hey can someone create an shelf, like for holding ammo. like the one in halo reach, the one in this video in 1:08 - 1:20 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTwYK9vY20s&playnext=1&videos=I3gA1VapKgs&feature=grec_index


if anyone will make this, tell me cuz i need this for my map!!!
Edited by leyuen on Aug 7, 2010 at 11:40 PM

I too need something like that. However, I can't look at the video right now, but I assume they are really complex if they're coming from Reach. I plan on making simple yet nice shelving units that optimize vertex count for the less than satisfactory CE network. As such, my main goal is to get the purpose of the shelving units into CE; that is, I need something to tidily hold weapons. Design and detail are secondary.

If you are still interested, PM me and I can whip something up to your specs (to a degree).

kool man send me pics or a link of it once you can make it.

Behold, pictures!:






Note that the weapons will of course fit better if you play around with their positioning. I just hate Sapien's method of moving and translating objects. Took me 10 minutes just to place those 4 weapons...ugh.

I can't recall the file info right off the top of my head, but I believe it has 200 vertices. I used some slight of hand to deal with some of the errors, notably edge updates, by separating the wire grating as its own object, and I made it slightly 3D. The crossmemebers are also like that, because there was no way in hell I was going to mesh all those objects into one. That much detail just isn't needed on a model like this.

I am very pleased with how it turned out, since I whipped the whole thing up in about 2 hours, which included making the wire framing .tif, bitmap, and shader, as well as the shelves' own bitmap and shader. The wire frame bitmap is two sided, but I haven't finished playing around with its or its shader's settings. This model has no bump maps...yet. It does need some though.

Anyways, to those interested in the unit as is, I can either look into uploading them to some file share site, or just package them and submit them to Halomaps, depending on how many people actually like it.

To those looking for something different, reply to this thread or PM me with design specifications. Note that I will NOT attempt to replicate anything from Reach (too many polys!) but I can use a model (at your suggestion) on which to base the design, then tool it according to CE engine limitations.

you know i love it!!!!

I need to get them up...curse my laziness...

that model should only be 18 or so triangles, doublesided to make 36 max.
Edited by Maniac1000 on Sep 2, 2010 at 11:52 PM

Nah it's more than that. Those wire meshes you see are actually rectangles, as in rectangular prisms (not just faces). They're rectangles because I didn't want to go all out in blending them into the shelves so I could solve my problem with updating edge errors. So I made them their own shape, detached them, and put them nice and close to make it look like they are one.

Same with the frames. It would've taken forever to mesh them in with the shelves, so they are also their own element, put up close to make it look like it was part of the shelves. As such, there are more faces than I'd like to have, but shouldn't be too much of a problem. Basically I pulled a few slight of hands to fix all the errors and still get the same appearance, but at the expense of adding more polys than need be. Again, there is only like 30 or so polys extra, and I am confident that I overestimated that number.

A grate bitmap with an alpha would have worked too.

Oh I'm not saying the actual mesh is made entirely of polys. God no. All it is is a rectangular prism with the mesh bitmap projected onto it. The bitmap is a grate bitmap with alpha. I don't think I made it two-sided though, since it's on the prism.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I turned the mesh into a prism so it would have collision with other objects, otherwise it'd be there, but you could toss a weapon or nade through the mesh as if it didn't exist. That, and weapons could lean up against it.
Edited by CAG Gonzo on Sep 3, 2010 at 07:41 AM

To ensure the mesh had collision, it had to be connected to other faces so it could be 3D. If I connected the mesh to the shelves, then I get update edge errors, which means that a particular edge is being shared by 3or more faces. To fix that, I detached the faces that had my mesh on them and made them their own element, linked to the shelves. I then made said faces 3D by extrudng the faces. The result is a really thin rectangular prism that looks 2D, but now has collision without getting update edge errors.

The frames (or crossmemebrs) were done the same way. All they are is two rectangular prisms crossed over each other, which I then applied a Boolean to, and simply mived it close to the shoves so that it was in the shelf itself. However, since it was not part of the shelf model and was iits own model, linked to the shelves, tool did not find any update errors.

I get it, but I think you could have used a double-sided shader. It's how you make glass in a BSP.

That was the plan, but I couldn't figure out how to connect the mesh faces to the shelves without getting edge update errors.

You use a double-sided shader. Let me repeat that: You use a double-sided SHADER. Just model the collision as if the face had two sides. And use a double-sided shader. Look in the HEK tutorial for shader symbols. This is also how you make glass.

Let me reiterate that I am aware of the use of a double-sided shader. I originally planned to use that. HOWEVER, I did not make the mesh a 3D object because I couldn't make a double-sided shader. I made it an object because I wanted it to have collision properties. If I attached the mesh to the triangular shelf legs, I got update edge errors, because the point at which I connected the mesh faces to already was connected to two other faces. So, to solve it, I detached it, and extruded the faces back a little so I could have my collision work properly. The fact that it also made it double-sided was just aside effect. I could attach the faces to the shelves, but then I lose its collision properties.

I understand how you did it. I'm just asking...
Why can't you make a double-sided shader? What's the problem?
Edited by SlappyThePirate on Sep 4, 2010 at 08:08 PM

Oh. My apologies. It's not that I can't, I just didn't. Unless I'm mistaken, making a shader double-sided doesn't give it collision properties...but given the direction your going, it sounds like I'm wrong. If that's the case, I'll simply cut down the polys and attach the mesh faces back to the shelves, add a '!' to the material name, and make its corresponding shader double-sided.