[DATA+TAGS] H2MT - The Essential Collection

[Resinball]

http://www.h2mt.org/repository/images/logo/H2MT_large.gif

The Essential Collection

DATA & TAGS


By Kills Alone & the H2MT Crew

Released October 31st, 2012



TF3Gt5tE8Oo


SUMMARY:
The core H2EK installation takes up just under a Gigabyte of space.

When decompressed the collection I offer here will take up about 11GBs of space! It includes the original files from a core H2EK install, you just copy it right over the top of a fresh H2EK installation. It includes these original files as many have been modified and/or improved upon.

All of the H2V source files I have created over the years and others I have improved on. This collection contains H2V custom mapping work by most of the H2MT and is the best place to start from. With a few tweaks you can make your own versions of many maps.

This collection contains:
-MP, SP, CO-OP, & H2.5 MMM SCENARIOS

Multiplayer
Ascension Tower of Power PB
Bloodgulch (Unfinished)
BoneYard V4
Coag Redux V2
Collateral V2
Delta Halo PB2
Delta Towers
Desolation
Desolation Devolved
Foundry PB
Fuel Station PB
H3 Guardian PB2
Holidays Grave V1.5
Immure PB
Lockout Sym PB
Metropolis (Unfinished)
Narrows V2
Narrows V3 PB2
New Mombasa
Night Mombasa V1.5
Nightscape
Outskirts PB7
Quarry PB
Sandtrap V3
Sandtrap V4 PB
Sandbox
Sol System 2.1
Spaceout PB
Template PB
Template Sym PB
The Pit V2
Tombstone V2
Tombstone V3 (Unrealeased)
Trence PB
Trenched
Valhalla V1.5
Vertigo 4
Zombstone V2
And more test maps

Single Player
Coagulation
Outskirts
Quarry
Requiem
Tombstone

Co-operative
Outskirts

H2.5 MMM
Various

Weapons
Reach Magnum M6G

H3 Assault Rifle MA5C
H3 Assault Rifle MA5C Custom HUD
H3 CMT Brute Spiker
H3 CMT Brute Spiker Custom HUD
H3 Magnum M6G
H3 Missile Pod
H3 Missile Pod Custom HUD
H3 H3MT Brute Mauler
H3 Spartan Laser
H3 Spartan Laser Custom HUD

ODST Magnum-Socom M6C
ODST SMG Silenced M7S (unfinished)

H2 Battle Rifle Grenade (only supports gamepad)
H2 Battle Rifle Torch
H2 Battle Rifle XBR55
H2 Covenant Carbine Extended Clip
H2 Covenant Carbine Reaper
H2 Chaingun Mobile
H2 Chaingun Mobile Custom HUD
H2 Gaussgun Mobile
H2 Gravity Gun (broken\unfinished)
H2 GT (broken\unfinished)
H2 Missile Pod (unfinished)
H2 Needle Rifle
H2 Plasma Shot
H2 Plasma Turret Mobile aka Plasma Cannon
H2 Recon Rifle
H2 Recon Rifle Blue
H2 Recon Rifle Red
H2 Scarab Gun (prototype)
H2 Sentinel Beam (restored)
H2 Sentinel Beam Major (unfinished)
H2 Shotgun Torch
H2 SMG Silenced Fixed (really fixed + slightly balanced)
H2 SMG Silenced Torch
H2 SMG Torch
H2 Sniper NoScope
H2 Spartan Laser
H2 Target Locator

H1 Assault Rifle MA5B
H1 Assault Rifle MA5B Rusty
H1 Flamethrower
H1 Flamethrower Custom HUD
H1 Pistol M6D
H1 Pistol M6D "Black"

Melee
H3 Gravity Hammer
H3 Gravity Hammer Custom HUD

H2 Energy Blade Dual (broken\unfinished)
H2 Energy Blade Purple
H2 Energy Blade Red
H2 Flag Blue
H2 Flag Red
H2 Gravity Hammer
H2 Jackal Shield (broken\unfinished)
H2 Plasma Saw (broken\unfinished)
H2 Sangheili Honor Guardsman Pike
H2 Skull

