Problem with the Zerg console

[Eredalis]

Do we have a specialist for storm.dll problems here?

I have replaced the Brood War campaign files with my own campaign levels. They have the same number of scenario levels as Brood War, only the BW Terran campaign is now a Zerg campaign (8 levels) and the BW Zerg campaign is now a Terran Campaign (10 levels).

Now a big problem has occured:
After I start the second Zerg level, which is in truth the second UED level from BW, StarCraft crashes and show the message "StarCraft caused a crash and must be finished" (roughly translation).

It seems to be a problem with the storm.dll
Does somebody have an idea what could be the cause for it? I have added a error log file. (fault address: ... storm.dll)

Note, that this error occures only at BW Terran 2, Terran 5 and Terran 7. (These are now my own Zerg levels, all others work fine)

I have the suspicion, that something in these levels is hardcoded deep in StarCraft's core files.
What's your opinion about that? Has somebody experience in that field? Can somebody help?

- Eredalis

[Eredalis]

Unbelieveable!
I have just found out what was the cause of all.

The described crash occures because of the human player in the regarding scenario itself was set on Zerg. In Brood War, you play as Terran...

Apparently, all I have to do is changing the consoles of Terran and Zerg.
I have done that so far, but something is still not correct.

Take a look at these screens:

Spoiler

There a some black shadows or rather the infestation is not shown completely.
[imgwh 640x480]http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/4858/54185200.gif[/imgwh]

You can see that the mouse cursor disappears behind the shadows.
[imgwh 640x480]http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/1323/44433533.gif[/imgwh]

Here another example on the right side of the screen.
[imgwh 640x480]http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/2215/83402224.gif[/imgwh]

What is the cause of that?
Does somebody know advice?

[Lavarinth]

Wow, that's a new one- I never heard of the console having issues being moved OR the original campaigns requiring their own races be set.

Obviously the outline looks exactly like of that of the Terran console. Not sure if the console .bin is unique to each race, but you might want to look into that as well. Though if it's not, then that wouldn't be in issue, and something tells me it's not.

[Eredalis]

Hi Lavarinth! 

Wow, that's a new one- I never heard of the console having issues being moved OR the original campaigns requiring their own races be set.

Yeah, but note that this is paradoxically only in mission 2, 5 and 7 existing. (in truth: The Dylarian Shipyards; Emperor’s Fall; Patriot’s Blood) The other missions work fine.

Not sure if the console .bin is unique to each race, but you might want to look into that as well.

You mean it is a .bin file problem? To tell the truth, I have think of this too.
But I can't find a .bin file called console.bin in all mpq archives.

Are you sure the file name is console.bin?

[Lavarinth]

No, no, it's not called console.bin- I honestly don't recall its name. I know all the assets were separate bins like the buttons, portrait, minimap location, menu, wireframe, etc. But I'm pretty sure one BIN is the actual background and it links the BIN to the PCX of the console. Again, I may be wrong.

[Eredalis]

Today I had checked every .bin file from the stardat.mpq, which are contains the most of these files. Found nothing. Only little parts to edit the boxes of the control field (Move, Attack, Patrol) and the wirefram window. Like you said...

But sadly nothing to edit the background or rather the frame of the console. (Which probably not exist, like Lavarinth already said)

[bajadulce]

This is an easy fix.  You just need to "shave" a little off of your Zerg console as the pixels are interfering with the hardcoded Terran background Foreground (The console.pcx is actually the background)..  i.e. make those trouble areas transparent.   Basically you'll need to build a "custom" tconsole.pcx.

You can rip the tconsole.pcx from PEAI to use as a reference to what I'm referring to:
Edit:
Or here.
tconsole.zip

[Lavarinth]

That's manageable, but I believe he wants to directly port it over,.

[bajadulce]

Doesn't look like you can do this from what I'm seeing.  The "Zerg console" has to be shaved in those trouble spots.  Unless there's a way to increase the transparent Terran overlay that is part of the foreground.  I believe Farty did some experimenting with this and made a post a year or so ago describing the failed attempts.  Basically think of that area of the screen as a smoked picture frame and your console goes behind that frame.  When you try and stick a FULL zerg picture in that frame in that area, any non-transparent remnant pixels get seen through this smoked frame as black spots.  Transparent pixels however "clear" up this smoke. 

