4 Icons In The Hard Drive Menu, how's it done? Options

[t1x2irc2]

i'd like to say where would UIX be without gasclown?


Gasclown is it possible for you to start a thread in the code snippit section with the topic

"How to change the 4 icons in the hard drive menu to 4 differant icons "

..or something like that.


i have been trying to figure that out since UIX was released


thanx

[gasclown]

Hi, I dont think it requires a code post and screwing around with the code inside the xips why UIX is the best dash (i rarely play games now i play with xips/xaps instead.

Heres how i did it:

First i searched through the .xaps for the tranforms for xbox.xbx (cos i knew that that menu rendered four of them) in memory.xip / default2.xap i found 4 of them - bingo!

i went through /*commenting*/ em out one by one so id know which ones were which (commenting them out will make them 'disappear' in dash) and marking them like this "//gamesorb", "//hddorb" etc. for my reference to make them easy to find for the next steps - they are all called controller pod outers (1,2,3 and 4).

Now the dash can actually render spheres and boxes on its own and i found that in the tranforms for the pod outers it was using the 'no mesh' variety of orbs which gives you less scope. So i modified them to get the orb definition from OrbCell-FACES.xm - that is the standard mesh for most orbs in the dash. of course some scaling was needed at each DEF for the pod tranforms. i gave the orbs the material name "MenuCell" so it would be consistent with the select pod on main menu (and changing skins wouldn't look crap)

Once i had the orbs sorted i begged/ borrowed / made / stole the meshes i wanted and scaled them in my 3d prog to be the same size as OrbCell-FACES.xm, zeroed out their axis and reoriented them (for consistency in the code). Then i copied the DEF's for the slightly modified orbs^ and pasted them above the orb DEF so they would appear to be 'inside' the orbs and named the DEF something like: "DEF CustomGamesMesh Transform" then changed the mesh reference to something like this : "geometry DEF Controller Mesh { url "controller.xm" } for each one. of course the scale needed to be changed to to the same scale (or slightly smaller) than the orb scale. that looked a bit boring so using the 'modded_orb function' as reference and added a 'Spinner' value so they wouldn't just sit there doing nothing - that was too much so i changed it to Waver with very subtle atttributes - less is more .

With the material name 'FlatSurfaces" they were a bit see through so i added a 'backing DEF' - right below the custom mesh transform i copied and pasted the _exact_ DEF and changed the transform name - i just called it like 'custommesh backing' and gave it the "panelBacking_01" material name so they look solid and more in keeping with other parts of the dash. of course lastly i put the meshes in the .xip saved and ftp'd to the box.

now, im clearly not jbOnE or Gcue so i didn't get it right first time - in fact i got cellwall only maybe 10/15 times during the process but eventually i got it working then tweaked the values and cleaned up the code. the reward of working it out for yourself is beauty of UIX.

happy dash hacking!!

This post has been edited by gasclown: Jan 15 2005, 12:42 AM

[t1x2irc2]

i knew controller pod outers 1-4 had something to do with it. but i didn't know how. i did attempt to add a differant flatsurface to the area and commenting out the current one. but had know luck. it didn't even dawn on me to use OrbCell-FACES.xm and i should have quessed that no mesh variety of orbs was there. i quess that shows that i'm still new at the whole 3d thing.. now my next challange is to make my mesh icons the same size as OrbCell-FACES.xm and take some screenshots to post.. thanx gasclown



you are right about one thing... it gives me a sence of accomplishment to figure it out on my own


i'm glade you didn't post your code.

[gasclown]

yeh hi, sounds like yr half way there

im not trying to be stinghy about it - if peeps really cant work it out ill post a proper howto

whats that old saying? teach a man to fish.......

(unless he's allergic to seafood)

[t1x2irc2]

i can't seem to get it round and slightly bigger and brighter for some reason

hope you don't mind i used your spiky orb

and i hope odb doesn't mind his skin up here
thanx again for your help

[gasclown]

yeh this particular menu bends things abit but make sure when using orb stlye orjects that the scale is even eg 'scale 1 1 1' (if u want it to be round) if uve doen this it will probably just be the menuwaver and menu rotation ie - dont worry bout it ;/

[t1x2irc2]

in your face



thanx again for your help

it's time i move on to the next project ...Corona

[gasclown]

haha - good work man

but i was thinking something a bit stronger than beer:



edit: totally nabbed this idea from something aston and flavor cooked up in the 'old days'. heh, it comes up in the select pod once selected too.

This post has been edited by gasclown: Jan 17 2005, 04:28 AM

[SSJToo]

Hey t1x2irc2,

Any Chance you could post your Memory.xip/default2.xap.
I'm interested in trying those changes, but have no idea how to do as gasclown says, in his post.

[gasclown]

no xips, no xaps, no asking for em or offering them - forum rules!

[SSJToo]

ok, Sorry.

[kokaz]

Please make a detailed tutorial, thanks a lot.

[Outworld1]

in your face 



thanx again for your help

it's time i move on to the next project ...Corona

hello,
where could i found your xm's please

thx

[thaswiftness]

hello,
where could i found your xm's please

thx

yeah it would be great to get those.. they look great

i was hoping either you or gasclown could make a detailed tutorial about this, i cant seem to get the new orb code working all the way, ive had it working by defining the orbs i want in the uix.ini but the system menu -> orbs never loaded anything but a blank screen. i also cant seem to get it to work at all in conjuction with the 6 tab code

thanks for all your work, its excellent.

-thaswiftness

[blitzburrgh]

hello,
where could i found your xm's please

thx

The harddrive (hdd.xm), psx (psx.xm) and controller (cont.xm) are in your memory.xip.

Just extract them and put em in an approaitely named folder inside your orbs folder. Just gotta mess with the sizes.

The one he uses for the dashboard is the newspikes orb (thank gas). Found at AXS.