Okay, the FAQ will be compiled in this post as questions are answered.
Newbie Faq ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Question: How do I put AI in to MP?
Answer:
1. Batch extract a MP map, checking all check marks. I'll use Blood Gulch as an example.
2. Recursively extract elite major plasma rifle, into the batch extracted MP map's folder.
3. Put Bloodgulch.map into the extracted folder, and rebuild the map
(Making sure to add the new elite actv)
4. In HMT, save the meta of a vehicle as VEHINAMEHERE.vehi.meta
(Non Recursively) into a folder somewhere.
5. Open up the Elite Actv, and at the top you will see ID then a bunch of numbers. Well, thats the ID of the tag, just in Decimal format.
6. Open up Calculator, and go to view, and make sure Scientific is arked. Go to Dec, and type in the numbers after the ID: from HMT.
7. Now click on Hex, and copy what's in the answer bar. Go into HMT, and click on the Utilities section.
8. Paste the Hex ID into the left Util. bar, and press Swap Endian. Now you finally have a useable ID! (note you must do this for ALL ID's you ever want to use)
9. Open up that Vehicle meta you saved earlier in a hex editor. You need to look for a vtca reference (an actv reference, but backwards) Skip the first one, as it won't do anything. For you advanced people, only use the ref's in the seat chunks. For you New guys, just skip the first vcta you see, and use any after that.
10. Once you have a good vtca to use, you will see FF FF FF FF in the hex window after a few zeros. Guess what?! It's the perfect size for that Elite actv ID!!! So put it in.
11. Save and inject the new Vehi meta, and Now you have crappy looking elite bots!
12. Uncrappifying - Save the elite biped and open in a Hex editor. Go find the ID of the cyborg_mp model, and look at the top of the bipd meta. You will see 2dom, that's the tag reference to the elite's Mod2. Replace the ID of the elite mod2 with your cyborg_mp ID. When you're done with that, take the antr ID from Cyborg_mp biped, and paste in the elite's bipd, You should be all set! Enjoy!
2. Question: What is Capture the Grunt gonna be like?
Answer: It will be the flag model replaced with a perfect Grunt Model.
3. Question: How do you rebuild a map?
Answer: http://www.halomods.com/tutorials/Mappi ... ebuild.php
4. Question: How do I skin?
Answer: With photoshop:
http://www.halo4pc.com/index.php?showtopic=219
5. Question: How do I remodel (make a gun, vehicle, etc) something:
Answer:
http://www.halo4pc.com/index.php?showtopic=27
6. Question: How do i turn a sp map into mp?
Answer: Not answered yet
7. Question: How do I rename something?
Answer: Open up your UI.map with Hex Workshop. Then click on find and check "text string" Next search for whatever you want to rename. Ex. "Warthog"
Keep looking until you find something that looks like W.a.r.t.h.o.g. Now replace those letters with whatever you want it to be. To delete, just put a space where the letter is. (The name can't be longer than the original)
8. Question: How do I change individual things in a map, such as making one rocket hog shoot plasma grenades, and another shoot frag grenades?
Answer: Better Answer coming soon
9. Question: Where can I find HMTv3 Plugins?
Answer: Find them here
http://www.halo-mods.com/index.php?show ... &hl=modder
10. Question: Is there a specific topic here that has a downloadable AI mod in it (For any level but DI)?
Answer: As of yet, No
11. Question: How do I find the identifier (ID) of something?
Answer: Open up calculator and HMT, and in HMT go to the tag you want to find the ID for. At the top, you should see ID: then some numbers (ex: ID: 3872982373 @ 0x302DE5C (The numbers in bold would be the ID)). These numbers cannot be used as is, because they're in decimal format, and anything you'll be hexing needs to be in hex. This is where Trusty-McCalculator comes in. Go to View > Scientific, then click on the "Dec" radio button. Type in the numbers after "ID:" from HMT, then click the "Hex" radio button, and calculator will convert it to Hex. Still can't use it though, Why? It's not quite right yet. Copy the converted ID, and go back to HMT. Expand the Utilities section, and you will see two bars. The left bar is for swapping endian, which is what we want to do with our ID. So Paste the ID in the left bar, and click "Swap Endian." You can now use this ID anywhere you want, It's in the correct format.
12. Question: What is a tag reference? (tag ref)
Answer: In Hex, when looking at a tag, you will see Tag Ref's everywhere. They're pointers to other tags, like in Bipd, they point to the model that biped needs to use, the animation trigger, and a lot more.
So whats a tag ref look like?
vtca 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 12 65 34 88
^^^ This is made up, but a tag ref can also look like
2dom 56 43 23 78 00 00 00 00 12 43 75 37.
These are both tag references, and a tag reference is a pointer to another tag. So how does it point to a tag? by the Identifier. For example:
in either
vtca 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 12 65 34 88 or
2dom 56 43 23 78 00 00 00 00 12 43 75 37
The bolded numbers would be where the tag ID goes. So whats with the numbers at the beginning, or: 2dom 56 43 23 78 00 00 00 00 12 43 75 37?
Don't even worry about those, you won't need to do anything with 'em. Hopefully if you understood this, you now know what tag ref's are.
13. Question: How do I activate the console? (Be able to kick, ban, etc)
Answer: On your desktop, right click on your Halo shortcut (make one if you don't have one) and click properties. Go to Target. In that, there should be something like "[harddrive]/[other directories]/Halo/halo.exe"
All you have to do is put a space at the end, then you can put your flags after that.
The flag to activate the console is -console. To use it in-game, press ~
The 3 basic commands for a non-dedicated server are:
sv_kick (player name/number)
sv_ban (playername/number)
sv_players to retrieve the player numbers.
