Although modding requires altering Halo 2 .MAP files, few of the mods actually affect the environment. This chapter explores changes that you can make to the physical arena. Chapter 12 provides an overview of some of the best modded levels that you can obtain, and finishes with an overview of designing your own level mod [Hack #100] .

At the time of writing, map-modding features are somewhat limited. The current changes involve altering the properties of existing objects or swapping one item for another. However, there is an application coming that may give map modders more flexibility when it comes to modding Halo 2 levels. If you’re interested in map modding, watch for news about a program called Prometheus—for more information refer to http://main.halodev.org.

Change the look of any map by creating your own texture files.

In video games, everything from the players to the sky is given a texture. Hacking the textures of a level allows you to make the level appear as you wish.

In this example, you will inject the O’Reilly tarsier into the Foundation map (see Figure 9-1). You can find the tarsier on the O’Reilly home page (http://www.oreilly.com).

To work with textures in ADI [Hack #50] , make sure that you copy shared.map, single_player_shared.map, and mainmenu.map into the ADI directory. In addition, to work with the .DDS format, you may have to add a plug-in for your graphics program (e.g., for Adobe Photoshop).

Figure 9-1. The original tarsier image

The first step is to extract a copy of the texture that you would like to alter. Technically, you don’t need to do this step, but you will for this example—besides, it gives you a backup copy of the original file. To extract the texture, open up Ch2r [Hack #51] and navigate to the bitmap that you would like to alter. In this example, you will be altering the file scenariositmapsmultimarathonfoundationfoundation_doors.bitm (see Figure 9-2).

Figure 9-2. Locating the Foundation doors

Once you double-click the texture, it will open in the metadata editor. From here, you will often see an error, but don’t worry about it. Simply switch to the Old Bitmap Editor and you’ll be able to work with the file (see Figure 9-3).

Once you have the bitmap open, you can extract the file to your PC (see Figure 9-4).

Figure 9-3. The original Foundation texture

Figure 9-4. Extracting a Halo 2 texture file

Now that you have the texture saved, open it up in your favorite graphics editing program and make your changes. After you are done, you may need to flatten the image. If you have any difficulties exporting to the correct DXT format, I suggest that you save it as a BMP and use a tool called DXTBmp (http://www.mnwright.freeserve.co.uk/) to convert it. This application makes it easy to save the file in various formats (see Figure 9-5). I had more success with this application than with the plug-ins for graphics programs.

Figure 9-5. The Foundation doors open in DXTBmp

After making your changes, simply use the Inject option in Ch2r [Hack #51] to replace the original texture with your altered version (see Figure 9-6).

Figure 9-6. The altered texture injected into Ch2r

After you sign your map [Hack #53] , you can upload it to your Xbox [Hack #54] and enjoy your new texture (see Figures 9-7 and 9-8).

Figure 9-7. The altered door texture

Figure 9-8. A few more changes

Add some ambiance by altering the lighting properties of your levels.

As every Halo fan knows, the lighting of a level can have a significant impact on game play. In fact, some players simply don’t like to play on dark maps. By adjusting lighting levels, you may find that some levels are more interesting to you. In this example, you will be changing the lighting of the Foundation test map [Hack #54] . Remember to back up your .MAP file before you begin this process.

Altering the lighting of a map is easy thanks to Iron_Forge’s ADI [Hack #50] lighting library. Make sure that you have this plug-in before you try this hack. You can check if you have the plug-in by going to the folder ADILibraries and looking for a file called LightMapLib.dll.

The plug-in takes advantage of the fact that the lightmaps are a single channel image. This means that every pixel in the lightmap is represented by one byte. The lighting plug-in simply “shifts” the value at each byte in all the lightmap images. This alters the brightness of each pixel in the lightmap, and ultimately creates a lighter or darker environment.

To use the plug-in, browse to the lightmap tag for the level. To find the right tag, look for a bitmap tag that has the lightmap_bitmaps in its name. This tag is usually under the directory scenariosmultilevelname. For the Foundation map, the tag is scenariosmultimarathonfoundationfoundation_foundation_lightmap_bitmaps. You will find this tag in the [bitm] Bitmap Texture list. Once you have the right tag selected, you will be able to click on the LightMapLib tab and use the plug-in (see Figure 9-9).

