*Tutorial* Making your own Arena Nameplates and Intro Logos

[Red Rooster]

Monday Night Raw Intro Logo (credit to IamCrazyPT for the Arena) 

 

Monday Night Raw Nameplate

 

I have been asked to write a tutorial on how to make your own nameplates etc so here we go :

 

The nameplate and intro logos this year are bik animations so to do this you will need the following tools :

 

1) RadTools http://www.radgametools.com/down/Bink/RADTools.exe

2) A HexEditor

3) Photoshop

4) XPacker 9 (thanks Tekken57)

 

First thing to do is get the positioning of your logo correct, the best way to do this is to copy over the existing logo.

The show intro logo is in evtmov3 and the wrestler nameplate is in evtmov2.

1) Open the file you want to work with in XPacker using "Open Pac containing directories"

2) Extract the file eg M035 for WMVIII

3) Rename M035.pac to M035.bik

4) Open RadTools

5) Browse to M035.bik and hit the "Convert a file" Button

 

6) Click the "Output type" Button and choose TGA

7) This will convert the bik into 120 tga files and save them in same folder as the bik

8) Open one of the tag files in Photoshop and you will see something similar to this 

 

9) Open your logo that you want to replace it with in Photoshop and then copy/paste it into a new layer on the original tga file.

10) Erase the original Logo (I just painted over it in black)

11) Flatten the image

The image needs an Alpha Channel otherwise it will be invisible in game 

 

Creating the Alpha Channel

 

1) Using the Magic Wand Tool select the black background then press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection

2) Copy the selected logos

3) Add a new Channel by pressing the Add new channel button

 

4) Paste your logos into the Alpha Channel and make them all white

5) Save as TGA (32bit) You have finished making 1 frame of your animation

 

The in game nameplates I have seen all seem to have the same format, the first 3 frames are just black, the next 7 frames are the logo gradually fading in then frame 10-109 are the same as the frame we have just made above. Frames 110-116 are the the logo fading out and the last 3 frames are black.

 

To make the first and last 3 frames just copy the first frame of the original bik and add a completely black alpha channel to it.

 

To make the fade in frames just use the alpha we have created above and use your selected logos at graduated levels of exposure (-10 is totally invisible, 0 is normal exposure)  

 

To do the fade out frames just reverse the order of frames 3-9

 

So in the end you need 120 frames like this

Frames 0,1,2 - Black

Frames 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 - Fade In

Frames 10-109 - Normal 

Frames 110,111,112,113,114,115,116 - Fade Out

Frames 117,118,119 - Black

 

Once you have all these tga files numbered 0-119 in a folder its time to make the bik file

 

Making your new Bik file

 

1) Open Radtools and browse to the folder your tga files are in.

2) Select the first file in your animation and click "List Files" you will get a popup message similar to the one pictured below

3) Make sure this message says it contains all 120 files, Click Yes.

4) Click Save As and give your list a name. Close the list Window.

5) Select the list file you just made in RadTools and click "Bink it!" Button

6) Make sure your setting match the ones shown below (30fps and tick alpha plane unchanged)

7) Give your file a name and click Bink

8) Once you file is finished you can check it it correct by selecting it in RadTools and click "File Info"

Make sure it says 30 frames per second and Alpha Plane : Yes

 

Now you just need to inject the file back into evtmov2 or 3 (which ever one you are editing) in place of the original file.

 

Make sure your file is the exact same size as the original by opening it in a HexEditor and filling it with 00's at the end until it is the correct file size.

 

 

[LordBarker]

Thanks for the tut. Any recommendations on a good place for logos? Looking for the wrestling challenge one specifically.

[Red Rooster]

I just do Image searches on Google but if you cant find one that works you could always take a screenshot from an old video and then clean it up in photoshop.

[IamCrazyPT]

Thanks for the tutorial. Gonna try it tomorrow

[LordBarker]

Cheers mate. I guess at a long shot psd dreams might have some too.

Edit: oops I meant Superstars of Wrestling, for your arena, not Wrestling Challenge - remember them as the same show!

Edited August 25, 2014 by LordBarker

[Red Rooster]

Cheers mate. I guess at a long shot psd dreams might have some too.

Edit: oops I meant Superstars of Wrestling, for your arena, not Wrestling Challenge - remember them as the same show!

I uploaded my Superstars of Wrestling one in my Mod thread, if you want to make you own you could just extract the logo from my bik file

[bugsyboy]

Great tut , thank you.

I see that you change your profile pic for a classic 

[Red Rooster]

Great tut , thank you.

I see that you change your profile pic for a classic 

Yeah Tich requested its return

[UndertakerWLF]

Nice tutorial, thanks.

[motishow]

Thanks a lot red will try today to add wcw monday nitro templares in my game

Edited August 25, 2014 by motishow

[LordBarker]

I uploaded my Superstars of Wrestling one in my Mod thread, if you want to make you own you could just extract the logo from my bik file

Thanks mate. Must've not seen the upload link.

[shonpu]

does the TGA file need to be saved compressed?

[Red Rooster]

does the TGA file need to be saved compressed?

Nope

[shonpu]

I did mine and the original was 230kb but my wcw plate was 871kb, I followed the tut but all try again, I realized some of them don't HAVE to be the same size they can be a little larger, I swapped raw and smackdown around and they worked and raw is a little bigger and some work alittle smaller.

[motishow]

If the created file is bigger than the original you can use the option of "scale" in radtools to make the new file smaller

Edited August 31, 2014 by motishow

[shonpu]

DAMN.... I wish I knew that I deleted all that hard work

 

how do you shrink it?

Edited August 31, 2014 by shonpu

[Red Rooster]

Theres a setting in Radtools "compress to a % of the original"

[shonpu]

thanks

[tekken57]

Thanks for the tutorial. This makes hacked in arena's look much more authentic.