2x4 Wooden Plank

HL2 Crowbar

Equipment
Bubble Shield
Bubble Shield Single Use
Bubble Shield Single Use Custom HUD
Gravity Lift
Gravity Lift Single Use
Gravity Lift Single Use Custom HUD
Power Drain (broken\unfinished)
Trip Mine (broken\unfinished)

Scenery
Autofire
Barrage
Biped
Ledge
Vehicles

Other
Camera
Empty Handed
Flare Gun (broken\unfinished)
Masterchief Gun

Vehicles
H3 Hornet
H3 Hornet Snow
H3 Mongoose (broken\unfinished)
H3 Mongoose Snow (broken\unfinished)

H2 Banshee Damaged
H2 Banshee Heretic
H2 Banshee Mod
H2 Chaingun 360z
H2 Dino (broken\unfinished)
H2 Fire Scorpion
H2 Fire Warthog
H2 Ghost Damaged
H2 Gravity Ghost
H2 Longsword
H2 Manatee (broken\unfinished)
H2 Minigun
H2 Needler Ghost
H2 Revenant
H2 Rocket Warthog
H2 Scorpion Campaign
H2 Scorpion Damaged
H2 Spectre Damaged
H2 Spectre Mod
H2 Speed Ghost
H2 Spook
H2 Warthog Damaged
H2 Warthog Mod
H2 Warthog Troop
H2 Warthog Troop Damaged (glitchy)
H2 Warthog Trooper
H2 Weapon Ghost
H2 Weapon Wraith (broken\unfinished)
H2 Wraith Campaign
H2 Wraith Damaged

Ball aka Flying Bubble Shield

-AI
-BSPS
-EFFECTS
-MODELS
-SCRIPTS
-TEXTURES
-SHADERS
-NEW SOUNDS
-UNLOCKED H2EK
-IMPROVED H2TOOL
-AND MUCH MORE



FILES (7-Zip archive):
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=A730CFEAB2760675&id=A730CFEAB2760675!245
3.87GBs Compressed

Due to an upload size limitation with Skybox it came out to 14 files; all at 300MBs a piece except for the last file.
The current host requires a MS account; a Games for Windows Live/XBOX Live account should suffice.

Next I will try and find another host with less strict upload and download limitations.



Alternate Download Location at MediaFire (http://www.mediafire.com/?ahe3cduht4cv9)




http://www.h2mt.org/repository/images/logo/RESIN.PNG



H2MT Readme.txt:
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////



ABOUT THIS COLLECTION:

Before I ride my pony off into the sunset I wanted to release all of our H2MT work so that others can bypass much of the BS and get right to the fun
of H2V custom map creation. Yes, it can be fun if you have the following:

1) A brain and patience

2) The right tools/applications

3) Good source files to start with and the knowledge to use them


My H2EK (Data & Tags) directory is ~11GBs and that is after removing lots of junk files, duplicates and so forth. When I compress it (with 7-Zip) the
size drops down to ~4.25GBs. From there I will split it into eight or nine pieces. I hope thats not too large of a download for you but this will
provide access to everything I've worked on. I include a few tools and many tweaks specific to the H2EK root folder, bin directory and so on.


BTW, when I say everything I mean everything: Single Player (AI), Multiplayer, H2.5 MainMenu Moded and CO-OP (AI) plus a few scenarios by other H2MT.

Getting some of the complied maps to work requires the latest MainMenu Mod (Public Beta 0.5), Ambiguous (Alpha), possibly Cheat Engine and other
tools and know-how. Its all laid out on the Map Repository under the Notes section (see the bottom of this text file for links).

You need to take special care when editing Single Player and CO-OP scenarios otherwise YOU WILL CORRUPT THE FILE! So make sure you are using the
tools I recommend such as H2GuerillaNEW.exe from the H2EK Unlocked directory also included in this collection. If a scenario becomes corrupt it will
not open again after it has been saved.



