A few editing questions

[That_Guy28]

I'm new to making maps for Halo 2 and I have some questions. I suck at it but it is fun to make maps. I am really good at 3DS Max though.

How do I make lights? I need to what directory the lights are in so I can open it with Sapien.

How do I make my own textures? I want to make grass and rocky textures. Can I download grass textures anywhere?

How do I get water on my map?

I know that the one about textures is probably the most complicated of the three questions but I would like to know this stuff so I can make better maps!

[Vicky]

There are several ways to make light, apart from rendering the map. What light do you want?

For making water do a search on this forum, should be several topics about it.

[Resinball]

Regarding the water, I out something together here: http://eadesigns.tech.officelive.com/Documents/H2V_Water.zip


And about the textures, check out this site http://www.cgtextures.com/, its a good one, but you can only download so much per day. You will also need to read a tutorial on seamless tiling images. Tiling is what allows you to reuse an image over and over next to itself without it looking like crap.

For lighting, check out the help file that comes with the H2EK, good luck and welcome.

[That_Guy28]

In the readme file it says: "Go into your maps .scenario_structure_bsp and add water definitions at the bottom. You can get these values from other maps, by viewing them with Entity for example (for H2 XBox maps) and maybe Gravemind (for H2V maps). The one I am looking at is 18MBs BTW."

What does it mean by "Go into your maps .scenario_structure_bsp and add water definitions"? I know where the .scenario_structure_bsp file is but I can't quite figure out what it means.

I was able to come up with my own way to get the custom textures to work and it looks great. :downs:

I haven't tried the lighting thing yet. I'm trying to light a gigantic underground dome where Banshees fight.

I'm stuck on the water though. It looks like I have to use H2Guerilla to do the water. Is there a better tutorial than the one in the readme file? I need at least a PDF or Word document with pictures.

I searched the forums and couldn't find anything about adding water to my map. Update: I just tried to add water to the map by trying to make sence of the instructions but every time I try to look at the water in Sapien, in just crashes and says "H2 Sapien has stopped working. Windows is looking for a solution to the problem"

[Vicky]

Try some light emitting shaders for the lighting, you can actually make lights emitting the light or use invisible planes/other objects emitting light where you want it.

[Resinball]

*Make sure you go to Edit and check Expert Mode first.

Okay...it means exactly what it says, go into that file and locate the Water Definitions section (near the bottom), you need to add it by clicking the plus (+) symbol next to it and then by clicking Add. Add the water_pool.shader I included which you should have copied to your maps section of the tags directory.

Experiment with the values in the Water Definitions Resources sub-section. As stated, you can get these values from existing maps.

[That_Guy28]

I can't find any good lights for my map. I found 2 light tags but when I tried it, they where way too dim and they just flash every 30 seconds or so but it hardly does anything. What directory are the real lights in?

Is there a video tutorial or even a word document with pictures on how to do the water? I have been trying all day and have had no luck. It's always the SAME error message: "H2 Sapien has stopped working. Windows is looking for a solution to the problem" and then Saipen crashes. :maddowns: Either i'm not doing it right or I have discovered a rare bug.

[Vicky]

Try searching, if you look for 'water shader' you'd come up with a thread like this one:
http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthread.php?t=9000

[That_Guy28]

I just tried it (for the 12 zillionth time) and I finally got it to show up and not crash Saipen. It looks like crap though.
http://i883.photobucket.com/albums/ac40/That_Guy28/water.jpg

How do I fix this?

[Resinball]

In the actual Max file; set the water material (M brings up Material editor) add these symbols to the end of the shader; ?!
The water material can be called anything as long as it has the symbols I mentioned at the end of it (after a space) and the water shader it is calling on has the same name, so it would look something like this: yourmap water_pool ?!

*It Should be obvious but when I say yourmap, I mean you need to call it by its name. So if your map is called badassmap, then that is most likely what you will be calling these shader references. For example: badassmap water_pool ?!

The yourmap part needs to be established here: ..\Halo 2 Map Editor\tags\scenarios\shaders, make a copy of the file shader_collections.shader_collections then rename the copy to yourmap.shader_collections, open that file. Delete the contents of the text file and replace it with the following; yourmap scenarios\shaders\multi\yourmap. Save the file, close it. Open the directory called multi. Make a new folder called yourmap, inside of here is where your shaders go so put the water_pool shader and any other shaders that are specific to this map here.


In 3DS Max...the actual plane that you are applying the material to is just that: a standard primitive plane converted to a mesh, most likely set up as an instance by naming it %water.


Applying a material to a plane is basic stuff, if you don't know how to do that then you need to learn how (in the help file) before trying something more complex like water. I've given you everything you need and your just asking for hand-holding, that is not the way this stuff works. Sure some people like me like to help, but you also need to help yourself and if you know next to nothing about applying materials you need to practice and experiment some more, but mostly; RTFM.

There is not going to be a step by step picture guide for everything you want to do, thats why you experiment and always backup your original and working files.

[That_Guy28]

OK I need one more thing. What directory are the lights in? I can't find the light tags anywhere.

[Resinball]

When I'm looking for tags I cannot find, I open Windows Explorer and go to the root of the tags directory, then go to search and search for *.crate for example or *.light, then arrange by date/name or size for easy viewing.