Upgraded Load Screens

I took a swing at running MissionA's load screen through the AI software and noticed it does a great job of upscaling.   I think we should revisit the idea of upscaling these load screens and hack the game executables to accommodate this process.


FIRST ISSUE:

With the original game all of the load screens are 800x600 pixels but they look like poo on a 1920x1080 screen.  Since the originals are almost square format 4:3 of 800x600 they obviously won't do with the 16:9 format for 1920x1080.

We have two choices then:

1) Trim the top and bottom to fit the widescreen frame
2) Add black bars to the sides and possibly add additional graphic elements in these



SECOND ISSUE:

If we do hack the game executables what happens to load screens from community-made maps since they will all still be 800x600?  Will they be centered or get stretched?    Copy-cat and DarkSynopsis started to explore this problem a while ago but I can't recall what his results were (will need to re-read other threads).

UPDATE: According to old notes in the forum "it does place the load screen in the top left of the screen"



THIRD ISSUE:

The mission load text screen position doesn't get fixed with this hack and prints out higher on the screen.    Again, Copy-cat and DarkSynopsis started to explore this problem a while ago but I can't recall what his results were (will need to re-read other threads).

UPDATE: It appears Copy-cat may have cracked the load screen size issue.  You can read about it below.


Here is a former thread we discussed upgraded load screens:
www.swat3lastresort.info/index.php/lastr...ssion-loading-screen

1920x1080 - trimmed top and bottom





1920x1080 - Full image but with side bars and additional graphics




What style do you guys prefer?

A third possible option is "full image but with side bars and no additional graphics"

Slippery Jim wrote:

FIRST ISSUE:

1) Trim the top and bottom to fit the widescreen frame
2) Add black bars to the sides and possibly add additional graphic elements in these
 

What was the decisions with the movies? if it was to not stretch them probably best to keep it consistent.

Slippery Jim wrote:

THIRD ISSUE:

The mission load text screen position doesn't get fixed with this hack and prints out higher on the screen.    Again, Copy-cat started to explore this problem a while ago but I can't recall what his results were.
 

As for this, probably is some hex editing that could be done, believe my solution was to increase the height of the texture file that is used for the loading screen text, this would have to be done for each resolution, though that is kinda always the case.

DarkSynopsis wrote:

What was the decisions with the movies? if it was to not stretch them probably best to keep it consistent.

I would say add black bars at the sides for the movies rather than stretch

With the load screens I never considered stretching. It would be either trim top and bottom or add black bars to the sides. I don't think they have to be consistent with the movies because you see the map load screens so much more frequently.

DarkSynopsis wrote:

As for this, probably is some hex editing that could be done, believe my solution was to increase the height of the texture file that is used for the loading screen text, this would have to be done for each resolution, though that is kinda always the case.

I am just revisiting all those old threads now since I have a terrible memory.

Modifying the Swat font size is easy to do in the sense that the game doesn't do any verification on .bmp files thankfully.

What I may just do is render all the load screens to 3200x2400 like I did with MissionA and save them for later photoshopping once we have ironed out all the load screen technical issues.

I am deep in doing textures right now and worried about getting distracted by side projects.   I can supply the load screen 1920x1080 .bmp files that I have made for MissionA if anyone wants to take on this side project of working out technical issues.  I am open to getting help...

No pressure on anyone in particular...

UPDATE:   It appears Copy-cat figured out how to resize the load screen bitmaps:
www.swat3lastresort.info/index.php/lastr...ssion-loading-screen


That only leaves the problem of the load screen text being in the wrong position.   DarkSynopsis's modified font trick works great but isn't a perfect solution.   Is there a better way to hack the game to solve the issue?
 

I did a test with all three types of load screens mentioned in the top post.

I think I personally prefer the full screen with trimmed top and bottom for widescreen.

My second favourite was with black bars on sides. Least favourite was with extra graphics added on the side.

The added bonus of full screen trimmed is that we don't have to move the load screen text to the right because of the side black bars.

I would opt for the trimmed, as you lose almost no detail that makes the image non-recognizable from the original. Also there would be a lot less work involved than adding bars and little images that can make things feel off centered etc. (2c)