Custom HUD?

[PlasbianX]

Ok, im trying to make a custom HUD, and im having a bit of problems. I have no clue what to do :confused:

Here is what ive found thus far:


In the cyborg_mp.unit_hud_interface tag there is an option at the top to choose where the HUD will be baised (top right, bottom left, etc.). By default, it is set to top right. To make the HUD that I did, I set that to bottom left. Making new HUD items isn't as hard as it seems. Bungie implemented their HUD items in bitmaps that have multiple HUD items all on one page of a sequence. I find it much easier to make all new bitmaps for each new item and reference them in the cyborg_mp.unit_hud_interface tag accordingly.

To make new items, you need to make a new bitmap in Photoshop (or your editor of choice) that is a decent amount of pixels (256*128 usually works nice). Fill the canvas with all black, and begin your editing with any color along the grey scale (colors will not show up correctly). Create your item here, and when you are finished (or want to test), do a 'select all' (ctrl+a) and copy it (ctrl+c). Go into the 'channels' tab in the 'layers' box (or whatever it's called) and create a new channel. It will be called 'alpha 1' by default, you can leave it like that. Paste into that channel and then adjust the contrast to your liking, brighter white for more opaque in game, blacker for more transparent.

Also, regarding the alpha, when you are creating the filler part of the health bar (the stuff that goes away when you get hit), in the alpha channel, you must make this gradient in the direction you want the filler to move. For example, for my health bar, when it recharges, it moves from left to right. What I did, was I made the filler horizontally gradient, dark grey to the left, light grey to the right (never put pure black or pure white in the filler's alpha, it comes out looking very strange). If I was home, I'd post pictures, but I'm at school. I'll post pictures later.

Compile your bitmaps in tool, and open them in Guerilla. Make them '32 bit color', save, and recompile them. Now, in the cyborg_mp.unit_hud_interface tag, look at the bitmaps already referenced there so you know which ones to reference (so you know which one is the outline, which one is the filler). Reference your bitmaps and make sure you set the sequence index to zero [0].

Save the tag, close it and reopen it. At the top, click 'view HUD'. If it looks somewhat like what you intended, then it will probably look right in game. If not, j00 fuxxored! (or maybe I left something out )

Compile your map and test!

Ok, so ive tried this and had doubts. I can do reticles and ammo meters fine so heres my question. Do i have the 1 pixel width border around the bitmap? And do i really have to paste my image into the alpha channel. And how do i setup the gradients for the bar to move down on my health and shield bars?

Please and thanks for any help :)

~PlasX

[IPBJT!]

For the gradien you need to set the brighter part to be the first part of the meter to deplete

For exemple if you want the shield meter to deplete from the right to the left, make it so the brighter part of the gradient is on the right, darker on the left. That's how the shield meter work. Same for health and the flashlight.

[PlasbianX]

Yea, but i set that up in the alpha channel correct? And for the meter colors (not the gradient) dont translate into halo, so i need to do it in grayscale and set the tags to what color?

And what about that blue pixel border?

[Chewy Gumball]

You always need a blue pixel boarder on sprites. Your hud sprites should be greyscale. There is a part in the tag that lets you choose the colour. The Alpha is the transparency. You don't have an alpha, you don't have anything show up. The health meter thingy that goes down goes from brightest to darkest, and is a separate sprite I think.

[PlasbianX]

A seperate sprite? Polar Bear told me its just like making a ammo meter, so now im like completely confused. I guess ill just try till i get it right :/

Ok, i looked at the tags, and the HUD is made up by 4 bitmaps. A shield bar, a shield gradient, the health bars, and a health gradient. THe shield gradient is just a solid bar. The health gradient, is one color for each bar, similar to that of an ammo meter. I think i can do this now, but how do i combine 4 bitmaps into 1 like that?

Ok, im looking at the unit hud interface tags, and i see i can use a shield outline bitmap, a shield bar bitmap, a health outline bitmap, and a shield bar bitmap. Now all i gotta do is figure out how to make these (which i think i know) then make em.

[Chewy Gumball]

When I said separate sprite I didn't mean separate bitmaps. There is a tutorial on Halowiki by steelIXB about sprites. It tells you how to do it.

