I'm looking to make a realism mode for the Halo:CE original campaign maps. I have a little experience with modding other games, so I'm not a complete noob, and it shouldn't be TOO hard, because I'm not looking to change any assets.

Could someone please point me in the direction of what I need to do, if I simply want to change values like damage, projectile velocity, accuracy, etc, in order to create a more "simluation-ish" campaign experience for Legendary. An example would be taking an elite down with 6-9 shots from the assault rifle (and a far more accurate assault rifle), or getting killed by two plasma bolts. Stuff like that. :)

Thanks in advance!
Edited by exist on Dec 28, 2010 at 05:05 AM

I don't get what you're trying to do here...
Is this for making a campaign based off the books?

I suggest you gain a little experience before starting anything, trust me, making content for this game is VERY complicated when starting out. I had to follow a tutorial step-by-step while making my first map.

Stickies are there for a reason.

http://forum.halomaps.org/index.cfm%3Fpage=topic&topicID=8580

I'm not trying to make a new campaign based off of the books. I'm trying to modify damage/accuracy/etc values in the existing Halo PC campaign maps in Halo:CE, in order to create an experience more like the realism portrayed in the books.


I assume I would have to use Sapien to do this? I've made mods for Dawn of War before, and made a few Flash games, but, of course, all of the tools are very different.

I'd like to make a few changes, like modifying the accuracy of the assault rifle and boosting it's damage a few times. Or modifying the velocity of plasma rifle bolts and upping their damage as well. Am I falsely assuming that these tweaks are one of the simplest things one could do, since I'm not trying to include any new maps or assets?
Edited by exist on Dec 28, 2010 at 06:13 AM

Apparently you didn't read, but he just completely spelled out what he wants to do so I guess I won't rant now.

Yeah, changing existing values for weapons and such is fairly simple. You'll have to get the HEK (Halo Editing Kit) and HEK+ (allows you to rip from maps so you can edit things). The main thing you'll need is in the HEK and it's named "Guerilla."

With it you can open up 'tags' (the weapon's values, etc) and modify them. Then you'll save what you've changed, and compile it together with Tool.

I can't entirely explain because I'm going to be gone most of the day today so hopefully someone else is nice enough to assist.

That could mean anything...
Edited by MoooseGuy on Dec 28, 2010 at 07:16 AM

What about Halo Mapping Tools?

what it sounds like you want to do is just edit the values of the game data. stuff's easy, and that's honestly all you can really do with the engine. modding this game is nothing more than following templates and putting in information into their respective boxes. download the editing kit, open the existing weapon tags (should be in tags in the ce root dir) with guerilla, and have a look at them. they branch off into other tags, such as the projectiles, effects, etc. you can even give projectiles tracers if you'd like. weapon mods are super easy, it's a very simple process to edit them. I'd suggest saving anything you edit as a new tag and using those as to not mix them up with the stock stuff. you can place it in-game in a test level with sapien, then compile it with tool into a .map file

this should get you on your feet, halo's a lot different than many other game engines... you don't need to know squat about programming to make stuff. easy to use but you can only do so much

also, if you're going for realism, make use of recoil. you can't really get outrageously realistic with halo considering the whole "perfect aim while walking and jumping" thing that can't be changed because the engine is a piece of crap but.. well, you can definitely make the guns act a bit more believable

this stuff is pretty easy to do, but i doubt that it will be fun, especially on legendary

Apparently the books make halo look like a more realistic shooter experience?
You can change this stuff in guerilla. And if you can use a 3d modeling program, you can make completely new things as well. Perhaps you want to make more human scenery and stuff, for barricades.

Thank you everyone for your very helpful responses! :)

No, you didn't read the whole post:
.

It's all spelled out in the first post. Don't give me any BS about how you couldn't tell, that's just sheer ignorance and thoughtlessness towards him.

The Halo Editing Kit, often abbreviated as HEK, was released by Gearbox Software along with the Halo Custom Edition. It includes, among other things, basic "tags" for bitmaps, vehicles, weapons, bipeds, and other necessary elements of a Halo map.

Contents:

The kit comes with three programs designed to assist mappers.
LINK TO HEK:http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=411

Tool:

The first program is Tool. Tool is both the backbone and the pain of CE. Although it is capable of everything from bitmap creation to the final map-building, its old-style command prompt methods have been rather frustrating for at least a few mappers.

Guerilla:

The second program, known as Guerilla and has the icon of what appears to be Che Guevarra, a guerilla leader, edited to look like a gorilla (pun intended), opens tags and edits them. Tags are files that make up everything in a Halo map: weapons, vehicles, etc. Guerilla can edit them so that mappers can alter what a specific item, what it does and how it looks (such as change a vehicle's color). Guerilla tends to crash when it encounters corrupted tags.

Sapien:

The third program is Sapien, continues the primate naming scheme. Sapien opens scenario tags and creates a visual representation of the final map. Mappers can insert vehicles and weapons, place spawn points, and make camera points for cutscenes. Everything that can be positioned in the map physically is done with Sapien. This is widely considered the easiest program of the three, and is comparable to Halo 3's Forge. However, Sapien is slow-loading, and tends to crash often; its debug.txt file is useful when attempting to diagnose such problems.

