MTM2.com

As I was watching Dave's highlights video I was struck once again by the "<b>Instant Replay - Press ESC to exit</b>" text that is stamped on all replays, something often seen on replay based screenshots. This text has rarely been a problem for me (I've retouched screenshots when necessary) but in seeing how persistent it was in the video it finally occured to me that it could be removed. There are a couple of ways to do it but the easiest is through the rarely used 'localization' function.

At the bottom of 'monster.ini' (a file in the game's 'system' folder) there is a line named 'gLocalizationFile' that points to a text file that can be used to change various text in the game's user interface.

It usually looks like this:
gLocalizationFile=UI\MTM2.loc


<b>Using a custom made .LOC will remove the replay text overlay without affecting anything else in the game.</b>

I've created a .LOC that will do this and I'm supplying it in two forms, as a loose file and in a pod.

<b>Download:</b> <a href=http://mtm2.com/~trackville/fixes/ReplayLoc.zip>ReplayLoc.zip</a>

I'd recommend using the loose file, all you have to do is drop it in the MTM2 folder and edit the last line in monster.ini to look like this: gLocalizationFile=Replay.LOC

The pod version could be mounted as usual or you could merge it with a fix-it pod (using PODMate), you still have to edit the last line in monster.ini to point to it: gLocalizationFile=Replay.LOC

That's it. No more annoying text, thanks to the inspiring Mr. Smasher. In case you're wondering, my .loc simply replaces the text on the replay and demo mode screens with invisible spaces, which you can see for yourself if you drag it into Notepad.


Notes: The default 'MTM2.loc' doesn't actually exist as a file, but there are two other .LOC files packed into the UI.pod: MTM2-FUN.LOC and MTM2-PIG.LOC. Cowpod can toggle these on and off for you. The 'Fun' one uses some goofy word replacements such as 'Wimp' for 'Rookie' or 'Mediocre' for 'Intermediate', and the 'Pig' one changes all of the text to pig latin, as in 'Annotcay ountmay odpay ilefay' (cannot mount pod file). I suspect that other language versions of MTM2 rely primarily on LOC files to supply the translation.

Please note that our friend Kmaster created a nice Spanish lanuage .LOC file along with some UI replacement screens: <a href=http://mtm2.com/~mtmg/downloads/mtm2/game/KSpanish.zip>KSpanish.zip</a>

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The structure of .LOC files:



.LOC files are plain text files that can be edited with any text editor.
The first three lines and the last line are standard to all .loc files.
The 'tag' value is the identifier text as used in the game, such as 'Rain' in the weather options.
The 'string' value is the text string you wish to use as a replacement, such as 'Thunderstorm'.
Each tag/string pair consists of four lines as seen in the above example. It seems you can replace as few or as many 'tags' as you like, you can study the .loc files in the ui.pod for some examples or you could take some guesses using any plain text you see in the game. Spaces matter but I'm not sure if case matters. Have fun.

Good work. If we need to find this post again in future, I've added it to legwon's faq... which is linked on the forum page here.

http://legwon.biz/faq/mtmfaq.html

Or Replace it with "~~ 2006 Highlights ~~" or something

That's a good idea too. You could use it to watermark a video. Say, "PPRL World Finals" or something.

Yes, good idea! Frisco557 (from KC's MTM Place) agrees, hehe.
<img src=http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/11531hostage.jpg>

This kind of instant customizability is another reason folks should go for the loose file instead of the pod.

Very cool Wint, nice job

Hey thanks for the tip Wint. Next video I do will have something along those lines.