I just absolutely love that needler. I can't get enough of it :P
What is it now, five more days? Can't wait.

Masterz, you gonna update your forum with the picture too?

I agree. Masters' recolor is nice, but the color palette is a bit dark/monotonous, and hides some of the detail. Although it might just be that Masters' screenshot was taken in a dark environment.

I too prefer the needler by dano over the new one.

The new UUI supports TSC:E and its difficulty levels, which currently is Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary as a single button in the CMT Projects section. There is then a SPV3 button which brings you too the list of all 15 SPV3 maps, and also allows you to select your difficulty level (Normal, Heroic, Legendary, Noble). If you select a map, finishing it will simply load the next SPV3 level if installed, and if that SPV3 map is not installed it brings you to the default map file that would come next (ie, finishing spv3b40.yelo would then bring you too spv3c10.yelo if its in your maps folder, and if it isn't will load c10.map. If you want to continue a map, you will need to select the map you were previously playing and select it's difficulty you were last playing, and it will resume. We probably will implement instructions on how to do that somewhere in the UI.



We don't rip or use other games content. Animations are no different than a model being reused or ripped. Halo 1 has the best 3p animations in my opinion anyway, things in H2 really messed up a lot of the flow and speed of combat that made Halo 1 so much fun, especially with the Elites. Updating the animations for this reason is something we do on an as needed basis, as H1 had a really good flow. I wouldn't mind having some more animations for deaths and stuff though like we have on the brutes. If there is time there is time, but we are still aiming towards our release dates we announced at CE3, despite the setbacks from the B30:evolved delay. Some maps in Phase 2 may be postponed and put into a Phase 3 of releases though however.



It may just be the angle of the picture that makes it darker. If you look at the side view all that detail is still there. The reason for the change is to get away from the Cyan needles, which are easily confused with the PR and also emit cyan light. So the move back to full purple is to better define the weapon and keep Halo the colorful game it is. With a switch to purple, there is no sense to have a purpleish maroon casing on the weapon, hence the move to blue which contrasts better with the purple needles and lights.

Dano's needler skin is what is being used in Evolved though, so you will still be seeing more of it.

Edited by Masters1337 on Aug 24, 2014 at 07:31 PM

The plasma rifle fires blue bolts and has a blue casing. The Brute plasma pistol fires red bolts and has a red casing. It ultimately comes down to personal preference, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it doesn't make sense to have a weapon that's the same color as the projectile it fires, especially where the Covenant are concerned.

I meant from an artistic perspective, the weapon looks really ugly with the purple on purple/maroon. I should have phrased it better but was in the car at the time.

Aren't you using brute dialog from halo 2? And brute models/textures originally from Halo 2?

The thing I've never quite understood though is, what makes using stock Halo 1 animations any different from using animations from another Halo game? both were made by the same Bungie, for the same game franchise. The only difference is one is newer than another. In all honesty, if you're against using halo 2's animations and models because you're a custom mapping team, you should be against using the stock halo 1 animation's too. However, if it's simply because of the process used to get halo 2 content, well then that's really just silly. I can understand not wanting to use content from other non-franchise games, or content that was made by and ripped from non-CMT members, but claiming that using content from another game of the SAME franchise and from the SAME publisher is ripping in the same sense, especially while utilizing assets from the first installment of that franchise, doesn't really make any sense. Not even the slightest.

I can understand if you simply aren't a fan of halo 2's animations and such. That's not an issue. It's the hypocrisy of saying, "we don't rip from other Halo games because we are the CUSTOM mapping team" while you use assets from halo 1, that are not custom, and claim it's different simply because you didn't have to port them over from another game. It's not different.

If you don't want to use them because you don't like them, or just because you simply don't want to use them, then that's fine. But saying it's because you think of it as cheating or something, then well, I'd have to say that's just silly. I'm also not trying to advocate for their use right now, I'm arguing a matter of principle, in case that wasn't clear.

I am fairly certain CMT is using teh lag's brutes.

Which are heavily modified halo 2 brutes. Using modified halo 2 textures. And halo 2 dialog.

on the dialogue note, masters idk if you guys had plans for it but i think you should commit to either english speaking covenant or alien.. so as much as you hate it, use reach's brute vioces or make custom ones from scratch... if you need people i know some good voice actors that'd do it for free

10/10

Never thought that would happen. :'(

Nope, our brutes are all custom, and use modified H2 Dialog. Sounds are the only exception to our rule, although we try to do them custom when we can. By your logic, we should just be using H2, H3, Reach and H4 models and textures well. We take a lot of pride in that everything you see is either made by hand or from the original game, and that's the way we've been since the end of H2 Coagulation in 2005. We're not about to change that now. We do use later game models as placeholder often to experiment with ideas and allocate ingame resources, but none of that is something we'd include in our releases.

And for 9 straight years ;P

I wonder if it would be possible during the cmt offseasons, for a few cmt members to produce tutorials.

I.E

CMT's guide to making weapons for halo OS?. (model, uv, texture, bake, animate, compile, guerilla stuff,)

My main bro Wafflez has a deepity goody tutorial on le OS shaders.

que>?


Link plse :D :D

Alright, thank you for the info. I remember I have to do that for b40 SPV1. Also, a question regarding difficulty choice. In every game I play, I usually have a "default" difficulty. In the case of games with 4 difficulties, it is the third difficulty, which is Heroic in Halo. The logic behind it is out of the two "middle" difficulties, the third one offers a little more challenge (it use to be the second difficulty, because i thought it was more fun, but, it got boring after awhile). So, with SPV3, should I stick with Heroic, or go Legendary for SPV3 only?

Ah, the great "Heroic VS Legendary" debate.

