See also Level Screenshot.
To add a screenshot to a UT map:
- Take a Screenshot of your map.
- At some point in the gamma-correcting and cropping fandango, resize it to a square image and then shrink it to a dimension of 256x256 pixels. (If you save your screenshot as a bitmap, do not use RLE compression or UnrealEd won't import it properly. Use regular RGB encoding.)
- Convert the colour palette to a 256 color palette. Once that's done, save your manipulated screenshot as PCX.
- Import the screenshot into UnrealEd. This procedure is described fully in Texture Import And Export. Briefly, use the following settings in the Import dialog box:
- Package: MyLevel
- Subgroup: (leave it blank)
- Name: Screenshot
- Uncheck the "Generate MipMaps" option, it is not needed here.
- You should see the "MyLevel" package displayed in the browser with your preview screenshot shown in the texture browser.
- Do not save the MyLevel Texture package! MyLevel" is a special package name which tells UnrealEd to embed the files when the entire map file is saved.
- Do UnrealEd Main Menu -> View -> Level Properties. In this new property box, set the resource property LevelInfo -> Screenshot to the new texture.
- Save your map. It's advisable to save it under a new filename, as mistakes in using the MyLevel pseudopackage can fatally damage a map.
Problems? check the troubleshooting section on Texture Import And Export if the texture doesn't actually import into the browser. Then check:
- The texture name is 'Screenshot' and it is not in a group
- The texture is referenced in some way in the map: usually in the Level Properties.
Make a sequence
Create and import the textures the flip book will consist of, for example Screenshot, Screenshot1 and so on. Then set the texture property Screenshot.Animation.AnimNext to the next texture that should be shown, for example Screenshot1. Repeat this accordingly for all imported textures to build a chain. Leave the property AnimNext of last texture empty. Set MinFrameRate and MaxFrameRate to control the speed of the flip book.
Technical
The LevelInfo -> Screenshot property in fact doesn't work as you might intuitively think it does. Unreal Tournament's map browser uses DynamicLoadObject to get a texture called "Screenshot" from the map package. Basically,
- LevelInfo.Screenshot is simply a way of ensuring the texture is referenced in the map, so UnrealEd embeds it in the map file when saving. Applying the texture to a surface somewhere or as an actor's skin would work just as well.
- the real factor that tells UT to display the texture in the Practice Game window is simply that is is called MyLevel.Screenshot. Call the texture something else, or put it in a texture group and it will not display.
Related Topics
- MyLevel pseudopackage
- Animated Texture