General Questions about using the Halo 1 Engine and Creating Maps

[KWDzero]

Hello, I am an aspiring environment artist/level designer for games and I am interested in creating Maps using the Halo 1 engine. I have attempted this in the past and I don't really seem to have much trouble dealing with engine specific programs like Guerilla and Sapien.

Where my problems occur mostly is during the model making itself while using 3DS Max. I am a little confused on how to do certain things, and since most of you here are fairly good at map making using this engine I was hoping some of you could shed some light on these issues and questions.

1. How do you work within the program? In several online tutorials, they have flipped the normals of a cube to start off the map but I sometimes find this makes things harder to work with. If someone has a speed video of making a map from the ground up, or instructions on how to do so using newer versions of 3DS MAX that would be very helpful.

2. When creating buildings or bases on a map, do you mostly rely on extruding and cutting faces from the main map, or creating separate objects and merging them with the main map?

3. When working with materials, how do you use external images other than ones already in the Halo Custom edition folder?

Those are some of my questions, but my major questions are 1 and 2. Thanks for reading and I appreciate your help!

-Zero

[Ro0ster]

1.I can't really explain how to use the program in a post, but you don't have to use a cube. There are many different types of modeling techniques. For example, I prefer to use planes and select edges then hold shirt and drag out a new edge.
2.You don't have to but you can. As I said before there are many different techniques. You might want to look up tutorials on modeling in general on google.
3.Press "m" to open up the material editor then create a material and click its name(defaultly Mtl #0). Then where it says diffuse there will be a rectangle and beveled square to the right of that. Click the suare, then bitmap and select and external picture. Then click the up arrow(Go to Parent) and click the checkered box by it. Also give it a name so you can make a shader for it in Halo.

[teh lag]

1) If you're just beginning to work in 3ds, you've got

-The HEK tutorial itself, which is always the first place to look
-http://ghost.halomaps.org/tutorials/, the old HCE tutorial resource with a large number of level creation walkthroughs
-http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?pg=1&sid=23, the tutorial section on Halomaps
-http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthread.php?18957-The-Ultimate-Halo-CE-Tutorial-Index, the HCE tutorial thread

In addition, there are a number of videos and video series on Youtube (such as this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYpDmCNj3aE) which walk you through the process.

...plus anything else you can dig up in the Studio Tutorials (http://www.modacity.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?100-Tutorials) section.

2) Model your structures independently and then integrate them into the main terrain if need be. There's... really not much of a reason not to.

3) Does this refer to using images in 3ds max or in the game? I assume you mean the game, since in 3ds max you can make a reference to a bitmap anywhere. To use custom bitmaps ingame...

Make your bitmaps' dimensions be powers of two (ex: 512x512, 256x1024, 2048x2048)
Save them in .tif form in a directory under your /data folder (it is useful, but not required, to make this directory be "\bitmaps" under your level - for example, levels\test\roundhouse\bitmaps)
Open the command prompt in your HCE directory and run tool with the "bitmaps" command (ex: tool.exe bitmaps levels\test\roundhouse\bitmaps)
Open your newly-created bitmaps in Guerilla and edit any settings you need to edit (such as enabling the alpha channel or normalmap compression), and then re-run tool
Create a new shader tag (generally for levels you'll be using shader_environment tags unless you're doing water or glass or transparent lights), or find an existing one that is similar to the material you are using
Set the shader tag(s) to use your custom bitmaps
Save them in a directory (suggested, but not required, to be the \shaders directory under your level's folder in \tags - ex: tags\levels\test\roundhouse\shaders) with material name you used in 3ds max (ex: if the material was "dirty metal", you would save as "dirty metal.shader_environment")
Compile your BSP and all should be well!

[Limited]

#2 Pretty sure you can leave it as a seperate object, but make sure you link it to that frame node box you also make. Although this is probably bad practise and ideally you should model it into the main mesh.

[Arteen]

1. How do you work within the program? In several online tutorials, they have flipped the normals of a cube to start off the map but I sometimes find this makes things harder to work with. If someone has a speed video of making a map from the ground up, or instructions on how to do so using newer versions of 3DS MAX that would be very helpful.

Starting with a cube seems really silly. Just start with a plane. You shouldn't need to worry about walls or ceilings at the very beginning.

[KWDzero]

Starting with a cube seems really silly. Just start with a plane. You shouldn't need to worry about walls or ceilings at the very beginning.

Oh ok, that makes more sense. When you add them in, are they just planes? I just overall don't really understand the process.

And thank you so much to everyone for helping me out! =D

[FireDragon04]

As a poor example, say you had some terrain you could create a plane that finished the entire level/map off above the map. I seem to remember Sky+ as the materiel for where you want the sky to be.
I would recommend testing out things such as the jms exporter and sapien with an indoor map first then move on to experimenting with exterior settings.

Also people still working with the engine may correct me on this one, but I believe you have to link your level to a node/cube which is called frame or something... it'll all be in the HEK tutorial and stuff that 'teh lag' mentioned.

But practice with the stuff the tutorials say and gain an understanding before delving into complex personal designs for environments and levels.

And oh wow, on that tutorial list there's those awful tutorials I made about 5 years ago... makes me feel old when I look back at this stuff.

[SnaFuBAR]

If you're an aspiring environment designer for games, I suggest not doing it with halo. Familiarize yourself with current processes and assets, etc. This is not really the way to do it.

[PopeAK49]

I agree. If you have a low end computer use UT2004 and it's Unreal Ed. Otherwise if you have gears of war or UT3 use it's Unreal Ed. You can create much more beautiful environments with those editors easily anyways.

[FRain]

Or use UDK, for that matter. It's free and much more technologically advanced than UT3 or GOW.

[paladin]

More kids from HIH?

Also, try anything but Hammer. Hammer is bad.