Question about fonts

[bama1234]

Does anyone know which XML file controls the font used for the message ticker at the top of the screen that displays information about new events? I figured it was message.xml in the message ticker folder, but I edited it and the font stayed the same, so I guess that's not it. Any advice appreciated.

[Dyson]

I've looked into this before, I think it's hard coded and not explicitly named in any GUI code, however you'd probably be able to overwrite it if you wanted and knew how, not sure how you'd get the game to recognise another font though. Why may I ask?

[bama1234]

I've looked into this before, I think it's hard coded and not explicitly named in any GUI code, however you'd probably be able to overwrite it if you wanted and knew how, not sure how you'd get the game to recognise another font though. Why may I ask?

 

I'm changing the UI to look like a police scanner and computer, and wanted the fonts to match. I think you're right though. I may just change the over all font to look more technical.

[Dyson]

Sounds good, good luck

[bama1234]

Sounds good, good luck

 

I think you're right, after tinkering with it, it seems like the best I could do is change the font .dds files but it affects every string that uses that font unfortunately. Oh well!

[Hoppah]

You cannot really edit the original UI elements for a modification. The added and changed UI files to the mod will not be loaded. The easiest way to change the message ticker is to edit the files in your Data folder, which is imo not really diserable. Lesson nr 1: Never ever change original data files. It is also possible to add new UI elements in missionscripts (instead of editing original files), but that requires extensive scripting knowledge.

[bama1234]

You cannot really edit the original UI elements for a modification. The added and changed UI files to the mod will not be loaded. The easiest way to change the message ticker is to edit the files in your Data folder, which is imo not really diserable. Lesson nr 1: Never ever change original data files. It is also possible to add new UI elements in missionscripts (instead of editing original files), but that requires extensive scripting knowledge.

 

Thanks for the tips Hoppah. I figured out the message ticker uses the arial_8_bold font file, but so does almost every other UI in the game, so if I change it I change them all. So I think I'll just leave the fonts alone and edit everything else for the time being. And I doubt I have the scripting knowledge necessary for that mission script editing.

[Xplorer4x4]

You cannot really edit the original UI elements for a modification. The added and changed UI files to the mod will not be loaded. The easiest way to change the message ticker is to edit the files in your Data folder, which is imo not really diserable. Lesson nr 1: Never ever change original data files. It is also possible to add new UI elements in missionscripts (instead of editing original files), but that requires extensive scripting knowledge.

A bit off topic, but I have always wondered, and this might be borderline piracy talk, if you have ever tried to reverse engineer the data files? I have always thought if we did this, it would give us a bit more insight in to the game engine and help over come some of the technical boundaries.

[Chris07]

DMCA issue aside, reverse engineering the game is easier said than done. Unless you're good at reading assembly code it's very difficult.

 

The game is fully compiled into machine code (.exe and .dll) and translation from machine code (assembly) to something a bit more readable is a huge process. Even if you do get the code into a higher, more readable form, a lot of it will be difficult to make sense of especially since variable names, function names, comments are all removed and replaced with generic identifiers....not to mention the code was optimzied when it was compiled making it that much more confusing to decipher.

 

Doable? Yes...people do it all the time, it's just nowhere near as easy as you think.

 

Legal? I can see arguing either side. I see no harm in peeking under the hood to see how things are set up. It's when you start looking under the hood to see how they did something so you can do the same thing in your product...or to dismantle copy protection that it starts to become a no-no.

[Xplorer4x4]

Doable? Yes...people do it all the time, it's just nowhere near as easy as you think.

 

Legal? I can see arguing either side. I see no harm in peeking under the hood to see how things are set up. It's when you start looking under the hood to see how they did something so you can do the same thing in your product...or to dismantle copy protection that it starts to become a no-no.

Yeah I mean games are cracked all the time. The new Wolfenstien game is 45GB and I believe it has been cracked already. I guess the scene members that do that stuff are just that damn good?!

 

Not so much replicating but rather seeing how things are done so we could say "Ok the game expects ladder trucks to function in this way so we can fool the game in to thinking it work that way but it doesn't" sort of like the "reverse" for the tiller and heavy rescue crane but on a bigger scale. For example we could see how the driving is handled and maybe figure out a way to make the tiller trailer function properly(well real world proper).