Quote:
Chapter titles use "unicode_string_list" tags for storing the text.

For that, get this string list editor. It makes editing unicode_string_list tags much easier, since you can just open and save the tags directly without having to compile through Tool: http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=1049

Then, using the string list editor, make a new "unicode_string_list" tag with as many strings as you want. Each string will be one Chapter Title. Once you're done, save the tag anywhere, but preferably in the same folder as your scenario tag. Name it whatever you want.

Next, in Guerilla, open up the scenario tag. Go all the way to the very bottom and you'll see "Cutscene Titles". Just under there should be a tag reference that says "ingame help text". Browse on that one, and select the tag you just saved.

Then, just next to "Cutscene Titles", click the "Add" button to make as many chapter titles as you need. Just under should be "name". Make the names whatever you want, but make them easy to remember because that name is used in the script.

Now, the "text bounds" and "justification" should be self-explanatory, but they're not. I'm not sure what screen resolution the game assumes as a standard when using the "text bounds" values. If someone knows, that would help. But, t = top, b = bottom, l = left, and r = right bounds, and the 3 justifications are general positions: "left, right, center". You can mess with those some if you want a different position than usual, but if you want the usual, just enter these values that I got from a10's scenario:

t: 425
l: 0
b: 446
r: 597
justification: right

That actually makes it come out to the left, oddly enough.

Once that's done, set the "string index" to the index of the string you want to use for that chapter title. If you're not sure, you can get the number by opening the string list tag and looking at the number to the left of each string right in Guerilla. It starts from "0" and goes up.

Then comes the text color. The "r, g, b" values are just 0-255 levels of red, green, and blue to make a color. You don't have to worry about that, just select the color by clicking the box to the right. Most likely you want white. Most of the time, the shadow is set to black, but it can be changed too. Don't miss the "a" before each color though, that's the alpha transparency. 0 = fully transparent, 255 = opaque. So most likely you want 255 for no transparency.

Then, the fade times should be self-explanatory. "up time" is how long it stays fully opaque on screen once it fades in, "fade in" is how long it takes to fade in, and "fade out", same thing, but fading out.

Then, the script is the easy part. Whenever you want the chapter title displayed, just use this command:

(cinematic_set_title "cutscene_title")

Usually you want the letterbox to appear and the hud to disappear in conjunction with that. Just as a reminder, it's:

(cinematic_show_letterbox "boolean")

and

(show_hud "boolean")

Quote:
hud_messages are different from unicode_string_lists that the string list editor saves. These you're going to have to do manually in notepad and compile them with Tool.

First off, in your notepad file, each line will be one hud message. Don't make them too long, as Halo does not clip the message to a new line in-game, and instead it runs off the screen. However, there is a way to make new lines if you really need that much text. It's shown later in the tutorial.

You have to name each message with a name that's easy to remember so you can refer to it in a script, and then directly after the message name, stick an "=" sign and then write the message right after. So, here's an example of a few lines:

vehicle_warning=>> WARNING: Enemies Alerted
crapload=>> Eliminate All Covenant Forces
crapload_1=>> Then Advance Into The Area

You don't have to include the ">>" at the beginning, but it was used for most hud messages and it looks best to have it.

Now, if you find yourself absolutely needing more space than the screen offers for one message, there is a 'new line' character and it looks like this:

|n

Wherever this character is placed, the text after it will be part of a new line on the screen. I doubt it's necessary, but whenever Bungie used this newline character they always put one space before and 4 spaces after it. It's probably for aligning the new line with the first line, so I would do the same. Here's an example from b40's hud_messages (you might not see the 4 spaces, so just quote me to see them):

obj_chasm2=>> Reach the transition to the |n third chasm.

After you have all of the messages you need, save the file in the exact same directory as your scenario is located under the "tags" folder, but in your "data" folder, and you must save it as "hud messages.hmt" without quotes and change the "Encoding" to "Unicode", not the default "ANSI". You will know what I mean when you go to save with Notepad. Tool will not compile correctly unless you do all of these steps.

For example, if your scenario is located in "tags\levels\amazingmap\amazingmap.scenario", then you either have to find "data\levels\amazingmap" or create that directory and then save it there, resulting in the file's path being "data\levels\amazingmap\hud messages.hmt".

Then at this point you're ready to do the tool command hud-messages, which is:

tool hud-messages (path) (scenario name)

So, for the example above, I would type:

tool hud-messages levels\amazingmap amazingmap

because the path to either the scenario or the messages file is the same: "levels\amazingmap" and the scenario name is of course "amazingmap".

It then compiles your hud_messages tag into the tags folder where your scenario is and automatically gives a reference to it from your scenario so you don't have to do it yourself. Then, you're ready to refer to these messages in your script.

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(show_hud_help_text "boolean")

shows or hides the hud help text

"boolean" meaning you can enter "true" or "false", as in "yes" or "no", or you can enter "1" or "0", respectively. When this is turned on, the hud message selected will be constantly displayed, so you should turn it off again when you want it to disappear.

(hud_set_help_text "hud_message")

displays "message" as the help text

This command selects which hud message to be displayed when the command above is set to "true". You use the name of whatever was before the "=" sign for the message you want in the original ".hmt" file you compiled. For example, for this line in the hmt file:

ohcraphelpme=>> You're Screwed, Have Fun

If you want that message, you use this command like so:

(hud_set_help_text ohcraphelpme)

(hud_set_objective_text "hud_message")

sets "message" as the current objective

This command does the same thing as the one above, except it sets the message to be displayed when you hit "Esc" and go to the pause menu under "Objectives".