Note: If you use the playername type of sv_kick, names with spaces need to be in quotations.
PS: for more help with the console in-game, press ~, then TAB
14. Question: How do I make Grenades explode so they throw objects across the screen, but do no damage?
Answer: Make sure that youre modding the right values, ex: you wouldn't want to make the force of the Grenade itself high, 'cause that would make anything the grenade bounces off go flying. Instead, make sure you change the Grenade explosion/shockwave info. Another way to do what you want is make the damage extremely low, something like .00001
15. Question: How do I make a Grenade shoot out of my gun, instead of just dropping out of my gun?
Answer: Change the speed to something like 0.0001. If you just edit the speed then it will constantly move and will never blow up. What you should probably do is just change the arc/weight tag to something smaller, like 0.001, - this will make it go farther, but it will still drop and explode.
16. Question: In the AI tutorial, do you have to add every last file that was recursively extracted for the Elite, or are there just specific ones you need?
Answer: Only one file, the actv, is all that's needed. Any other tags that that tag needs to use are automatically added.
17. Question: I've seen many mods that have a completely round log with flat ends in BG. Where is it?
Answer: scenery\trees\tree_leafy_fallentrunk\tree_leafy_fallentrunk However, you must swap this tree trunk into the map with some other scenery object.
18. Question: What are the names for all the Single Player Maps?
Answer:
A10 - Pillar of Autum
A30 - Halo
A50 - Truth and Reconciliation
B30 - Silent Cartographer
B40 - Assault on the Control Room
C10 - Guilty Spark
C20 - Library
C40 - Two Betrayals
D20 - Keyes
D40 - The Maw
19. Question: How do I swap Scenery in?
Answer: Just use SparkEdit3.
20. Question: How do I put vehicles in maps that don't have any vehicles?
Answer: If the vehicles are already in the map file, just swap one with a scenery object. If not, just rebuild the map with vehicles, and then swap.
21. Question: How do you get the models to be coherent?
Answer: Not Answered Yet
22. Question: I know how to duplicate a vehicle or a weapon etc. and change it, but what I want to know is how do you place it?
Answer: Your best bet would be to replace a scenery object with your duplicated object, then move that in SparkEdit.
23. Question: How do you change the MC's color in SP, not just by changing the texture, because some mods like general camo are hardly noticable under the green color.
Answer: Try removing all of the Blue channel in the Cyborg_Multipurpose bitmap.
24. Question: How do you put human (warthog) turrets into MP maps?
Answer: Coming Soon
25. Question: How do you modify the size, length, etc. of collision models?
Answer: This data is all raw, just like models are, so find the raw data (with a hex editor) and go from there. This is the most I can help you on this, but I suggest coming on IRC to ask someone who knows more about it than me.
26. Question: How would you add the pistol scope to the assault rifle without having to swap the hud interface?
Answer: You don't have to swap the hud interface at all, it's just a bitmap.
27. Question: Whats the multiplayer covenant mod going to be like? Can you choose from all the species or just Elites?
Answer: Ah, I haven't really thought much of it, I may just drop the idea.
28. Question: I just downloaded a mod, how do I open it and insert it into Halo?
Answer: Usually there are instructions in the readme, but you can be sure if there are .ppf files, you will need ppf-o-matic.
29. Question: Is there a way to edit the weapon hud interface?
Answer: You are going in the wrong direction. Any graphical changes can be made by editing the proper Bitmaps.
30. Question: How come there is always an exception in AI maps?
Answer: Which maps, and who made them?
31. Question: How do I use the Halo dedicated server? Where can I get everything I need for it?
Answer: You can get it here. It is a standalone program that basically sets up your computer as a server that dedicates all of its resources to managing an online game, so that game is less laggier. the downside is that you cant play on a computer with a dedicated server, so the idea is to get a friend to set it up.
32. Question: How do I use ppf studio to make maps into patches?
Answer: You need the original map, and the modded map, and they must be the same size. Put the original map where it says in ppf studio, and the modded as well. Find a save spot, and press go. For a better tutorial, check this out:
http://www.halomods.com/tutorials/Basic ... pfmake.php
33. Question: Has anyone made a mod where you can ride on the wings of banshees, kind of like you do on tanks?
Answer: No one has done this yet. And HunterXI, it is already quite possible, as seats are only chunks, just make a new chunk, update the chunk count, and recalculate chunk offsets.
34. Question: I've seen so many mods where you shoot MC out of guns. I'm wondering if anyone can tell me how for all the guns
Answer: To shoot MC's, all you have to do is go to Bipeds> Cyborg (or MP_Cyborg) then copy the meta in the little bar. then go to projectiles, and pick a any. In the same little bar, paste in the value you copied above, and click 'save'... voila! you can shoot MC's!
35. Question: How do I make the Marines drop 8 grenades?
Answer: All you need to do is get a plugin for HMT and then make it from 4 to eight. Check
here.
36. Question: If there's some way of linking a light bridge with another object, shouldn't it be possible in some way to replace a gun's projectile with whatever that link is and use it as a remote control?
Answer: In SP, this should be possible, but since Halo MP netcode doesn't allow scripting, you couldn't do it there. In SP, I myself wouldn't really know how to take the action from the bridge holo control and make a weapon activate it.
37. Question: I always get an exception error when I swap models using the model plugin. Why is this?
Answer: As far as I know, it's because the vertices and indices aren't swapped as well. I really have no idea on this one, tjc2k4 would be the one to ask.
38. Question: When I start a server on another computer... I can see it in the select game list, and so can everyone else, but I'm the only one who can join it. What causes this? If its the firewall I have built into windows then how do I disable it?
Answer:
* Open Network Connections (Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double
I am not the merry man.