll outline how to do that now. What you want is the "magic wand" tool, it's up with the selection tools. Find the "tolerance" setting (it's location varies in different versions) and set it to 0. Now click the background (the part you don't want) of the image, then go to Select->Inverse. In the case of the UT2004 logo you may need to hold down shift and click multiple times with the magic wand to select all the background areas. If the marquee (dotted line thingy) you get isn't "hugging" what you want properly, increase the tolerance of the wand progressively until it does.
Make a 1024*1024 image file, and copy your (1024*768 resized if needed) screenshot into it. Place the screenshot at the top so there is a 1024*256 pixel space at the bottom. Take the paint bucket and dump pure black into the bottom space.
Now, it's time to add that attractive banner down the left side of your loading screen. Open up the "Tournament 2004.bmp" file (from "Tournament 2004.zip") and copy the white text out and paste it onto your loading screen. Arrange it so that it is "centered" vertically and near the left of the screen, use your best judgement. Now select the layer that was created when you pasted the banner in and slide the "opacity" slider down to 25-50%, or whatever looks right to you. Again, you can use the previously made loading screens for reference with positioning/opacity.
Ok, now you'll need the UT2004 logo. If you have the version I attached here, it is already resized for you, so just pull it off the background and paste it in. Place the logo near the top of the loading screen, either on the left or the right depending on where you want to place your character.
Finally, you'll need your character, look around a bit and find the one you like best. For the versions I've compiled I've already done the work of pulling the characters off of their backgrounds, resizing them, adding the appropriate feather effect, and placing them on a transparent background for you so just do a Select->Select All (ctrl+a) and copy it out onto your loading screen.
Ok, that should be about it. Save as you do this at every stage in case you make a mistake. At the end flatten the image and save it in a file format UEd can accept (if you have the DDS plugin go straight to DXT1, with mipmaps). Import the file into the MyLevel package of your map and make the name LoadingScreen (group doesn't matter but the name MUST be LoadingScreen). Make sure you didn't miss the step where you make it a 1024*1024 image with black space at the bottom or UEd won't accept the import. When importing check the "Generate Mipmaps" checkbox unless you already created them with the DDS plugin. If you don't do this quality will degrade at lower resolutions. In the texture browser do properties on your imported texture and set Texture->LODSet to "LODSET_Interface". This will ensure that UT2004 doesn't uglify your loading screen on lower detail settings. Apply your texture to a surface or actor in your map or UEd will discard it when saving (as it believes it to be unused).
That should do it, when you fire up your map Jailbreak should use the loading screen you created, instead of randomly choosing one from the defaults.
So, you may have noticed that all the "official" maps that came with JB have their own custom loading screens with a nice polished look to them. This thread will detail exactly how that's done with explicit instructions to follow along the way. You'll need a fairly recent version of Photoshop though, and I'm going to assume a decent skill level with image editing, if you need more help just ask.
If you need reference of what the original loading screens look like fire up UEd, open the texture package "JBTexLoading", and export your favorite loading screen, then you can keep it at hand for comparison.
Much of these instructions come courtesy of ZedMaestro, he's done most of the work so you don't have to, so worship him or something
The first thing you'll need to do is take a screenshot of your map, it needs to be at least 1024*768 pixels (more is fine, just scale it down, but keep the 4:3 aspect ratio). Obviously you'll want to choose a nice looking part of your map, people on low-end computers will be sitting watching this for upwards of 30 seconds, so make it look nice.
Now, you need to download some resources, see the attachment at the bottom for the banner that goes down the side. You can download the UT2004 Logo and UT2004 Characters from my hosting. Please only download those if you're going to make loading screens, to take it easy on my hosting.
You're going to be pulling several images off of colored backgrounds, so I'll outline how to do that now. What you want is the "magic wand" tool, it's up with the selection tools. Find the "tolerance" setting (it's location varies in different versions) and set it to 0. Now click the background (the part you don't want) of the image, then go to Select->Inverse. In the case of the UT2004 logo you may need to hold down shift and click multiple times with the magic wand to select all the background areas. If the marquee (dotted line thingy) you get isn't "hugging" what you want properly, increase the tolerance of the wand progressively until it does.
Make a 1024*1024 image file, and copy your (1024*768 resized if needed) screenshot into it. Place the screenshot at the top so there is a 1024*256 pixel space at the bottom. Take the paint bucket and dump pure black into the bottom space.
Now, it's time to add that attractive banner down the left side of your loading screen. Open up the "Tournament 2004.bmp" file (from "Tournament 2004.zip") and copy the white text out and paste it onto your loading screen. Arrange it so that it is "centered" vertically and near the left of the screen, use your best judgement. Now select the layer that was created when you pasted the banner in and slide the "opacity" slider down to 25-50%, or whatever looks right to you. Again, you can use the previously made loading screens for reference with positioning/opacity.
Ok, now you'll need the UT2004 logo. If you have the version I attached here, it is already resized for you, so just pull it off the background and paste it in. Place the logo near the top of the loading screen, either on the left or the right depending on where you want to place your character.
Finally, you'll need your character, look around a bit and find the one you like best. For the versions I've compiled I've already done the work of pulling the characters off of their backgrounds, resizing them, adding the appropriate feather effect, and placing them on a transparent background for you so just do a Select->Select All (ctrl+a) and copy it out onto your loading screen.
ZedMaestro said:
Ok, that should be about it. Save as you do this at every stage in case you make a mistake. At the end flatten the image and save it in a file format UEd can accept (if you have the DDS plugin go straight to DXT1, with mipmaps). Import the file into the MyLevel package of your map and make the name LoadingScreen (group doesn't matter but the name MUST be LoadingScreen). Make sure you didn't miss the step where you make it a 1024*1024 image with black space at the bottom or UEd won't accept the import. When importing check the "Generate Mipmaps" checkbox unless you already created them with the DDS plugin. If you don't do this quality will degrade at lower resolutions. In the texture browser do properties on your imported texture and set Texture->LODSet to "LODSET_Interface". This will ensure that UT2004 doesn't uglify your loading screen on lower detail settings. Apply your texture to a surface or actor in your map or UEd will discard it when saving (as it believes it to be unused).
That should do it, when you fire up your map Jailbreak should use the loading screen you created, instead of randomly choosing one from the defaults.
Last edited:
