Will I need really recent files for creating a halo 2 map? like Burial Mounds

Although I definitely support legal ownership of licensed software, you can't say "its not that much". $3,000 is NOT spare change you find in the couch. I'd be lucky if I made that in 10 years doing what I do now. [Unemployed, being I'm only 15.]

The full unabridged price is $4,500. (not that much my ass) I could buy a used car in very GOOD condition with that.

please no more discussion on the price of 3D Studio. It always leads to forbiden topics.

Here ya go! I just thought about linking to this, because it's really very helpful. The official Bungie HEK website, with a full tutorial, but it's definitely not as good as H Guru's...

http://nikon.bungie.org/misc/hek_tutorial/

But also, if you want to know about errors in your map that you get, such as Degenerate Triangles, or Overlapping Surfaces, or Open Edges, Couldn't Update Edge, etc... Go to the "Level Compilation" link on the left sidebar, and scroll down. The table will show the error you were given on the left, and it's definition on the right. It's not a detailed way of how to fix it, but it at least gives you the basic idea and has helped me fix all of my problems.

Nice addons! Kudos! Nice to see this post being used the way it should be. Good Job.

All the links have been fixed to my tutorials, also ive added to more tutorials Adding Multiple skys, and fix "Press E to enter <Missing-String>" all my tuts can be found here http://haloguru64.freephpnuke.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=4 or go to page 2 on this forum

ALL tutorials have been moved, and can be viewd by visiting

http://www.halocehelp.com
Edited by H Guru on Jun 1, 2007 at 07:30 PM

use this tutorial and save the text to a document so you have it for future use.

I got this off a website that closed down, but there was still a large tutorial datebase. The site still works but it won't load for me today. As soon as it does i will post a link instead. This is just a simple way of restoring standard Halo PC/CE maps.

Tutorial By DECOY

If you did not make back up copies of your Halo map files before modding them,
you are going to need to access the originals at some point.

Here's how without reinstalling halo

1) Insert your HaloPC CD into your CD/DVD drive
2) Explore the cd using whatever means you feel comfortable with (IE, Explorer,
etc). From here on I'll refer to the CD drive as drive G:
3) Go into the folder labeled FilesCab (G:\FilesCab).
4) Here you should see 6 cab files (Cab1.cab, Cab2.cab, ...)
5) Depending on which map(s) you need to restore, you will need to look in a
certain Cabinet file. See below table.

Cabinet File Listings:

Cab1

a10.map
a30.map
a50.map
d40.map

Cab2
b30.map
b40.map
beavercreek.map
bloodgulch.map
boardingaction.map

Cab3
c10.map
c20.map
c40.map
carousel.map
chillout.map
d20.map
damnation.map
dangerground.map
deathisland.map

Cab4
bitmaps.map

Cab5
sounds.map

Cab6
Halo Directory Structure*(see note)
wizard.map
ui.map
timberland.map
sidewinder.map
ratrace.map
putput.map
prisoner.map
longest.map
infinity.map
icefields.map
hangemhigh.map
gephyrophobia.map

6) After you have figured out which Cab(s) contains the map which you need,
open the cab using WinRAR or WinZIP (or your favorite cab-supporting
compression program). Once its opened, navigate to the "maps" directory. Inside
you will find the maps mentioned in the above table.
7) This should go without saying but...Copy and paste the map from the CAB
archive into your Halo\Maps directory.
Follow the last two steps again for each map that you need to restore.

*NOTE: The Halo Directory structure, are the files and directories which get copied
to your Halo directory upon installation. This is ONLY present in Cab6. As with the
other cabs, in order to locate the original maps in this archive, you must first
travel inside the Maps directory.

On every map downloasd page there is a link that says "How to Install: Click Here" Please do what it says and click here: http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?nid=330

ok so im making pickup icons and it just so happens that wen i do something right all along the world instantly hates me and this is the file i need. ok so i need to plate my file before toll will use it..... i need something free that will do that. (like a photoshop thing or something)

I got G Max, but I can't find my registration code. Anyone know where it is?

water.
yayyy i can finnaly add water woot.

Did you make another box entitled "frame", and link your level to that?

Wow, thats alot to type.

i know this is a old topic but it has such good links to stuff that people have been looking for but couldent find
ty

go blender, best modeling program ever.

