Halo 3 [Beta] Mod Discussion

[Shalted]

Cool jefff, Collision vertices? Or the real deal?

[Prey]

H3B Editor 1.5


Bitm
So i thought i'd better start with this seeing as many of you interpretated what i said incorrectly. I thought i had it working, but when i got down to it; what i thought, was not at all. So sorry about getting your hopes up about that one guys ..the bitm code is still all there though, and you do occasionally get some output.. however crappy it may be..

Whats new
Well as you can see from the picture alone, H3B Editor has gone through some rather significant updates, it can now actually edit stuff for one
The picture though does the application no justice, i've crammed a lot into this release.. off the top of my head: sort tag function, filter tags, tag details, unicode editor, extended reference viewer, meta editor, plugins, plugin editor, simple map anaylzer.

Plugins
So ive now added in the ability for people to start mapping out the tag meta ..you can extract the meta, edit the plugin from within the app (quick & easy), and then get a nice visual display in return. The plugins follow the same layout as the .ent plugins did, although i have made some subtle changes. But I wont go into them here, just edit them from within the app =x

End
If you do find anything wrong, do tell. I intend to release the source code tomorrow and dont want to give you something that doesnt work right
Ill also be going on holiday for a week on sunday, so its essential to report any bugs found quickly, so the release tomoz can be as error-free as possible Thanks for reading, download.

[Tural]

My thoughts are basically summed up as being "less than enthusiastic" about this release. The UI is also bloated and unappealing, in my opinion.

[Tural]

I've been looking around the maps with your new program. (which is very cool) I have been noticing some new items in the vehi tag and in some other areas on the other maps. So it looks like Bungie will have a lot of surprises left for us, hopefully.

Apparently nobody understood the first dozen times.
This thread is about map structure and modding. This is not the thread to post random discoveries, and certainly not the place to ever even consider discussing leaked content.

Got it now? This is your final warning (Although you should not need more than one), any further discussion will result in a one week ban, no questions asked. It is not up for discussion, at all. Do not post arguing against this, it will get you punished as well.

If you have nothing to comment about the map structures, tools, etc., you'd be very, very wise to not post.

Don't talk about 'new' stuff. At all. None. Period.

Edit: I did notice one problem, mine wouldn't open shared.map, it just stayed at a blank progress bar and said idle for a while. I don't know if it just won't open it or is it just my computer. ( I got a feeling its my computer )

Anthony thinks the shared.map is 100% raw data, so it would have no need for anything else if all the pointers come from the actual maps.

yeah thats what I think to. There should just be a pointer in the map file that points to an offset in the shared map.

Shared is all raw, it is not an actual map, as it was in previous games. It can not be read like a standard map file.

[Digital Marine]

Hey Prey, are you 100% positive the meta offset's are correct? I was using your H3B Editor v1.5 to locate the offset of the Battle Rifle on Deadlock. Your program gave me an offset of "153199696". But, in hex I've located the following:
142665858 = Start Ammo (value of 108)
142665860 = Maximum Ammo (value of 144)
142665862 = Clip Size (value of 36)

I was toying around with your plugin editor, and it crashes if I add the offset of "10333910", which is 153199696 - 142665858. I've even tried negative values...

Perhaps this isn't the same meta as I thought it was, I don't know. Well, thats my effort so far. Oh, what control did you use for sorting the information such as MetaOffset? I'm trying to make my own private program just to organize what I know, which isn't much...haha.

[Digital Marine]

Here are some more offsets:
http://e-digitalmarine.net/H3_Offsets.htm

If you don't want that link on this forum, please just edit it out. It's just some offsets though, I see no harm against it.

[G.I.R.]

H3B Editor 1.5
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/731/ ... ic1wl6.png

Bitm
So i thought i'd better start with this seeing as many of you interpretated what i said incorrectly. I thought i had it working, but when i got down to it; what i thought, was not at all. So sorry about getting your hopes up about that one guys ..the bitm code is still all there though, and you do occasionally get some output.. however crappy it may be..