//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////



INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

This archive uses 7-Zip LZMA2 compression so you need to have 7-Zip installed to extract it. You can download it from here: http://www.7-zip.org


0) You need to install the H2EK from your H2V DVD or an H2V ISO file as the tools will fail to launch otherwise.


1) I would suggest backing up your H2EK directory first just in case you make some kind of mistake. So copy the root folder and name the copy something
like Halo 2 Map Editor.BACKUP.


2) If you want to merge this collection with your existing Data & Tags then simply extract the files over the top of your existing files, I always
install my H2EK to C:\games\Halo 2 Map Editor or D:\games\Halo 2 Map Editor and so forth.

However if you are not a madman such as myself then you installed the H2EK to the default location, so you would look here:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo 2 Map Editor

or is it here

C:\Program Files\Halo 2 Map Editor

or perhaps here

C:\Program Files (x86)\Halo 2 Map Editor


3) If the extractor asks about overwriting files you can give confirmation because you did make that backup in step one right?


4) Step four is very important! Wait, there is no step 4. You should be good to go, although the extraction process could take quite awhile; so go outside,
rob a bank or do whatever it is that you enjoy.


5) Okay step five, yeah fives a cool number; shit you try rolling a blunt without a thumb, then you will see! Okay, now that the files are completely
extracted you can explore them. I suggest opening Sapien and then navigating to:

\Halo 2 Map Editor\tags\scenarios\multi\

from there you can jump right into editing your own version of an H2MT scenario!


* If you have any problems editing and/or saving any files I suggest setting the root H2EK folder and its contents to write access.
Do so from the folders properties palette by unchecking Read-Only and then clicking apply. This could take a minute or so to complete.

** Please respect the team's work by mentioning us if you release any maps/source based on our work. :)



//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////



ABOUT THE H2MT CREW:

The Halo 2 Map/Mod Team has been around for years now. We create custom maps, mods, applications, videos and other content for Halo 2 Vista
(aka Halo 2 PC or H2V).

We have some members that also work with Halo 2 for the original XBOX and Halo Custom Edition for the PC.


Some of the members act as consultants and error finders while others create new BSPs (terrain or geometry) to battle over.

The team has released a few mods that enhance gameplay rather then taking away from it, mods such as the MainMenu Mod, Blu Trainer vK2 and Ambiguous
Alpha & Beta (the first Real-Time H2V Editor).

A few members have created tools that now allow us access to enhanced Real Time Editing capabilities while others have ported maps and content from
various Halo games.


We now have a large pool of custom BSPs, weapons, vehicles, HUDs, shaders, bitmaps, new crates, active scenery, skys, scripts and more to choose
from.


When a project has reached an acceptable level of completion we choose to share most of our source files as we believe that the community can grow
and learn with more ease through proper existing examples.


We are not actively searching for new members at this time, particularly novices, but if you feel you have some skills that could help us expand the
Halo Universe please contact us through the H2PC Forums.



H2MT members past and present:

AvengerofDeath2

B4M_TwinReaper

Baltic Beazt

Computron

Garanas

JohnnyBlaz20

Kantanomo

Kills Alone

Kirby_422

PCTechmaster07

PirateEggs

Shock120

Skiddy 632

Slaters Fury

StatutorytrOy

Super PolarBear

SuperSniper

XHN_SCRAPY

ZeroErrors



//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[Disaster]

Well this looks neat.

[Zeph]

If we have people that can hex edit into a .model format, why don't we have people that can make a tool that writes into that format from Max or .fbx/etc.? Dont tell me that all those things are borrowing physics proxies from other existing assets (h3 hornet borrowing banshee physics)?

[Resinball]

Funny thing about that Hornet is it fits the Spectre almost perfectly. ;)

[Btcc22]

Not directly related but the Essential Mix you used for the video is awesome. :realsmug:

[Resinball]

Yeah MSTRKRFT reminds me of Daft Punk, good shit.

[Kornman00]

why not use source control? Use a main repo for the core tags/data, then have forks for campaign/mp scenarios (to get around repo size constraints)

[Resinball]

I already have a Map Repository setup with all kinds of Data/Tags source and collections and I'm not sure that I will be making any more additions to it, so this collection is the easiest method to get all of the most recent source files as it is essentially drag and drop execution. The campaign/co-op/ai are more experimental examples so I did not see a reason to split them all up anymore then has already been done so.

