OK people, as promised i would make a picture tut on the steps that i used that helped me out on making the loadscreen work, and i hope that they will help you out as well. I will be using my demo map that i made as an example. If you need to view a pic larger than what you see, plz, plz, right click on the image and select view image. Now lets get started:

1. Take a picture of the area of your map that you want to be ur
loadscreen. Do that or make a drawing that you wish to put
have as your loadscreen.



2. Open your edit picture program of your choice. I will use
photoshop on this explanation. Start a new image and when it
asks you about size of image, simply place 1024x1024, this is
so that when you load your image into the program you wont
loose any quality on your picture. Edit the picture the way you
want it to be.




After editing choose "Save As" and save as either "tga" "24
bits"








or "dds" "dxt5 with no Mip Maps"






When you save make sure you name it
"loadscreen_mp_mapname". In my example i will be naming it
"woods" in the mapname area. so it would look like this
"loadscreen_mp_woods" but thats my example.



you will have to name it after whatever you named your map.



3. Place the new .dds or tga into your "texture_assets" folder in
your cod4 directory.




If you dont have a "texture_assets" folder then you should
make one and place the .dds or .tga in there.




4. Launch Assets manager from the compile tools and open the
file "[root]\source_data\levels.gdt". [root] is wherever in your
hard drive you installed your game. Make sure that in this step
you do not save.Scroll down the list of asset types in the
upper left side and select "Material" from the list, then click the
"New Entry" button . You will be asked to enter the name of
the new material. Name it after your maps name. So for me it
would be "loadscreen_mp_woods" For you guys just change
"woods" to whatever your maps name is.





then make sure your settings are like in this pic from the iwiki:

http://www.infinityward.com/wiki/images/a/a9/Load_screen_tut1.jpg

In the section where it says color map, click on the "..." next to
the word "open" and select the .tga or .dds file from the
"texture_assets" folder




so now it should look like this:




Then go ahead and hit f10 or select " Pc Convert" on top and
select "Current Assets Only F10" A black window will come
up and if you did it correctly it will look something like this:



Go ahead and close assets manager, we are done with it and
Dont save.





5. Now lets go into the "raw" folder and find inside it the
"maps" folder. Here (inside the "maps" folder) we will create a
new .txt file and add the following lines:



the "mapname" of the last line should be changed to whatever
your maps name is. In my case, it would be:




Now lets "save it" and close it. Change the file name and
extension on our newly created .txt to "mp_mapname.csv".
Once again the "mapname" should be your maps name. For
me it would be "mp_woods.csv"




6. Were almost done now lets go to cod4 compiles
tool, select the "level compiling" tab, select our
"mp_mapname" and click on "update zone file"
On the right side of the missing assets lets add these 2 lines:



in my case it would look something like this:




now lets save the newly added missing assets and rebuild our
fastfile. If done correctly you will have a similar screen to this:



only that you will see your maps name instead of mines, but
you knew that :P

7. Now Create 3 new folders on your desktop and call them:
"images"
"materials"
"material_properties"


8. Go to your cod4 "raw" folder. Find the "images" folder and
select the file with your loadscreen name, which should be
something like "loadscreen_mp_mapname.iwi" mines would be
"loadscreen_mp_woods.iwi". Cut the file and paste it into the
"images" folder on your desktop.



Next hit the "back" button to go back into the "raw" folder and
this time find the "materials" folder and select the file with
your loadscreen name, which should be
loadscreen_mp_mapname" this time without the ".iwi" at the
end. Cut and paste the file into your "materials" folder that you
created on your desktop.



Next hit the "back" button to go back into the "raw" folder and
this time find the "material_properties" folder and select the file
with your loadscreen name, which should be
"loadscreen_mp_mapname" also without the ".iwi" at the
end. Cut and paste the file into your "material_properties"
folder that you created on your desktop.








9. Now select all 3 folder on your desktop "images", "materials" and "material_properties".





and make a zip file out of them. Which should be called
"mp_mapname" with the extension changed from ".zip" to
".iwd" so that it will be "mp_mapname.iwd"




10. Cut and paste the "mp_mapname.iwd" into your "mapname"
folder inside the "mods" folder. "mapname" would be the name
of your map without the "mp_" part. On my example, the
folder would be called "woods" which will be inside the "mods"
folder. The "mods" folder can be found on your cod4 directory.
If you dont have a "mapname" folder then make one and paste
your "mp_mapname.iwd" inside of it.




