Crash to desktop when playing space race movie in mod

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Well, the title says it all !!

I've been trying to get an alternative version of the space race movie into Anno Domini, as the original one doesn't fit with an Ancient/Medieval mod!! However, here's what works and what doesn't:

Does work:
01. No "Movies" folder at all in the mod; essentially doing nothing to change it at all; however, of course, the "space race" movie from Firaxis is shown, which isn't what I want.

02. No "Movies" folder at all in the mod, but swapping the race.bik file in the Civilization III/Movies folder of the main game. Shows the replacement movie, but overwrites the original.

Doesn't work:
01. Having a "Movies" folder in the mod with nothing in it leads to a crash to desktop.

02. Having a "Movies" folder with any bik file in it named "race" - even copying Firaxis' space race movie into the folder leads to a crash to desktop.

Is anyone able to help?

 

[T.A JONES]

I hope someone can help help. WHat i good idea. RFRE is the only other mod i now of takes it to this level of depth. Does Rhyes civ4 or CIvgold mod even do this in civ4? ?

I can't wait to see what youve done. Making all new ending is a huge influence in replay in my opinion. Even try new conquest video if you can..listen to me eh? so much easier to tell others stuff they should do. Your doing a realy good job hearing this just adds to very coolness of the profect

 

[Bjornlo]

Work around, not an answer to a fix.
Launch your mod with a script attached to an ICON.
So you user just clicks on the ICON and the mod launches (from his perspective).

But what runs is a batchfile/script not the game.
--
@cls
@echo off

rem (remark) copy your file to place

copy C:\... path to civ file\filename.bik C:\... path to civ file\filename.bak
copy C:\... path to civ file\yourfilename.bik C:\... path to civ file\filename.bik
rem NOTE that your file should not start with the same name as the target file.

rem start the game
civ3.exe

rem (remark) restore the old file
copy C:\... path to civ file\filename.bak C:\... path to civ file\filename.bik
rem it is not needed to copy your file since it had a differnt name to begin with. Using a same method it is possible to have a revolving splash screen (ie civ3 title screen) and so on and on.

 

[embryodead]

Doesn't work:
02. Having a "Movies" folder with any bik file in it named "race" - even copying Firaxis' space race movie into the folder leads to a crash to desktop.

It's some problem on your computer maybe, especially if you get the error even with the default movie. Both RFRE and MEM have custom space race movies and they work just by having Movies/race.bik in the mod folder. It took me a lot of time however, to produce a non-crashing bik with Bink&Smasher, but the general idea is that all attributes (bitrate, colours, sound quality etc.) have to be the same as the ones in Firaxis movie.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Thanks for the suggestions guys .

I've played MEM today and got the trade victory; the movie worked fine. So it's not the pc. However, what I did notice was that I wasn't able to click on anything to view the "trade race" in MEM, it was only viewable via the victory screen, whereas in Anno Domini, you can view the "trade race." I can't tell why this is different, but it could be a clue as to why yours works and mine does not.

 

[embryodead]

Thanks for the suggestions guys .

I've played MEM today and got the trade victory; the movie worked fine. So it's not the pc. However, what I did notice was that I wasn't able to click on anything to view the "trade race" in MEM, it was only viewable via the victory screen, whereas in Anno Domini, you can view the "trade race." I can't tell why this is different, but it could be a clue as to why yours works and mine does not.

Indeed space race screen in MEM is disabled but in RFRE it's not so I doubt that's the case. But you can try it to be sure, just disable one of the SS parts and see what happens (the SS screen doesn't show up if SS number is other than 10).

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Indeed space race screen in MEM is disabled but in RFRE it's not so I doubt that's the case. But you can try it to be sure, just disable one of the SS parts and see what happens (the SS screen doesn't show up if SS number is other than 10).

Thanks! I've done that and it works!! The crash was occurring when I clicked the "launch" icon.

 

[WildWeazel]

Indeed space race screen in MEM is disabled but in RFRE it's not so I doubt that's the case. But you can try it to be sure, just disable one of the SS parts and see what happens (the SS screen doesn't show up if SS number is other than 10).

Are you saying there must be exactly 10 SS parts for SS victory to work?

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Are you saying there must be exactly 10 SS parts for SS victory to work?

No; there must be exactly 10 SS parts for the SS progress screen to show, with the "launch" icon. If there's a different number, you can only tell how many you've done by looking on the victory status screen. When the last part is made in one of your cities, the game itself automatically "launches" the "spaceship" or whatever you've made it (merchant houses in Anno Domini).

 

[WildWeazel]

Ah, I see. Well that's moderately annoying.