Beeles questions about CE map making

[beele]

Beeles questions about CE map making:

Since I'm making my first serious map for CE, and I'm not so experienced with the halo CE tool, I've got some questions. I've tried to look most things up, but some explanation from members could get me to understand it better.
Here we go:

Can I create bitmaps that are not like 128x128 or 256x256 (I want to make one that is 1024 by 256)?
How do I get a real time reflection on glass?
What is a good number to run test radiosity and final radiosity?
When I have portals, why do parts of my level that are in the distance disappear, and can this be prevented?
What are z buffered triangles, and should I be worrying about them?
Is it normal that my JMS exporter (the bluestreak jms exporter) will not respond for about 10 to 15 before exporting my level? (Also sometimes crashes 3DSMax)
Are there any tutorials that explain the basics of shader creation for CE?
Same question as above, but then for animated scenery.
The link to the collection of all tutorials for halo CE (Can't seem to find it anymore :confused:).More to come probably.
It's not because I'm lazy to look all of it up. It's because I don't have any spare time to do so. I've looked into to included tutorial with the HEK, but I still have a lot of questions as I can see, and since I don't always understand what they mean with some thing it could be better to get the explanation from members who know the HEK really well. Have to work all day, need to do lots of other stuff (preparing for a demo show we're going to give with our martial arts club in September.) If I could get an answer to at least some of my questions, I can get the beta (yes for CE) of my map ready so much faster. :embarrassed:



PS: +rep will be given for help. :)

If mods find this tread inappropriate they can close/delete it.

[Rob Oplawar]

Can I create bitmaps that are not like 128x128 or 256x256 (I want to make one that is 1024 by 256)?
yes. Bitmaps don't need to be square. Also, there's a flag labeled "power of two dimensions"- I've never tried disabling it, so I don't know if it will actually let you make a bitmap with arbitrary dimensions.
How do I get a real time reflection on glass?
Somewhere in the shader tag there's a property that you can enable, it's named something like dynamic reflection. I'm not sure which shader types have that option- for transparent shaders it's prolly in shader_transparent_chicago_extended
What is a good number to run test radiosity and final radiosity?
I may be an idiot for doing it this way, but I always set it to run to 0.0001 on debug, and then wait for the first reported value, and then hit ctrl-c and start over, this time giving it a threshold just under the number it reported.
For final radiosity I do something similar, but put it as close to zero as I think I can reasonably make it.
When I have portals, why do parts of my level that are in the distance disappear, and can this be prevented?
Could be Halo's draw distance, or could be an error in your portaling, or could be that you're looking through too many portals. I couldn't say without looking at your bsp.
What are z buffered triangles, and should I be worrying about them?
I have no idea. I get them all the time in my BSPs. It drives me crazy, but I haven't found any evidence that they do any harm, and I haven't figured out how to get rid of them.
Is it normal that my JMS exporter (the bluestreak jms exporter) will not respond for about 10 to 15 before exporting my level? (Also sometimes crashes 3DSMax)
Well, when I use bluestreak for exporting my BSPs, it typically takes roughly 1-7 minutes for it to initialize before actually exporting the level. (My BSPs are typically about 60k polies). This annoys me a lot- I have no idea why it does that. We should ask theGhost.
Are there any tutorials that explain the basics of shader creation for CE?
I'm sure there are- you could check the tutorial resource, but most of the links there are broken by now anyway.
fake edit: oshit, where'd the tut resource go? :saddowns:
Same question as above, but then for animated scenery.
same answer
The link to the collection of all tutorials for halo CE (Can't seem to find it anymore :confused:).
this

I feel your pain.

[beele]

First of all, thanks for helping out. :)




Can I create bitmaps that are not like 128x128 or 256x256 (I want to make one that is 1024 by 256)?
yes. Bitmaps don't need to be square. Also, there's a flag labeled "power of two dimensions"- I've never tried disabling it, so I don't know if it will actually let you make a bitmap with arbitrary dimensions.


Well When I try to compile a the bitmap in my bitmaps folder, it only compiles the 128x128 ones or those with 1:1 ratio, and skips all the other ones (1024 by 256)? Should I just try to remake or recreate the texture in the 1:1 ratio, or is there any way to make this work? (I know it works in H2V because I use it in the H2V version, but then HCE is not H2V :embarrassed:)

[Invader Veex]

For the bitmap, there is a new program that acts as tool for Halo CE that lets you compile any size bitmap. It's called toolstar http://www.wmclan.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=163

[Gamerkd16]

Link to collection of tutorials:
http://www.h2ek.com/resources/hce-tutorials/index.html

Also you can try to do searches at:
http://hce.halomaps.org/ (http://www.halomaps.org)

[kenney001]

or create your texture with arbitrary dimensions, but on a square canvas that is solid blue that has power of two dimensions.

[beele]

Thank you all guys, this should help me a lot.

