MMOwned Veterans please share your wisdom ! (Custom Login Screen problem)

[Razermourne]

Hello everyone,

Introduction:
My name is CJ and I'm from the Netherlands (please don't mind my spelling mistakes). Like you maybe already guessed, I like to play MMORPG's.. World of Warcraft in particular.
I'm a very creative guy and sometimes I spend hours in Photoshop/After Effects/Flash builder to express my ideas.. I like to find out how things are made, or I'll search the web for 4 days to find a guide ^^
so that's a little about me in a nut shell..

Reason for posting
I was playing WoW and I was looking at my current UI and thought "that SpartanUI is looking awesome, maybe I can customize my WoW a little bit more" So I found some VERY handy addons that made playing WoW even more fun, even my wife resigned her subscribtion again after 1 year being away.. Yesterday an idea came into my head to see if it was possible to create my own static plain background picture and use this for the WoW Login Screen.. I have searched for an program/ addon / tweaker or tuturial on how to do this without any luck.. I managed to find a tweaker that could change your WoW Login Screen into some older versions of WoW. I also found some threads on this website and others that where showing some login screens that they made, like a show off... I have spend 11 hours (even through the night with 6-pack of red bulls ) searching for a way on how to do this myself or ask someone to make my design become real. (I'm NOT kidding)

My Question to all of you Veterans
Is there someone nice/smart/experienced enough to let me know how to do this? I have found some threads on this forum asking pretty much the same thing (almost) and the ones I have read where not really anwsered in a way that I could use that information correctly. So here I am, asking you wonderful and talented people to please explain to me how i could do this. What programs do I need, what steps do I need to take, how do I replace the basic stuff of WoW ???

If it's REALLY impossible for a noob like me to understand or get it right, then is someone willing to help me out on this. If "that person who's helping me" gets some designs I made in photoshop, can he/she help me make it into a working Login Screen for WoW ?? I really, really hope there is someone out there that can provide information or help on this, I would be very heart-broken if this would be a dead end for me.. Maybe some people that made those wonderful and beautiful show-off could help me ??

Finishing my post
I will credit the ones that has helped me create my designs
If the "helper" made it into an working Login-screen then I would have no problem at all that his name comes in the bottom-left corner of the login screen.
and ofcoarse a handfull of REP.

Please let me know if you guys can help me (and other people that are dying to know) out in one way or another !

[VX2]

are you about something like this?

man, you really bad searcher))
[GlueXML]your own login shell

are you really want to make your own login shell?

[Razermourne]

I had found a very similar thread, but it seems to do more then I'm searching for...

The Screenshot that you posted seems to have an custom, static image set as an background for the log in screen, So yeah that was kinda what I was looking for.. Is this going to work for Retail WoW Cataclysm v 4.2 ?? (just released)
ALSO
the thread of VX goes about having:
- classic login screen
- buttons from beta
- fadein/fadeout menus, screens and dialogs
- unhided "namegenerator" button in charactercreate screen
- repositioned some buttons and fields
- little redesigned characterselect field

those stuff is not what I need, I just want to change the background and load my own music (I make my own music with musicmaker and Soundfont) nothing more.. I also don't want to risk getting banned from WoW, like I said I'm playing the real deal and not on a private server... But if whatever way is having a risk to get banned how unlikely it may be, I will just have to risk it then... VX's code is going to change alot, not only the background (like in your screenshot)..

The thing I'm targeting at is:

A: Just remove the cataclysm dragon motion thing and replace it with a simple background I made.. if I can do this with a program that changes an MPQ file then i need the name of the program and how to use it.. If it goes WAY deeper then,

B: Then I want to place a request, and hope that someone that knows how to make custom login screen for WoW will take this project together with me. I will provide all the artwork and he/she can compile this into a working login screen..

BTW, this looks like what i mean.. basic buttons, basic UI but background changed....

This Appears to be made by someone from MMOwned, named Xel:
picture not working

However, If the linked thread is what im searching for and it has been comfirmed that your can still change your login screen after patch 4.2 thenIll stick my nose into it more and start creating beautiful login screens for me and my wife ^^

If other can provide me with more info on this, please do !!

[BanzBoyz77]

Xel is a moderator on these forums and a model editing expert. But VX2 is right, making you own custom login shell is what you probably want. You can, however, take a already made and animated screen and post it as the login screen. Ex: I took the orc character creation screen, changed a few colors and got this as my login screen: http://www.mmowned.com/forums/world-of-warcraft/model-editing/320318-login-screen-edit-burning-legion-style-login-screen.html . Animated as well.

[VX2]

...
the thread of VX...

man, it's me and my thread x)
originally login screen is a model, what displayed in special frame (ModelFFX). if I understood correctly, Xel added surface in m2 file with size of full screen and filled it with texture.
in my shell, I just add another ordinary frame (not ffx) and fill it with texture.
but all of it have no meanings because from 14007 "mfil" protection remove all non original mpq files and also original too if it has wrong hash and redownload correct files. i.e. you can't use any other files except original blizzard files.
I know only one method to fake it - modifying "wow.exe". but it have a ban risk of course.

sorry man, but I have no idea about "safe" methods at this time (for blizzard servers), even if you want to modify only one pixel even on button texture.

p.s. if you still want to make your modifications regardless ban risk, I can help you. at least you may not use it, just make something, what may be useful or interesting for others (for sample I'm not playing in wow already 9-10 month even on private servers, but still make some things what I hope useful for others).

[merfed]

In the Guides and Programs section there is more than enough tutorials to get you familiar with the MPQs, and DBC files as well as anything else your going to need. Once you learn how to do all that stuff, it's just a matter of using your imagination to pull off what you want to do. Holding your hand through all of this is an option, but some of those guides are written exceptionally well, and will do more for helping you along that any thing we can tell you will.