So, I have two projects I'm going to work on simultaneously. One being a serious project, the other, just for kicks. I'm not gonna mention anything about the first project, but I am starting up a new map team for it... My brother, being pretty good with photoshop, said he'd make the textures. Since I'm getting better with modeling, I'll make the model, obviously... I used to be good with tagging, but not so much. Obviously I'll need some help with scripting and tagging, and a little bit of professional modeling edits, but this is for another time; I'll work on showing my modeling skills and getting screenshots later...


First off, I have some questions about my second project. I know it'll sound cheesy, but I want to make a racetrack, sort of. I've seen maps like DMT's racing track, Rainbow Road, Luigi Raceway, etc.; they're all moderately fun when you have nothing better to do, but don't really want serious gaming. However, I'm going to use Civilian Hogs since they look the best, but disable weaponry so noone can go about killing one another, much like they did in DMT's racing track... So, how do I go about removing the starting weapons & grenades? I could probably figure it out, but unsure of messing around too much and screwing everything up.

Aside from that, I was hoping perhaps to make some altered forms to the racetrack, such as a possible loop or barrel-roll track. Is there any way via scripting to alter gravity in a trigger volume, so that when you drive through the "corkscrew" part of the track, the gravity would hug you to the track to prevent falling off? It doesn't seem entirely illogical, but I wasn't really sure. I know you can lessen gravity, but I don't know if you can change the direction...

On top of that, if you've played DMT's racing track, there are teleports if you fall off, leading back to the track. How would I create these vehicle teleports? It really does make the map more enjoyable when you don't die or end up unable to get back up.

Also, I need some suggestions for what I could do to make the track more entertaining. I do want the vehicles moderately overclocked, but I don't want something insane like Desert_Storm... I just need some ideas, because I'm very uninspired and lacking in creativity right now...

I'm too focused on my main project, which I will work on, but I want to have some fun too.

il answer these.

removing weaponary is quite easy. go to gurilla, scenario. go to starting equiment (something like that) delete all existing one, create a new one, check no grenades and dont add any weapons. next, go to net game equiment, and delete everything. (keep powerups if you want to).

next, go to globals. in weapons, delete everything. now, to disable vehicles killing players, theres two ways. 1st: edit the collision of player biped to have very high hp. 2nd, edit the vehicle collision damage effect to 1 instead of 1000.

vehicle teleporting is easy scripting. you basicly use a trigger volume which when the player (no matter if in vehicle or not) enters it, the script detects it and teleports to a certain cutscene flag. check halo scripting bible for details.

ideas:

the broken bridge (ghost vehicle recomended): as the name says, its a bridge full of holes and gaps. great for jumpy, and a bit dirty (ghosts pushing each other off bridge) game play.

jumping pit (warthog vehicle recomended): thats where the fun comes (: warthogs wil fall in in high speed, but a trigger volume will wait there, ready to flip any player that comes in back into the race.

cliff driving: this part would be like this: the course goes slowly down, till the angle is almost directly down. in the end of the cliff thing, the course goes slowly stright again. example:

_
\
|
|
|
|
\
---
double jump: this would be over a pit. here, the race course would lead into a ramp jump, just like the one in yoyorast island. but, after the jump, youll have to do another jump over the pit, cutting the the first jump. would lead into an intersting game where youll try to escape vehicles jumping right infront of you, or you both will fall into the pit.

Alright. Thanks for the weaponry thing. I knew about deleting all the netgame equipment, but I wasn't sure how to disable starting equipment. Also, thanks for the info to disable splattering. I hadn't even thought about that, but that's definitely something I want to implement...


The broken bridge idea's pretty good. I'll definitely implement that into the Ghost/Bulldog track. I think I may put Mongooses as well, and I hope I can fix the Bulldog animation. I have a miserable version where they're sunk into the vehicle.


The cliff driving would be pretty awesome especially if it's possible to implement altered gravity, but without it, you'd just drive straight off. No matter how long it takes for the angle to shift from -- to |, you still lose traction once it reaches a \ level, and will flip as soon as it shifts to |.


The double-jump, though I'm slightly confused, did inspire me for another idea for the Warthog track... I'll create two warthog tracks. This way there are 4 teleporters from the initial spawns, each one with a sign indicating which track it leads to.

On the first hog track, it'll be one individual track that everyone races on, which makes it fun because you have to try to survive the obstacles without the people in front, behind, or beside you, causing you to wreck... Sort of like a Burnout approach, just without the ramming into other vehicles sides', smashing them into the wall, exploding them, and gaining NOS (boost)...

On the second, however, will have parts of the track that fork, splitting into two tracks, so that there are various intersections where chaos can occur. A flat ground + shaped intersection, so that ground collision is possible, as well as an aerial X shaped jump... Etcetera.


If you could explain the double-jump idea a bit better, I'd appreciate it; Also, feedback on whether the second track would even be worth it at all.

in cliff driving i ment that it will not by exacly stright down, so youll stay close to the course.

double jump: imagine an "x" first. thats the basic of it. the vehicles drive into the first two ramps: /. the vehicle will drive off the ramp, and land on the ramp in the other side, just like in yoyorast island. next, youll make a turn into the other two ramps: \ which would be the same as the first two. (which will be over a pit.)

..----\
./.....|
.|.....|
.\.....|
..--......---<
.......|
.......|
.......v

Precisely what I meant. Thank you.



That's neat, but it'd be tough to really get it to turn out wonderfully without 16 players or something, because by the time you got around the curve to the second jump everyone would be right behind you.

I'll simply implement some aerial intersections via the multi-track course.

1: I wonder how they had no weapons in the beggining of PoA? I'll look into it. I think that you'de have to delete starting equipment and netgame equipment in the scenario, and I don't know about messing with the biped tag.

To make people not take damag, use the command "(object_cannot_take_damage ) " and or "(unit_impervious ) " to make the players invincible and from being knocked around.


2: For the corcscrew part, read through this
http://forum.halomaps.org/index.cfm%3Fpage=topic&topicID=24006&start=lastpage
to find out how to make a player into a unit.

Actually, scratch that, vehicles are units anyway. and they'll be in vehciles.
You can use the script command (unit_suspended ) to kill the gravity in a trigger volume surrounding the loop. To makew the vehicles "hug" the indie, the only way I can think of is to have a continuous damage effect (that doesn't actually fo any damag), hovering in the center of the loop that has a large push force, similar to how they make the mancannons in some maps.

You can teleport vehicles with scripts. Some easy scripting programs have vehicle telleporting. Use them. (search "easy halo scripter V2"

As for ideas, the ones above are good. You can use the above technique to make mancannons. Maybe you could have an underwater part? Or a part on ice (because it's slippery and hogs don't get good traction on it. Remember you can make a custom shader to ahve whatever traction you want.)