How to pimp your UI by Pepsi
Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:56 am
im writing this tut for the simple fact that the UI being featured in the new redux will have these effects, so i want to get this out the way before my inbox gets flooded wih requests on how to do this.
things needed
- eschanton
- hmt
- common sense
for the remainder of this tut i will be refering to eschanton to "esch" just cause its what im used to calling it.
first we need to make sure esch is set up properly. open esch and go to" file > preferences " and make your setup options like mine in the pic below.
having it set to entity style is the key to making all this happen.
adjusting the menu options
first off were going to move our main menu options. this being the placement of of the options for campaign, multiplayer. settings, credits, profile and quit. we open our ui.map by going to " file>open " and in the browse box find your halo maps folder and select the ui.map. now it will open in esch.
now that we have it open we want to change the plament of thoes menu items i spoke of. to do this we need to go into the " DeLa" tag, then in the sub menu for Dela choose " ui\shell\main_menu\main_menu_select_list". to the right in esch there should be 4 options. choose "child widgets" and you should see 6 sub items for that. thoes 6 items are the menu items i mentioned before for campaign, multi and so forth.
once you can see thoes 6 sub items in child widgets go into the first one. you will see 4 options. you want to go into the one named "short integers". there you will see 3 more options. were only intrested in the ones named "vertical offset" and "horizontal offset".
click either of the offsets for vert or horz and change value for it. you only want to change the number in the long box and not the actual.. wait.. lemme take a pic. it might be better to do it that way.
only change the number i circled there above. my number there isnt going to match the stock number, but its the number in that place that needs to be changed.
now, the repeative part and the testing phase so listen close.
you have to go into each one of thoes 6 child widgets and change their vert/horz offset. this in turn will move the menu items for the ui screen. one you have some test numbers in place, then run halo and go to the main menu and check where you moved them. once you see how their moved, then close halo and go back and tweek your numbers.
DO NOT FORGET TO HIT ENTER WHEN ENTERING YOUR NUMBERS OR THE EFFECT WILL NOT SET. IT SAYS TO DO THIS IN ESCH ITSELF.
these numbers you can choose can be "-" (negative) numbers as well. like one of my settings is a "-45". just remember that when your trying to move things to the left of the screen. once you have all that done your menu items should be moved. i set mine up like this for new redux.
GAH!! but now it looks ugly cause the halo logo is in the way up top. wish we could move its position. well, we can actually.
stay in the Dela tag in esch and this time go to "ui\shell\main_menu\main_menu". to the right will be two options. choose child widgets. then you will have 3 sub child widgets. choose the first one. then go into "short integers" again and change the "vertical offset" like we did before. change the "0" to like "105". hit enter to save the changes and check the ui now. heres some pics of what im speaking of.
and now a look at our new ui setup below.
spiffy huh!!
but wait!! we can make it more pimp with a simple trick and being creative.
killing the "waiting for updates" for direct access
dont you hate it when you try to join the lobby or go to create a game and you always have to wait for updates? well, now we can totally get rid of them now. and its more simple then i thought.
open the ui.map in your dependacy swapping program of choice. this can be eschanton, hht or dothalo. the main thing is that it has to have the ability to swap dependacys. once the map is open we want to go into the [DeLa] tag again. this time scroll through the "ui\.." branch until you come to this item..
ui\shell\main_menu\multiplayer_type_select\multiplayer_type_join_internet_item"
after you click it there will be five markers in that tag to the right. you want to make the swap on the first "DeLa" marker. look at my screen below and change the one i highlighted to match what i input there for a swap. make sure you hit enter, save or whatever to make the effect stick.
congrats! you now dont have to wait for updates when going into the lobby for a game. but what about when i make my own game and still have to wait for updates? thats a easy cure to. just scroll down even more until you find this in the [DeLa] tag..
ui\shell\main_menu\multiplayer_type_select\\multiplayer_type_create_internet_item
click it like i said above and make the same change in the same spot as we just did. now you will not have to wait for updates when joining the lobby or when making your own game. halo hasnt had a update in how long since 1.07 came out so no need for this option anymore.
editing the bitmaps using cryoglass and nulling item out
first your going to need some cyroglass. and not just the stock one. i dont care what people say, the stock cyroglass IS NOT 100% transparent. it looks like it but it isnt. i edited my cryoglass a long time ago and made it 100% transparent and your going to need this to pull this effect im about to show you. if you dont use this cryoglass your going to notice some smudges and blurs in the ui and your not going to be happy with it.
first the cyroglass -> http://pepness.net/misc/cryoglass1.dds.1.rar <-
now open hmt and inject it in anylevel.map under "levels\a10\bitmaps\cyro glass". now that your cyroglass is 100% clear we will move on after you do one vital thing...
MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR UI.MAP NOW!!
ahem. ok. now open your ui.map in hmt. go to the bitmap tag. select it and make your way down to the cyroglass we just injected. copy the meta for that bitmap.
my meta number is going to differ from yours cause im on a rebuilt map but the number you have in that box is the number we want to copy. now comes the tricky part with alot of trial and error. your going to be pasting that cyro meta over some of the UI bitmaps to make them be transparent. this being alot of things with the name "..bkd" on them. "bkd" is a name for "background" and we want to null thoes items out. you have to manually go through the bitmaps in the "ui\.." extension part of the bitmaps and see what backgrounds you want to delete. this takes alot of time with trial and effort but i do have a guide for you.
download this: Template UI
here is a UI with all the changes i felt needed to be done with swapping the meta already in it. when you get the ui just rename it to like "ui2.map" and open it in hmt. go to the bitmaps section and see what the meta number for the cyroglass in that ui is. then go through the "ui\.." section of the bitmaps and see everywhere i overwrote a bitmap with it and you do the same with the ui your working on.
side note:
you can open the template ui on your desktop but hmt will give a error saying it cant find the bitmaps. thats fine. you dont want to see the bitmaps. you just want to know where i did the swaps. so to recap this, you should have YOUR ui open in one hmt able to edit -and- MY template ui open in another hmt to check to see where i made changes.
pressing forward..
once you have made the swaps in meta like i mentioned, and hopefully you were smart enough to hit "save" by the meta everytime you made a swap your ui should be pretty pimp and clean looking. you can feel free to add more swaps to other things you want gone and if you feel froggy you can make more changes moving things like i mentioned in esch.
so what does it all look like when your done?
watch: http://youtube.com/watch?v=H0QBvZfwfbI
im am not responsible if you mess your ui.map up or do something weird to it. im not going to trouble shoot it cause i think i laid everything out for you pretty well if you have at least some basic modding knowledge. much thanks to conure for showing me some stuff that helped make this tut.
-pep
things needed
- eschanton
- hmt
- common sense
for the remainder of this tut i will be refering to eschanton to "esch" just cause its what im used to calling it.
first we need to make sure esch is set up properly. open esch and go to" file > preferences " and make your setup options like mine in the pic below.
having it set to entity style is the key to making all this happen.
adjusting the menu options
first off were going to move our main menu options. this being the placement of of the options for campaign, multiplayer. settings, credits, profile and quit. we open our ui.map by going to " file>open " and in the browse box find your halo maps folder and select the ui.map. now it will open in esch.
now that we have it open we want to change the plament of thoes menu items i spoke of. to do this we need to go into the " DeLa" tag, then in the sub menu for Dela choose " ui\shell\main_menu\main_menu_select_list". to the right in esch there should be 4 options. choose "child widgets" and you should see 6 sub items for that. thoes 6 items are the menu items i mentioned before for campaign, multi and so forth.
once you can see thoes 6 sub items in child widgets go into the first one. you will see 4 options. you want to go into the one named "short integers". there you will see 3 more options. were only intrested in the ones named "vertical offset" and "horizontal offset".
click either of the offsets for vert or horz and change value for it. you only want to change the number in the long box and not the actual.. wait.. lemme take a pic. it might be better to do it that way.
only change the number i circled there above. my number there isnt going to match the stock number, but its the number in that place that needs to be changed.
now, the repeative part and the testing phase so listen close.
you have to go into each one of thoes 6 child widgets and change their vert/horz offset. this in turn will move the menu items for the ui screen. one you have some test numbers in place, then run halo and go to the main menu and check where you moved them. once you see how their moved, then close halo and go back and tweek your numbers.
DO NOT FORGET TO HIT ENTER WHEN ENTERING YOUR NUMBERS OR THE EFFECT WILL NOT SET. IT SAYS TO DO THIS IN ESCH ITSELF.
these numbers you can choose can be "-" (negative) numbers as well. like one of my settings is a "-45". just remember that when your trying to move things to the left of the screen. once you have all that done your menu items should be moved. i set mine up like this for new redux.
