Torque Tutorials - Game Cutomizations
There is a directory in the starter.fps root that contains files and images we can change to customize and extend the Torque player kit. In this post, we will change the start up graphic and the main menu graphic.
Torque will import .png and .jpg files into a game. You will find a slew of graphic files in the following directory:
C:\JamesFPSTest_original\starter.fps\client\ui You will find the “healthBar.png” graphic used as an interface skin to pretty up the health and player energy. A lag icon, it’s the one with the bright green background and the connect icon. As well you will find interface widgets that determins the skin or look of the gui components.
The above directory contains the starter logo that comes with the starter kit and the main menu graphic. Both are 800 x 600 in pixel dimension.
The Start Logo
The name of the start logo, the one that you see first when you launch the start.fps game, is named “GarageGames.jpg”. You can effectively take this into a bitmap editor like Photoshop, Fireworks, or Paint Shop Pro and adjust the graphic and save as the same name and file format. Here is the original starter logo file:
Here’s a side note: As far as I understand, it is a requirement to include the Torque logo for all Indie Game Titles.
The Main Menu
The main menu graphic is also located in the same directory as the start logo graphic. The name of the file that shows up is named
“background.jpg”. Here’s the original main menu graphic. Kinda creepy, so I decided to change it. (The scene below reminded me of the time when young Darth Vader had learned about the demise of his sweet and he arched his back in a similar fashion and agonizingly yelled “NOOOOOOOooooooOOOOooooOOOO!”, what? you’ve never heard of Star Wars? Ah fergit it then…)
The About or Help Window
The original one contains several info links. I’ve taken them out and added my own. Again just to customize and figure out the graphical parts of this program. Here’s what the modified About window looks like:
This one’s a bit tricky. This uses the gui components of the Torque game engine. There is a good starter tutorial involving gui components. The Starter Kit is used as part of the tutorial. However keep in mind that you need a licensed version of Torque Game Engine to view the documentation, which I understand is about 1600 pages.
In order to edit the About window, you need to get into the gui editor. To get to the gui editor, launch the game and hit F10. This will take you to the runtime gui editor. You will see three buttons at the top. We are interested in the middle one. It most likely has “MainMenuGui-1247″ selected (notice the number “1247″, that is an id number. Unlikely, but it might be different on your download copy). If you click on the button, you will notice it activates a drop down menu. The drop down menu lists all the gui controls currently being used or contained in the game. Scroll down to the named “HelpDlg-1777″. You will then see the following screen:
The content files have the .hfl extension. For eample the “About” helpfile is located in:
starter.fps\client\ui\0. About.hfl
Notice the number. That is important.
The other .hfl files are named:
1.1 Game Controls.hfl
2. Chat
You can edit the files in TextPad or NotePad.
You can exit the gui editor by hitting F10. Just make sure you select “MainMenuGui-1247″.
Other
The gglogo150.png is located at:
starter.fps\client\ui\aboutDlg.gui(86): “
Well, that’s all I got so far. One of the best ways to learn is to backup the originals somewhere safe and then tinker with the copy 
I hope that at some point I will actually put out a little game that I can call my very own.