I can't find a tut on applying skins :(

This might be the hardest part of a map, but I need a tutorial to apply faces
(e.g. two humongous hangars).

Try Llama's tut.

For all of you people who want to learn the basics uvw mapping...
Use this tutorial

http://www.waylon-art.com/uvw_tutorial/uvwtut_01.html

enjoy!

How can i make a three story base. i found a pretty good tut but its 3ds and i need gmax

hey this is great and all but i have never made a map before and have no clue where to start. i may get the free programs but i may request help. is that all right? but im now going to get them right now, but later on. also, do i need to have the game in, in order to make maps?

New Resources Guys:
http://halopc.moddercentral.net/haloforum/index.php

does it allow .jms files?

NEW LINK CAN BE FOUND HERE:

http://halopc.moddercentral.net/haloforum/index.php
Edited by Matooba on Aug 23, 2008 at 10:23 AM

Pretty cool.

Texture Maker is a seamless texture generator and designer. The application contains everything needed to create seamless textures for use in 3D rendering packages, game development, web graphics, image and video editing.

It can create procedural and hand painted textures from scratch, remove visible seams from existing images, crop textures from photos by applying a perspective correction, render seamless tiles from structure sample patches and combine existing textures and height maps with realistic illumination.

Also animated textures are no problem with Texture Maker. The program is even capable of generating seamless animation loops.

Texture Maker can be extended with plugins and automates complex operations with its scripting abilities. Nearly all functions take advantage of multiple CPUs in the system.

Feature Summary:

All functions are optimized for seamless textures
More than 130 different generators, filters and deformation tools
Nearly 700 presets for quick results
Standard tools for color correction, rescaling, adding borders etc.
Can render animated textures with seamless loops
Automatic mip-mapping for zoomed-out textures
Multi-Texture Mixer
Shader for realistic illumination
Textractor tool to extract textures from photos with perspective correction
ISampler tool to create large, homogeneous, seamless textures from sample patches
Kaleidoscope tool to render symmetrical tiles
Genetic Texture Generator for quick abstract tiles
Convert grayscale textures to RGB normal maps
Landscape renderer which produces environment maps
Particle System for animated textures like weapon effects and fluids
Realtime texture preview on standard primitives and pre-rendered models
Fully scriptable and batch rendering
Programmable hotkeys for optimal workflow
Extensive help system
Plug-Ins
Support for multiprocessor systems (SMP) and hyperthreading


The integrated Particle System Animator is only one of the possibilites to create seamless animation loops. You can use it to create animated textures and effects such as liquids, fire, snow and muzzlefire. The module can also export the results as color and alpha channels for 3D rendering applications.


All textures can instantly be previewed in 3D on standard primitives and pre-rendered models.

Screenshots:



The integrated Landscape Renderer can visualize your height maps and textures, so you can see how they look when used in the "real world". The engine can also render spherical panoramas and cubic environment maps, ideal backgrounds for your game maps and 3D scenes.







Download: http://www.texturemaker.com/getfile.php?file=TextureMaker31Setup.exe]Click Here</a>




link:
http://www.texturemaker.com/screenshots.php
Edited by Matooba on Oct 19, 2008 at 10:53 PM

i need help useing tool i already have the jmp file of the map so all i need to know is how to change it to .map catche file i read the paragraphs and wattched kirks tutorial but i dont know what to type in and how to type it in



Help plz
Edited by SDAIRSTRIKE on Nov 15, 2008 at 05:57 PM

Can someone tell where I can get that bloom program where it makes is look nicer?

NEW UPDATE:
Im putting this up due to the volume of people asking for shortcuts.

Quick [tip]when working in a perspective view, Max will likely freeze/crash, the zoon button will break, and you will repeatedly get weird, fish eye lens views!!!I advise switching to a user view, it usually sorts out this problem.[/tip] for you.
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[color=#BF0000]Modeling:[/color]
1. Meshsmooth only the selected faces by un-checking the 'apply to entire mesh' box in the meshsmooth options.

2. If you use Non-uniform scaling (scaling in less than all 3 axes at the same time) on a model it will cause distortion problems when animating, however non-uniform scaling within a sub-object mode will not cause the same problems.

3. When in Edit Poly or Mesh, hitting 1,2,3,4 etc will cycle through the sub-object selections, and when in edit poly hiting 6 will take you out of the subobject mode.

