Legacy:Splashscreens

Splash screens are the pictures that you see on your screen before UT goes into full screen mode.

Ever wished you could change them?

How to make your own

Note:- This tutorial was written for Unreal Tournament, for making splash screens for other games see the quick reference table further down the page for what is needed for other Unreal Engine Games, the method is the same, but the size of the picture differs, default folder for splash screens is always " Unreal Engine Game Name/Help "

How to create them... well here we go...

It's gotta be a 536 x 480 image, 256 colours, bitmap, and obviously it looks better if you have the Unreal Tournament bits at the top and bottom of the image, and the rest is up to you.

You can only have 5 Splash screens: Splash0, Splash1, ... , Splash4. Calling one Splash5 will have no effect, it just won't show.

put the images in Unreal Tournament/Help

overwrite the ones that are there (feel free to back them up first - in fact it can be a very good idea to do this)

and there you go :)

heres a few examples (examples are in .jpg format to make uploading easier)

[1]

[2]

[3]

Problems

I havn't experienced any problems myself, but i did hear from a friend that there can be problems if you have more than one user on you comp that uses UT then make sure that both users have the picture you use for your splash screen otherwise you get a bitmap error

Why?

Why change them you ask? Well there are a few reasons for changing your splash screens

• It makes your UT customized, more personal
• The old ones get boring after a while
• It can make your mod look nice, the Unreal Badlands mod for original UT did this

Tips to modders regarding Splash Screens

If you plan on doing this in your mod, then i suggest saying in your readme file that the .umod will overwrite your current splashscreens, or just include them as an optional extra with instructions on how to get them working (place in Unreal Engine Game/Help ).

It can give your mod a proffesional look, and make it much more impacting upon players,

"Wow...that pic that shows when UT starts up has changed...damn this mod is cool" ;)

UED Splash screens

Same sort of thing here, but you can only have one

its called edpsplash.bmp and its in System for Unreal Tournament (all) and in Help for Unreal 2

600x464 256 colours - same for all games as far as i know

heres a quick example ;)

[4]

dedicated to the UED goblin in the hope he doesnt screw anymore of my maps up :(

Quick Reference

Game	Requirements
UT Original	536 x 480 256 colour .bmp 1 splash only
UT GOTY	536 x 480 256 colour .bmp 5 splashes
UT 2003	???
UT 2004	512 x 430 256 colour .bmp 1 splash only
Unreal	Does it even have splash screens?
Unreal 2	560 x 480 256 colour .bmp 13 splashes
Deus Ex	???
Postal 2	???
Land of the Dead	Any size, 256 colour .bmp, 1 splash only, called Logo.bmp

Feel free to add to this table :)

Still to be done on this page:

Add info about UT2k3, add info on DX, add info on Unreal (if there is any to add) add info on P2

I dont have UT2k3 or Postal 2, so if someone else could add those, big thanks :)

I dont have DX or Unreal installed at the moment, so might be a while before i add them, so if someone wants to add them before me, please do :)

Discussion

xX)(Xx: Hopefully this can be useful to someone, if someone can check out the specs needed for the UT2k4, UT2k3 and U" splash screens, this page might become more concise, as i only have UT, im not sure about any of the 200X games

Also, if anyone has ago at making some custom splash screens, im sure we would all like to see them :)

Just wanna say a big thanks to Tarquin for fixing up my attempts on using wiki code, thanks Tarquin :D :tup:

EricBlade: Would like to mention that the Original Unreal does in fact have a splash screen (at least the 226 update does)

MythOpus: I don't think Unreal has splashes until Unreal Gold came out.

EricBlade: A few days ago, I was digging around my room, and found my original Unreal 1 disc, and I installed it, and patched it up to 226, and there is a \unreal\help\logo.bmp .. just the Unreal name/logo

SuperApe: Is there an .ini setting (or the like) could divert the reading of the stock /help/splash0.bmp? IOW, without using the UT2Kx method of the Mod directory structure (where .../UT2004/MyMod/Help can exist), can a Mutator/Mod (developed with .../UT2004/MyPackage/Textures) have its own splash screen specified? The alternate .bmp image I'd like to use is in the /UT2004/Help directory.

SuperApe: Just found my own answer: A command line flag is acceptable in my case, since I'm launching with a specific ini as well. It's -USERLOGO=. As in,

.../UT2004.exe -userlogo=../Help/MyMod.bmp -ini=MyMod.ini

Woohoo! :D

EricBlade: I'm trying to setup one of these for my game, and every time it displays the image, it is shifted 20-50% left to right. I'm saving as an indexed 8-bit BMP, what more do I need to do? ...

Nevermind: BMP Compression is required to make it appear right.

Amaroq: I installed Unreal Fortress lately, and I want to change the directory that Unreal Fortress loads from. That way, I can load different Splashscreens for Unreal Tournament than for Unreal Fortress, and vice versa. Any ideas how to do this? (Unreal Engine 1)

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Category:Legacy To Do - Read "Still to do on this page" and basic refactor.