Figure 9-9. The LightMapLib tab

Next, you can lower the Foundation lighting a bit by changing the value from 100 to 80 (see Figure 9-10). This value is a percentage of the original lighting. If you leave it at 100%, it leaves the lights the same, 50% will make them half as bright, 200% will make them twice as bright.

Figure 9-10. Lowering the level’s lighting

When you are finished, sign your map [Hack #53] and transfer it to your Xbox [Hack #54] . You will find that you now have a dusk version of Foundation (see Figure 9-11).

Figure 9-11. A more romantic Foundation

Give your map a pretty picture in the maps menu.

The bitmap associated with your map can be viewed by opening Ch2r [Hack #51] and double-clicking globals/globals.matg. The test map [Hack #54] currently has no image associated with it. From this view, you can check the number of your map in the globals.matg—they start at 0 and go to up 49. The Test map is currently the last entry so it’s fiftieth on the list—in other words, its value is 49 (see Figure 9-12).

Figure 9-12. The globals.matg tag

To alter the menu image that is associated with your map, you will need to swap a dependency in the mainmenu.map file.

To do this, you should first open Ch2r [Hack #51] right-click globals/globals.matg and choose Properties (see Figure 9-13).

Figure 9-13. Accessing the properties of globals.matg

Next, you will change the dependency of the bitmap. To do this, select the Dependencies tab and scroll down to find uicode_global_bitmapsmultiplayer49—this is the number of the test map. Double click on this entry and click Change to change it to a different bitmap. Change it to the image for Ascension, which is uicode_global_bitmapsmultiplayer0 (see Figures 9-14 and 9-15).

Figure 9-14. Swapping the image for the map

Figure 9-15. After swapping the image

After you have made the change, you can open the globals.matg tag again to see that the image is associated with the map (see Figure 9-16).

Of course, the more rewarding check is to fire up the Xbox and take a look at the maps menu (see Figure 9-17). Remember to choose sign your map [Hack #53] before you transfer the file back to your Xbox [Hack #54] .

To create your custom map picture, you will swap the original image with a relatively unused texture [Hack #72] in the .MAP file. Prime candidates for this purpose are the ones at the bottom of the list. These are used in the Xbox Live menu options. You can safely use these since you won’t need your modded menu for Xbox Live. Remember that you can use the DXTBmp program to convert BMP files to DDS format. To make your image look more like the other map textures, you may want to add a border and take a corner off the image in the alpha channel. You can also look online for mainmenu blank images, which often include a blank mainmenu picture and an alpha map (256 x 256) to accompany it.

Figure 9-16. The map image dependency after the swap

Figure 9-17. The new image for the test map

When you download modded maps, they will often come with custom map images (see Figure 9-18).

Figure 9-18. Some maps with custom textures assigned

Hack Halo 2 object models with the mode plug-in.

With a plug-in for [mode] Model, it is a simple matter to alter the size of Halo 2 models. In this example, you will add giant Needlers to a test map [Hack #54] .

After you have added the latest mode plug-in to your ADI [Hack #50] Plugins folder, browse through the tags until you find objectsweaponspistol eedler eedler. Next, click on the Tag Editor tab (see Figure 9-19).

Figure 9-19. The properties of the Needler model

Once you have the tag open in the Tag Editor, alter the Bounding X (high), Bounding Y (high), and Bounding Z (high) values by adding a value of 1 to each textbox entry. This will add significant size to each of the three axes (see Figure 9-20).

Figure 9-20. Altering the bounding box of the Needler

Sign your map [Hack #53] and FTP it to your Xbox [Hack #54] . Have fun playing with your giant Needlers (see Figure 9-21).

Figure 9-21. The giant Needler

Swap the model associated with grenades.

This hack allows you to alter the model that Halo 2 uses for objects. In this example, you will swap the normal frag grenade model for a skull.

First, open DotHalo [Hack #52] and find the tag objectsweaponsgrenadefrag_grenadefrag_grenade (see Figure 9-22).

Figure 9-22. The frag_grenade tag

To change the model, you will swap the hlmt dependency from objectsweaponsgrenadefrag_grenadefrag_grenade to objectsweaponsmultiplayerallall (see Figure 9-23). The ball model—which is actually a skull—is used for the Oddball game type.

Sign your map [Hack #53] and FTP it back to your Xbox [Hack #54] . Once you load up the test map, you will find that fragmentation grenades look like skulls when they are on the ground (see Figure 9-24).

Figure 9-23. Swapping the grenade models for the ball model

Figure 9-24. Grenades for Halloween