I figured out how to add custom team symbols to the menu.

[Star-X]

Amazingly, despite there being pretty much zero documentation about this part of the game, I figured out how to add my own team symbols to the game AND have them appear in the normal menu. This won't be a full guide, but it'll point aspiring modders in the right direction.

1. Get an icon, emblem, or whatever and convert it to DDS format (makes it easier for the engine to handle). DTX5 compression and generate mipmaps should be selected in the conversion process. Be sure to use an Alpha Channel and transparent background. Also, said icon should be pure white if possible; it'd probably work with other colours, but white is guaranteed to be visible even in CTF4. Resolution MUST be 256x256, btw.
2. Using Unreal Editor 2, create a new texture package and import the icon/emblem/whatever into it. Be sure to generate mipmaps and use Alpha Channel in the import settings, and add the symbols to the group "Teams". I have no idea if this helps or not, but the official symbols are all in the Teams page, so it might just be necessary. Once the image is imported, go to its properties and change Texture_Wrap in both settings that say it to Texture_Clamp on the second last tab of properties. Also set LOD type to Interface. Texture Clamp is vital for symbol functionality; LOD interface may or may not be necessary, but include it anyway just to be safe,
3. Once the texture's imported and saved, create an INT file in the System directory and add the following to it:

[Public]
Object=(Class=Texture,Name=YourTeamSymbolUTXHere.NameOfSymbol,Description="")

Add as many of the above as necessary for your symbols. If done right, the next time you boot up UT2k4 your custom symbols should appear in the menu and be selectable.

Note, I haven't tested this with multiplayer yet. It'll likely work fine as it's on the host's end, and if using new UTX packages and INT files it shouldn't muck with any vanilla files, but as i usually play offline I have no idea if it actually works online. Someone'll have to test it at some point.

Screenshots of my custom symbols in action:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=638207050&insideModal=0
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=638211403&insideModal=0
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=638211709&insideModal=0
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=638211968&insideModal=0
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=638212144&insideModal=0

[Star-X]

Oh, something I almost forgot about until just now: make sure to add your TeamSymbols int file to your server packages list. Otherwise the team symbols will appear blank for anyone (including yourself) in a multiplayer game.

[IceAze]

Hi, I'm not sure you're still active but you're the only person that talked about this sort of stuff. I am clueless as to why this happens. I've followed every step (except I imported this into the TeamSymbolsUT2003 instead, since I couldn't figure out why it didn't detect the symbol ingame), yet this stuff happens.

https://imgur.com/a/YmZ5Dwk in the link is the same flag but from two distances (other being way upclose which looks correct). Any clues? The symbol in questions has a few empty pixels between the white and the border of the canvas, but I've just found this to be inconsistent with other logos I've messed with, regardless if it touches the border or not. Is there a step or design trick I'm missing?

I know it's been a long while since you've written this, but if you do see this and happen to know an answer, I'd appreciate your help on this. (Maybe it'd be better to make a step by step video even, but that's a lot to ask compared to my question, hell if you can even remember since it's been 7 years since this post lol)

[Star-X]

Tbh I haven't played UT2K4 in YEARS, and due to moving to Linux I've sadly had to clean out my old mod folder, so I'd have to start fresh at this point.

I wish I could help, but sadly it's just been too long for me to really have any idea how to solve this issue. Sorry :(

[jahpeg]

Originally posted by IceAze:

snip

does that happen to any symbol image you import or just that one

[IceAze]

Originally posted by 640x480:

does that happen to any symbol image you import or just that one

https://prnt.sc/Q7Wg5-yiLfxT

These are the icons I've tried putting into the game so far. The rightmost's image has clawmarks which touch the sides and extend to the sides creating horizontal stripes on flags. The center you've seen, the leftmost is interesting, this is my second itteration of it. This one's bottom extends downwards creating a vertical line on flags.

My first iteration however was smaller, the canvas was the same but the icon itself hasn't been resized, so for that, these various points on the image didn't touch the canvas edges. However the liandri text in the middle was the thing that got filled in with white if you weren't close to the flag. Which looked quite bad which is why I resized the image in the first place. I suppose it's a pick your poison deal. However the liandri and cat logo look good enough, not as good as official logos or some fanmade ones I've seen (those are rare). The mushroom's lines creating the Danish flag is a lot more bothersome. I'll try trial and erroring it some more until I get it right on another day. I'll try various things from decreasing the mushroom's size to trying to do that in another INT file.

[IceAze]

Originally posted by 640x480:

if you could document your progress here that'd be brill, seems like an obscure issue so it'll make you a bit of a pioneer if you manage to crack it

Well here's my conclusion from some further experimentation. Turns out it's more of a weird thing of how the game does team symbols, which may or may not have been a consequence of the different resolution which wasn't a thing way back when the game first came out (like how the character models are presented way differently in the player tab under this new resolution). If you're far away I think it's the game blending the colours together to create some sort of visual effect when you're far away from it.

It does affect official team symbols too, the firestorm logo for instance has triangular points on the top and bottom of the flag. This creates tiny but noticeable lines at each point which extend to the bottom of the flag, noticeable in the elecfields map flags. Circular shaped flags which touch the borders of the canvas, like the Iron Guard's circle, also creates this sort of + shaped line on the flags.

So there's no real solution to this as far as I can tell, but there are workarounds you can do with your flag's design. One thing you can do is shrink your logo but keep the canvas size the same (because otherwise it wouldn't accept the new logo), to the point where it's significantly distanced from the canvas border. I'd recommend double checking for stray pixels as this can cause the game to mess the image up, some resizers may add additional shades of white so you can use free online spriting tools like piskelapp to detect and easily get rid of all of those different shades with a few clicks so you have one singular colour, while still keeping the transparent bg.

Depending on your icon's design however, it may not even be an issue if your icon touches the borders of the canvas, as it may not even cause any real issues or they can be somewhat tolerable. For others, like the liandri logo I've shown, I had to shrink the logo and keep it away from the borders because it looked too ugly imo to have lines extending that way.

I however can't figure out how the game decides to blend some details of your logo and when it doesn't do that. My best guess is the game can figure out simpler shapes and more straight lines but that's just a wild theory at this point. I've had a meme character as one of the flags and the only thing you can see from a distance on the flags were its eyes, but not the eyebrows despite them being large enough, while in some other flags I've seen you can see much thinner lines in the detail of the design from very far away still. But that's far more acceptable ig and will depend on when and where I encounter these the more I find out about them and adjust the logo as I go with either more cropping or resizing or deciding to simplify or exclude some details to make some logos look better.

Still, I'm extremely glad and thankful that OP documented how one can even implement their custom logos in the first place, I don't think I'd have figured that one out on my own for a long long time whereas this way I figured out a quick process to do this in.