Whats new
Well as you can see from the picture alone, H3B Editor has gone through some rather significant updates, it can now actually edit stuff for one
The picture though does the application no justice, i've crammed a lot into this release.. off the top of my head: sort tag function, filter tags, tag details, unicode editor, extended reference viewer, meta editor, plugins, plugin editor, simple map anaylzer.

Plugins
So ive now added in the ability for people to start mapping out the tag meta ..you can extract the meta, edit the plugin from within the app (quick & easy), and then get a nice visual display in return. The plugins follow the same layout as the .ent plugins did, although i have made some subtle changes. But I wont go into them here, just edit them from within the app =x

End
If you do find anything wrong, do tell. I intend to release the source code tomorrow and dont want to give you something that doesnt work right
Ill also be going on holiday for a week on sunday, so its essential to report any bugs found quickly, so the release tomoz can be as error-free as possible Thanks for reading, download.

I know its early in H3 modding still, but this thing is quite the memory hog. I also don't like it writing to my program files directory without permission; why not just have the .cfg in the plugins folder?

[xbox7887]

Here are some more offsets:
http://e-digitalmarine.net/H3_Offsets.htm

If you don't want that link on this forum, please just edit it out. It's just some offsets though, I see no harm against it.

That's probably due to how the maps are structured now, they have no problem externalizing tag data so if it's pointed to by a reflexive, it can be pretty much anywhere

[Prey]

Edit: I did notice one problem, mine wouldn't open shared.map, it just stayed at a blank progress bar and said idle for a while. I don't know if it just won't open it or is it just my computer. ( I got a feeling its my computer )

Theres nothing to load, an empty form should just come up.

Hey Prey, are you 100% positive the meta offset's are correct? I was using your H3B Editor v1.5 to locate the offset of the Battle Rifle on Deadlock. Your program gave me an offset of "153199696". But, in hex I've located the following:
142665858 = Start Ammo (value of 108)
142665860 = Maximum Ammo (value of 144)
142665862 = Clip Size (value of 36)

I was toying around with your plugin editor, and it crashes if I add the offset of "10333910", which is 153199696 - 142665858. I've even tried negative values...

If a reflexive from the meta points to those values, treat them as relevant to the reflexive. So saying the reflexive pointed you to the start ammo, the start ammos offset would be 0, as it is relevant to the reflexive.

I know its early in H3 modding still, but this thing is quite the memory hog. I also don't like it writing to my program files directory without permission; why not just have the .cfg in the plugins folder?

Well if it is such a problem i can move the savefile.. and what do you mean 'memory hog'? Could you be more specific? Keep in mind that these maps are thrice the size of their predecessors, so if your in a huff about loading times; deal with it.

[Prey]

No! Loading times are great! Its just that (maybe it just me but) your editor sucks up about as much memory as Entity does in the BSP viewer. I understand they're much larger than Halo 2 map files, but if you're just viewing the strings and such, surely it shouldn't take up so much system memory?

More strings, bigger meta etc all means its going to suck up more memory, theres nothing i can do about it tbh.

Anyways ive been researching bitmaps a bit more, and now think ive found offset and size.



Just a coup more things i need to do to get this working properly i think, ill post an update later.

[Digital Marine]

Disregard what I had here about the ammunition stuff. I think I figured it out. So, if you're looking for ammunition, read the offset 1042 of your reflexive list. This is basically where you're ammunition starts.

Here is my weap.ent:

Code: Select all

<plugin class="weap" author="" version="" headersize="">
  <revision author="Digital Marine" version="0.2">Added clip junk...</revision>
  <revision author="Prey" version="0.1">Created the plugin...</revision>
    <struct name="Clip?" offset="1042" visible="True" size="20">
      <ushort name="Starting Ammo" offset="6" visible="True" />
      <ushort name="Max. Ammo" offset="8" visible="True" />
      <ushort name="Clip Size" offset="10" visible="True" />
      <ushort name="Max Holding Ammo" offset="12" visible="True" />
      <ushort name="Shots Reloaded" offset="20" visible="True" />
    </struct>
</plugin>

[haloflames]

i dont do that stuff but just guessing each level has its own specific code for each weapon or object.