4. Alt+X = See-though or X-Ray mode

5. To rotate around a particular vertex, select your object (or set of sub-objects) lock the selection, choose either or from the drop down list, turn on vertex snap and rotate it all by clicking on the vertex you wish as the pivot. (CLICK HERE for a video of the process)

6. When in sub-poly mode, creating your own keyboard shortcuts can save oodles of time. Rather than scrolling up and down looking for "connect" and "target weld". Just assign "ALT-C" and "ALT-W" for example.

7.When modelling things at odd angles, (ie, arms, hands, feet etc) it helps to create an instance of the object, straighten it out and work on that instead.

8. Pressing + and - changes the size of the transform gizmo.

9. A sub-object selection in Edit Poly can be transfered over to another one by holding down Ctrl and clicking another mode button in the modifiy panel selection rollout. This is particularly good for the 'Ring' and 'Loop' commands in edge mode of edit poly.

Alternatively selecting the edges/verts .etc around and area (in effect, selecting a perimeter) and holding Shift whilst clicking a different selection mode will transfer over only the parts within the perimeter of the original selection.

10. The FFD modifier is a good tool for deforming meshes, its can be applied to a single mesh or multiple meshes simultaneously.

11. In later versions of max, hitting Ctrl+Backspace will remove both the edge and the vertex when in edge subobject mode.

12.Holding down CTRL when creating a a sphere, cylinder, teapot, etc. will allow you to rotate as you create. Holdings down CTRL when creating a box, pyramid, plane, etc. will create an object with even length/width.

13. When modeling wrinkles, folds, etc, on a curved surface, instead of moving your row of edges on 1 axis, convert the selection to Vertex (Ctrl + Click Vertex button under the stack) and switch your coordinate system to Local.
Now, moving the slection on the Z axis will move them perpendicularly to the surface.
Alternatively you can use the 'Normal' constraint found in the edit poly modify panel for the same effect although this is only in later versions of max.
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[color=#BF0000]Lighting:[/color]
1. Ctrl+L switches of you lights and go back to max default 2 point lighting.
Hitting it again will switch back to your own lights.

2. Pressing '9' above the letters on the keyboard will bring up the advanced lighting window

3. Selecting a light then pressing Ctrl+H lets you drag over the surface of an object to place the highlight.

4. When using a target light, selecting the line inbetween the light and its target will enable you to move/rotate both objects together.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[color=#FF0000]Texturing / Materials:[/color]
1. To remove an assigned material from a mesh, drag the NONE material from the 'Material/Map Browser' via the 'Material Editor' on to your mesh, or use the UVW Remove utility in the utilities panel (click the 'more' button to open it).

2. To hide the materials in the viewport select 'Object Colour' in the Shaded section at the top of the display tab.


3. You can now (in later versions of max) apply a single UnwrapUVW modifier to multiple meshes simultaneously to allow them all to be unwrapped onto the same texture map a lot easier.

4. If a material is assigned to anything in the scene, small triangles appear in the corners around the material slot in the material editor.

5. Material editor is not the list of all materials in the scene, here is how to list them: Material editor > get material > scene).

6. To display an assigned texture map in the viewport click the 'Show Map in Viewport' button (the blue/white checker cube) in the 'Material Editor'.

7. Click the eyedropper tool next to the material name then click on an object the viewport and it will copy the objects material to the selected sphere.

8. An easier to use alternative to the Morpher material is to create a multi-sub material with the different materials in it then use a Material modifier on the object and animate the material ID over time. This is particularly useful in Mental Ray as that doesnt support the Morpher material.

9. You can rotate the sphere(or custom shape) in the material editor slot by holding down MMB and dragging your mouse. (you can't rotate it if you enlarge the slot window though)

10. When unwrapping uv's using copy and paste is a HUGE time saver.

11. When unwrapping selecting certain chunks and use flatten mapping to get a head start. (instead of using flatten on everything)

12. You can drag and drop images/video right into the viewports from windows explorer to create a new material with that image/video in the diffuse slot. (just use the eyedropper tool
to place it in the material editor)

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[color=#BF0000]
Navagation / Viewports:[/color]
1. When in camera view you can lock the camera from panning by selecting the camera itself and its target (if applicable) and checking all the position boxes in the Link Info tab in the Heirachy panel.

2. Ctrl+C in perspective viewport adds a camera to the scene and effectively saves the view you have set up in perspective mode.