You (Korn) have been a great help, if you want to help further you could upload all of the source files (Tags) you have been able to extract from H2. Between the original scenarios that you have access to and the characters/animations that Shadow has access to we would be much closer to a fully working H2EK. If I do acquire such Tags then I will remake the collection, but at this time it is quite complete from the MP perspective.

If anyone else improves the collection or has some other source that would make a great addition please contact me.

[Kornman00]

Most of the juicy tags reference one of the shader tag groups, which AFAICT, can't be fully recreated into source tags from their postprocessed cache tag (you could say the postprocess operation is lossy). I was working on ways around this in OS H2EK, but most activity is still in CE so I keep most of my free dev time on it.

[Resinball]

Yeah, I hear that man, its just that I believe the H2EK could rival and even surpass Custom Edition in many ways and I hate not seeing it come to full fruition. Even if we do not have all of the tags many could be improvised in one way or another. Many shaders can be created by hand so I'm curious if Shadow's extracted bipeds have proper UV coordinates.

Shadow said the same to me awhile back, regarding the post processing. I knew it would be an issue the first time I tried to modify the MC biped by making a new character based on him and ran into issues with his face-plate and post-processing. I may have mentioned this to you before, but with the different semi-custom MC's I did I borrowed the heads from the Marines and distinguished each by colors and weapon set, even basing some of them on real players I know, and it worked well enough for now. To solve the post-processing issue with the mask I just used a shiny black shader/texture I came up with. Both worked for my purposes because what I've been trying to create is a semi-custom Mombasa campaign and I have some of the story/locations mapped out.

Mid way through the mission there was a part where the Spartans suffer some type of EMP attack and have to ditch their helmets, also losing their HUDs and causing erratic issues with each of their own AI (AI akin to Cortana). I also wanted to create a story where the player is a marine or ODST for at least part of the campaign, rather then being the main hero type the player gets to play from a support position where they aid a Spartan or group of Spartans. This is something I wanted to do long before ODST/Recon, in fact I've never played any Halos past 2, other then a few MP matches of 3. So its nothing like ODST other then the obvious similarities.

With all of the extracted tags I think that most of that could be realized, the biggest hurdle is path-finding. Thats why I was wondering if that information could be retained when extracting a scenario, then I saw in the extracted Mombasa scenario (that originated from you) and many of the fields that cannot be made from scratch where still there. So I would say its likely that we could reuse those existing fields to create new scenarios, even if those scenarios had limits such as we had to use the exact same path-finding/bsps from the original campaign, because if we had that much we could still change how it plays out with scripting.


On one scenario I have working there is a large bridge section where the player sees his team and them himself destroyed by some massive nuke or otherwise large explosion only to awaken and realize its was a bad dream, then the real game begins at a completely different location. This section needs polish but would work out pretty well even within the H2EK limits I currently face. So it could be more custom of an experience in some scenarios. The main thing to finish on this scenario is I need someone to create a realistic looking mushroom cloud explosion, thus far my attempts haven't been good enough in that area.


Another section that has 99% of the BSPs ready is the map Tombstone. I have created two different versions of the map to fit within the story. The second type would appear similar to the MP version. The first version that the player would see would be early in the morning so it would probably be much darker. Most of the Tombstones would be cleared out, part of the player's team would arrive from the sewers which are opened up and would likely be greatly extended, perhaps even becoming a separate BSP. Anyways the point of this area is that the team clear out the Covenant forces then get a message that many many more Covenant forces are coming to retake the area. One of the marines or spartans had a relative that worked at a place similar to the Tombstone map. So this NPC goes down below the map to a storage area and returns with a Forklift and precedes to bring the pillars out and set them around the map so that the friendlies will have some improved cover. For this section to work I created a vehicle based on the Forklift and the Crane, the Crane rotates 360 degrees.

