Post here if you care (or dont care :) about UI editing

jonwil · Rocket Infantry **Joined**: 24 Jul 2005

If you care about being able to edit the C&C3 UI, post here. I am trying to find out if its worth spending the time to continue working on UI editing, UI tools, UI work etc.

Post something like:
"I dont care about changing the UI at all"
"I can do everything that I need to do by editing the textures so I dont care about UI editing"
"I care about UI editing, please continue your work"
"I dont care about UI editing right now but later I will need to edit the UI"

CCHyper · Defense Minister **Joined**: 07 Apr 2005

Sure, i would love some UI tools, more tools the better ^_^

Chronosheep · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 10:58 am Post subject:

I would love to have tools for UI editing.
One question, however: Is it possible at this time to give any indication on what functions you would be able to include in such a tool? A little hard for me to say if I would find it useful or not when I have no idea of what it could include...

A little offtopic: Can you confirm that the maximum possible number of unit ability slots is 4, and not 6? Referring to http://ppmsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16226. PM me if you don't want to discuss it in this topic.

jonwil · Rocket Infantry **Joined**: 24 Jul 2005

I can confirm that the unit ability button slots is definatly restricted to 4. More specifically, the TacticalHUDSelectionDetails UI page (which codes for the entire square box down the bottom including the ability buttons) has 4 buttons hardcoded into the programming.

Chronosheep · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:39 pm Post subject:

Hmm... how can you tell just from the TacticalHUDSeclectionDetails.xml file that the number is hardcoded to 4, and not anything else? Confused

I see that the file refers to many other files, of different types; eg. TacticalHUDSeclectionDetails.const, TacticalHUDSeclectionDetails.apt, and TacticalHUDSeclectionDetails.dat... Have you managed to decode some of these, and find anything there, or did I miss something important in TacticalHUDSeclectionDetails.xml when i failed to find anything there that could suggest that 4 is the hardcoded number...?

jonwil · Rocket Infantry **Joined**: 24 Jul 2005

The full format of the *.apt files, *.const files, *.dat files and *.ru files is now known.

But to find out this information about the hardcoded number, I ran the TacticalHUDSeclectionDetails.eaf file (and the other files it references) through my eaf2swf program (an eaf file is basically a swf file with some small changes that eaf2swf undoes) and I then looked at the swf file in a swf program (Sothink SWF Decompiler) which allowed me to see the objects and programming of the swf file in question. (and allow me to see that its hardcoded at 4)

Chronosheep · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:00 pm Post subject:

Ah, ok. I just want to make sure (and know for myself) that there is NO way, what so ever, to make more than 4 buttons, before the idea is discarded. Too bad the number is 4, then. More upgrade/ability slots would have given modders a potential to make greater depth in the gameplay.
The only thing I find a bit strange, is the fact that AssetTypeInGameUITacticalCommandSlots.xsd allows for a maximum of 6 slots, but then again I suppose the 2 others may have been removed, or been made a part of the cells that show the rank, number of similiar units selected, and active upgrades.

Anyway, I'm sure I would find some UI tools useful, keep up the work.