NewsRobot(s) "annoyance" solved

... in multiple ways.

I decided to tackle this "problem" headon when i read a few posts about this issue - after awhile and solid testings, here's a solution or two;

Firstly,
1) Move the corresponding biks (NewsRobot_Alien*Human_Evil*Good*Neutral) out of the DL Movies folder.
2) Replace (back it up or insert a new version in your favorite MOD folder) the NewsRobotBG00.png (1024x768_24b) file found in the DL gfx root.

Probably this is a well known fact by a few people but i haven't seen the trick mentioned anywhere or obviously explained more clearly for anyone to apply at their game settings.

Mind you, i know that Gauntlet has made an attempt at giving a whole bunch of *Message_xxx* robots for his GRM5 package... but, the above is really about removing the waving gimmicky stuff once all & each of your research projects are being completed.

Secondly,
There's also an indirect alternative which i accidently came up with while creating my own images (one of them is a terrific picture of the Parkes parabolic antenna nicely forecasted in a slick goldy sunset!) for the static default.

Simply make a completely transparent image! I even think the size can be much lower since the function renders whatever is made available as relative resizings. And slap it with the NewsRobotBG00.png file name. This will result in an entirely new & weird rendering of the Research screen; what you'll get is a static galaxy background where the current in-focus location is shown rather than any default image. No more delays to loadup 10MBs+ movies and a refreshing DIFFERENT backdrop every time the projects finish.

And thirdly,
There is also the possibility to design six new biks to replace the movies mentioned in #1. Experimenting for X-Worlds has actually provided me with static stuff which pops into the screen quite fast and could bik'd into very clear images.

PS: I'm sure there's many other ways to remove the default Robots (or limit their impact codewise, btw), but 'my' solutions worked flawlessly.

So there... you have it - stop complaining and alter the things however you please.

modding

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there is an easier way than the way you've explained all you have to do was ask I always changed the racerobot images in my mods.Heres the easy way download RAD tools,find any image you want anything use a car if you want.Or if you want to animate it use a movie or a show you'll get the idea.Than bink the video choose a folder to place it in.Go into your totalgaming movies folder You'll than see the the movies that say [newsrobotevil]stuff like that and just copy and paste it.You do'nt have to back it up if you know how to use mods.Because it doesn't completlly replace the movie it just copies over it.And like magic you have a shiny new race robot image try it out like that and see if it works better for you.

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Well, i guess i already covered what you seem to be suggesting in the 'Thirdly' section of the original post. Through trial & errors, some of these "new-XWorlds" biks were clocking at less than *500kbs* only (static and yet reasonable enough to mimic the Good_Neutral_Evil status intended)... which is to say that rather than re-animating different stuffs to get rid of the waving robots (an oxymoron concept if there's ever one), some plain simple pictures do what they should while using a LOT less file space.

I'm quite sturdy when it comes to optimal packaging and any type of Movies are certainly huge byte grabbers as they are or were. Thus, the static representation choices i made.

Just the triple set of trade_movies files (for 36 different races, btw) will actually fit into a single zip of 20MBs or less. Nothing shakes their head in those, but some obvious tiny smilies are truly sufficient... and as a bonus, players do get information about X-Com features (and the numerous races) written up directly on the images.

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