11. After that go into your "zone" folder found in your cod4
directory. Inside it you will find a "english" folder, go inside of
that one as well and find your "mp_mapname.ff" and
"mp_mapname_load.ff" in my case it would be
"mp_woods.ff", "mp_woods_load.ff". I would cut my .ff's and
then i would go into my "usermaps" folder which is on my
cod4 directory. inside the "usermaps" folder i will create a
new folder and call it after my maps name, which would be
"mp_woods". Inside the "mp_woods" folder is where i would
paste both my "mp_woods.ff" and "mp_woods_load.ff". So
heres a pic of wat it should look like:



12. Almost done, now we go to our cod4 multiplayer game and on
the main menu select the "mods" section. Find in the list of
mods the "mapname" of your map, so for me i would select
the "woods" mod and hit the "launch" button.




which should now take you back to the main menu. On the
main menu open console and type "map mp_mapname"
mapname being the name of your map. For me it would be
"map mp_woods" and hit enter. you should now see your
map loading with your created loadscreen. Hope this has
help because idk how else to explain it without pictures XD
lol....this i guess would be my first tutorial and thanks for
putting up with all of this. Plz let me know if this has
worked for you because this has worked for me several
times.


EXTRA:

If you want to send the map with your loadscreen to your friends, simply copy and paste the "mapname" folder from your "mods" folder into your desktop. Thats the folder that has the ".iwd" and also copy and paste to your desktop the "mp_mapname" folder from your "usermaps" folder. now with both the folders selected make one zip file. so now you will have one zip file with:

"mp_mapname" folder - has your fastfiles
"mapname" folder - has your iwd file

when they recieve the zip file let them know to place the "mapname" folder inside the "mods" folder and to place
the "mp_mapname" folder into the "usermaps" folder. this makes it easier on them and you so that both of you dont have to over think where things go.



and plz let me know if this works for you too cause i spent about a quarter of my day making this tut im so sleepy now.

edited on Apr. 10, 2008 02:47 am by voidsource

edited on Apr. 10, 2008 02:52 am by voidsource

very nice tut tryed it very fast had to recompile as well lost sounds to mg_42 ? "not your falt part or a issue ive been having since i tryed loadsreens .....but it did not work
your tut was the most compleate and there was a step that i had not seen was very hope full thankyou hope it helped some people

and you did everything like it was and still nothing? if you want send me a message and ill add u to my xfire and ill try to help you that way.

I don't know why the wiki says "run converter," at the end of the tut for converting the levels.gdt. Someone needs to fix that tutorial because some of it is wrong.

All you need to do at that stage is click "PC convert;" follow all the other instructions and it works. If you do that it will create the loadscreen .csv for you; it is not recommended to make it with a text editor.

ONLY the large IWI files from raw\images go into your IWD! DO NOT put anything in an IWD other than an images folder with your compass and loadscreen iwi. (There are a few exceptions to this that do not apply here.) Everything else gets built into your fast file, there is no need to put it in your IWD and it will likely cause problems when server admins try and run your map and will probably not work with a bunch of different mods. They will not work on servers and will draw the ire of server admins when they have to clean your map's iwds.

If your IWD is done properly, your fastfiles and iwd go in \usermaps\mp_yourmapname\. Not in your mods folder. Your map should now run with any mod.

edited on Apr. 11, 2008 04:50 am by illram

illram writes...


couldnt agree more i see more custom maps including their .csv files and there is no need at all to do so

you are right, and there is no need to have the "material_properties" folder and the "materials" folder, but since v1.5 u need to run ur maps that have a loadscreen as a mod. maybe u have earlier version of it.

thankyou all for youer help it seems that i need to reinstall my game and start over again your new tuts are much better but i fill my game is some how flawed i have 3 computers and all 3 have crash out no matter what i do, ill try to install game,then tools ,then patch, then tool patch and try it that way wish me luck

voidsource writes...

You need to run as a mod, but everything still goes in \usermaps. No need for iwds in the \mods folder; if more servers did that we wouldn't be downloading a million iwds every time we changed servers.