I find that any Halo game is worth playing through twice, once on Heroic and once on Legendary. The idea here is that Heroic offers more "fun", where as Legendary actually pushes you to be at the top of your game. I would imagine this mentality should apply to CMT's work as well.

The issue with Legendary is that it highlights the inherent imbalance between the different weapons. For example, while playing Halo 1, the Assault Rifle feels absolutely useless on Legendary, whereas on Heroic and lower, you can actually do decently well with the weapon. For this reason, my Legendary run-throughs tend to be a bit more formulaic and repetitive, while Heroic is much more conductive to just messing around and experimenting with the variety that Halo's sandbox offers.

SPV3 is designed around Legendary. In H1, in order to be good at legendary you had to master all the weaponry and all their little nuances in order to be able to get through the encounters. When I play H1 on legendary, I always use the AR and pistol as much as possible, falling back to Covenant weapons in special situations. Or of course if it's a flood mission, I always do Pistol and Shotgun. For SPV3 there are of course many more weapons to choose from, some which you will find better suited to your style of gameplay for legendary in some situations, and some you won't. Regardless, mastering them is essential to making it through. We introduce different weapons at different times in the game, so you should be able to get a good feel for each one as you progress.

Noble on the other hand, amps up the AI with the same jump you saw from Heroic to Legendary, but now applied to Legendary and not Heroic. It is really flipping hard, even I haven't taken the time to do any missions in full yet other than POA. It's almost like H2 Legendary in terms of difficulty, but not quite as bad IMO. Others may disagree though. Either way, for the really hardcore players, Noble is just another challenge, but the game isn't designed around making it fair and to have an expected strategy, much like you'd expect from LASO runs in the later games that you play for the challenge and to outsmart the game, rather than a orchestrated environment.

I expect people who are serious about playing Halo will play a mission or 2 on heroic, and then make the jump to legendary and then at a later time take the Noble challenge. We also plan to do weekly challenges for the community that we'll post in our forum and let people post youtube videos of, to identify future testers and to provide incentives to play the maps over again in ways people would not be expected to on their own.

oh damn, sounds cool but... I don't have requirements to make a video of me completing the challenge :(

So does the new version of OS at least direct to the same master server as 1.10, or..

Yes.

1. Actually by my logic, you would be using a minor amount of resources for those games, to replace stock assets that are dated and that your team simply doesn't have time to make custom replacement (in this case the example would be animations). Not insane or unreasonable an idea at all, when you think about it. In addition, H4 was made by 343. My argument was that Halo 2 was made by Bungie who at the team was nearly the same Bungie that made Halo 2.

2. The fact that you said you take pride from using content from the original game shows you completely missed my point. There's absolutely nothing wrong with replacing old vanilla content from another Halo Game made by Bungie if it's something small or efficient that allows your team more time to focus on custom content. I'm sure you'd agree since you said yourself you use sounds from newer Halo games.

3. So you wouldn't change a philosophy, even if flawed, due to the simple fact that this is the way it's been for for ten years? Let's look at a scenario, say there's a texture that is in halo 1, a very low res texture for a shrub, let's say. You remodeled or spruced up the model of said shrub awhile back, but have yet to make a replacement texture because it's just been on the back burner. Now let's say it's just a few days short of the release of a project and all time needed is better allocated to polishing and finishing most of the noticeable custom content, IE weapons, vehicles, extra bsps, etc. Therefore you don't have time to make a replacement texture for the shrub, and the low res texture definitely takes away from the quality of the new/improved model. Suddenly you discover a newer Halo game reuses that shrub specifically in a newer halo game. The texture in the newer game is exactly the same except for the fact that it is of much higher detail. Would you stay with the original texture just because it's from the "original halo", or swap it out for a texture that is literally exactly the same, but is of much higher quality and really improves that particular piece of scenery? See now, in this sense your philosophy isn't as cut and dry as you would like to believe. Now, textures are different than say, models, of course, But the principle applies. If there is something that you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT have the time or available resources to replace, and a newer installment of halo has a better version of that something, that was made by the same people that made the original something for the exact same franchise, what is wrong with making the swap? (Spoiler alert, there's nothing wrong.) Because you take pride in either going custom or going original? There's absolutely no in between? Pride is a dumb excuse. Saying "this is how it's been" is also not the best excuse. I'm not saying you should consider going to extremes and swap out everything for assets from new games, I'm simply saying, if an asset is similar but newer, made by the same people for the same game, and will allow your team to focus on more important custom assets while still satisfying the part of the crowd that wants this small thing replaced or changed, while raising the overall quality of the mod, then what's the harm? It's certainly not because it's not custom, because you said yourself you use content from Halo 1. It wouldn't make you any more or less of a custom mapping team than you were before, and everyone is happy.

Doesn't seem like such a bad thing to me

I mean.
If CMT doesn't want to rip tags from other Halo games,
that's their decision.

Of course it is, I'm not telling them what to do. I'm presenting in argument in an effort to change their mind, but I'm not demanding they do what I say. I'm not looking to be that guy.

Hard to be "that guy" around here, Spartan 234 called that role months ago.

Shots fired.

dude seriously, enough with the pointless crap.
Edited by Darkzealotx on Aug 26, 2014 at 06:21 PM

Any word on the release of B30? We haven't really heard anything from Ifafudafi or the B30 team since they mentioned the release date. There are like three days left and by now I'd think there would be some word-spreading through videos, r/halo, forums, etc.

They like to make their own announcements and I am sure you can make an educated guess about the lack thereof.

I will say that directional lightmaps are the last thing that have to be done to a BSP after all else is finalized, so anything put out without DLMs is not a good representation of the project.

Are there any new features or additions on TSC:E that weren't on Truth and Reconcilliation SPV3?