I have an interesting theory. . .

you know hwo when you complile a map for the first time your all excited you start halo ce, so far so good, your about to play it for the first time, its all good, but in the multiplayer menu where it gives a screenshot and a caption, you see UNKNOWN MAP and a corny picture. . .

well ladies and gents of the halo ce community, me and my extremely OCD self have figured out how to add your own Screen shot and caption to the halo CE multiplayer and SP menu. All it requires is the stringlist editor and a bitmap extractor.

after ive got the bitmap ill make a video tutorial explaining everything

Wow this is insane! I was just thinking on how it could be done! Thanks for figuring it out so I dont need to waste my time. Ill love to find out how to do that.

But would it be on everyone's computer?? Or just the ones that have the UI?

finally XD

posted at same time as the spartan

Edited by __napalm__ on Jul 13, 2007 at 11:49 AM

Ok, that was random...

Everytime you compile a map several UI tags are included. One of them being the bitmap file (im not telling which one XD) that contains all the bitmaps that the UI file references To add sed screenshot and caption. Ive already checked bloodgulch and a few other SP and MP maps and the bitmap does infact show up in the tag list, meaning it is compiled into the map itself, meaning it should work on all UI files.

Now have you done this yet or is it still a theory?

well ive gotten the bitmaps to compile now i have to figure out how to set the index so the map tells the UI file to point to #(insert radnom number here) of the string list and bitmap

So this has not been done yet?

from a technical standpoint umm, no, it has not but im getting pretty darn close

Bubble has been poped.

actually this far surpassed, been done and actual submenus added but finally someone contribs it to community. Kudos to you.......:)

Here is the update so far. . .click the link to see the screen shot

http://www.xfire.com/screenshots/hmcdustin/ss_file-cd008388a34c732c283e475bebd95da3c7281dcd.jpg

halomaps wont take my photo so just click the link

im workin on the text string part so hang in there ill have a video tutorial out soon!!!

Edited by AHS_SONIC on Jul 14, 2007 at 12:35 AM

IM speechless i mean oh my gosh so many people have been- I said i was speechless didn't i....................................................................

This is the string list you need to edit so it says the map name ui\shell\main_menu\mp_map_list.unicode_String_list and this is the bitmap you edit so you have the custom picture tags\ui\shell\bitmaps\mp_map_grafix.bitmap, now im not 100% sure but i think the description would be a text file that is a string, then compiled with tool and linked to the scenario

wrong. the description is already in tag form, you just have to add strings to it. check the ss ive already got the bitmaps in now all i need to do is add a name, change the bitmap and ill be done.

but your ss shows no description and no map name just unknown level, its only the map shot thats changed

100th post w00t w00t
Edited by AHS_SONIC on Jul 14, 2007 at 03:46 AM

Yes, but you still didnt change the description, you only changed the name of the map from unknown level

grrr
im working on it
i just figured out all this stuff today youve probably had the last 2 years to do it. . .

12 minutes later

ok forgot all that in a few mins i will post a screen shot. . .displaying the fruits of my labor!!
Edited by AHS_SONIC on Jul 14, 2007 at 03:54 AM

actually ive had sinced i joined which is 10 month, Ok, this will help you, if you want to change the maps description you will need to open this tag in the string list editor.
ui\shell\main_menu\multipplayer_type_select\mp_map_select\map_data.unicode_string_list

got cut off a bit there. . .
Edited by AHS_SONIC on Jul 14, 2007 at 03:58 AM

yea,i dont think its meant for a full description, more like

Testing Purposes

Players 10 - 16

Supports Vehicles

i know lol i just wanted to put it like so u wudnt think i ripped it

Edited by AHS_SONIC on Jul 14, 2007 at 04:07 AM

Or you could keep your description to 22 letters per line, this way you wouldnt loose any text

kewl ill try that

ive seen it all before, and I told sonic about a tag that lets you choose the scenario after I saw he was working on it (I had to refind it of course since i havnt messed with this for like a year lol, but I had a shortcut lol, remove a tag I knew it uses, and let tool tell me where it is ^_^)

only isue is you have to be in a map that has the discription in it. so if you made a new map with a discription, ui.map wouldnt show it, you would have to load that map, and then click new game, and then it would show since you where inside the map that is was inside.


overall, it would probly confuse newbs seeing it diffent when they are in the map than in ui.map

And now its sealed.

a few complications have arose with the whole process of doing this. . .
im not sure if we can make this work for everybody without a custom UI but it might be possible. . .if not ill just make a video tutorial explaing how to do it but it should work oot ok in the end. . .

i don't have a custom UI, and it works fine. Or do you mean you think we will need a ui containing that bitmap?

well i dont know hwo the heck you did that lol but so far we can only get the description title and and screen shot to show up when you load the map in a normal UI, and in game you go pause-->new game-->select your level, everything shows up bitmap, description, and title. But if you want them to show up in the Main menu, then you will have to compile a custom UI file.
Edited by AHS_SONIC on Jul 14, 2007 at 02:20 PM

Oh it poped again.

unless of course. . .
yea that might work
stand by for screenshots

as soon as i figure out how to do this the right way and as soon as i get my microphone. . .there is no way im doing it via wordpad

i dunno about the singleplayer one since, when you you compile maps they only show up in the multiplayer menu, you get my point. nuff said.