3. If there are mutliple cameras in the scene "C" will bring up a list to choose from. Alternatively hitting "C" whilst a camera is selected will change the current view to that of the selected camera.

4. ALT+W = Toggle Full Size View.

5. Ctrl+X = Expert (Full screen) Mode.

6. Pressing the Up key in either Camera or Perspective viewport will enable the walkthrough mode, you can then use the cursor keys to navigate (the rest of the controls are in the help files under 'Walkthrough Navigation'

7. 'G' Toggles the maing grid from viewport

8. 'J' Removes annoying selection brackets around your objects.

9. 'I' Pans the viewport to center on the cursor position (handy if you want to draw lines/shapes which are bigger than your viewport and regualr panning cancels the command)

10. Pressing "Z" will center your zoom on the selected object. This is particularly useful when the middle mouse stops zooming in whilst in perspective mode.

11. Shift+Z will undo the last view change without undoing any commands you have performed and Shift+Y will redo the view change.

12. Mousewheel+Alt+Shift = Arc Rotate

13. Mousewheel+Alt+Ctrl = Zoom

14. Holding Ctrl down whist zooming in increases the zoom speed

15. Holding Alt down whist zooming in decreases the zoom speed

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[color=#BF0000]Particles:[/color]
1. Use the 'Mesher' compound object to convert your particle system into an editable mesh object.

2. Snapshot also converts particles to mesh, and automatically converts it to an editable mesh whereas Mesher (above) doesnt.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[color=#BF0000]General Shortcuts:[/color]
1. Pressing the letter 'O' turns off the bounding boxes when panning.

2. Pressing X with toggle the transform gizmos on and off

3. Right click a spinner to zero its value

4. Press the 7 above the letters on the keyboard for an in-viewport poly/vertex counter.

5. Hit Ctrl+N in any numeric input field you access the 'Numerical Expression Evaluator', a simple calculator.

6. Right clicking the transform controllers brings up the Transform Type-In window.

7. Right clicking any of the snaps toggles will bring up Grid and Snap Settings.

8. Hitting Q repeatedly toggles through different selection modes.

9. F3=Smooth/Shade view toggle.

10. F4=Wireframe overlay (Show Edges) toggle.

11. both Ctrl+V and Shift-Dragging clones the selected object.

12. W, E & R are the shortcuts for Move, Rotate and Scale respectively.

13. H = Selection Box (Select by List) shortcut

If you have the new selection box (max 2008+) and want the old one do the following...

find your CurrentDefaults.ini
(usually in something like... C:\yourname\yourname\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsmax\2009 - 32bit\enu\defaults\MAX

and change :
[Scene Explorer]
SelectByNameUsesSceneExplorer=1

to

[Scene Explorer]
SelectByNameUsesSceneExplorer=0

save ini file and restart max

14. Spacebar = Lock Selection, this can be hit by accident and you will be unable to select/deselect objects so its good to know to deactivate too.

15. Alt+Q enters isolation mode allowing you to temporarily hide all non selected objects and zoom extents selected.

16. F12 will bring up the keyboard input window for the currently selected transform tool allowing precise values to be used.

17. ALT+D toggles the 'Snaps Use Axis Constraints'. With Vertex Snap, lets you quickly align vertices in only one or two dimensions.

18. SHIFT+X toggles the Edge Constraint. With Vertex Snap, allows you to align vertices in one or two dimensions without deforming the edge(s)

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[color=#BF0000]Animations:[/color]
1. Ctrl+Alt+Left-Mouse-Drag on the time line will adjust the starting frame.
Ctrl+Alt+Right-Mouse-Drag on the time line will adjust the end frame.
Ctrl+Alt+Hold down the Mouse Wheel on the time line will pan the time line.

2. Starting in Camera View, switch to perspective view, turn on autokey, adjust the view, move the time slider on some frames, select the camera again and press Ctrl+C, the same camera will now animate to the new perspective position.

3. Got stupidly large file sizes that take ages to save and your using biped? Delete the copy collections under copy and paste in the biped menu thing, you might have loads there and they bump the file size up alot.

4. Right clicking the time line and going to Configure-->Show Selection Range will give you a bar under the keys where you can scale, move and even reverse the selected keys

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[color=#BF0000]Rendering:[/color]
1. One tip for Backburner would be to remember to use UNC (ie //servername/folder) addresses for your output files, and make sure each PC has access rites to the said path.

