A Night in Jungle Gulch [W.I.P.]

[05H3T5KY]

Hey everyone...I've been visiting this site for a while, and with the recent release of sparkedit 3.01, I finally decided to get into a "complete" mod (all I did before was change a few textures and stuff) and join the forums. I have been looking around the files.halomods.com section, in the Halo PC section. All I can say is I'm already tired of seeing IMO crappy "let's throw logs everywhere and call it cool!" mods. I have seen numerous quality mods on this site, it's just that these log-strewn mods seem too busy or unnatural to me. Maybe that's just me and my tastes speaking, but w/e, that's just my own opinion. I do, however, like the idea of xorange's platforms mod for BG...this is one of the few I like that are built from repeated scenery, because it has a nice, clean look to it.

But, now that I have said that, on to what I really made this topic for. As I said, I have started a "complete" mod. I have decided to make BG into a jungle at night. I am nowhere near done (still have to add plenty more plants, darken some remaining textures, etc.), but I have decided to show you guys what I have so far for your opinions and pointers, this being my first full-level mod and all. And yes, despite my rantings above, I did use logs for a few elements (who wouldn't?), but in moderation and in what I think of as an "organized" use.

I have decided to make my own page off-site to help Gren with the server storage and bandwidth problem. I know its freewebs and their bandwidth sucks for viewing pics, but it's the best I could do. Here's the link: Http://www.freewebs.com/cloakedsniper

Opinions and comments welcome. Sorry for the long post.

[Coylter]

it look good

[05H3T5KY]

Thanx Coylter.

Darn it.....I finally get my hopes up making what I thought was a cool mod, started getting compliments from people, had friends saying they wanted to play it so bad when it was done......

.......Then Nitrous had to go and release his uber-cool Forrest BG at night and manage to accomplish EVERYTHING I had ever hoped to do in later versions of my own mod. Working Night vision, Turning down the lights instead of messing with textures, thicker fog, more of a forrest/jungle look.......everything....

My motivation to keep working on my mod is almost nil now. I might finish it, I might not. Who knows. Especially since in the thread where his download is, people pretty much agree that they don't like heavily SE'd mods like mine.... :::psh:::

Later.

[Coylter]

yup nitrous mod is very very nice.

Playing hide and seek in it is awesome...

[HunterXI]

yup nitrous mod is very very nice.

Playing hide and seek in it is awesome...

woah dude, Its not so good to go complementing other mods in the wrong thread... as for me, I think it looks cool... maybe you could collaborate with nitrous for another mod?

[05H3T5KY]

Thanx HunterXI...I was just a little saddned that night by the fact what I wanted to do had already been done. I'm over that now, and I have in fact kept working on mine, and it has evloved quite a bit from the screenies on the site I posted. It's shaping up rather well in my opinion. Only problem is I've run into a somewhat nasty predicament. I've put so much additional stuff in to give it the look I want, the frame rate bogs down to 20FPS at times as well as stuff popping in and out of existence a lot more than normal, which is not desireable. And the level is only half-covered, running at 800x600 on my generally fast comp!!! So now I'm stuck with a few different things I can do. Not quite sure what I'm actually gonna do in the end....the most likely scenario is that I'll end up removing a lot of the new scenery I've added and spreading it out a lot more to get an even coverage and let the FPS go back up a bit. Not what I wanted to do, but oh well.

As for collaborating with Nitrous...I'm relatively new to modding whole levels and the like, so it is likely I wouldn't be of much help to a person who masters it as Nitrous does.

[HunterXI]

Thanx HunterXI...I was just a little saddned that night by the fact what I wanted to do had already been done. I'm over that now, and I have in fact kept working on mine, and it has evloved quite a bit from the screenies on the site I posted. It's shaping up rather well in my opinion. Only problem is I've run into a somewhat nasty predicament. I've put so much additional stuff in to give it the look I want, the frame rate bogs down to 20FPS at times as well as stuff popping in and out of existence a lot more than normal, which is not desireable. And the level is only half-covered, running at 800x600 on my generally fast comp!!! So now I'm stuck with a few different things I can do. Not quite sure what I'm actually gonna do in the end....the most likely scenario is that I'll end up removing a lot of the new scenery I've added and spreading it out a lot more to get an even coverage and let the FPS go back up a bit. Not what I wanted to do, but oh well.

As for collaborating with Nitrous...I'm relatively new to modding whole levels and the like, so it is likely I wouldn't be of much help to a person who masters it as Nitrous does.

