I like your idea. It reminds me of the Plasma Sprayer that Ifaudafi made for ASCM. I still need an original design, but an alternative functionality is perfect.

Wow, I like that a lot. Honestly though it could use some new animations. Not to say the ones you have are bad, but the gravity hammer is just begging for some reworked animations since you now have weight at both ends of the weapon. That, and a super sick swipe/jab melee or whatever would be great. I love what you have so far.

So how does that method with adding extra BSP's to get extra tagspace work? I tried doing it with one of my scenarios and nothing seemed to have happened.
Edited by 50predator50 on Nov 5, 2013 at 10:32 PM

Could be wrong on this, but I believe the multiple BSP trick is used to attain a larger quantity of tags, rather than to bypass the file size limit for the cache file. I'm sure there's a limit on how many independent scenery, vehicle, weapon... tags can be used in a map, so I'd guess that adding the extra tags in the second scenario would allow them to be referenced for creation during gameplay.


If you're aiming for greater file size space, make the map SP, or use OS.
Tool_Pro doesn't exist.

I believe the little bit I know of about the child scenario trick is when TCK was experimenting with stud scripts and all. I don't know what exactly can and can't achieved by it, so check around for The Cereal Killer's work, as I'm pretty sure the problem you're having can be bypassed with this.



Also, realized how little this has to do with SOI's work here:

Adding a bit of a burning, or corrosive, effect to the pp's overcharge would be interesting addition, especially since those on the receiving end of the bolt would have quite a while to realize what they're about to be hit with (charging up time & green glow, plus the travel speed of the bolt).
Keep two things in mind, however, if you want to adhere to Halo's plasma rules that were stated somewhere sometime long ago:

• Plasma typically does not have a fast travel velocity, and in fact, should slow down over time. The size of the overcharged bolt is definitely not helping this case either.


• Plasma is devastatingly lethal to bare flesh. While it does make short work of most armor, melting it away, this is unfortunately one of the things that the Halo games do not take into account for gameplay. Plasma isn't, or at least hasn't really been any more effective against armored humans (Spartans, marines, ODST...) or unshielded Covenant than bullets have because it is believed they are always going into battle with brand new, non-weathered sets of armor that can withstand a bit of plasma before turning to a puddle.
  Because there is no 'armor condition'-to-'plasma reduction' mechanic, this isn't shown in-game.

When I use OS to bypass the file size limit on single player maps, I generally find that I get the "there are no more fee tag slots" error when I add too many new tags. Chances are you will get this error is you're adding all these tags to campaign scenarios.

I think that, if you are using zteam H3 weapons, that is problem. Most of their texture use a 32 bit compression, and their animations have a lot of useless ones, like multiple melee animations, equipment anims, and sprint anims. Zteam also used their own particles and sounds, but most of the time those particles use the same sprite of the stock ones. If you have in your map both zteam's weapons and tags that use the stock particles, those sprites will be counted twice.

I had this problem too, when I made my weapons. I usually make my effects using the stock particles (Ifaudafi's particles use custom sprites), compress my textures to DXT1 and remove all the unneeded sounds and animations. This counts obviously for every tag that is used twice.

Other than that, I don't know if there are other tips for improving the tag space. I'm sure that IT IS POSSIBLE, because CMT added all those stuff in SPv2 without OS, but I don't know if they explained how. Maybe you should ask Masters1337 (and maybe tell me what he said xD)...

By the way, here is the Gravity Hammer with the new thruster effect:

This. Tag slots are the real killer of mods, especially campaign mods. I don't understand why bungie had tag space limits AND a limited number of tag slots, or why the tag slot limits are so tragically low. And with mods that have a plethora of new tags, you'll have to cut a LOT of corners.
Edited by Delicon20 on Nov 6, 2013 at 10:13 PM

so that they could keep track of their console limitations and because mod capabilities were an afterthought.

UPDATE:

I have worked on the Plasma Pistol:





HOW IT IS MADE:

The grip now is connected to the bottom piece of the body, that now is almost parallel to the upper part. The central part has the H4 style lights, though I prefered a green tint. The display now has been splitted into 3 parts: the background hologram, the charge meter and the heat meter. The heat meter is the small inner circle, that slides from left to right, while the charge meter is the bigger one, that slides from top to bottom:









Most of the particles were made by Ifaudafi, but I have edited them a bit (like the charging effect).

FUNCTIONALITY:

The rate of fire of the regular bolts has been increased, and the overcharged bolt now, more than depleting shields, creates a plasma burn that consumes health for both unshielded and armored units (except Hunters). The plasma burn lasts for about 3 seconds:



SOUNDS:

All the sounds, except the melee animations, are the CEA ones.

What do you think?

It looks pretty good. I like it.

That hologram custom? Looks great.

VERRY NICE LOVE THE HOLOGRAM.

i'd say if u could split the display into three layers that would be awesome, somewhere around an inch distance between top and bottom layers (maybe less idk). the other two things are more my preference, but i'd say if u could get a nice material and maybe make the inner part of the lower limb less flat, taller at the top front with a bit more angle on the inside it would look amazing. awesome work on this, probably one of my favs since the BPR!
[edit] (on a further note i'd love to see a h2 blue color, but with a hr style metallic reflection. just preference though)
Edited by greg079 on Nov 9, 2013 at 04:10 PM

If you haven't done so already, I think the amount of damage it does to armored/shielded units should be set lower than the amount for unarmored units.