GAH!! but now it looks ugly cause the halo logo is in the way up top. wish we could move its position. well, we can actually.
stay in the Dela tag in esch and this time go to "ui\shell\main_menu\main_menu". to the right will be two options. choose child widgets. then you will have 3 sub child widgets. choose the first one. then go into "short integers" again and change the "vertical offset" like we did before. change the "0" to like "105". hit enter to save the changes and check the ui now. heres some pics of what im speaking of.
and now a look at our new ui setup below.
spiffy huh!!
but wait!! we can make it more pimp with a simple trick and being creative.
killing the "waiting for updates" for direct access
dont you hate it when you try to join the lobby or go to create a game and you always have to wait for updates? well, now we can totally get rid of them now. and its more simple then i thought.
open the ui.map in your dependacy swapping program of choice. this can be eschanton, hht or dothalo. the main thing is that it has to have the ability to swap dependacys. once the map is open we want to go into the [DeLa] tag again. this time scroll through the "ui\.." branch until you come to this item..
ui\shell\main_menu\multiplayer_type_select\multiplayer_type_join_internet_item"
after you click it there will be five markers in that tag to the right. you want to make the swap on the first "DeLa" marker. look at my screen below and change the one i highlighted to match what i input there for a swap. make sure you hit enter, save or whatever to make the effect stick.
congrats! you now dont have to wait for updates when going into the lobby for a game. but what about when i make my own game and still have to wait for updates? thats a easy cure to. just scroll down even more until you find this in the [DeLa] tag..
ui\shell\main_menu\multiplayer_type_select\\multiplayer_type_create_internet_item
click it like i said above and make the same change in the same spot as we just did. now you will not have to wait for updates when joining the lobby or when making your own game. halo hasnt had a update in how long since 1.07 came out so no need for this option anymore.
editing the bitmaps using cryoglass and nulling item out
first your going to need some cyroglass. and not just the stock one. i dont care what people say, the stock cyroglass IS NOT 100% transparent. it looks like it but it isnt. i edited my cryoglass a long time ago and made it 100% transparent and your going to need this to pull this effect im about to show you. if you dont use this cryoglass your going to notice some smudges and blurs in the ui and your not going to be happy with it.
first the cyroglass -> http://pepness.net/misc/cryoglass1.dds.1.rar <-
now open hmt and inject it in anylevel.map under "levels\a10\bitmaps\cyro glass". now that your cyroglass is 100% clear we will move on after you do one vital thing...
MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR UI.MAP NOW!!
ahem. ok. now open your ui.map in hmt. go to the bitmap tag. select it and make your way down to the cyroglass we just injected. copy the meta for that bitmap.
my meta number is going to differ from yours cause im on a rebuilt map but the number you have in that box is the number we want to copy. now comes the tricky part with alot of trial and error. your going to be pasting that cyro meta over some of the UI bitmaps to make them be transparent. this being alot of things with the name "..bkd" on them. "bkd" is a name for "background" and we want to null thoes items out. you have to manually go through the bitmaps in the "ui\.." extension part of the bitmaps and see what backgrounds you want to delete. this takes alot of time with trial and effort but i do have a guide for you.
download this: Template UI
here is a UI with all the changes i felt needed to be done with swapping the meta already in it. when you get the ui just rename it to like "ui2.map" and open it in hmt. go to the bitmaps section and see what the meta number for the cyroglass in that ui is. then go through the "ui\.." section of the bitmaps and see everywhere i overwrote a bitmap with it and you do the same with the ui your working on.
side note:
you can open the template ui on your desktop but hmt will give a error saying it cant find the bitmaps. thats fine. you dont want to see the bitmaps. you just want to know where i did the swaps. so to recap this, you should have YOUR ui open in one hmt able to edit -and- MY template ui open in another hmt to check to see where i made changes.
pressing forward..
once you have made the swaps in meta like i mentioned, and hopefully you were smart enough to hit "save" by the meta everytime you made a swap your ui should be pretty pimp and clean looking. you can feel free to add more swaps to other things you want gone and if you feel froggy you can make more changes moving things like i mentioned in esch.
so what does it all look like when your done?
watch: http://youtube.com/watch?v=H0QBvZfwfbI
im am not responsible if you mess your ui.map up or do something weird to it. im not going to trouble shoot it cause i think i laid everything out for you pretty well if you have at least some basic modding knowledge. much thanks to conure for showing me some stuff that helped make this tut.
-pep
