Halo Maps Forum

i will start with
Grenade HUD Interfaces

Quote:
A ridiculously indepth look at a .grenade_hud_interface tag
By Donut

as usual this tutorial will cover the tag from the top down

Show Hud: this button will actually give you an idea of the positioning of your bitmaps. because it shows all of the subimages in a bitmap, its good to NOT compile main background bitmaps together, that way you can always tell what bitmap is where, without the confusion of having a ton of bitmaps all over the place. open cyborg.unit_hud_interface, click show hud, and you will understand what im saying.

Grenade hud screen alignment:
anchor: leave this set to top left. even if your bitmaps are in the lower right corner of the screen. x and y offset values change when changing the anchor, so dont do it. keep things simple.

Grenade hud background:
anchor offset: the x and y coordinate to offset the bitmap from the anchor, which should be set to top left
width and height scale: should really be labled x and y scale, but whatever. this is the number the game uses to multiply the bitmaps scale. for example, lets say A is the scale of your bitmap. if these scales are set to 0 or 1 (since 0 defaults to one), you are doing A * 1 which comes out to be A. set it to 2 and your bitmap becomes 2 times as big. set it to 0.5, and it shrinks the bitmap.
Scaling flags: these basically do what they say. i would leave them all alone except for "use hi res scale," which may or may not even work (as with many other HEK related things). if it does work then it probably just softens the edges of bitmaps that are scaled
interface bitmap: the bitmap that is being used for the background. can contain subimages, but i recommend against it.
default color: here we have 4 fields, a, r, g, and b. rgb can be set using the color box on the right. because we can set color in the tag, hud bitmaps should be greyscaled. a refers to alpha on a scale from 0 to 255, 0 being totally transparent, 255 being fully visible.
flashing color: the color and alpha of the bitmap when flashing. the color will be gradually scaled from the default color, which, for an example, means that colors wont go straight from blue to red when it flashes. colors will go from blue, to purple, to red.
flash period: the amount of time each flash sequence takes
flash delay: amount of time between flashes
number of flashes: self explanatory... i hope
flash flags: reverse default/flashing colors: i would just leave this alone. but it does what it says
flash length: length of each flash. you will have to do some math to get all of these values set properly
disabled color: color when there are no grenades left
sequence index: the subimage of the bitmap that is used for this function, but if youve been listening to me, there should only be one subimage, so we will set this to 0

Multitex overlay (aka multitexture overlay):
i have just recently been messing around with these. i do not fully understand them, but this basically scrolls bitmaps based on where the player is looking. this is how those scroling ticks work on the sniper rifle zoom scope. basically, im not going into these

Total grenades background:
anchor offset: x and y offset from the anchor. if you were a smart child and coordinated your bitmaps, then the anchor offset can be the same as th one for Grenade Hud Background
width and height scale: should be the same as Grenade Hud Background
scaling flags: same as mentioned in Grenade Hud Background
interface bitmap: guess what this is? just guess. although it IS worth it to mention that this is where you would put in the icon for your grenade
default color: follows the same argb rules as mentioned above
flashing color: same as mentioned in Grenade Hud Background. if you dont want the icon to flash, set it to the above color
flashing functions: should all be set to the values in Grenade Hud Background to avoid uncoordinated, seizure inducing flashes. if you dont want the icon to flash, just leave these all as 0
disabled color: color the icon will be when there are no grenades left
sequence index: if youve been listening to me, this should be 0

Multitex overlay: again, just leave this alone...

