Emi Loading Image

[Benny]

Someone asked me months and months ago if it was possible to change the nasty EMI loading graphic to something more pleasant. I realised yesterday that I could do it easily now so:

 

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I cant remember who asked me, but anyway the answer now is 'yes'. You need my lab creator/dumper to dump/rebuild the resource files, an application that can make .gz files like 7-zip and something that can load .tga images (I had to use photoshop because paint shop pro didnt allow me to have transparency in a .tga with more than 256 colours).

 

 

• Load the lab creator-dumper, click 'open lab' select a .m4b file from your emi folder (usually c:\program files\lucasarts\monkey 4\). If you want to change the loading image you need to choose 'local.m4b'.
  
• Click 'save filelist' and save the resulting file somewhere like your desktop. The filelist ensures that when you rebuild the .m4b later on, the files inside it are in the same order as before.
  
• Click 'Dump all' and select a folder to dump the files into.
  
• Open the folder and look for .tga files, eg 'fx[]loading.tga' - the loading image.
  
• These arent normal tga files though, they are compressed with gzip, rename the file and add a .gz extension so it looks like this 'fx[]loading.tga.gz'. You can then open it in winzip and extract the file from inside, which will have the same name.
  
• You then have a normal tga file, open it in your paint program of choice. You can then either paint over that tga and even resize it if you wish, there are some restrictions though - the size must be either 32 x 32 or 64 x 64 and it must have the same number of colours - ie it mustnt be scaled down to 256 colours.
  
• Once you've edited your tga, save it with the maximum number of colours. You then need to compress it again, load up 7zip, find the file, right click it, click 'add to archive', select gzip for archive format, compression method normal and click ok.
  
• Find the new file remove the .gz extension so it looks like the original file again 'fx[]loading.tga' and place it in the folder you extracted the files to, overwriting the one thats there.
  
• Load the Lab creator-dumper and click 'load filelist'. Select the filelist you saved at the beginning and then the folder you dumped the files too. Click compile.
  
• Copy the .m4b file you have just created into your EMI folder making sure that it has the name of the file you originally dumped from (in this case local.m4b). You will want to back up your original file first by renaming it to .bak or something.
  
• Load EMI and hopefully all should be well You can run EMI in windowed mode by running monkey4.exe -w should you wish.
  

 

 

Ok it doesnt sound easy but once you've done it once its really only a 2 minute procedure. There are shortcuts too, you dont need to unzip, load and draw on the original file, you can just make the tga yourself, gzip it and then overwrite the original. Also you can have sizes bigger than 32x32 and 64x64, you can have 128x128 for example but if the size is too big EMI simply scales the image down - eg. the loading image is 32x32 - EMI stretches this to 64x64 when it displays it so you can happily make a 64x64 image with no stretching but a 128x128 image is scaled down.

 

Anyway that took ages to type, so if its not simple enough tough luck, not everything is quick and easy you know¬

[Thrik]

Endless possibilities for amusement!

[ThunderPeel2001]

It was me!!! Well done BG!!!

 

~ John

[usuarioxksi]

Is there any way to extract .m4b files from the MOVIES folder, in order to swap the localized cutscenes' subtitles with other language's subtitles?

 

I've tried, but it says it's a Blink disguised file, or something.