I wouldn't be sure about how Nitrous feels about you, just PM him and see what he says. if you mention you were working on the same thing, maybe he'll be somewhat more inclined? just thinking out loud... as for the map, what graphix card do you have? and how much ram? and how fast is your processor? even Nitrous's mod slows down on me a bit...

*edit* I just had a thought about what you could do... maybe you could change the bitmap of the shrub thing so it's yellow, and make a dry-grassland mod? sorta like foxhunt from Socom 2 (My bro plays it, not me)? I think that would be cool

[Coylter]

hmmmm i dont know with it slow you down . mine is 100 fps rock solid

[CoWBoY]

HunterXI has a good idea. Make it more like dry summer/stormy night with dry grass and such. Or even desert (too bad there's no cactus "wink, wink" to import or make "wink"). It would be different and there are plenty of things to import from other maps that aren't on Nitrous'. I think it's coming along great and am working my way to that ability now so keep up the good work and I'll follow your progress.

[05H3T5KY]

First off, I'd like to thank you guys for your support. Now, on to my replies:

HunterXI--> Yea, I might PM him some time within the next few days...I dunno. Depends on if I can figure this out or not. As for my Comp's specs, here's what I'm runnin': Pentium 4 2.6gHZ HT, 512MB DDR RAM (single-channel), RADEON 9600XT 128MB. In the game, with this mod I'm runnin 800x600, 75Hz refresh, no vsync, no shadows, no specular, decals on, particles high, detail high. And it isn't lagging with with what you see in the screenies on that site I made....I have added a crap load more since then, and that's when it started. I have run Nitrous' mod, and it doesn't slow down nearly as much on me as with my own mod...and I ran his with everything on and at 1024x768...

As for that idea, I might just do it...I'm tryin' to figure outhow nitrous simply turned down the lights instead of darkening all the bitmaps like I've been doing. I think what he did is darken the alpha channel (or w/e channel controls the light of an object) on all the bitmaps so they don't give off much (if any) light, but this is only my speculation...to see if I'm right, I need to get Photoshop from my friend this weekend and play with it a bit. I hope I'm right.

Coylter--> Yea, but if you ran my mod, it would probably plummet. The only places the fps sky-rockets on my mod is in the caves and inside the bases...there it peaks to 120s. Elsewhere the most I can manage with the above settings in my reply to HunterXI is about 60-70fps, and that's when I can't see any of the additional plants I've used in the level. When you can see the plants, the MOST you can get is like 40-50 on foot, and like 20 in a hog. Weirdness.

CoWBoY--> That's a cool idea! If only I could add rain and my own "stormy" environmental sound....and I have an idea of how I could make my own rain...hmmmm.....this I'll have to play with later. And as for the great wealth of other stuff I could import....trust me, I tried, but when I go to use Sparkedit v3.0 to implement the new scenery, the map file gets screwed, and the swap data is all messed up...probably because it can't read a re-built map properly. I tried to take some stuff from 343 Guilty Spark, like the Crashed Pelican, the larger ferns, those tiny light bars, and some other stuff...but as I said, no such luck. I just tried meta-swapping them in then since SE wouldn't work, and I had the problem where the model seems to love attaching spikes of itself to the MCs face, so you can't see where the hell you're going. I'm probably just doing something wrong...

I'm gonna go mess with that now and try to get something to work. Thanx again for the support guys. I'll keep ya posted on how things are going.

[XeRoWaVe]

this is off topic a bit but is there or will there be any way to add water to the maps i mean no one has ever posted about that..

[Coylter]

your map do not slow me down more than nitrous one......


spec
athlon 2700+ overclocker to 3200+
512mb ddr-400 3-3-3-2
Radeon 9800 pro oc : 430/730
A7n8x motherboard


btw: You would get a BIG boost by running in dual channel. P4 loves bandwith. i think you would get 20 fps more ............ and this p4 can be overclocked to 3.4ghz on air with the stock heatsink. Dont be afraid to oc a p4 its impossible to burn , the chips slow itself down when overheating.

in fact you can even run a p4 without heatsink, but it would be slow...

[[users]esoMC22]

Aweosme mod man, props, and could you maybe make one that is day time too?, that would be great...

[05H3T5KY]

XeRoWaVe--> There isn't currently, otherwise I'd be doing it in this map. But when the HEK is released (which I hear is nearing the end of testing) we should be able to add water with that...after all, if it lets us build whole maps from the ground up and implement new vehicles and weapons and such, it better let us do water, or there will be some unhappy people out there.

