Editing the main menu

These notes describe the main menu files used by Bloodlines and the Unofficial Patch. Work on a copy of the files and test one change at a time in game. Paths below are relative to the game folder and may differ for other overhauls.

Logo textures

The menu logo uses files under unofficial_patch\materials\interface\mainmenu\:

.tth is the Troika texture header.
.ttz contains the compressed texture data.
.vmt is the material definition that points to the texture.

The Unofficial Patch includes TexConvert.bat under SDK\SDKBinaries\tools\Texture Utils\. Drag a copy of the .tth file onto the batch file to convert it for editing. After editing, drag the image onto the batch file again to create the game texture files. Keep the original texture name if you want to use the existing .vmt; if you rename it, update the material’s texture path too.

Particles and effects

Menu particle textures such as mm_*.tga are in unofficial_patch\particles. In the setup these notes were based on, the floating images used 128 × 128 textures. Making a texture black can hide that image and expose more of the background, but other particle effects may still be visible.

The menu’s particle definitions and some scene settings are in unofficial_patch\resource\mainmenuparticles.txt. This example shows the settings and emitter structure; keep the entries your own menu needs:

MainMenuParticles
{
    camera_fov        "45"
    camera_near       "2"
    camera_far        "4096"
    camera_rotation   "0"
    default_skybox    "mm_skybox"

    music             "music/vampire_theme.mp3"

    Particle
    {
        emitter       "M_Clouds_Emmiter"
        origin        "[0,0,-30]"
        angle         "[0,0,0]"
    }
}

Skybox

Skybox materials are in unofficial_patch\materials\skybox. The mm_* .tth and .ttz files hold the textures, while the .vmt files define how they are displayed. The six skybox faces use these suffixes:

Suffix	Face
`bk`	Back
`dn`	Down
`ft`	Front
`lf`	Left
`rt`	Right
`up`	Up

A skybox material can look like this:

"UnlitGeneric"
{
    "$basetexture"    "skybox/mm_f"
    "$basetexturetransform" "center .5 .5 scale 1.8 1.8 rotate 0 translate 0 0"
    "$detailscale" "1"
}

Check the texture paths in all six materials after replacing a skybox, then launch the game to check orientation and seams.