Other Materials:

The Halo Editing Kit also includes a tutorial in the form of a step-by-step walkthrough of the making of the accompanying tutorial map. The tags that come with the kit are almost singularly made for this small map and include select bitmaps from the Campaign and Multiplayer maps. The combination of the tags, programs, and tutorial gives players a glimpse into the unique possibilities of the Halo Custom Edition.
Also, there are some programs that prove to be very useful such as Gmax/3DS Max for 3d modeling, and Photoshop for creating TIF images for creating bitmaps.

Hacked HEK:

Because the HEK is only a basic group of files, CE mappers had to experiment with it and share their discoveries on the workings of the game in order to form a useful knowledge base for editing. Over time, they realized that most of the game's tags were excluded from the HEK, eliminating a huge amount of creative possibilities.
It was at this point that people began tinkering with the HEK programs. Kornman produced a new version of Guerilla called "Kornman00", which unlocked all the grayed-out areas in the program. The new program allows for editing of terrain bitmaps and AIs, as well as many other previously impossible actions. He also created a user-friendly version of tool called "Tool++" and an unlocked version of Sapien called "a_hobo".
LINK TO Tool++:http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=578
LINK TO Kornman00:http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=1422
LINK TO a_hobo:http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=1081

HEK+:

The largest breakthrough in regards to tag availability was Steelix B's "HEK+", which allows anyone to enter any original or custom map and extract any tag they want. Along with a few others, Steelix recompiled the entire Halo PC game into its basic parts. CE mappers now are able to do nearly anything they want, including programming AIs into maps, adding usable Pelicans and Longswords, easily creating Campaign-to-Multiplayer conversions or ripping the BSP from it. Also, this program had a feature to "protect" maps, which denied access to tag extraction. However, there was an encryption key, which could unprotect maps as long the the key matches the one used to protect the map.
LINK TO HEK+:http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=2289
Edited by pepzee on Dec 28, 2010 at 12:26 PM

I thought you meant something like the data pads or terminals

which unfortunately goes against the mgcur

Adding / editing AI without Kornman is impossible? I've been using the standard Guerilla this whole time and never encountered any issues with AI.

I don't understand what HIAHG is talking about...


I never said you adding or editing without guerilla is impossible. Quote me where I said that.
Edited by pepzee on Dec 29, 2010 at 01:27 PM

You implied that the original lacked the feature by saying that the new program allows for it. Why state that the new program allows for it if the old one is perfectly capable of it? I'm just curious if there's something in Kornman that I don't know about in regards to AI.

I never implied such a thing. If I never stated that you could not edit AI in Guerilla then I never meant or implied it.

I do edit AI much so I do not know the extra features it unlocks for AI editing. So I do not know, sorry.
Edited by pepzee on Dec 29, 2010 at 02:19 PM

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Community/Developer/Rules

basically,

"thou shalt not reverse engineer"

the Kornman guerilla, in regards to editing the AI is exactly the same.
I prefer to use the Kornman guerilla either way, because I seem to like the display more than the original guerilla...
Even though its marginally different. :/

Oh lookie! A thread that shows all the necessary tools to create a custom map? Bookmarked!

Well, I doubt Dennis would host anything illegal, I hope.

it's hard to say, it's no doubt some of these maps were created using hacked tools, you have to wonder if they're in some sort of gray area

I wouldn't change weapon values as much. I'd actually change the health values because your current health is too buff, I'd change the player's health from 100 to 10 or 15 (maybe 20), that way you can die by a few plasma bolts. The shielding for spartans were pretty weak in the books so I'd set the player shielding to probably 20 from 100.

Microsoft dont give a dam.
They dont care what you do with any of their stuff, providing you dont make a ton of cash from it, or they dont loose any cash from it.

I really doubt they care, just don't bring too much attention to yourself. To create a realism map in halo is nearly impossible. You'd have to get things to actually sync and not lag the game. You can make bullets reflect and\or penetrate certain materials and even edit their damages when they do that, but beyond editing some small values that will hardly be noticed, there's not much you can do. Halo 2 had syncing scenery that actually moved, and dual wielding, reach had running, and tons of other stuff. To make it more real you would need to:

Add a working running system.

Make it so when you get shot in the arm, you can't use it.

Make it so when you get shot in the leg you can't move\run\walk.

add moving and syncing scenery.

Make it so you can actually trip on a rock or kick or make it so when the player gets hit by a car and flies in the air you aren't always upright.

Make a better melee system so you can melee faster and turn as you melee n such.


soo many things more that are impossible.

I was playing kinect the other day and i slipped on my controller. ouch indeed. My avatar fell aswell. i lol'd cos it took a pic of it when i was playing river rush on kinect adventures. lol. In kinect, you can do all that of which you said, well mainly the ones that apply to the player.

I hope you add more gore.

one more person pirating a song from the internet: as much as the artists "don't care," its still a crime

Making a program that hacks the memory of a 10year old game, and releasing it free, is not comparable with pirating songs.
try again.

yes it is, they're both illegal

One of those crimes is stealing from a feminine boy thing with a last name of 'Bieber' and the brain capacity of a toenail long forgotten under a rug (don't take the example literally).
The other is pissing off a multi-billion dollar company who can't quite realize the benefits of open source.

There is a very sizable difference there.

so, because people disagree with the company for not having their professionally made tool open sourced for any douche bag to screw around with and potentially hack the crap out of, that makes it perfectly acceptable?

sweet. by your logic, I'm going to go smoke a fat bowl and do hella lines because I personally think all drugs should be legalized and regulated. haha perfectly acceptable because who cares if the stuff's "illegal" right?

Let's start some arguments for the heck of it. That sounds fun.