Your HUD looks very geometric. Although I like the radar, face plate, and damage arrows, your shield/health bars, grenade indicators, and weapon ammo thingymajiggers don't seem to fit. IE your top half/bottom half seem mismatched. Maybe if you smoothed it out and curved some of these elements to make it seem as if they were actual projections on a curved visor, it would look better. Also, you did say that this is a reference image, but I didn't know if that was implying that it was a rough layout you made, or that this image isn't yours at all.

Otherwise your FP arms and spartan armor look might fine. However, I noticed you did use an outline technique to texture your model, which makes it seem pretty flat in some areas. It might be a style choice, but if you wanted to add depth to your model (or if you even have the polys available to do so,) you should model these indents and outcroppings rather than implying them with an outline. It's not completely necessary, considering your armor is done in a similar style to the rest of your models.

Loving your work, and I look forward to seeing what happens when this is eventually all compiled into a map.
Edited by xnx on Feb 13, 2014 at 07:04 PM

I love the new Chief.

agreed :D

Well, that pic was just a very rough concept that I drew with Photoshop. The outlines and the elements are just in the early stage, because I'm still trying to find a decent way to put them. Speaking of their shape, I know that they would fit well with the visor if they were curved, but I never liked that choice. I mean... yeah, it's more realistic, but I just don't like it. On the other hand, I always loved the clean, geometric Halo 2 HUD with its regular shapes, and that's why I took reference from it for the grenade/weapon elements. Maybe, instead of the outlines, I could use some overlays similiar to the ones used in H2:





Or perhaps I could leave the ammo meters/icons regular, and curve the outlines, like in Halo 4:



Those, anyway, are just personal choices. I'm going to make the regular elements first, and then mess with the outlines and the other stuff. I also forgot to say that I'm going to use this colors palette for my HUD, in particular the shield bar and the motion tracker icons (yeah, I want to make allies in green instead of yellow, since the reticule turns green when you look at them in the most recent chapters I think it would make more sense):


Oh... and about the arms/MC, I was just using a technique to simulate fake bump mapping, that's why my textures look just like flat outlines.

I think the first image was fan-made.

SOI, pm me if you want help on making that a reality.

Ok, I have not started working on the HUD yet, but I talked with Thunda, and he found a beautiful solution for the outlines around the grenade and weapon meters, making this gorgeus thing. I don't know you, but I think it looks awesome!



Of course there are still all the other things to do (lol), but the major problem is now solved. I know that his hud still looks regular and not curved, but you know that I like that design, and after all the CMT SPv2 HUD had both regular elements and a visor overlay:



Maybe I could even make the visor overlay regular, like in that pic...
Edited by SOI_7 on Feb 20, 2014 at 05:19 PM

Looks nice.

Worked on the other elements (just the bitmaps, not the tags). I need to make the weapon icons, the reticles and the warning messages, and then I'm ready to ingame everything. Here is a little preview of how they look together in Photoshop:

Are you going to make the compass work? And why picture shows flashlight and bubble shield at the same time?

combining equipment and AAs perhaps?

But they both use flashlight button as far as I know.

Not at all. The Bubble Shield will be used as a deployable equipment (it will work as a flag, to be precise), and I'll show that icon on the top-left via cinematic titles, following Kirby's tutorial about backpack weapon icons (here: http://forum.halomaps.org/index.cfm%3Fpage=topic&topicID=44427). Said that, there are also other equipments that I will introduce, like the Gravity Lift and the Energy Cutlass.
The flashlight, on the other hand, will work exactly like it always do.
And about the compass, I think I should get it work. Waffles showed that it can be done using the HUD side elements of the H1 Sniper Rifle interface as reference, so it should work fine.

I'm not a big fan of the H3 equipments system, but I can't sacrifice the flashlight for AAs, expecially in the Flood levels...
Edited by SOI_7 on Mar 3, 2014 at 07:53 AM

Maybe, but... for which purpose? Honestly there isn't any AA that I'd really enjoy to put (perhaps Armor Lock or Thruster Pack, but they could ruin the experience). Also, having to manually use the flashlight will keep the anxiety you had in the dark levels, expecially when it runs out of battery, and -as I've already said in a previous post- I'd like to recreate the Flood terror, in any possible way.

Make the flood look more gruesome and more frantic. Think Dead Space. I always was afraid of 343 guility spark when I was little. Mainly the whole setting gave me the creeps. But after beating that, the flood seemed more annoying than scary. Give them much more alien and gut wrenching sounds and get real detailed with the organic parts being warped and taken over by disease.

for the voices, do what is referred to in the metal genres as "inhales", it's the only way you'll get the pitch low enough, i can replicate almost all of the H1 flood sounds that way. lastly for melees, try getting sounds of a waterlogged cloth being smacked against various surfaces, should give a nice wet, meaty, but still heavy and powerful sound.