Total grenades numbers:
there is a master numbers bitmap located somewhere that has the bitmap for numbers in it. these numbers will not appear when "show hud" is pressed, so alot of blind fire trial and error will be required
anchor offset: as always, x and y offset from the screen anchor.
width and height scale: same as mentioned in Grenade Hud Background
scaling flags: same as mentioned in Grenade Hud Background
default color: follows the same argb rule as everything else, however its worth it to mention that numbers usually have a brighter color so that they stand out better.
flashing functions: in the default tags, these are set up in a way that the number will never flash, but you may set them up as you please
max number of digits: the number of grenades can go above this, but this is the maximum amount of digits allowed to be displayed. if you want to have 10 grenades, there are two digits there, so you would set it to 2
flags: show leading zeros: kind of goes along with max digits, if you allow it to show 2 or more digits, but the number of grenades drops below 10, it will show 0's for the digits. if unchecked, it will just show the digits it needs to display the number
only show when zoomed: i really, honest to god, hope you know what this is for
draw a trailing m: puts the letter m after the number. i would assume this is for things like nav markers, but i guess it can be set for the grenade hud too
number of fractional digits: this doesnt really apply to grenades, but with weapons like the plasma rifle where it takes more than one shot to drop the number displayed in the hud, fractional digits can be shown to show the decimal places.

Total grenades overlays:
its worth it to mention that this is where the little icon for grenades is set to be shown for the default grenades. i used total grenades background, but this works too. i didnt use this, but upon further inspection, it may be wise to use THIS for your icon as opposed to the total grenades overlay
overlay bitmap: bitmap to be used for the overlays. if you want more than one image for the overlay, your going to have to set sequence indexes
overlays:
anchor offset: same as always
width and height scale: same as always
default color: you will be setting two grenade hud overlay blocks so for now, set this and flashing color to the same value
flashing functions: set as follows:
flash period: 1
flash delay: 0
number of flashes: 1
flash length: 1
frame rate: again, i dont know what this is for. leave it at 0
sequence index: subimage for the specified bitmap
type:
show on flashing: shows this for flashing sequence
show on empty: shows this when there are no grenades left
show on default: when grenades are <1
show always: eat me...
flags:
flashes when active: uses the flashing color and info for when this particular function is flashing.... the whole situation is a little confusing to be to be honest, since functions in this are able to be set for flashing only. maybe its a flash on flash. i dont know

warning sounds:
sounds played to give you an audio reminder in addition to a visual reminder.
sound: two fields here, a drop down box and a directory. leave the drop down box alone, set the directory. can be a .sound tag or a .sound_looping tag
latched to:
low grenade count: this goes along with the flashing functions
no grenades left: this goes along with the disabled functions
throw on no grenades: when the player attempts to throw a grenade when there are none left.
scale: i dont know. i would leave it at 0

Messaging information:
ok. listen to me, and listen well. for the default plasma grenade, these are set as follows:
sequence index: 25193
width offset: 29805
offset from reference corner: x: 28794 y:6400
i like my partial sanity as it is right now. attempting to change these values might just cause me to break down and go into a coma.

override icon color: follows the argb rule, but i would just leave everything as 0
frame rate [0,30]: leave this as 0
flags:
use text from string_list instead: could possibly allow you to display text somewhere. i dont know where it gets the text from, or where it displays it, so leave this unchecked
override default color: uses the icon color set above. to what icon this applies, i do not know. leave this unchecked
width offset is absolute icon width: sanity is good. leave this unchecked
text index: the index of the text in whatever string list the text comes from. leave this at 0

Weapon HUD Interfaces

Quote: A ridiculously indepth look at Weapon HUD Interface tags
By Donut

notice the first thing on the very top (ui\hud\master rounds). this is the master hud that has universal things in it that all huds use. for example, the numbers

flash cutoffs:
total ammo cutoff: 1 + the total ammo the weapon is allowed to carry in the magazine at once. assault rifle mag ammo=60, total ammo cutoff=61
loaded ammo cutoff: when the ammount of ammo in the magazine hits this number, make hud flash. assault rifle ammo left in mag=11, no flash. assault rifle ammo left in mag=10, specified hud elements will start thier flashing animations.
heat cutoff: this is typically used for energy weapons but it also applys to CMT's chaingun from sp V1 and the flame thrower. when using emergy weapons, total and loaded ammo cutoffs do not apply, and thus will be set to 0. heat is.... self explanitory. in the plasma pistol hud, we see that heat cutoff is 75. this means that when heat= 75%/100%, the hud element specified for heat will start flashing.
age cutoff: this will only be used for energy weapons. age is the total battery left in the weapon. as with heat, age is also measure as a percent. the plasma pistol starts with 100% age. this is 100% battery power. everytime you shoot, age goes down by 0.2%. that means that every 5 shots will drop the age % by 1. although one shot from a 100% age battery=99.8%, it will by displayed as 99% until the next 4 shots are fired, in which case it will drop to 98%
anchor: which corner of the screen will be the origin for hud placement. make it top left, as always

