Guide In Creating Menu Backgrounds for Age of Mythology: The Titans

by Auron
created 11/09/04

Introduction: In this guide, i will teach you how to create a Menu background using some basic modifications to the User.cfg. If your User.cfg file has information non-realated to what is below, simply try to insert the information of this guide below of what is already within the User.cfg file.

A). There are two ways to create a background. one way is to download Vachu’s Menu Manager found Here, which lets you create a background without doing any complicated manuevering. However, this program will only allow to create menu backgrounds for Age of Mythology. If you want to create backgrounds for Age of Mythology: The Titans, then follow the following steps.

Creating An Scenario: Make sure to create a small-size map, in order to not cause lag when putting your scenario as a menu background. Also, keep in mind on designing events which ca be visible, since the Menu background will block the middle view of the screen. Go to the editor and to the following:

1). Make a camera cut, or a infinite camera track which focused on one place.
2). Create a series of events and an enjoyable mapdesign.
3). Put the scenario through a series of playtesting.
4). Save the scenario with a “~” Symbol at the begining of your scenario name(Example: ~Arkantos.scx)

Although creating menu backgrounds is easy. you must always keep in mind that inside the ESO main menu, things might sometimes work in a different way. here is a list of things to watch out:

Do not use animations: After a person plays a rated game or an advance setup game and comes back to the main menu, the animations you added to the background will disable.
Do not overload the Scene: It will cause the person to have a very slow game while he/she is browsing the main menu or the ES online menu. This is also one of the reasons you should use a small map.
Becareful using camera tracks. or cinematic mode effect. It might have the chance do be disable while playing on ESO.
Using the Fade to Color effect works perfectly. however, in ESO main menu it also fade the background as well as the entire menu screen.

B). Defining Your Scenario into The User.cfg: After creating the desired scenario, is time to define it into the User.cfg file. but first, you must find the user.cfg file: C:/Program Files/Microsoft Games/Age of Mythology/Start Up Folder. In there, you will find a folder called User. CFG. Copy this file a paste it into a save place, in case you do the following step wrong. When you open this File with the NotePad, you will find a text similar to this one(read introduction if not):

attractMode-scenario-0 ~AoM_pgs_Water
attractMode-scenario-1 ~UI_Norse
-attractMode-scenario-2
-attractMode-scenario-3
-attractMode-scenario-4
-attractMode-scenario-5
-attractMode-scenario-6
-attractMode-scenario-7
-attractMode-scenario-8
-attractMode-scenario-9

Note: If you do not have a User.cfg file, do the following step by step(if you have a user.cfg, skip this part)

1). Open up the Notepad, dont do anything yet, and click “save as”
2). On the “File Name” box, type “User” and add at the end .cfg (Example: User.cfg)
3). On the “Save as Type” box, select “All files”
4). On the “Encoding” box, select ANSI
5). Now specify where you will save the file. For now, it doesnt matter where you put it.

C). Now that you have opened the User.cfg, and everthing is starting to make sense, it is time to disable the current Menu Backgrounds. If you have RM script before, it would be sort of simmilar this following part. Insert a “//” symbol at the beginning of each line that defines a background. It should look like:

//attractMode-scenario-0 ~AoM_pgs_Water
//attractMode-scenario-1 ~UI_Norse

This will disable the current backgrounds for AoM: The Titans. It will not erase them, or Erase the current backgrounds for AoM. It will just disactivate them. Now Insert into the top of the User.CFG the following:

attractMode-scenario-0 ~your scenario name

D). When writing your scenario name, Do Not include the .scx at the end. You can also create multiple randomize backgrounds by doing the same procedure, and just changing the number symbol to the next one. So if i want to create 3 randomize Backgrounds, i would do the following:

attractMode-scenario-0 ~your scenario name
attractMode-scenario-1 ~your scenario name
attractMode-scenario-2 ~your scenario name
//attractMode-scenario-0 ~AoM_pgs_Water
//attractMode-scenario-1 ~UI_Norse
//attractMode-scenario-2
//attractMode-scenario-3
//attractMode-scenario-4
//attractMode-scenario-5
//attractMode-scenario-6
//attractMode-scenario-7
//attractMode-scenario-8
//attractMode-scenario-9

Save it under the same .cfg format, and put it in the StartUp folder. Everthing should have worked fine. If not, then ask yourself this question: “Did i make any spelling error while typing my scenario on the User.CFG file?”

You can download this guide Here.