Besides the forklift models UVs not upgrading worth a shit, I needed to come up with a way to make a functional elevator. An elevator could be faked in many ways, but a real one would be ideal so that the elevator did not require any outside (or inside if it where a vehicle) assistance. Shit I could probably put invisible AIs in them if I had too. But a proper elevator requires animations and the only place to get those is from the original campaign.


There is a lot more to my campaign such as more locations and characters, but without those tags it would suffer because we really need access to the original tags such as animations, bipeds, and campaign-only vehicles, so I decided it might be better as a machinima...still I long to finish that campaign someday, so if you ever get the free time know that I do have a plan for those tags, "I don't just want them, I need them, and that is an adult decision." ;)


So who knows, perhaps this collection will encourage others to give the H2EK a second chance, the lack of fully unlocked tools was surely a large problem but so was the lack of example tags; there were just so few it was an insult to anyone who used Custom Edition. Now people have a solid place to start from and more examples then necessary. Its just a damn shame the real H2EK couldn't leak out of some hole like most software eventually does; of course many others have said the same many times before me.

[ShadowSpartan]

Yeah, I hear that man, its just that I believe the H2EK could rival and even surpass Custom Edition in many ways and I hate not seeing it come to full fruition. Even if we do not have all of the tags many could be improvised in one way or another. Many shaders can be created by hand so I'm curious if Shadow's extracted bipeds have proper UV coordinates.
They did have the texture coordinate data, but the shader tags they referenced were empty, hence why they were all white.


There is a lot more to my campaign such as more locations and characters, but without those tags it would suffer because we really need access to the original tags such as animations, bipeds, and campaign-only vehicles, so I decided it might be better as a machinima...still I long to finish that campaign someday, so if you ever get the free time know that I do have a plan for those tags, "I don't just want them, I need them, and that is an adult decision." ;)
There are other limitations stopping campaigns from happening though, such as everything campaign related being stripped from Sapien....so unless someone created a new Sapien, everything would have to be placed by hand in Guerilla. Also, if I remember correctly, Korn said at one point that the AI pathfinding data creation had also been stripped from the tools, which makes AI pretty much useless.

[Resinball]

So if the UVs are good, couldn't the shaders (the ones not dependent on post processing) be recreated by hand by using Entity to study the originals? More work, but possible right?


Yes, with the campaign work I have done I've had to manually place much (but not all) of the items such as characters/weapons spawn locations. Its not very hard, I just place a temporary equivalent in Sapien then copy the XYZ and rotation coordinates into h2guerillaNew. There is a setting in Sapien that allows you to change the scenario type, before this would not compile but now we have the unlocked H2 Tool which will compile any scenario type. I almost have a new custom Main Menu working however some built in check is preventing it from loading, though it does load from SP and MP areas. So making a scenario into a campaign scenario is no longer an issue, much thanks to adolif2 who made these additions to H2 Tool. Then there is the bin directory; I recreated the files that go in there by studying and comparing the headers from existing map files.


The path-finding is certainly an issue, thats why I was thinking that extracted original scenario files might be the answer as the path-finding from them might be reusable. If the path finding remains from an extracted scenario that is then compiled it could be recycled. To test this theory I would need one extracted BSP/scenario/lightmap (if those three tags can be extracted that is). At least then we would know if its possible.

[Ki11a_FTW]

You're not going get any pathfinding data that is gonna remain in the scenario file that you can edit. IIRC pathfinding data is generated when a BSP is built in tool, and thats built upon by the AI navigation tools, which we don't have in sapien.

[Kornman00]

IIRC, enough of the ai pathfinding code is stripped that it doesn't even clear any of the pathfinding blocks before the point at which the actual PF creation code would run. If not, that's a simple enough fix.

Pathfinding data is located in both the structure bsp (which is the autogenerated data) and then in the scenario (which should be the designer specified data). Lightmaps have nothing to do with it. However, IIRC, I finished all the bsp/lightmap recreation code in BlamLib.

The code/definitions in Sapien for the campaign-related data, like Shadow said, were stripped in release builds. There's nothing there to work with.

