Before anyone mentions it, no. The individual behind the UUI has not responded.

Anyway I got basically every tag suitable for the menu, tested and ready to compile except I would like to actually connect my maps to the menu itself rather than show existing single player and multiplayer maps (obviously they show up because I copied the menus as a template).

I figured since we only have 1 UUI and you cannot update or personalise it, I went ahead and essentially designed one myself; the menus, lists, pretty graphics, descriptions and all though as usual just one unsolvable issue always holds me back.

Obviously its possible since the UUI exists, sadly no tutorials nor info regarding linking maps to it exist. Some say scripts might do the trick though what kind of script? I've examined the UUI script and tried to replicate it but that too results in errors.

Say if we do crack this, we can develop a collective of knowledge and then anyone can modify or create their own personal UIs without worrying about needing updates as we could add our favourite maps to it on the fly, just as if we were editing a map in Sapien.

You can totally update and customize it; you could rip and modify it, but im pretty sure moose even released the source files *shrug*


UI widgets can execute dormant scripts (list the script name under event handlers, in the script textbox). What you want to load the map, is the 'map_name <STRING>' command to load your map.

Anyways, to make just a UI map, you make a UI widget for each map you want in the list, and have a script for each of them. You could go further, and use something like Chimera and its LUA system to make it get data from elsewhere (dynamically check map folder, read a map list, or whatever you want, etc)

This is starting to make sense now... Your a book of knowledge Kirby, I was about to scrap this but because of your reply I'm going to keep going I guess.

Basically my format is nothing fancy, it is the exact same setup as the multiplayer map list. I just want to get this list right and I'm good.

Before I go fiddling around, as an example, the tag: mp_map_select_list_2.ui_widget_definition has the game data input script thing: mp map list update. I'm assuming this is what controls the mp maps already in all our UIs, lets say we wanted to add stinky.map to the end of the list, how do we replicate that script or make one from scratch?

The script part is probably my biggest issue. I thought I'd copy the UUI ones but sapien wasn't too happy with them... Better yet how do I even get the script to display as an option within the widget tag?

Alternative: Could you explain to me if you want, say if you wanted to add stinky map to an existing list or your own list, what is the EXACT process you'd do?


Edited by Halo Noob Modder117 on Feb 8, 2018 at 11:45 PM

No. You didn't get what Kirby said, he's describing the creation of a UI to load SP maps, NOT to automatically load MP ones.




Wrong. That is not a script, that's a tag. A script is embedded into the scenario tag during compilation. The MP map list update, if it does ANYTHING, would simply look through your MAPS folder. There is no function that adds map items to the MP list properly, it automatically loads all maps located in the MAPS folder and assumes that they are MP maps. Even campaign maps are loaded into the MP map list, and you can even try to load them. If a map doesn't match one of the stock MP maps that comes with the game, it gets treated as a custom map with a ? image and an "unknown location" description. There is no way to change that, it's how the engine is programmed.


But more importantly; you can't script a multiplayer map to play, because it doesn't properly load the gametype. It opens the map as though it was SP, with no gametypes or teams or any of the engine's code that creates the MP environment. Kirby will be an ass and correct me, and show some complex way that you can make UI elements run a script to hold variables that then force a gametype on map load, but that's not important. Even if you could do it, which you can't, it would be a hacky workaround, and it won't update automatically


The command he gave you is to load SP maps. The UUI does NOT have any special function for multiplayer maps. It loads them normally, using new bitmaps and UI widgets BUT with the same engine loading it. For the SP maps, somebody sat down and made individual UI buttons and screens for EVERY campaign and firefight map they wanted to include. They worked with teams like CMT to add maps that were still under development, so that when those projects were released they would work with the UUI.


If you wanted to add a new SP map, you would have to create an entirely new collection of UI elements, reference them together in the tags, and then add a new script to actually load the SP maps.



BUT NO MATTER WHAT, THERE IS NO WAY TO AUTOMATICALLY LOAD MAPS FROM YOUR MAPS FOLDER AND ASSIGN THEM UI ELEMENTS. There is NO way that you will load stinky.map and have a screenshot of the level and a description. You CAN change the custom map's screenshot from the ?, but the same screenshot will then be used for ALL custom MP maps. You can NOT individually assign these.


The game's been around 15 years now on PC. What you're trying to do has been tried before, and if it WAS possible, it would have been in the UUI already.

If you continue down this road, you'll find yourself at a dead end. I don't want to see you quit modding because you dedicate yourself to something that can't be done. Find a different project. Make a new UUI even, that'd be great. But you can't get blood from a stone.



All that said, maybe like Kirby said chimera can do something. If you find 002 I'm sure he'll be able to provide no help with that.

MP maps can be loaded using sv_map <mapname> <gametype>
But, with stock halo, you'd only be able to deal with stock gametypes in your scripts (since you wouldn't be able to get the names of custom ones); again, you'd need something like chimera.

Thanks for the info guys.

I don't know why I kept obsessing over the MP thing. That was more of a side thing. At least now I got some extra single player maps going in some lists.

On a side note, what the heck is Chimera? I must of missed the threads about it, sounds interesting...
Edited by Halo Noob Modder117 on Feb 9, 2018 at 02:07 AM