[PlasbianX]

I made a test HUD, and its 256 x 128, but when i compile it, it says:

skipping bitmap with non-power-of-two dimensions #245x#116#1

Edit, if i remove my blue border from my bitmaps, its compiles. Look:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a31/plasbianx/HUD.jpg

:D! My First HUD (a crappy one Non the less) is done. Now to move onto something more detailed.

[mined]

Good to here you figured this out and you are sharing your discovery.

I can use this bit of knowledge for my vehicle hud, Thanks.

[PlasbianX]

NP. Ive actually just made about 4 more today. And im gonna use camtasia to record a vid on how to do the meters. Its actually really simple. Just 1 bitmap for the outline, one for the meter.

Heres one i made just for fun (wasnt aiming for looks, just threw something together in a few seconds):
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a31/plasbianx/HUD2.jpg

I figured out how to line them up right, and also im working on getting the health bars to go into the bottom half of that health bar, which should be easy.

[WhÎþLå§h ÐÆmØÑ]

Pretty cool. :)

[TheGhost]

Sweet, that looks really nice.

[PlasbianX]

I think since im getting good with HUDs, im gonna do a completely elite themed, and a completely spartan themed huds, and release the tags for them after i finish my map.

[mined]

I am not sure if it is possible, but if you come across a bit of the hud tag that allows for animation like some shaders do, let me know.

[PlasbianX]

Ill look over them again, but i didnt notice anything about animation. But if its for a vehicle, i think i have to check a different HUD tag.

[Chewy Gumball]

It says you can animate reticles, but I haven't figured out how to do more than change the colour/shape when you go over an enemy. Don't think you can get any animation like shaders though.

[Rescudo]

That looks extremely sweet. I'd want to play with that hud :)

[Rescudo]

Keep the pirate talk in the appropriate thread, pl0x. :p

[Rosco]

Sweet, that looks really nice.

EXACTLY what I was going to say. :mad:

Whoops, it's the admin! I retract the angry smile. :lol:

[Rescudo]

:mad:
Too late. :D

[PlasbianX]

Well once i finish this homework, ill make a indepth tut on how to make these. So all of you who ever wanted one, can make one.

[mined]

Hey, I figured something out that might interest you for your HUD, Tut or both. The HUD I am working on for the Hoplite implements a reticle that changes shape, size, as well as the color when locked onto a target biped. It is very simple in terms of how it works and probably is not anything new to some...but it might add a little more content to a good HUD tut.

Let me know if you are interested.

[PlasbianX]

Yea, that would be cool, cause my Tut is gonna be for not only health and shield, but reticles, and ammo meters. Most people know about the ammo and reticle, but any extra info is good :)

[Boo Diddly]

hm, is there a way to move the one icon for showing the gametype? *its the one where its the guy for slayer, flag for race, ext.*

[mined]

hm, is there a way to move the one icon for showing the gametype? *its the one where its the guy for slayer, flag for race, ext.*

There is a way to move any of them...in the tag, each feature has a location value. There are coordinates that vary according to where the feature is anchored on the screen. Open a hud tag and you will find it pretty quick.

[PlasbianX]

Yea, ill show how ya move that stuff too. Its actually really simple, and theres a way to check where they will be onscreen without having to compile a map and test everytime.

[mined]

Hey Plas, If you are still intersted, I'll send you the info to contribute to the tut Friday night.

[PlasbianX]

Ok, id like that. And heres a preview of my HUD. This is still a concept, and it is made by AceOfSpades:

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a31/plasbianx/Halo%20HUDs/FoFHUD.jpg

[mined]

Looks cool! I especially like the motion sensor.

[Boo Diddly]

wow, thats a nice hud idea. it probably would be better if that was for halo 2 because of the secondary weapon and displaying both gernades

[Agamemnon]

:eek:

Shields, health, and armor? I've actually been discussing that idea with some of my friends and they consider I'm crazy, but if you can implement that I'd like to have your children if you don't mind.

[PlasbianX]

wow, thats a nice hud idea. it probably would be better if that was for halo 2 because of the secondary weapon and displaying both gernades

Yea, im working on a slightly modified version for CE, and that will be for H2. Some of the effects for it are only possible in H2V anyways.

EDIT: And that little lightning bolt, is for your flashlight power :P. Its the energy bar.
But armor... hmm... dunno if thats possible. Id have to look into it.

[Chewy Gumball]

It would either be a separate bitmap, or just a colour box in the shield part of the tag.