[beele]

All right, here's my second load of questions:

How do I make a shiney metal (shader wise)?
How does it come that my shaders that emit light, seems not to come from the texture, the light just comes out of nowhere, the texture that's supposed to emit light emits it, but only the surrounding area, not itself, and so giving the idea that the light is not emitted from that texture.
Why do grenades go through some surfaces (as well as bullets)?
How do I create some sort of fog in my entire level? Not just fog close to the bottom, but fog in the entire bsp.I was already able to do loads of stuff with the answers given to my previous questions. again rep will be given for help :).

[Gamerkd16]

All right, here's my second load of questions:
How do I create some sort of fog in my entire level? Not just fog close to the bottom, but fog in the entire bsp.I was already able to do loads of stuff with the answers given to my previous questions. again rep will be given for help :).

Well fog is determined by a fog plane. Place the fog plane above the entire map and I think it will be foggy for everywhere below it. Then you can mess with the depth and visibility settings in the sky tag? I believe....not sure about some of those things

This is the symbol needed in the material:

$
Fog plane property. This flag or shader symbol when applied to a material that is applied to a face or surface makes the surface not be rendered. The faces acts as a fog plane that can be used to define a volumetric fog region.

[beele]

Well fog is determined by a fog plane. Place the fog plane above the entire map and I think it will be foggy for everywhere below it. Then you can mess with the depth and visibility settings in the sky tag? I believe....not sure about some of those things

This is the symbol needed in the material:

Thanks, I'll try that tomorrow and report back here. Can't rep you atm (you must spread ...), but you'll get it, you can count on that :).

[Apoc4lypse]

No, thats to create a fog plane, fog planes are for creating fog, close to the bottom or at a certain level.

If you want fog in your entire bsp, check the sky.tag you map is using, it should have Fog settings in there which can be set, they are right at the top of the tag, underneath the radiosity settings.

-You can set the fog color to what ever you like.

-Maximum density means, at the farthest distance when the fog is supposed to be opaque. You can use any number between 0 and 1, 0 being no fog at all, then 1 being you can't see through the fog after its reached the opaque distance.

-Start distance, means the distance at which it starts getting foggy for the player, Ex: 5 units will mean theres no fog 5 units in front of any player, you will be able to see completely clearly for 5 world units.

-Opaque Distant, relates to the maximum density, if you set this to 90 world units, then at 90 world units away from any given player, the player will see the "Maximum Density" of the fog, so if Max density is set to like 0.5 then you will still be able to see past this point, if its set to 1, everything will be opaque for the player at 90 world units.

I hope that explains how the sky fog works, its pretty simple once you understand it though.

To set up a fog plane, this is a little more difficult, you need to make a plane on your map (any size don't make it intersect geometry though) The size won't matter later on because fog planes bleed out in all directions where ever they are set at on the Z Axis. The facing should be facing upwards, this will make the fog plane produce fog below the plane or underneath where ever you set it at the Z Axis. (Never tried facing it the other way maybe it makes fog on the top of the map idk..) Next you need to give it a portal material.. make a new material and name it +unused.$ eh.. I actually don't think it matters what its name is, just as long as you put the + at the begining (to specify it being a portal) and then the $ to specify it as a fog plane.

Then you need to set it up in Sapien, which is a little more self explanatory, also sometimes annoying. Go to the weather pallets (I'm doing this off memory atm so forgive any mistakes I might make) Then find the fog section, make a new one, then you need to select it and then add a .fog tag to it. I'd suggest copying the .fog file from deathisland (the water fog) and then just edit it later. Once you have the pallete set up, your going to want to go into your "clusters" or what ever its called, and find the portal you made (the plane you made). Next you need to put your camera in sapien inside the fog plane, then you should see something like "none" with a drop down menu in the settings, change it from none, to whatever you named your "fog instance" that you made in the fog pallete section.

I'm bad at explaining that part... its simple just sometimes a pain because sometimes it doesn't select the portal or fog plane you made, so you can't apply the fog to it, if you don't understand me mb someone else can explain it better. XD

EDIT:

lol... I'm going to sound funny here, but does anyone really know all the "In's" and "Outs" to fully setting up a .fog tag.

The things that ever seem to do anything for me in this tag are the Density Controls and color. The screen layers and animation settings, when ever I touch those they never seem to do anything, I've never been able to figure out what it all does.

[Gamerkd16]

No, thats to create a fog plane, fog planes are for creating fog, close to the bottom or at a certain level.

Yeah I knew I wasn't too certain about that. Never understood the difference between atmospheric fog and fog planes. But I guess that explains why there are two different commands in the console.

[demonmaster3k]

tutorials resource:

http://ghost.halomaps.org

you can also get bluestreak from there (although you already have it)

another source (if you're willing to shell out $15-25) is the Black Art of Halo Modding which you can find off of amazon or your local bookstore (but really it's up to you)

if you want to go into sp modding (which I highly don't reccomend unless you've created numerous mods and are very experienced) get the ZTeam's script release and try to pick up scripting (there's a command that gives you the whole list of script keywords within sapien push the ~ and type in hsdoc i think it was correct me if i'm wrong)
ouch! waaaaayyyy irrelevant to the current discussion sry guys

[beele]

Thanks guys, I'm going to get this fog working now :).