so for those of you who try and render but cant figure out a way to get detail objects to work, this is a rudimentary way of fixing that problem
For starters we are going to be using the bloodgulch bsp that you can extract using sparkedit, the bloodgulchground.tif that comes the the HEK(or u can extract with hmt) and a copy of 3dsmax 7 and photoshop or PSP
Now the first thing we are going to be doing is extracting the bsp from Sparkedit
1.A. Open up sparkedit and load the map bloodgulch.map
1.B. Once that is done you are going to want to extract the bsp by going file>export mesh to .obj and save it somwhere easy to remember
Close out of Sparkedit
Open up 3dsmax
2.A. Once 3dsmax is done loading go file>import and choose the file you exported out of sparkedit(make sure you switch the file type to wavefront object) at the top of the list and find the object that says 'Submesh_003' and click on it, then click invert, then ok
2.B. You probably will see a box but litlle or no actual mesh, this is because it is facing the wrong side. Go to edit mesh then choose vertex, then select all and then go through the edit mesh modifer to weld, make the number in the box 0.01 and then click weld, this will fix all open edges in the object(except for the sides) and make it one big element.
2.C. Now go to element and select all and unify, then flip all of the faces
Now open PhotoShop or PaintShop Pro
3.A Find the bloodgulch ground that comes with HEK, it is in CE directory\data\levels\test\bloodgulch\bitmaps and is called blood ground.tif, open it
3.B. go to the channels pallete which is 1 tab to the left of the layers pallette. you will see an alpha channel called grass, select it and copy and past it into a new document, then go to image>mode>rgb and save it as blood ground fill.tif then close it.
3.C. On the original blood ground.tif, delete the channel called grass by right clicking and deleting channel, then do a SAVE AS, DO NOT SAVE OVER THE ORIGINAL and call it blood ground2.tif
ALMOST FORGET, YOU HAVE TO INVERT THE COLORS, SO IF YOU HAVE PHOTOSHOP SAVE THE BLOOD GROUND FILL AS A .BMP AND OPEN IT IN PAINT, THEN INVERT THE COLORS, AND SAVE IT AS A BMP THEN GO INTO PS AND SAVE IT AS THE .TIF
keep photoshop open but go back to 3dsmax
4.A. now that we have all textures except for the detail map ready, we are going to start assigning textures to the mesh. go to the material editor and on the box next to diffuse, click on it and do a MIX, not bitmap. on the first map in our mix, select the blood ground2.tif that we made and go all the way to the top at standard and apply the bitmap to the mesh and make it show in viewport
4.B. Go to the modify tab and do a UVW Map and select the gizmo and move it arround till it looks right CLOSE IS GOOD ENOUGH, THIS IS JUST TO TEACH YOU HOW. Now you are going to want to go back to the material editor and to the mix we made, on the mix amount choose the blood ground fill.tif that we made. set the mix amount number to 15-25
4.C. Now if you noticed, we cant set the mix amount up yet, we have to choose the grass texture that we are going to tile, so go into the second mix category and choose bitmap then navigate to your CE directory\data\levels\A30 bitmaps and its detailgrass.tif
4.D. Now we need to tile the bitmap. in the bitmap category go to where it says coordinates and under there there will be a tile area, in each box where it says 1.0, type in 30.0...if you want more detail put in something like...35 or maybe even 40. Now it may look like crap in the viewport but press F9 and it will look great
Congratulations, you have just succesfully made working detail maps in 3dsmax. These detail maps will look exactly like they do in halo PC, CE, or Xbox. if you want more detail in the grass texture, you can make a micro detail map by going into the grass detail and instead of doing a bitmap, choose mix and in the 2 mix areas choose the grass detail and a texture called detail ground thats in the same directory as the grass
With a little more time an effort you can change this....
To this...