Tool still has all the needed of the physics/collision model import code, and it's theroetically possible to recreate the render_model import process using or RE'ing the code used in structure importing. Or one could even hack up a process which exports a model as a structure bsp and then processes the imported tag and strips/postprocesses the underlying render model data into an actual render model.

Animation import code still exists to some degree. I was working on recreating this code via RE'ing Halo1's import process (the two don't differ that much). It appears that when Hired Gun was working to get the EK localization-able, they inadvertally changed all the import-based code to read input files as unicode, which makes no real sense when .ass and .jms files contain no or accept non-ASCII characters. H2tool contains code for processing 'old versions' of jma files (version number should be on the first line). CV and I tried playing with this, using a Halo1 jma saved-as in unicode, however I don't think tool actually spat out a usable animation graph (can't recall the reason why).

I've thought about doing a kickstarter for some OS stuff (both H1 and H2), one of the project bullets I had in mind was 'finish tag extraction user interface' (for both h1 and h2). Though, there is also anothe major idea (for H1 mp) that would probably be considered 'worth' more development time than things like that.

[Ki11a_FTW]

If the H1 netcode was fixed(leading, syncing, etc) i could honestly say I may make another MP map.

[Kornman00]

I've privately discussed possibly taking the time to increase the maximum players to 24, 32, or maybe even higher, but most of who I've talked to think that there wouldn't be that much support for a Kickstarter for such a project ("except for maybe mexicans"). Retroactively adding hit-scan support was another idea for the would-be KS. And I'm pretty sure I already have all the needed engine research to add-in some more adaptive object (projectiles, players, and vehicles) hit detection with little effort (the engine already tracks most of the needed data).

[Ki11a_FTW]

I'm a user of OS, and I see it's potential. From my eyes, if everyone in the CE community saw such a feature, (people who don't know about halomaps, or modacity), it would completely boost the community. The problem is, how can they notice it? The only thing I could think of is making it some kind of update, or message in the lobby. I mean maybe an agreement with dennis on halomaps could be made to include all of these features with the game download, thats the best I can think of.

E: hell, a while ago I made a few test maps with OS, using halo's default BSPs. One of them was blood gulch. After days of making custom detail maps and high-poly scenery, and using my HD halo tagset (which is essentially halo 3 models on H1 rigs), it made the game look so much better. But it still has that sloppy feel to it. If these features you are saying will one day be developed, I'd gladly chip in my HD H1 maps as a support to get more players to get OS.

[Resinball]

Thanks for the detailed info guys. Its sounds like there are still a few major limitations but most of them can/could be circumvented.

[arbiter901]

How much you think is needed to fund something of that sort?

[Kornman00]

I estimated between one and two months to: reverse engineer all the addresses (haloce and haloceded) that need to be patched up, then actually coding those patches, then testing. I already have pretty much all the structures documented which are limited to k_multiplayer_maximum_players so it's mostly just finding all the references to the player fields in those structures and making them point to another part/address. It would probably not take up to two months, but I figured it's a decent amount of time to account for any unforeseen circumstances. The KS would have had to cover, at the very least, the time I spent off of full time work (I still have bills to pay). So for one month it would need to be almost 2k. But I wasn't just going to work on more players for the KS project because I think more can be done in those ~two months that others would like as well. Eg, syncing device objects, halo3\reach equipment (for campaign and possibly MP), h1/2 tag extraction, etc.

[Ki11a_FTW]

Working equipment such as jetpacks? I wonder what else could be done. I heard someone solved the issue with BSP having a high poly count when the pieces of bsp disappear ingame.

[Kornman00]

A lot can be done, it's just a matter of time spent reverse engineering, then figuring out how to plug the system into the current tags/engine, then actually developing it all. Most of the time I'll say something "can't be done" because there's just not enough time to reverse engineer something, or the amount of patching of the game code needed is just too much. Or both. As was/is the case with increasing max players.

And you may be thinking of an upgrade CV helped us make where we increase the max number of dynamic triangles (the setting is off by default in 3.0.3): http://code.google.com/p/open-sauce/wiki/Doc_Halo1_Settings#dx9_Settings