good, I havnt seen any tutorials on PMI'ing stuff from 2 or more levels in one batch, so I thought i'd make a short tut about
it. Hopefully it will work
- Start by going to your desktop and making a folder for your PMI. I will name mine "PMI". Inside it, make 4 new folders: New
items, BSP build, Build, and Batch extract.
- Open HMT 3.5
- Open a clean copy (un-modded) of the map you want to insert 'stuff' into.
- Go to tools / Extract / batch extract.
- Check the box labled "extract metadata", and bowse to your Batch Extract folder. So, if you're using my setup:
Desktop/PMI/Batch extract. A window will pop up asking if you want to extract BSP. Klick yes.
- Once HMT is done extracting (A message will pop up saying "batch extraction complete! Total time: xx.xx.xxx... and so
on...),
Go to tools / Extract / BSP/Model sections, and extract it to your BSP build folder.
- Now open a clean, un-modded Campain map. Let's say, in our map rebuild we want:
a wraith
a pelican
a flood carrier
a lifepod
3 different elites
and a few elite flood warriors
Since there is no map with all these items in it (only nearly) we will have to PMI stuff from several missions.
- Start by opening C40, Two betrayals.
- Scroll down to the Vehicles tag, and find the Wraith. Find a little box that says "recursive", and check it. Klick the Save
Meta button beside it. Save it into the "New items" folder that we made earlier.
- Now, lets decide what AI (enemies) we want in the map. Go to the top of the tags list, and look for the "Actv" tag, Actor
variants. A list will expand with lots of different tags, saying what character it is and what weapon it has.
Say we want a stealthed elite with a plasma rifle, an elite commander with a plasma rifle and a standard elite with a
needler. First, start by checking if you are extracting any stealthed elites. If you do, we need to extract an extra tag
soon.
Now, Klick the Elite commander plasma rifle tag, make sure 'Recursive' is checked, and klick save meta. Save it to new items
again. Repeat this for all the other elite variants you want. You can take them all if you want to.
After this, expand the Actor tag at the top of the tag list. Recursively Save the meta from all the elite actor variants you
saved. So if you saved an Elite commander, save an Elite commander Actor tag. if you saved an Elite minor, save the Elite
minor tag.
When you have all the Actors, go to the Bipeds tag. Save the Elite and Elite special bipeds. "Elite special" is the biped for
stealthed elites. We now have everything we need for our 3 elites. Note that if you are PMI'ing an elite with a sword, make
sure you recursively extract the Energy Sword from the weapons tag as well. Makes sense that you need to have the weapons
that your AI will be holding, right?
- Now repeat this process for the Flood carrier and Flood elite combat forms. Extract the Floodcarrier Biped, Actor and Actor
variant to your new items folder, look through the Actv list for the Floods you want, and save them and their actors and
bipeds. For this mod I will be extracting the Floodcombat elite Assault rifle, Needler, Shotgun and Rocket launcher.
**********
When making your own map, not following my example, go nuts and extract anything you want here, AI, weapons (wont be needed
if you dont want the Sentinel beam projectile or Energy sword though...) Vehicles, Scenery, you name it.
**********
- After this go to Tools / Generate raw model offset list (CSV file), and save it to your desktop or PMI folder, just a place
were we can access it easily. Now go to Tools / Extract / Raw model. Klick the Load CSV file button, and load the file we
saved a few seconds ago. A list will unfold in the window, showing lots of different tags.
Start searching for the tags we recursivey saved earlier. This means we have to find the wraith, Flood elite form, Flood
carrier, ect. ect. When you have found the tag we want, following my example the first one would be an Elite, highlight it
and hit extract. Now, and this is quite important, Extract it to the same folder as the tag says. For the elite, it says:
Characters/Elite/Elite,
So browse to your New items folder, Characters / Elite, and save it there. Do the same for the Wraith, Flood carrier, and
Flood Combat Elite form. Now, if you saved any stealthed elites, you must remember to save the Elite_special tag! It goes
into New items / Characters / Elite / Elite_Special.
After having extracted all the raw models into their correct folders, close down the raw model extractor, and return to the
standard HMT window.
***********************
Now we have saved the Wraith, Flood Carrier, Elites and Flood elite warriors, and extracted their raw models. but we still
need a pelican and a lifepod. Since there are none of these in C40, Two betrayals, we need to extract them from another map.
A30, Halo, has both of them, so lets fetch them from there.
***********************
- Open up A30, Halo, and go to the vehicles tag. Recursively save the Pelican and Lifepod Meta. Just to avoid confusion,
Lifepod_entry is the burning lifepods that crashes down during the intro cutscene, and after you save the first batch of
marines. Save a SCV file, and extract the raw models as in the above steps.
- Now, when you have everything that you want in your map, it's time to make the BSP chunk.
Go to Tools / Model Decrapper/BSP builder. Right klick in the big white window that's popped up, and browse to your new items
folder. Go into the Elite folder, and add the Elite.mod2.meta file that's inside there. Repeat this for ALL the items that
you have added and extracted their raw models. REMEMBER THE ELITE_SPECIAL IF YOU'RE USING IT!
Once you've filled the list with everything you want to add, klick browse at the Existing Vertex area window, and go to your
BSP build folder. You should only see one file: [map name].vertices. add it, and repeat the same with the index and BSP block
windows.
Again, [Map name].indices and sbsp files should show up in your BSP build folder. Once this is done, klick the:
"De-crap these models and build a new BSP chunk while were at it" button at the bottom of the window.
- Now, Browse into your PMI folder. Inside BSP Build you should have 6 files. Now go to your batch extract folder, and Copy
EVERYTHING in there, and paste it into your build folder. When it's done copying, copy everything in New items, and paste it
into the build folder. Select Yes to overwrite all. Now go to your Halo maps folder and copy a CLEAN, UNMODDED bloodgulch, or
whatever map you're rebuilding, and paste it into your Build folder.
Now open your BSP build folder and copy the [Map name].sbsp.meta. Go to Build / Levels / Test / [Map name], and paste it in
there. overwrite the old file in there.
*****************
Now were' all set to rebuild the map. Go back to HMT and go to Tools / Rebuild map. In the original map window, browse to
your Build folder and select the map we just copied. Select Yes to auto-filling in the files. Now, in the additional files
window, right klick and select add. Now, browse to your build folder, and go into the folders where you pasted the new items.
I.e Build / Characters / Elite for the elite. Now Highlight all the FILES, NOT FOLDERS, and click add. Do the same for all
the other items we want to add. Again, remember the Elite_special.
When this is is done, hit the big menacing Build button. DO NOT KLICK SP > MP CONVERSION! Although this may seem like it, it
is not. During the rebuild HMT will ask if any new vertices has been added to the original BSP chunk. Since we have, klick
yes, and browse to your BSP build folder. Select the [map name].vertices.new, and klick ok. Do the same for the indices. When
it asks about using the new modified offsets, klick yes. Sooner or later a message should pop up saying "map rebuild
complete!". Go to your build folder and copy the [map name].map.rebuild.map. Paste it into your maps folder, or wherever you
want to store it. Rename it to [map name].map, and put it in your maps folder.
Congratulations, you have completed your fist Cross-level PMI.
Hope this helped. Thanks to those two special PMI tuts that I have forgotten the creators names
If you see anything wrong with this tutorial, please inform me what it is, and i'll fix it and give credit.
/ Diablo65