Coylter--> Huh...good info right there. I know I would get a major boost by running in dual channel...I just don't have the $$$ to get a pair of 512 DDR Dual-channel chips like I want too, so I'm stuck with my single-channel 512 chip. And as for the overclocking on the processor and video card...I'd like to try to get it running without having to try that...having no experience with that myself, I don't wanna risk screwing something up. I have the tools (My MB, a ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, has the processor OC built-in, and I downloaded Powerstrip 3 for my vid card, but haven't used it), I'm just nervous to do it, because I finally have my comp the way I like it, and I don't have the income to buy new stuff if something happens.

esoMC22--> Thanx. And it would be quite easy to make it daytime...when I release it, you would just have to not apply the bitmaps.ppf, and you'd have the standard day-time look. Oh, and if you think it's awesome now by those pics......the mod has evolved quite a bit in the scenery dept. in the last 2 days. Just you wait.

On the whole, Here's an update: I have all but around blue base covered in scenery jungle-style. It seems I have found a set of settings in the game that allow it to run pretty smooth; these settings will be detailed in the Readme when I release it.

I have decided that I will make banshees unavailable in this mod, because of the simple facts that A. Banshees would kinda ruin the fun of this map, and B. When flying around, the game runs slow (b/c it has to render EVERYTHING in the level, which is a ton right now...), and things pop in and out of existence a lot more than from a ground-view.

There are a few spots, like the hill behind red, where if you look out at the level, some scenery pops in and out of existence....but in the case of these areas, you would have to zoom in to get a good shot on the questionable areas, and upon zooming in, the stuff is rendered again, so no sniper or long-range shots should be missed from "invisible" scenery unless you never use zoom.

All in all, it's starting to come together quite nicely. I should be getting Photoshop from my friend this weekend, so if my theory on how Nitrous turned down the lights is right, I will probably turn them down considerably, so that the rendering is relaxed a bit and the FPS might go up again.

Whew! *shakes hands* I think I've typed enough for this post. Until next post...later.

[HunterXI]

Nitrous turned down the light by making really thick fog... not editing the bitmaps...

[05H3T5KY]

He must have done something besides fog, b/c I just added fog last night, and it's not nearly as dark as his, even with the darkened bitmaps....all the fog does is reduce visibility....

[[users]ReApEr]

He must have done something besides fog, b/c I just added fog last night, and it's not nearly as dark as his, even with the darkened bitmaps....all the fog does is reduce visibility....

Isnt fog suppose to do that though?????

[05H3T5KY]

Yea, the fog IS supposed to do that.... But please pardon my stupidity. I added the fog late last night, and in my tiredness I failed to notice I would have to change the fog color to black to simulate the night effect. I just realized that now. So, you ReApEr, and you HunterXI are right, I was the wrong one. But now that I got the fog workin, it REALLY looks like night time, and the FPS has gone back up a bit again. So things are comin along nice. Hope to have this out by Tuesday at the latest, cuz' I have other stuff I have to do (like school work) that might get in the way.

[[users]esoMC22]

Wow, i just thought of something pretty cool...you mentioned fog...so that would be cool to put gravestones all over the bottom of BG....i dont know, Just a suggestion

[05H3T5KY]

esoMC22--> Maybe, if I have time...sounds kinda cool to have a few random ones stewn into the scenery, but only if I have time.

Anywayz, sorry for my constantly changing opinion on the night-time matter, but Nitrous DID do something with the bitmaps to make it dark, not fog...I just applied only the modified BG map from his mod, and all that happened was all the scenery came up and all....no fog (fog is contained within the .map file of the level, not bitmaps)....weird. I might try to use HMT to see what he did to the bitmaps in his mod to get an idea of what I have to do....

EDIT: It doesn't really matter about the nighttime situation anymore. I got it a realistic shade of night (what with the giant planet in the sky reflecting light and all) and it really looks great. Nightvision works perfectly now (something that wasn't before). The only thing I can notice is the flashlight and the headlights of the vehicles are not nearly as strong as they should be, but this is because I did some bitmap darkening too to achieve the effect of night and such. But oh well, this'll give me something to work for in v2 . Now all I have to do is finish the area around blue, and darken some remaining textures (and some other miscelaneous stuff). All of this should be done and v1 should be released by Monday night.