Restored Elite Characters Pack

Mar 20, 2016
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#1
EDIT: I've changed the download to a forum attachment to more closely follow the Release guidelines. Enjoy!

Well, I'm going to be heading to a location far away from this computer in a few days, and I just figured I'd go ahead and release this since I've had it lying around for a few months and they've worked great.

The gist of this pack is that the elite.biped shipped with H2EK already supports every type of elite that makes use of it (which is why elites in H2MT custom missions spawn with random existing armor permutations), its just that those corresponding character tags aren't provided with the H2EK.

Thankfully, character tags are fairly simple to accurately recreate. With this pack, you'll be able to spawn:

Elite Minors
Elite Majors
Elite Ultras
Elite Zealots
Elite Honor Guards
Elite Councilors
Elite Stealth
Elite Stealth Major
Elite Spec-Ops
Elite Spec-Ops Commander (half-jaw. And yes, he correctly uses Half-Jaw exclusive character dialogue.)

These characters look exactly the same, act exactly the same (minus pathfinding of course), have exactly the same health/damage/stats, and sound exactly the same as their counterparts in campaign.

But do note that this pack also contains:

Dervish/Arbiter (Character)
Dervish/Arbiter (Biped Reference)
Generic (Character Reference)

Yes, Arby does have a character tag. On 04b_floodlab, when the Heretic Leader is fleeing in his Banshee during the maelstrom, and the Arbiter takes a few potshots at it, those potshots aren't scripted, its actually an AI doing that. So that's cool, but...you might be asking "what in the world is a biped reference? " Great question champ. Whenever a tag name exactly matches a tag name found in shared.map, the original tag is removed during compilation in favor of a reference to a tag in shared.map. While this was originally intended to prevent cheating, this system can be used to our advantage to call any tag in shared.map, including tags we wouldn't normally have access to. Since Arby's biped tag is already in shared.map, we can have Arby's character tag reference a nearly empty "reference tag" of the same name to access the real biped we actually want to use. Its the same deal with generic.character, although its largely restored anyway.

I should also note that this pack comes with H2MT's all.style tag, since if I had created my own it would have been almost exactly the same anyway, so credit to them for that.







Its already zipped together in such a way that, when unzipped into your Halo 2 Editing Kit directory, it will automatically merge with your existing tag set (so you don't have to worry about editing dependencies). At least in theory. Lemme know if it doesn't.


And for those of you less interested in tags, the second download is a demo map already featuring all the restored tag content. Simply back up your original copy of 00a_introduction, paste the map into your maps folder, and then launch the first campaign mission to play it.

Feedback appreciated. Do note that I'm a little sick/tired posting this right now, so let me know if you see any mistakes anywhere.
 

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Aug 17, 2015
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SoddyBoi
#2
I'm a bit of a noob when it all comes to this, but does H2EK unlocked allow you to add actor variants and stuff like HCE sapien?

*I don't have the unlocked version of the editing kit lol, do I need it?*
 
Mar 20, 2016
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#4
Sod said:
I'm a bit of a noob when it all comes to this, but does H2EK unlocked allow you to add actor variants and stuff like HCE sapien?

*I don't have the unlocked version of the editing kit lol, do I need it?*
Yes, although the notion of an .actor_variant is defunct since every firing behavior is stored in the same character tag alongside traditional .actor properties. In this aspect in particular, Halo 2 is vastly superior to CE's tag design. The .character tag replaces all that bologna.

Yes, to use these you absolutely need the unlocked version of Guerrilla (I use korn's most stable build with advanced editing, h2GuerrillaNew), along with a tool variant called solo hack. I should also note that there is no unlocked Sapien, meaning AI have to be added in "blind" by inputting yxz coordinates, sort of like if you were changing the position of something in Assembly. Existing items and placeholder objects moved around in Sapien can be used as a guide. Sapien is also handy for switching a multiplayer scenario into a singleplayer scenario, which is the one thing that h2GuerrillaNew cannot do.

You add the AI sort of like you would in CE's guerrilla. Add the character to a pallette, make a squad, make starting positions, ect. Its important to note you'll need the flag "initially placed" under Squad to be checked if you want the AI to spawn. Even with the hack, tool still does not like functions with <ai> arguments and I haven't gotten around to finding a way to force it.

Additionally, with Guerrilla, you should add in a startup script like:

(script startup fadeinthing
(texture_cache_flush)
(geometry_cache_flush)
(camera_set_field_of_view 70 0)
(rasterizer_bloom_override False)
(cinematic_start)
(cinematic_stop)
(camera_control false)
(fade_in 1 1 1 0)
)

Once again, I've haven't had time to play around with scripts a lot and I'm not sure most of these functions are even necessary, this is copy pasted from either Kant or Kills...or Kirby? I forgot who. Anyway, this script avoids a white screen you encounter if you try and play a scriptless SP map. Also note that scripts are tag based and independent from scenario files; this means that you don't have to compile a script in Sapien, tool can take care of that during compilation time. Outside of characters being stored under objects with their models, which is sketchy, its hard not to love Halo 2's improvements to tags. Its hard to believe anyone still mods CE when they could be modding a such a vastly superior game. ;)


There's a little bit to learn, but as long as you're somewhat familiar with CE's tools, adapting to H2's tools shouldn't be too hard, the biggest challenge is a lack of documentation and dead features.
 
Aug 17, 2015
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SoddyBoi
#5
Yeah - the lack of documentation is real. Just trying to find information on queries is a tad hard.
I will definitely get around to download all these tools, and have a muck around.
Where are you heading off to anyway? Don't leave us for too long :'( </3
 
Mar 20, 2016
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#6
Sod said:
Yeah - the lack of documentation is real. Just trying to find information on queries is a tad hard.
I will definitely get around to download all these tools, and have a muck around.
Where are you heading off to anyway? Don't leave us for too long :'( </3

Its often hard to find anything but vague, offhanded forum posts from five or six years ago, but sometimes that's all you need. I learned a lot from just browsing kornman's post history on the subject of H2V, who is one of the few people who has analyzed the H2EK tools in technical detail.


I just left the frozen corn field I usually reside in and decided to hang around a corn field that occasionally thaws. But not to worry, I've come back and I'm freezing my ass off all over again. And just remember, you can always find me if you just look inside your heart. ;)
 
Aug 17, 2015
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SoddyBoi
#12
Hey Ling Ling,
I've downloaded the Unlocked Editing Kit.
When editing the file example.scenario in Sapien, I go to 'Edit Palettes' but each 'object class' add ability is greyed out. I have no clue what's going on, maybe you know.
 
Mar 20, 2016
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#13
Sod said:
Hey Ling Ling,
I've downloaded the Unlocked Editing Kit.
When editing the file example.scenario in Sapien, I go to 'Edit Palettes' but each 'object class' add ability is greyed out. I have no clue what's going on, maybe you know.
Go to Save As, then name it something else. All tags that initially come with the kit are read only, but saving them as something else will allow you to edit them.