[Digital Marine]

BUG in H3B Editor v1.5:

Code: Select all

See the end of this message for details on invoking 
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.
Parameter name: startIndex
   at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentOutOfRangeException(ExceptionArgument argument, ExceptionResource resource)
   at System.BitConverter.ToInt16(Byte[] value, Int32 startIndex)
   at H3B_Editor.ValueNode.ReadValue(HReader hr, Int32 seekOffset)
   at H3B_Editor.StructNode.combobox_SelectedIndexChanged(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox.OnSelectedIndexChanged(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox.set_SelectedIndex(Int32 value)
   at H3B_Editor.StructNode.ReadValue(HReader hr, Int32 seekOffset)
   at H3B_Editor.EntReader.ReadMetaValues()
   at H3B_Editor.Mapform.tabControl2_SelectedIndexChanged(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at H3B_Editor.Mapform.TreeviewTagSelected(Int32 tagIndx)
   at H3B_Editor.Mapform.treeView1_AfterSelect(Object sender, TreeViewEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.OnAfterSelect(TreeViewEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.TvnSelected(NMTREEVIEW* nmtv)
   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.WmNotify(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

After I saved my weap.ent plug-in, I was clicking around to make sure it loads every weapon correctly. When I clicked beam_rifle it crashed the program. If you look through the meta, the beam rifle has no reflexes at 1042. So perhaps you should add an IF THEN statement. If it equals "0000", don't load the plug-in. If the translation thing equal "0001", then load the plug-in.

[Prey]

So perhaps you should add an IF THEN statement. If it equals "0000", don't load the plug-in. If the translation thing equal "0001", then load the plug-in.

Not quite, but the probs fixed now anyway along with a few other things. Thanks for reporting, and nice work on the plugin.

[Anthony]

Anyways ive been researching bitmaps a bit more, and now think ive found offset and size.

Just a coup more things i need to do to get this working properly i think, ill post an update later.

heh I thought you woulda found the dimensions of the image atleast already :p

its in the sub map reflexive after the bitm tag type

they are both shorts

and you said you think you know how to get the offset? where do you "think" its located?

[Prey]

heh I thought you woulda found the dimensions of the image atleast already :p

I have.

its in the sub map reflexive after the bitm tag type

they are both shorts

I know.

and you said you think you know how to get the offset? where do you "think" its located?

Within the zone meta.

[Anthony]

heh I thought you woulda found the dimensions of the image atleast already :p

I have.

yea I know you have you just made a post saying you found it meaning you have found it within the last 24 hours

[Prey]

1.6 = Lots of bug fixes, improved map analyzer, and some other crap (all good)

Application
Source Code

Bitmap viewing is still a bit meh, lots doesnt work, i think i viewed about 5 that did though . Im off for a week now, so good luck to you all on finding out more. Whether ill pick this up again when i get back remains to be seen. Oh well goodbye!

[xbox7887]

Disregard what I had here about the ammunition stuff. I think I figured it out. So, if you're looking for ammunition, read the offset 1042 of your reflexive list. This is basically where you're ammunition starts.

Here is my weap.ent:

Code: Select all

<plugin class="weap" author="" version="" headersize="">
  <revision author="Digital Marine" version="0.2">Added clip junk...</revision>
  <revision author="Prey" version="0.1">Created the plugin...</revision>
    <struct name="Clip?" offset="1042" visible="True" size="20">
      <ushort name="Starting Ammo" offset="6" visible="True" />
      <ushort name="Max. Ammo" offset="8" visible="True" />
      <ushort name="Clip Size" offset="10" visible="True" />
      <ushort name="Max Holding Ammo" offset="12" visible="True" />
      <ushort name="Shots Reloaded" offset="20" visible="True" />
    </struct>
</plugin>

You're probably getting errors because you have the struct size listed as 20 (which is obviously incorrect) and you're mapping an unsigned short at 20.

[Digital Marine]

Xbox7887, I've already fixed those on my side. I have actually a few plug-ins created already.