[Agamemnon]

And that little lightning bolt, is for your flashlight power :P. Its the energy bar.
But armor... hmm... dunno if thats possible. Id have to look into it.
Damn, for a second there I thought we'd implement some logic into Halo. I never really got how your shields dropped and how half a ton of armor couldn't stop jack and any hits splurted blood and killed him within a few shots.


The armor plates are specifically designed for combat with the Covenant. It resists the Covenant's plasma-based weaponry extremely well; a SPARTAN soldier wearing this armor can survive approximately three times as much damage from plasma weapons than an ordinary human marine could. The armor also provides basic protection from human ballistic projectiles, although only to a slightly higher degree as regular marine combat armor. The suit itself is practically indestructible and is capable of sustaining tremendous damage and still be able to function, but even though the suit will continue to operate, the human inside can still be injured or killed by a penetrating round or by sufficient plasma impacts to the suit's outer shell.

[Chizzle110]

Thats cool that could help me make a custum HUD

[p0lar_bear]

I would have made a tutorial on HUDs ages ago, but I'm too damn lazy. :downs:

Remember, I released the source files for my H2 HUD; I tried to emulate Bungie's HUD bitmap creation methods as closely as possible; you can take a look at them if you'd like to see how they did it.

Here are some rules-of-thumb of HUD making:

There are two kinds of HUD interface bitmaps; high-res and low-res. Low-res bitmaps are bitmaps intended for best display on a 640x480 resolution (the XBox's native resolution), and examples of low-res bitmaps in the stock tagset are reticles, the ammo display backgrounds, and the motion tracker. Hi-res bitmaps are intended for best display on 1024x768 resolution. Examples in the stock tagset are the shield, health, and ammo meters.
Offsets are a bitch, but you can easily get them. When laying out your HUD, do so on a 640x480 canvas. You can simply paste your low-res bitmaps onto the canvas, but you will have to scale down your high-res bitmaps by 50%. Take note of the chosen anchor in the HUD interface tag, and line up the corresponding corner of your bitmap with that anchor (i.e. line up the top left corner of your bitmap with the top left corner of the canvas if the anchor in the tag is "top left"). Then, move your bitmap into position pixel by pixel, counting how many pixels you've moved it horizontally and vertically.
The X value is how many pixels you've moved the bitmap from the anchor towards the other side of the screen horizontally.
The Y value is how many pixels you've moved the bitmap from the anchor towards the other side of the screen vertically.

Whenever you reference a high-res bitmap, be sure to tick the "use high res scale" flag, or else you're going to get an LOLHUEG bitmap taking up the screen.
All HUD meters work in the same exact way; some just have more options. Watch TheGhost's HUD meter tutorial. Even though it was meant for ammo meters, the same rules apply for shield, life, and flashlight meters... hell, even gauges on weapon models (like PP and PR)!
Most HUD interface bitmaps are of the 2D Texture type; however, stock meter bitmaps, the stock HUD reticle warnings (reload, no ammo etc), stock waypoint bitmaps, and the stock weapon pickup icons are of the sprite type.


There's more to it than that, but that's just some core stuff to keep in mind.

[Jay2645]

Meh, here's my HUD idea. I made it mostly by myself, I used the HUD in the H3 HUD topic as a source template, and modified it severely.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/1760/hudur5.png

It's a cross between the H3 Multiplayer HUD and the H3 singleplayer HUD. I need to change the angle of the Grenades and the Assault Rifle about 1 degree each.

[Vernancelet]

You know, i found a pic someone used of yours and converted it in a 360 view which looks sooooooooo much better. :D

[PlasbianX]

I totally forgot about this thread. Too busy working on some stuff to do a HUD atm :X

[Stealth]

Meh, here's my HUD idea. I made it mostly by myself, I used the HUD in the H3 HUD topic as a source template, and modified it severely.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/1760/hudur5.png

It's a cross between the H3 Multiplayer HUD and the H3 singleplayer HUD. I need to change the angle of the Grenades and the Assault Rifle about 1 degree each.
I hate to say this, but the only differents between the Halo 3 "MP" and the Halo 3 "SP" HUD is the age of it, when we saw the "MP" HUD it was old and was reworked by the time every one got the beta, the so called "SP" HUD was made most likely.

I totally forgot about this thread. Too busy working on some stuff to do a HUD atm :X
:X that's just fine Plas, you might be working really hard on something very cool, and/or inportent(SP?).