Loading Screens..

[InflatableHero]

Something new to look at while loading.. if your Comp sucks like mine :P

examples.. ^^ Invasion Loading Screen Pack 1
Invasion Loading Screen Pack 2
Invasion Loading Screen Pack 3

[Jon!]

I gotta say they're totally awesome. Maybe we could make our own, unless these were too!

[InflatableHero]

Maybe we could make our own

With players from the Mash posing on a scenic background? haha ^^

[DW_WailofSuicide]

You can indeed make your own loading screens, although they will show up when you play on other servers too so...

[DW_Fry]

I know the Monster Madness Invasion server somehow has it so that with no user intervention you'll get their custom load screens that only show up when you connect to their server.

[DW_Ant]

Customizing loading screens is done from making a UT texture(s) 1024X1024 & saving it to a unique package (so you won't get mismatch errors when jumping online). To make some magic, go to the user.ini file. Hit Ctrl + F to open the find window. Type in "background". It should take you to something like:
Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen1
Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen2
Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen3
Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen3

If you haven't done so already, change the last 3 into a 4 to enable a neat Xan loading screen:
Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen1
Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen2
Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen3
Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen4

To add your images, simply add or replace a line & type in:
Background = (your package name).(your category name).(Your texture name)
& don't forget to divide your names by dots.

I've customized my loading screens so I got something worth looking at, and I gotta admit it does make the loading time seem much shorter ^_^

[DW_WailofSuicide]

I know the Monster Madness Invasion server somehow has it so that with no user intervention you'll get their custom load screens that only show up when you connect to their server.

Yeah, I've seen that. I think that would probably be easy for us to do for MM.
For me the more relevant question is, do we actually want to force players to download several 1024x1024 textures for loading screens? While they are nice, I'd much rather only force players to download things that are actually going to be seen in the game (especially since, if they want to, players can install their own custom loading screens already).

[DW_Fry]

After playing with UT3 and getting used to downloading 5-90MB maps, so I'm not sure if I'm a good reference. I only have a mediocre residential cable connection, and I'd doubt if I'd even notice that size download.

One thing that would make it even less noticeable is to combine them with an existing package, so it won't be a separate download.

It seems like less of a nuisance to download one 5MB package than 5 200K packages.

[Watty]

Something new to look at while loading.. if your Comp sucks like mine :P

examples.. ^^

Donno if it's just me but, I was just loading and one of the new loading screens came up, and it was really fuzzy.
Could it be because I play in windowed mode on 800x600?

[DW_WailofSuicide]

Your Detail Mode is also on lowest isn't it Watty? That's probably more relevant.

I'll mention it to Iniquitous.