Hi all, I'm Theta, simple as that. I've been watching halomaps for a bit and thought it was about time I joined. I was sort of inspired by JimDaRulah to do it today.
Anyway, since I know pretty much zero about HCE modding, I've made this thread about questions in point form. I hope to contribute a lot!

I will update this pretty regularly

1. Is it possible to have a rectangular radar on the HUD?
2. Is it possible to have a minimap on the radar like this?
3. Can new functions be added to UI? like an extra menu in the main menu?
4. Is there a thread for HUDs and UIs? I can't find it if there is.
5. What controls the pause menu appearance in halo? the map file or the UI file?
6. Does the map file control fonts?
7. Is it possible to add a custom endgame score screen to a map? If so, how?
8. Can anyone point me to a tutorial for HUDs/UIs for an absolute beginner?
9. For a UI where would I modify the loading screen?
10. Okay this is kinda unrelated but I saw something like it in a different thread. This is a big question to Dennis: Can I send you an image pack to upload? Of course they would all be appropriate and you could check them personally.

? I don't understand

Surprises are everywhere.

"she" is a he from argentina
Lol
Edited by LMT Heretic on Mar 27, 2012 at 12:15 PM
Edited by LMT Heretic on Mar 27, 2012 at 12:15 PM

what the!. i'm a man! god damm..

shut up.. ¬¬

what,did i said to much information? if so, sorry

2 more questions:

11. Has anyone seen a map that looks nothing like halo? I'm looking for a few examples.
12. Can someone explain fp arms or whatever they are called? From what I have seen it is a model of the arms and a weapon on your screen but my question is: Are the arms and weapon related? I mean if they are part of one model, couldn't you theoretically have a different set of arms for every gun you pick up?

Good luck with your projects, θ.

Lol, get it?

Some of these may be answers you already got, but oh well.

7 & 9: I have done custom loading screens before, but I don't remember how right now, if I remember I will check when I get home and let you know (it is pretty simple though). I am pretty sure that the end screen works the same way.

11: Take a look at Ambush, that is probably the most custom map around (at least that is any good)

12: First off, no, you can not have a different set of arms per weapon. You set the fp arms for the map not for the weapon. Basically you have a rigged model of the arms and you link them to the map in the globals (I think), and then those arms are used for all the weapons in the map. When you see the model of the arms and weapon together that is probably for animating. When you create your first person weapon animations you have to have both the arms model and the weapon model together and then you animate them. But those models never go in-game, they are all converted to frames and nodes (the mesh is deleted) when you compile.

Hope this helps

Cheers Yoda

13. Okay, so I've got my images, I load Tool++, select bitmap, load my image and hit run tool. It gives me this:
==> !!WARNING!! failed to open TIFF: file does not exist <==

Couldn't read map file './toolbeta.map'

Is this supposed to happen? And where do the compiled bitmaps go after they're processed by tool? Do you need a specific file type for tool to work?

No.toolbeta isn't supposed to be found.Ever.Check for a tif file.

I am not entirely sure what the error is, but you should try the following:

1. Make sure that you have a .tif and that it is in a location that you can easily find (for example, if you were making a weapon it would be in data/weapons/"your weapon"/bitmaps)

2. I personally don't like tool++ I would suggest just copying a command prompt into your halo ce root directory and typing the commands manually. (using the same example as above for bitmaps you would type "tool bitmaps weapons/"your weapon"/bitmaps" but without the quotations)

3. if that works than the .bitmap tag will be saved to tags/weapons/"your weapon"/bitmaps

and one last note, all bitmaps for halo MUST be in .tif format and only certain dimensions work. (pretty much any multiple of 512... so like 256, 512, 1024, etc...)

Hope this helps

Actually it is powers of 2. So 2,4,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024, etc... Which I suppose are multiples of 512.

Yea, I know. But who needs a bitmap that is 2x2 or 4x4... I just gave 512 is sorta the base size, so that is what I mentioned.