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[MOD] Loading Screen

Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:11 pm
by TheLacus
Loading Screen
An highly customizable loading screen that appears during loading times instead of the default black screen.

Screenshot (114).png
Screenshot (114).png (1.09 MiB) Viewed 15569 times
Downloads
Loading Screen on Nexus Mods

Special Thanks
Special thanks to Jay_H and Tealy Wolf for writing some of the game tips.

Re: [MOD] Loading Screen

Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:29 pm
by Narf the Mouse
TheLacus wrote:This is a simple mod that shows splash screens (like these or these) during loading times instead of the default black screen.
The nice thing is that you can place any png file you want inside StreamingAssets/Textures/LoadingScreens and the mod will pick one of them randomly every time.

Download v1.0

known bugs: it doesn't work for the first loading screen, but once you are in game it works for both normal and quick loading.
Cool. Much like salt, loading screens are one of those things you really miss when they're not there. :)

Re: [MOD] Loading Screen

Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2017 5:00 pm
by TheLacus
Thank you.

What do you think about a counter? It assumes a loading screen last 3 frames and calculates the corresponding percentage. It's a bit unfair because the first frame is the one which takes the biggest part of the time.

EDIT removed old screenshot

Re: [MOD] Loading Screen

Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2017 8:41 pm
by TheLacus
A cleaner alternative may be to use three dots, one for each frame.

EDIT removed old screenshot

Re: [MOD] Loading Screen

Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:38 pm
by LypyL
I love this idea...IIRC there was a basic loading screen very early on (though that might just be my memory playing tricks).

When I transition between interior & exterior, it flashed a red question mark the majority of the time, and when it used one of the images from the /Textures/LoadingScreen directory, it flashed very fast. I think you need to use more than a few frames as they tick by too fast.

I think rather than using frames I would use actual time.

Regarding the Loading text, how about a line of dots in the bottom right corner so the user can see them, but they're unlikely to obscure anything?

I love this idea, I hope you keep working on it! There's a lot of really cool things you could do like animated loading screens and so on.

Re: [MOD] Loading Screen

Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 12:04 am
by Interkarma
LypyL wrote:I love this idea...IIRC there was a basic loading screen very early on (though that might just be my memory playing tricks).
I had a static loading screen in the old streaming world demo way back. I dropped it when moving to Daggerfall Unity proper (as it wasn't part of vanilla, and my load times were only a couple of seconds anyway).

This is a very good mod idea though! :)

Re: [MOD] Loading Screen

Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 7:40 pm
by TheLacus
Thank you. Lypyl can you clarify a bit here ?
LypyL wrote:I think you need to use more than a few frames as they tick by too fast.
I think rather than using frames I would use actual time.
I think i don't understand what you mean when you say to use more frames or time. My original thought was to avoid displaying the splash screen at all when the loading time it's too short, like when moving between interior/exteriors, but i'm not sure how to handle this because most of the actual loading happens in a single frame.
LypyL wrote: Regarding the Loading text, how about a line of dots in the bottom right corner so the user can see them, but they're unlikely to obscure anything?

I love this idea, I hope you keep working on it! There's a lot of really cool things you could do like animated loading screens and so on.
Right now i'm working on allowing a customization via ini file and displaying different splash screen according to climate/seasons. Something interesting would be displaying a text string, like in skyrim, taken from the dialog rumors or maybe from the active quests.

Re: [MOD] Loading Screen

Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 8:53 pm
by Jay_H
TheLacus wrote:Something interesting would be displaying a text string, like in skyrim, taken from the dialog rumors or maybe from the active quests.
Yes! This would be fantastic! A fantastic way to integrate new players into DFU. I get the sense the load times may be too short for extensive text, but it's a great idea.

Re: [MOD] Loading Screen

Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 9:13 pm
by TheLacus
Version 1.1
  • Added Loading counter/label in the bottom-right corner.
  • Use ini file for customization.
  • (optional) Use different images for Summer, Winter and Desert.
Download

Re: [MOD] Loading Screen

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 12:21 am
by LypyL
TheLacus wrote:Thank you. Lypyl can you clarify a bit here ?

I think i don't understand what you mean when you say to use more frames or time. My original thought was to avoid displaying the splash screen at all when the loading time it's too short, like when moving between interior/exteriors, but i'm not sure how to handle this because most of the actual loading happens in a single frame.
All I mean is always display the loading screen image for a minimum amount of time (rather than frames). It doesn't have to be long, a second or 2 maybe, but long enough that the player will be able to visually process it if they're looking.