K, I've probably confused you more with this silly explanation than had I not said anything.    Just slightly alter your zconsole to make it work.  "Custom" doesn't have to mean something radically different such as the example I uploaded. 

[Lavarinth]

Any thought on the original error relating to the campaign requiring Terran to be set?

Also- Eredalis, have you thought of simply using BinEdit to adjust the positions of the campaign selections, and say, put the Zerg campaigns in the center and replace the maps in the Zerg campaign instead over the Terran campaign?

[Eredalis]

Lav and baja, thank you guys for your help and assistance.

First of to bajadulce:
As you have said quite properly in your second post, it's unfortunately not so simple to edit directly the zconsole.pcx
The black shadow area is still there and I have no idea on which way to fix this unholy problem.

Next to Lavarinth:
No, this is not possible. Because my Zerg campaign has 8 levels and my Terran campaign has 10 levels. And you can't re-arrange the number of levels via TBL Pad. (i.e. BW Terran campaign 10 levels, BW Zerg campaign 8 levels) I've tried this already out some while ago.

Now, considering the fact, that this problem takes already way too much time to solve it, I've decided to a smart solution: I have taken the tconsole.pcx from maplantis.org, which is in truth the replay console. I'll use this console for all three races. Now it doesn't matter which race is set in each scenario. Besides, I will also have to exchange defeat and victory screens. Maybe I still succeed in adapting the race symbols in the score screen.

[Eredalis]

Does somebody know at which place inside the mpq's the race symbols of the score screens are to be found?
You know, these little hydra faces, marine faces and zealot faces. Have check now all mpq's, without success...

EDIT:
Logically, these little icons must be as .pcx files inside of one of the mpq's. But they don't...
I checked now stardat, starcraft.mpq (patched_exe) and patch_mpq.

Are they .grp's? I can't imagine that...

[Whiplash!]

Does somebody know at which place inside the mpq's the race symbols of the score screens are to be found?
You know, these little hydra faces, marine faces and zealot faces. Have check now all mpq's, without success...

EDIT:
Logically, these little icons must be as .pcx files inside of one of the mpq's. But they don't...
I checked now stardat, starcraft.mpq (patched_exe) and patch_mpq.

Are they .grp's? I can't imagine that...

They should be .pcx; I don't know where they would be though but stardat is prob ur best chance at finding them.

[bajadulce]

@ Lav and why this is effected in scenarios 2,5,and 7:
I have no idea.   Exploring the maps in the editor, nothing seems to separate them from one another.

@ Erdalis
Yes, it is as simple as editing the zconsole.pcx.  Did you even try the file I linked?  You must be screwing up your palettes and not getting a true transparent one.  That is why I always tell ppl to switch the transparent index to something distinct rather than "000".  00ff00 works best for this sort of thing.

Here's another upload that's even easier than the last one.  You don't even have to archive anything.. just run this and load up BWTerran 02 the Dylan shipyards and you'll see.
ConsoleWoes.zip

@ Icons.
This is iscore.grp.  Those are actually uncompressed .grps that stumped O)Farty and ShadowFlare when I brought to this to them @ Maplantis.  This eventually prompted ShadowFlare to update her converter to support uncompressed .grp compiling.
You can read about the trials and tribulations here for a good laugh.
iscore.grp woes @ Maplantis' beginnings
and: more info

not the best examples but here are some::
[imgwh 260x197]http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/2116/peaiicons.png[/imgwh]
[imgwh 362x310]http://img452.imageshack.us/img452/386/iscorekw4.jpg[/imgwh]

[Eredalis]

Cool. baja, you have helped me once again. 

But... I was grateful, if you could post a step by step tutorial how to edit the symbols.
Sorry for that. But I'm afraid I can't read out of the topics from maplantis what I have to do.

To the thing with the console:
Same here. To be honest, I'm not really sure what I have to do. Shave the console? Uh, what? ^^'
I have tried out your two console files, but they look pretty bad. Not exactly what I have in mind for...

Nevertheless, I have decided to use the replay console for all three races. This looks very unique and is a effective solution.
If you still want to help with the Zerg console, I would be very glad and happy if you take the time and make another try.

With many greetings to you, dear bajadulce, and of course all others, which have written and tried to help in this thread...
- Eredalis