HaloMods "Classic" Read-only Archive

Now I only changed a few huds, but I'm putting out a tutorial for everyone else who wants to edit xbox huds... The Warthog gunner is fun to play with now. And the AR has a skull in the middle (If you can't see it, then you need a bigger tv ). And the pistol is a radio-active sign, and thanks to MaCaGaC for the AR, and pistol reticule. Every other hud was done by me (Poorly but just to show it can happen). Lastly, I'd like to thank Flesh Rider for starting it all up. It wouldn't have happened without him. (I seem to pick up everything from someone else [bitmaps, models, and now this ]). Anyways. Here's the patch, and now the Tutorial:

THINGS YOU NEED!
- HMT 3.5
- Adobe photoshop
- Hex Editor
- Halo PC

GETTING STARTED:
First of all you have to open up your XBOX map that you have and go to the reticule tag in the bitmap section. Then there are 12 reticules on xbox, and 14 on PC (Useless Info).

- From what i can remember the first one is the driver hud of the warthog, the AR, the pistol, and the no weapon reticules
- The Third is the warthog gunner, but you can figure these things out yourself

Anyways, so save the meta of the reticule section. Then open it up in a hex editor and go down to where you see the the first "bitm". then click on the "b" of "bitm" and go forward +C. Then you'll land on four bytes that determine its dds type. Now punch in 10 00 84 e1 because that's what DXT4/DXT5 is, and I just like that. Now save it and inject the modified meta. Now the first bitmap of it should be DXT4/DXT5, and should have a fucked up bitmap. This is where you open your pc map and extract its first bitmap, then open it in photoshop and modify as you wish. When done, save it as DXT5, then inject in the map. Now, the warthog driver hud will be that arrow, but it will be a square and the background will be black, so i just nulled it out. Anyways. Do this for all and modify as you please. Now you can import the new fuel rod gun bitmap . Oh and the rocket launcher has the rocket hog gunner reticule. Enjoy everyone.

OMG i died again
nice work u never fail us

great work. you should make a program like pokecancer does, im not good at the hex editing stuff

I don't know if you mentioned it anywhere, but you can have a different reticule for each weapon. You just have to dupe the meta and inject more bitmaps, then just swap dependencies for the gun and you can have every weapon with a different sniper/pistol reticule/hud whatever.

great job!! what do u mean by go forward +C?

I don't understand the forward +C either? But this is great news!

*Sigh*, sorry I've had a bad day... I mean go forward +0c... Like press Ctrl - G, then type in +C. Then type in 10 00 84 e1...

Thanks for the help Allister, I don't know that much about hex editing but this sounds like something I can do. Thanks again for the great find, changing reticles is something everyone has wanted to do I am sure.

Well I got home and tried this and it works great except in Hex Workshop when you hit Crtl- G you have to choose hex instead of dec and word bitm is backward so I highlighted the m and it worked great (just thought I would post that info in case anyone else has Hex Workshop). Thanks Allister and thanks Flesh Rider for getting him started. Allister I would also like to know if it would be too much trouble for you to release that Guass Hog by itself in Bloodgulch and Sidewinder that is freakin sweet, I haven't seen it done like that before.

should we include spaces in "10 00 84 e1"

You select the text and edit the hex, and from all the bitmap meta I have changed it always looks like this in the hex 1000 84E1 after you change it just copy that and paste it in the hex after you do the Crtl- G.

Ok heres a program, i think it works, notice the key word, think. Its just a little two day program, nuthin fancy, ill try to add a bit more like what rectile is what later, if theres bugs, which i know there will be, lol, tell me and ill try to fix them.

Wow way better than Hex... This is a lesson to everyone... If you figure something out... Then share it *cough* Flesh Rider *cough*... because then people can make things to speed it up. Nice job Zero Cool!

thanks man, but again, i cant garuntee that it works, can you give me a deffinate answer that it works?

Yeah it doesn't work. See I had to inject the bitmaps and change the type in the meta, and I had to use a Halo PC bitmap... This is just changing it... So it looks like big blocks... Maybe if you make a program that can just change the DDS type...

photoshop changes the dds type quickly and easily

This isn't the same thing, it changes the unsupported formats for bitmaps in hmt to supported bitmaps so you can edit them in Photoshop.

Hey thanks for the tutorial Allister added the new reticules to my final nightwinder tidyed them up a bit as well they looked a bit messy on silent cartographer.
Posted up the last release go check it out see what you think.

ok I just tested my program again, heres what i did, saved the first rectile (the asr, pistol, and others but i dont know what they are) from the map, opened it in photoshop, blacked out the bg, took a white paint brush, drew and X over the asr section, upper left, saved it as a dds 5 then injected it back in, again over the first reticle, uploaded it to my box, and it worked, i have yet to test the other reticles, i will try asap.

when i save the texture it comes out all scratchy and doesn't look like a reticle at all. when i inject a ret, i has a dark blue block as the ret, but i cna see the ret i injected, if i look hard