static elements: used for the flashing of ammo icons. open the bitmap used by the assault rifle. you will notice that there are the ammo icons for the toher weapons as well. how does the assault rifle specify which is its own? i will get to that in a moment. now make it show alpha. basically, when making ammo alphas, your alpha channel will be the same as the base.
state attached to: this is quite simple. this tells us what this block of hud is used for.
can use on map type: this was for the original xbox where they had smaller icons for split screen. just make it solo.
anchor offset: this is the offset of the image from the anchor. y is the vertical axis and x is the horizontal axis. 20 to x will move the image 20 pixels up, -20 will move is 20 pixels down. same goes for side to side with y. note that when you make the anchor top right, adding 20 to y will move it to the left instead of to the right.
height and width scaling: ok so say you made your bitmap too big or too small. this is where you scale it. 0.8 will make it 80% smaller, 1.2 will make it 20% bigger.
scaling flags: i doubt you will be using any of these except high res scale. basically, they do exactly what they say
default color: well in ammo alphas, you make it 0
flashing color: the first field is the alpha (transparency). 0 is invisible and 255 is totally visable. use common sense to make it something in the middle if you want transparent flashes. r is red, g is green and b is blue. luckly for you, there is also that little box on the right that lets you set the color with a visual interface.
flashig elements:
flash period- how long (in seconds) the flash lasts for.
flash delay- flash delay is the time (again, in seconds) is the pause between each flash period
number of flashes- how many times it will flash within the flashing period
flash length- how long each flash is.
disabled color: make this the same as the flashing color.
sequence index: ALRIGHTY remeber how all those ammo icons for different guns were all together? this is how you tell the game which set to use. this gets very confusing though, so i use pne bitmap per alpha. it takes a bit more fire size, but hey, its simple right?

Multitex overlay: as stated before, i will not be going into these

Meter elements: this here is the meat of your hud. this is the block where you specify the bitmap that contains the same icons as the alpa bitmap, except the alpha of these are much different.
open the bitmap, view alpha, notice the alpha is in a gradient. this controls which of the icons lights up when. now youll see that its basically a box painted over the icon. that is PERFECTLY ok and is actually necesary for the icon to work properly. the alpha here is confuzing but easy once you get it: the alpha from white to black, controlls which direction the bullet icons empty in. it goes from white to black.
color at meter minimum and maximum: now this is kinda cool. if i set the max to be red and the min to be blue, it would make a gradient between the two as i fired.
flashing: leave it black. we already handled flashing in the alphas.
empty color: once the round has been fired, what color to turn the icon.
minimum meter value: leave it at 0. if you set up your alpha right, you shouldnt need to play with this
sequence index: same as the alphas
alpha multiplier: this... is the worst to deal with. you cannot have decimals. IF your meter was set up correctly, this formula will work: 240 divided by total clip size = your alpha multiplier. assault rifle ammo=60, 240 / 60 = 4
alpha bias: this is just as confuzing: say you set up your alpha right, but you started too far into the gradient, so for the first 3 shots, nothing happens, then when you empty the magazine, theyre are still 3 icons left lit. you would set the alpha bias to alpha multiplier multiplied by the number of icons (see i told you, confuzing as hell).
value scale: you shouldnt have to use this. lave it at 0
opacity: i dont know, leave it at 0
tanslucency: since we use the alpha for meters, this controls the transparency (0-1, 1 being totally visable)
disabled color: im not totaly sure why this is here... we have the empty color so why disabled too? make it black.