Edited by Dumb AI on Nov 9, 2013 at 10:12 PM

Oh man, its been a while since i've been on here...

Hey SOI! Ive enjoyed going through the thread and looking at your recent work, its very impressive :)

As far as the plasma pistol is concerned, I think you should look at making the FP profile of the weapons more distinctive. As a design change in general, it looks very similar to the original, where as most of your weapon modifications have much more striking visual differences to the original. Maybe something similar to your Plasma Rifle modifications.

Make Binary-Rifle/BoltShot esque prongs that pull out from the side when charging.

Also, those green bars on the inner part of the gun (the bridge between the upper and lower area), do you think you could make them turn red when the charge meter fills up? That'd make it look a trillion times better imo :X

Ok, guys, I tried to apply your suggestions:

First of all, I made the display layers slightly separated. Unluckily, the difference is barely noticeable (the same problem I had with the PR); then I have rounded the inner part of the lower piece of body, made the lights on the central piece turning red when the weapon charges, and gave it a more H2ish tint. Reflection are ok, but through a pic they are hard to notice. And, finally, the prongs that R93_Sniper suggested:







Some doubts about the inner core hided by the prongs, but... oh, well, we'll see later what happens.

What do you think?

very very awesome, but in my opinion, i think the layers should be separated more (to make the effect more pronounced) and i think the side flaps (personally i prefered without) should open on the other side, and should open half as much on charging, and fully for cooling (closed for cooling would limit airflow y'know). otherwise it looks awesome and i love the new color.

Can you post a video of the charging animations, so we can see the prongs open? I think it might be more interesting for you to just have a raised hologram, that is blue or green, that comes off the sides of the gun, rather than the metal prongs opening.

I second what bobblehob said. The prongs don't seem to fit with the plasma pistol concept; I always thought of the pp charged shot as a misfire rather than an intended functionality of the weapon.

Sure thing: http://videobam.com/yDuTQ

About the suggestions you guys pointed:

-Layers of the display more separated: Yeah, I'll do it.

In case I leave the prongs:

-Prongs that open on the other side: I'll do it.

-Prongs that open as much as the charge: Honestly I already tried making it with an overlay animation controlled by the charging function in the weapon, but it didn't work. Unluckily there isn't an overcharging animation in the anims slot, but just the overcharged jitter, so I applied the prongs on that animation. Without saying that Halo CE seems hating every overlay animation I make >.> I hope someday the God of the animators AKA Teh Lag will help me

-Prongs opened also during the overheating: Yes, I can do it. But remember that there is already the top cover for heat dispersion

In case I remove the prongs:

-Holograms that appear when the weapon charges: Unless I misunderstood, I think you mean the holograms that the Promethean weapons have in Halo 4. In that case, I can easily do them.

Said that, honestly I can't choose between prongs and holograms: they're both important for making the weapon more unique. So I'll leave you decide which one is the best with a voting

i'd prefer them to open to half in the charge (instead of fully open), and fully for cooldown

hologram instead of prongs: YES!
also PP looks incredible!
Edited by greg079 on Nov 13, 2013 at 03:21 PM

Hologram definitely. If you need inspiration I'm sure we can help with that.

Definitiely holograms.

Yeah, I think after watching that video, that a multi layer halo 4 promethean weapon style hologram would definitely be more interesting. The flaps are cool, but they just don't quite fit.

The floating flaps are more like Forerunner tech which doesn't quite fit with the Covenant's own designs.

However a hologram mask is very much covenant

What if you try to bridge the two ideas, SOI? Have the heat meter that's on the bridge have a hologram that acts similarly to the flaps but they flail out more during overheating as it could be used as a secondary heat exhaust (seeing as your overheat cycle is much super short)

I don't exactly get what do you mean with a flailing hologram (unless I misunderstood), but I have to warn you all that after some experiments, I made an important (and sad) discover: any type of hologram becomes invisible if it stands above the charging effect. So I moved the new holograms in multiple positions, and the best position seems to be on top of the blue parts.

Another thing that I made is increasing a bit more the distance between the display layers. Moreover, I have added a lens flare on them:



And here is the weapon with the new holograms:



The circular holograms rotate, obviously.

Reference concept: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snCG2GOHSoI

Darmn, I should make a video that shows my new weapons like 343i's ones, when I get a consistent number of things in my mod.

Defnitely moving in the right direction! Can we see a video of the new charging animation?

Yessir: http://videobam.com/MgpNA

Ignoring obvious video compression and framerate issues due to Fraps...

I also announce you that I have to make just two weapons: the Sentinel Beam and its Major variant. What I have in mind is editing its shape in order to resemble the Halo 4 Promethean Weapons design, maybe taking inspiration from the deleted forerunner weapons:


About the difference between them, the regular Sentinel Beam will be grey with red lights, while the major will be gold with blue lights and an hardlight blade similiar to one of these:

Edited by SOI_7 on Nov 19, 2013 at 11:24 AM

Excellent! I would like to see the holograms themselves raised more noticably from the surface, but that is up to you :) That or make it multiple layers with one piece further from the surface of the weapon than the other.

The hammer looks great! you might want to add a little lens flare or something to the jets on the back to make them look like they are working more, but again its totally up to you :)

Any updates on this?