Black Mesa

Black Mesa

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Improved Bonus Maps Dialog
   
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Tags: UI
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62.618 KB
Dec 4, 2019 @ 4:35pm
Dec 4, 2019 @ 5:27pm
2 Change Notes ( view )

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Improved Bonus Maps Dialog

Description
Increases the Height of the Bonus Maps Dialog to show more maps at once.

NOTE: This mod can't activate the Bonus Map Dialog. You'll have to do this manually, instructions below!

INSTALLATION:
  1. Close the game, if running.
  2. Subscribe to this workshop item and let it finish downloading.
    → If you had already activated the Bonus Maps item in the main game menu, there's nothing left to do! Otherwise...
  3. Open the folder
    <Steam>\SteamApps\workshop\content\362890\1928658996
    You'll see the files bonus.vpk and gamemenu.res.
  4. Copy gamemenu.res into
    <Steam>\SteamApps\common\Black Mesa\platform\resource
  5. Done! You can start the game now.

THE DIALOG DOES NOT SHOW ANY MAPS!
If none of the custom maps you have installed uses the Bonus Maps system, there will be no entries.
But don't worry! You can easily create them manually. All you need is a text editor.
Follow the instructions on the VDC Bonus Maps article to create your entries.
For some working examples, have a look at the Mesa Cup map packs from RTSL!
(1)[www.runthinkshootlive.com] (2)[www.runthinkshootlive.com] (3)[www.runthinkshootlive.com].
They come with Bonus Maps Dialog entries.

Full listing of changes to the default Bonus Maps Dialog:
  • Dialog height can now accommodate 3 rows of map thumbnails.
  • Map description text near the bottom of the panel has been increased in width for a better layout. It can also display 4 lines of text now, instead of just 3, in case mapmakers want to structure their description into multiple lines. This text field still only supports around 255 characters, though. Not possible to change that.
  • The default thumbnail has been replaced by one that shows the Black Mesa logo. It showed the HL2 logo before.
  • Size and position of the Locked Icon and the Completed Icon have been adjusted so they don't obstruct the view so much.
  • Completed Icon has been replaced. The old one looked very bland and not rewarding.
  • Dummy material "vgui/BitmapImagePanel" added. The console complains about this missing when opening the Dialog, but it's not visibly used anywhere.

Additional Considerations:
  • While Portal has support for Bonus Challenges ("Challenge Maps"), support in Black Mesa is incomplete. The BonusMapsDialog.res does have the required UI elements, and the code uses them, but the game does not seem to track the progress while playing. Neither is it possible to update the challenge progress for a map through entity I/O, so I can't see mappers making use of the system.
  • There are two features of the Bonus Maps System which can be used, though:
    1. Unlocking locked maps. This can be used in multi-map packs, where later maps are being unlocked by completing earlier ones.
    2. Marking a map as "Completed" after the first play-through. This will show the green checkmark in the upper right corner. Note that the game crashes after a restart when you open the Bonus Maps Dialog, if the marked map is in the root (maps\) folder. Only use this feature in subfolders!
    See VDC: Point_bonusmaps_accessor on how to unlock or complete a map from entity I/O.
  • When making the thumbnail image for your map or map folder, don't trouble yourself with making it a 256x128 TGA or VTF/VMT as the VDC article says. 180x100 pixels TGA files without transparency, as created by savegames, are very well supported.
    However, the game is very picky when it comes to actually finding the image.
    For BNS files inside the root maps/ folder, and for folderinfo.bns in subfolders, relative paths starting with "./" don't find the image. Therefore, use the full path to the TGA like this:
    "image" "maps/bm_mymap.tga"
    .For folderinfo.bns:
    "image" "maps/mappack/foldericon.tga"
    .Thumbnail images for maps inside a subfolder can be specified with the relative path:
    "image" "./map1.tga"
    .
4 Comments
shape Oct 25, 2023 @ 3:09pm 
bonus.vpk and gamemenu.res dont exist in the game files :steamsad:
Joe May 23, 2020 @ 11:52am 
@ はぬべき: Thx for this info. :)
はぬべき Feb 12, 2020 @ 5:08pm 
You will need -oldgameui commandline argument after 1.0 which is using new QTUI.
MasterArtyom Dec 9, 2019 @ 8:43am 
é muito bom!