SOI, you may benefit from this comparison of flood.

Normal Elephant:


Flood Elephant I found on Deviantart:


Just pick apart the differences so you can get a good idea of what flood infection does to the original creature. Main thing is how the skin sometimes exposes muscle tissue and bones.

Oh, I like where this conversation is going!



You've pronounced the magic word lol. Luckily I have played the whole DS saga, and I was already going to take massive inspiration from it (though the third chapter can't give actual improvements in terms of scare... *sadface*). The best thing in DS is, other than the necromorphs appearence, the atmosphere of the levels, expecially the Ishimura. I think that using weird sounds, scary songs full of tense (violins anyone?) and sudden moments could help a lot. I have also planned some creepy scenes, that I'm going to reveal later.

Speaking of the Flood appearence, I was already following the gruesome design, and I had also planned to make HD body parts for the combat forms dismemberment (like arms, heads and organs... the H1 body pieces actually don't have any recognizable shape lol). On the voices side, I'm currently using the H2 dialogues (courtesy of zteam), so I think they could work, unless you think the opposite. I was also going to make some custom dialogues for some forms (I'm going to introduce the Juggernaut, making it act like the Tormentor from DS2, and another secret Flood form). Also, the Flood Brain Form will take various aspects from the Guardian from DS, and the Brute combat form will be made starting from the CMT Brute model, and not ripping it from H3 (honestly I hate the H3 Flood design, they look like sponges and they are not even remotely scary and disgusting, if compared to the H2 design, the best IMO).
Your elephant pics are really useful, anyway. I hope the design choice I'm currently using fits that pics. In case you didn't see them yet, here are the current Flood models I made:









My only doubt is the Carrier Form... maybe I could take inspiration from the Pregnant (still from DS)...



I can modify some inhales from YouTube via Audacity to get an alien and creepy effect (don't ask for my voice, it's horrible :[ ). Also, for the melee sound, what do you think about this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOtNF3kvI48

P.S. I feel so bad for the poor guys, but I can't stop laughing lol

i really like where this is going, but for the sounds i meant cloth that's COMPLETELY DRENCHED in water so it leaves a heavy and powerful but still moist sound. if u want i could see about doing a few dialogue lines, except that i get a fair amount of background noise (my mic is very sensitive) and have no way to filter it out.

Ah, I got it. YouTube can't help unluckily, so I guess I have to make the melee sound by myself... *takes the towel*
About the dialogues, it wouldn't be a bad idea... but don't worry, they're just few sounds for a single Flood form, and that isn't even urgent

EDIT: Just played with the H1 Flood dialogues, I have massively edited them in order to get a creepy, alien and "liquid" feel, and honestly I like how they came out. These sounds will be used for the secret Flood form: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4vz7kwphbmgtev7/1.wav

Now I'll play with the Brain form dialogues (lol)
Edited by SOI_7 on Mar 4, 2014 at 03:31 PM

listening to that, i'd say most aren't TOO bad, but the flood always had long drawn out howls, so maybe add tons of echo to short sounds. cut text, check your PMs.

How is progress?

Eh, I have some problems with my HUD, specifically with the compass and the ammo meters... honestly I'm going mad with them. I'll make some trials, but if I won't be able to solve them, I'll ask in a new topic :/

Oh, and I also managed to get Brutes run at you faster when they berserk, like in Halo 3

I don't think he claimed that he made them from scratch. In fact, I seem to remember him showing the steps he was taking to modify them. Nonetheless, they are still modified models that he made.

Edited by Echo77 on Mar 15, 2014 at 04:09 PM

The word "make" is so generic that you misunderstood what I meant, but... oh, well, SAS and Echo77 already answered you. The only thing I could say is that if you read the first page and the previous posts you'll find from which tag I started, and which edits I made to it, for every model I worked on.

Made anything new lately?

Everything in this thread for the most part is his modifications he MADE from Bungie's original content. I don't see him claiming anywhere that this is made from scratch. You are taking his statements out of context to put him in negative light.

I think he got the point, so there's no need to continue. Also, I need to post something since I have been silent for too long (stupid university e.e).

@xnx: Unluckily I'm still messing with the HUD. I created a topic in which I asked for some help, but it seems that no one except Jesse knows how to make the compass work with multitex overlays... maybe should I PM him?

Anyway, I didn't want to leave you without anything, so I did a nice thing: since I have a YouTube channel, I've just uploaded a video in which I show my old improvements on the AIs (like the Brute Chieftain and the Flood Elite form with the Energy Sword). Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ0DuBwYLOE

P.S. Thanks for your support, though, guys... I really appreciate it

looks cool, I think the hammer needs to be way bigger though.

Can you make a video with all the weapons in action?

That would spoil the fun for when people actually play the mod.

may I upload some of thing's that you put up for download to halo maps ?

Why would he want you to upload what he made?