RAD Video Tools (create .bik movies)

[MerakSpielman]

http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

You can download the RAD video tools from the link above. Using them, you can convert any movie file to BINK (.bik) format, and insert it into your civ mods.

WARNING: Unlike all other files I've modded, I have found that simply putting new movie files into the CustomAssets folder doesn't work; the original files in the Assets folder have to be renamed or removed for the game to use your new movies instead.

Here are a couple movies I made for test purposes. They change the intro movies to a couple of 1 second long black screens (essentially removing them). Put them in "Sid Meier's Civilization 4\CustomAssets\art\movies\intros" and rename the files in "Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Assets\Art\Movies\Intros" to get them to work.

Hope this helps somebody!

 

[Alathan]

While I also haven't gotten the movies to work from the CustomAssets folder, there's another way to do this without renaming or moving any original files (which you should never do if you can help it).

First, rename the new movies by placing a "X_" at the front of each name, so they are named "X_intro.bik" and "X_2KG_NTSC.bik", and copy these into "Program Files/Firaxis Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 4/Assets/Art/Movies/Intros" alongside the original movies.

Next, copy the "CIV4ArtDefines_Movie.xml" file from "Program Files/Firaxis Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 4/Assets/XML/Art" into "My Documents/My Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 4/CustomAssets/XML/Art". Open the copy up into a text editor, change the filenames of the first two movies to match the new names (above), like so:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- edited with XMLSPY v2004 rel. 2 U (http://www.xmlspy.com) by Jesse Smith (Firaxis Games) -->
<!-- Sid Meier's Civilization 4 -->
<!-- Copyright Firaxis Games 2005 -->
<!-- -->
<!-- Movie art path information -->
<Civ4ArtDefines xmlns="x-schema:CIV4ArtDefinesSchema.xml">
	<MovieArtInfos>
		<MovieArtInfo>
			<Type>ART_DEF_MOVIE_INTRO</Type>
			<Path>Assets/Art/Movies/Intros/[color=red]X_intro.bik[/color]</Path>
		</MovieArtInfo>
		<MovieArtInfo>
			<Type>ART_DEF_MOVIE_2K_INTRO</Type>
			<Path>Assets/Art/Movies/Intros/[color=red]X_2KG_NTSC.bik[/color]</Path>
		</MovieArtInfo>

That should do it.

Hopefully, one of these days we can get the paths in the XML files to point to the CustomAssets folder properly, and then this will be a lot easier.

 

[Alathan]

By the way, that's not a bad idea to replace the opening movies with 1-second blanks... I suppose after you've seen the original opening movies 20 or so times, it is a lot easier to have the game automatically skip to the start menu rather than force you to hit ESC for each movie.

 

[JDexter]

There is a very small mod (that you put in custom assets) that disables the movies (as it happens after loading a mod, i.e.). Works like a charm - but you'll have to find it yourself, I don't remember where I got it from (either here or Apoly).

 

[kandalf]

Umm... Just delete the xml entries. Boom, no movies.

 

[MerakSpielman]

The general way of turning off the intro movies is to go into the Civ4Config file and turn off ALL movies, but I didn't want to do that.

I tried just deleting the lines of CIV4ArtDefines_Movie.xml:

                <MovieArtInfo>
			<Type>ART_DEF_MOVIE_INTRO</Type>
			<Path>Assets/Art/Movies/Intros/intro.bik</Path>
		</MovieArtInfo>
		<MovieArtInfo>
			<Type>ART_DEF_MOVIE_2K_INTRO</Type>
			<Path>Assets/Art/Movies/Intros/2KG_NTSC.bik</Path>
		</MovieArtInfo>

but that returned an error message when starting up the game. Also, if I edited the above code to have different filenames it also returned an error message. (the error I got in both instances was "Your movies are not set up correctly," and I had to hit a button to proceed.) The only solution I could think of was to replace the existing movies with something else.

 

[sansi]

If you don't want the intro movies, there is no need to replace the movies. Just place the attached Pythonfile in the folder CusstomAssets\Python\entrypoints and you don't even have to wait for the 1 second blank movies to play . This ist not a zip-file, so just remove the .zip and it will work fine.

How it's done: I inserted a non-conditional return in line +/- 30.

                game = CyGame()
		if ( game.isNetworkMultiPlayer() or game.isPitbossHost()):
			return
		[color=red]return[/color]

 

[Gaias]

Thanks sansi! This speeds up the statup tremedously.

 

[polyphemus]

if someone needs help in creating a BINK movie i have a tutorial for that. HOwever it is for CIV3 BINK movies buit is is still the smae format so it still should work. The linik is on my SIG.