Number elements:
ok you should know everything up to disabled color, so just look at the above stuff
max number of digits: if your gun holds a total of 60 rounds in the magazine, make this 2. if your doing numbers for secondary shots, and you can hold... 5 of them, make this one.
show leading zeros: if your gun holds 60 rounds, and you have 9 left, then the tens place will display a 0. this should be checked becuase it makes life esier
only show when zoomed: i guess you might wanna put an ammo counter next to the reticle (like the sniper rifle in halo 2). thats what youd use this for
show a trailing m: puts the m after your numbers. used for nav markers
number of fractional digits: i never used this, but i guess this is what you could use to make the plasma pistol show its 99.8% number.
divide number by clip size: for the flame thrower mainly. how many canisters do you have left? 600? nooo, you have 6 left.

Crosshairs: these are a real pain in the ass if you wanna have things pop up at the reticle, such as "low ammo" or "reload". this is why we use the ui\hud\master rounds hud interface: this is the one hud interface that has the number elements and the low ammo reticle addons. we reference it so that we dont need to add the same thing to every hud
the stock weapons use ui\hud\bitmaps\combined\hud_reticles for all of the bitmaps, but you can reference your own. only add one block for each crozzhair element unless ur gonna use a multisequenced bitmap to give it different colors (like the rafgun if anyone remebers that)
flashing color: this is what color the reticle turns when its over an enemy and at the appropriate distance (as specified in the weapon tag) becuase if youre using a shotgun and the reticle is on a grunt a mile away, it should turn red. set the flash period, delay, and length to 1 that way it always stays red. you can mess with this if you wanna make a cool flashing effect when you are aiming at something
disabled color: should be black. i dont know what happens if you set it to a different color
sequence index: you should know by now
always check "flashes when active". if you dont, the reticle wont chance color when your aiming at something
not a sprite: only check this if you have made your reticle a 2d texture. reticles should NEVER be 2d textures, because whenn you set texture quality to anything but high, anything that the game sees as a 2d texture becomes blurry. always make hud elements a sprite
show only when zoomed: the hugeass sniper only shows that big aiming reticle when zoomed. this is how you do that.
show sniper data: show the target distance and elevation when aiming (to make it only show when zoomed, make sure to check off only show when zoomed)
hide area outside reticle: i dont know
one zoom level: only show this for one zoom level. i dont know how to specify which though... this is how the 2x and 8x thing is done on the sniper rifle though
dont show when zoomed: im getting my cattle prodder if you dont know what this is

Overlays: for extra hud elements, such as putting an icon on top of an hud background. why compile the same background a hundred times will all sorts of icons on them? thats what this is for

screen effect: when you zoom in with the pistol, notice how the whole outside of the scope, and some of the inside gets all warped. this is where you do that, along with the scope overlay
mask: this is just the overlay bitmap used for the scope (splitsceen does not need to be set). check show only when zoomed, otherwise you will se it always
convolution: i would just open the pistol or the sniper and copy whatever is in there. i think fov in bounds is the degrees on the screen that are exempt from the warping. check "show only when zoomed"
night vision: this is what the game uses to make things brighter onscreen. only when zoomed means the nightvision can only be turned on when you are zoomed in. connect to flashlight means that you can turn nightvision on and off by pressing the flashlight key. im not sure what script source is. make it 1. intensity is how much the nightvision works (1 means full strength)
desaturation: this is that green tint we get when using the night vision. make sure to check additive and masked. you should check the other two as well. set script source to 1. intensity is how much the tint is stressed on the nightvision. set tint to whatever color you want to see.

messaging info: this is the pickup icon stuff
sequence index: where you specify the index of the pickup icon
width offset: set this to 2
override icon color: this is used to make the icon show up a different color than specified in the hud globals. to make the color work, check off the "override default color" box
use text from string list: i never used this, but i assume this is for making the hud display text instead of an icon. i dont know what text is referenced though.

Edited by Donut on Aug 22, 2008 at 12:47 AM