[The E]

Last Night I decided that, in order to alleviate the boredom associated with Holidays, it would be fun to start FREDding. There's a campaign idea for TBP I have been carrying around in my Head (and a few pieces of paper) for quite some time now, and now I'm trying to turn that into Briefings, Missions, Cutscenes. But there is also a certain amount of Story in there that I don't want to put into Command Briefings, and I thought that the Ficton Viewer would help me there. Now, the Question is: How do I use it?

[karajorma]

The fiction viewer requires certain interface art before it can even be used at all. I know the WCS team have that but I can't say if they're willing to hand out theirs (it's not in the FS2 style anyway).

Once you have that, using the fiction viewer is simply a matter of editing the mission in FRED to include the bolded section.

$AI Profile: FS2 RETAIL

#Fiction Viewer

$File: filename.txt

#Command Briefing

[The E]

What interface Art would that be? I'm currently looking at that package Goober released here. I'm guessing that I would have to supply those files in data/interface myself, right? I'm also guessing that any interface Art i do would have to have the same Filenames and Image sizes, correct?

[karajorma]

Yep.

[The E]

Okay, here's a first try. Comments?

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Snail]

That's quite nice.

[karajorma]

Looks good to me.

BTW, here's the build you should use for any fiction viewer tests. I've fixed a few problems that the viewer had when it went over 70 lines. The changes haven't hit SVN yet cause they need to be tested.

[The E]

TBPified.

EDIT: Are the positions for the interface elements hardcoded? When I use these files, the interface elements show up in the same places that the WCS-Interface specifies. What am I doing wrong? (Besides trying to be clever, obviously...)

Oh, and maybe this should be moved to FS-Modding?

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Goober5000]

EDIT: Are the positions for the interface elements hardcoded? When I use these files, the interface elements show up in the same places that the WCS-Interface specifies.

You'll need to edit the mask file (the one with all the colors).  The palette index of the color corresponds to the index of the button.

[The E]

I'm pretty sure I did that. *Checks* Yes, I did. Could there be something wrong with the mask file?

[Goober5000]

Could there be something wrong with your mod setup?  (Make sure your replacement mask is overriding the one in the VP.)

[The E]

Nope. Just tried it again, this time without the vp present. The error persists. I'll attach some screenshots to show you the problem.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Goober5000]

Oh, that.  Yes, unfortunately those ones are hard-coded.

Oh well.  Make everything up nice and I'll fix the coordinates.

[The E]

Yay for more customization!!  I'm satisfied with the graphics I have. Whether they are "nice", I'll leave that to others....

[eliex]

This is pretty interesting - I didn't know FreeSpace could do this. Perhaps I'll try this out if I can. 

[Aardwolf]

That's a pretty crummy fanfic.

[The E]

Blame Goober 

[Goober5000]

*smacks Aardwolf*

It's a classic thread from the days of the VBB.

[Aardwolf]

* Aardwolf blames Goober, as per The E's instructions.

[redsniper]

I still don't get the "Oh sad race, oh sad race, oh sad race-" thing...