Is there a way to replace the intro movie?

[HayleyRenaNemeth 465]

So everytime I start up SimCity 4 its the same intro movie every single time. I was wondering if there was a way to replace it with a new one. I did a google search and found a thread on here about how to skip it, but thats not what I want. I want to make a new one. 

[rsc204 21,836]

I guess it depends on where this movie file is and what format it is in.

If it's embedded in the .exe, your not going to be able to do anything about it. Also, if it's in a proprietary format, likewise you won't be able to replace it.

Frankly I can't answer any of those questions for you. But it seems to me, replacing it doesn't really make any sense. I mean, just like the original intro, once you've seen it, why would you want to watch it again? It's not like a favourite film or TV show. Either way, it's probably more effort that it's worth, I'd just disable it and be done.

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

6 hours ago, rsc204 said:

But it seems to me, replacing it doesn't really make any sense. I mean, just like the original intro, once you've seen it, why would you want to watch it again?

I can imagine one might change it to create a whole new story line to go with one's city design. This'd be fun to create for showing off one's work to other RL peeps. True, even with a custom intro, it would likely get boring after time, but the OP prolly has a specific reason to want to do this.

 

It is more likely to be some proprietary format as rsc suggests. I suspect the file to change would be: C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4\Intro.Dat which is 18,504,190 bytes in size. (Your path might be a bit different. Mine's in XP.) The ratio of duration to megabytes feels right for frame size and color depth so I find that encouraging.

Anyhow, it does not have a standard extension for a typical movie file. If it were me wanting to change it, I'd grab that Intro.Dat file and copy to a test folder. Then I'd try changing the extension to other valid ones for vids and try to play them. There is the possibility (tho I wouldn't count on it) that it's a standard format, but Maxis just changed the extension. Now, if you find a way to play the original intro outside of SC4, then you can make the new one in that format, change the file name to intro.dat and move it back into the correct folder. Keep in mind if it does happen to be some standard format, it could likely be an older one which is no longer used. Like .mov or .flc or whatever some of the older ones were. You might have to test with older player programs.

Edit: Shortened quote.

Edit: Ok, so the next step I took was to just visually view the Intro.Dat in NotePad. Most files look like gibberish this way, but there are often times some readable text in them. During a quick page-down by page-down, I didn't notice anything useful.

If I were really curious I'd write a down-and-dirty file reader program. Pull the bytes in one by one and discard if they were not in the ASCII range of 32 -127 (20-7F hex). Show the non-discarded, possibly real words, on the screen. This usually works better in .exe to find original copyright and sometimes help text a program uses. (Remember in the older programs, some had Everything internal in its executable code.)

For Intro.Dat, I'd hoped to see at least a required (c) of which player Maxis licensed if it were some external company's format they used.)

Edit: Which brings up the possibility there might be said (c), if it even exists, in the SimCity 4.Exe program. I know there are other delightful things in there like: CellLayout, StepOffsets, DepositRate, HydroErosionRateRampEnd, HydroErosionRateRampBegin, MaxErosionRate, MinErosionRate and such. So, you could try looking there. I know some games used QuickTime, but off hand I don't recall which game era that was.

Edit: And if you are really lucky, some guru here will look into it just for the joy of exploring the possibilities. (If it is decipherable , this could then become a new Challenge to create the best intro over in the social forums.)

Edit: Oh, and if the game runs a similar checksum check on intro.dat (like it does for city files), then the whole attempt will be borked from the get-go.

Anyhow, good luck in your quest. I hope at least some of this helps you find the answer.

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

As you've discovered you can turn it off.  You can also cancel it mid-play simply by hitting return or clicking the mouse.  I don't fathom replacing it.  Once you've seen a movie a couple of times, do you need to see it again?

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

@Granpa: I like this quote from your sig:

The teacher opens the door but the student must enter himself. - Ancient Chinese Saying

If it hasn't already been said, I feel a corollary could be:

The student should be encouraged in their pursuit of knowledge regardless of the teacher's opinion of its worthwhileness.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

One of the philosophical quotes I get from my desktop random data base comes up with "the teacher must protect the student from the teacher's own biases" in many more words than that.  This is especially true in philosophy and political classes. 

I always taught computer science topics, and there is nothing to be biased about except some rather stilted computer languages such as PASCAL, which is strictly a didactic device and not suitable for real applications.  I don't dislike it, it is a nice teaching tool, but with fixed length strings and other simplifications if you try to use it for a serious application you will get your Nicklaus Wirth.

[rsc204 21,836]

My intention is not to put someone off. If a friend wanted to paint his house acid green, it wouldn't stop me trying to help. But I would recommend against it.

As such, replacing this intro video is a pointless endeavour IMO. If it were an easy thing to do, why not though, could be a giggle. But I seriously doubt it's easy. Is someone really prepared to spend the time it takes to crack open the game in order to make this work? I just don't see the point, sorry.

SC4 files (such as DATs) are just container files in DBPF format, a system unique to EA/Maxis games. It's easy to extract the MAD files within the file intro.dat using iLives reader. But what is a MAD file? Maybe it is going to work if the file is renamed to an MP4 or AVI file, but I suspect not. If that's the case, you can just do the reverse and re-package the DAT again and it should work.

But, wouldn't it be easier to simply cancel the intro, create a Windows Script (.BAT file) that ran a movie then opened the game? Either way, I still don't see the point of it personally.

Update:

Some information pertaining to MAD files was discussed here. The format seems totally proprietary as suspected.

The thing is, if as a user, you couldn't open the DAT file, extract the MAD files and do a simple Google search to find out what exactly a MAD file was. Your chances of simply being able to replace this video are about 0.

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

6 hours ago, rsc204 said:

My intention is not to put someone off.

Whew! Good. I prolly just misinterpreted what you and Granpa intended.

I like to reply with how something might possibly be accomplished based on my limited knowledge without reference to how I might see the desirability of it. (Tho in this case, it'd be wonderful if it could be done in a simple manner.) And if she feels like delving into it in depth then my tips were all the steps I could come up with.

The .BAT file would certainly accomplish the same end result without a lot of monkeying around. That's the perfect suggestion.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you are going to create a script for this, consider adding a selector and having more than one movie.  You can create little MP4s with or without sound and I think it is the best answer.