2. F9 = Quick Render

3. Do not use numbers (0-9) at the start of your computer name else it wont be detected by backburner.

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[color=#BF0000]Reactor & Dynamics:[/color]
1. Model the objects their real size when you make them, eg. Make pool balls, well , pool ball sized, acording to Google : "A cue ball is 4.75 cm in diameter, while pool balls are 5.03 cm". You will get much better results with the physics this way.

2. If things are 'hitting' before they actually touch , adjust your Collision tolerance.
Utilities TAB, > Reactor>World>col. Tolerance.

3. When setting up a ridgid body selection (or any other reactor type) select all your objects to be added FIRST, then create the Set. This saves you having to add indivual ones later

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[color=#BF0000]Miscellaneous:[/color]
1. The white MaxScript area in the bottom left of the screen can be used as a quick-access calculator, just type in the sum, press enter and hey presto!

2. Typing, for instance, r40 in a spinner will add 40 to its value (also works with negative values)
3. If keyboard shortcuts aren't working first make sure the Keyboard Shortcut Override toggle
isn't active.

4. Tired of dragging the Right panel up and down all the time? try grabbing the left edge and dragging it out to the left further to expand it.

5. Holding 'Ctrl' whilst panning in teh viewport, zooming or even using the spinners will increase the speed at which they work. Whilst holding 'Alt' will decrease the speed.

6. When in track view, if you find the keys are locked to a particular type i.e. linear and you can't change them via the buttons above, right click on the name of the corresponding track, choose 'assign controller' and choose the new type of keys you want i.e. 'bezier float'

7. Selecting a section of text in the maxscript window and dragging it to a toolbar will automatically create a button for it.

8. If you develop a glitch in Max that doesnt seem to have a fix, try deleting the 3dsmax.ini file (in the max root folder v8 and lower, in the C:\documents and settings folder v9 and above). A new .ini file will be created the next time you start max and revert any customisations back to default settings.

9. When using a target camera, selecting the line inbetween the camera and its target will enable you to move/rotate both objects together.

10. Right clicking whilst half way through a function i.e. dragging and item, spinning a spinner .etc .etc will cancel the changes made. Good if you do something by accident.
Now its over to you lot to fill in the rest with all those handy hints you know....

11. While using the maxscript editor, place the cursor in a word or highlight it, and press F1 and the help file will pop up and go straight to the page covering that topic.

12. You can re-order the rollouts in the modify panel simply by dragging the title bar to where you want it.

13. By using the text primitive & like webdings etc you can get a good start on otherwise hard to model objects using the font and extrude.

14. Saving empty scenes with specific light and/or render settings (or any other settings) and creating shortcuts for these files is a quick way to define presets to launch max with.

15. When using one of the .chm files (User Reference, Tutorials, Maxscript Reference,...), open it with the run command or a shortcut instead of the help menu in max. Then you can use the Windows kbd shortcut ALT+TAB to shift between windows instead of having to minimize/restore it all the time. I find it handy when following a tutorial for example.

16. Converting an editable poly object to an editable mesh then back to and editable poly can resolve some surface glitches such as incorrectly smoothed edges when applying a turbo/meshsmooth modifier.

17. When you use Hold, max saves your scene as maxhold.mx in the autoback folder. Note the .mx extension instead of .max, so you need to set the option to All Files in the open file dialog to see it.

18. 3ds Max has a pop-up message feature for when a certain file is opened. It's found under Customize>Customize User Interface>Menus>Category>Add a Pop-up Note. Expand the option in the list and just drag the item to the list on the right. Useful when you want to leave a copyright sign or just a message.

19. If you minimise max whilst rendering and cant maximise it, hit Ctrl+Alt+Del, go to the applications tab, select max then use the 'Switch to' button to maximise the window.

[color=#000080]Originally posted by Mr. Grotey[/color]

http://www.mgrote.com

Most of your tutorials lead to dead links. Updating needed -.-

Ok, i will check out the links i have posted and remove or replace as needed

Halo CE Program Error Posting Guidlines

I'm a newbie. I've gotten a question: How to take a tag into the map with HEK ?

http://forum.halomaps.org/index.cfm%3Fpage=topic&topicID=8579

wrung tupic d00d.