How to create Source quality effects in Halo CE

OK this is a little tutorial on how to create higher quality results for shaders than expected for Halo CE.

Imagine, if you can, walking inside of a hospital. The floor is white tile and very shiny. Reproducing this in Halo CE seems to be a nightmare. Well, not anymore!

Start by creating your base geometry and giving it the normal texture as you normally would (e.g. shader_environment with tile texture). Next, create a second plane for the floor just above the collidable surface and make this render-only. give it a shader_transparent_glass with a dynamic mirror property in Guerilla. What will happen is the mirror will be reflective but not supersede the texture as it would if it were a shader_environment dynamic mirror. Now, the tile will show up beneath it and it will have a dynamic glare to it that looks like Source's reflection mapping.

It's a way to trick Halo into producing higher quality results than normal by doubling up on geometry.

For structures that glow, give the crystals in your map (like we are for ours) a shader_transparent_glass and a very nice set of bitmaps. Then, for the glowing part or the "core" of the crystals, create a second crystal geometry that's inside the crystal geometry and give it a shader_environment. Next, give that a self-illumination property with the same bitmaps for base map and reflection bitmap as the shader_transparent_glass. Now your crystals should appear as though they werre glowing and still have that resiliant shimmer to them that only glass can provide. If done right, this will be uber pwnage with respect to texture and shader quality.

There you have it, ladies and gents! Hope you like this little walkthrough on how to trick Halo CE into producing ultra-high quality texture effects.

Do let me know your opinions and any constructive criticism you have.

Pics.

We don't have any........YET! But we will soon. I'm going to do this with thhe crystals underground in Blood Creek RC3, and also with some of the tiling in my dorm.

EDIT: This is an image of the crystal before adding effects.

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/s...g?t=1263439004

And this is a different crystal, but with the effects mentioned above applied.

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/s...g?t=1263446818

Tell me what you think.

you have tickled my fancy sir. Please post pleasing results.

It amazes me how someone who's blind in 1 eye and horrible eye site in the other can see detail but has too bad eye of sight to learn how to 3d model. You don't need depth perception to 3d model, its a flat computer screen.

Um... I don't see the detail unless I'm very close to the object, like in the shots, and even then, it's still piss poor.

I see colors fine. I have tunnel vision thoigh. That means no depth or peripheral vision. also, I see the detail best with a screen magnifier program called ZoomText, which blows the entire screen up and shows only a portion at a time as you move the mouse.

When editing in Sapien I crank it down to 1x and get real close to see what I can. Sometimes it's good but other times it's not enough. Details like flushed out lighting are easier to see versus details like tiny subtle ones such as texture quality.

I'm especially bad at looking at video compression. 1 MBit seems fine to me, but to most it's pixelated as hell.

Malolo, it's the fine tooth details that are a bitch to see, not light aspects or flushed out details. I work miracle situations with my eyes because I've been this way my entire life and have accepted it as such and yet strive to squeeze every ounce of sight out of my eyes as I can. As far as 3D modeling goes, it's not possible because I would have to

• Blow the screen up completely in Max to see the object decently

and

• Use ZoomText to see the hair fine tiny ass vertices, at which point you'd lose focus on the whole picture and the whole thing would be a mute point

You need to see the entire picture when modeling, or at best, as much of it as possible. Either I will see the verts or i will see the picture, and with one eye I have no 3D perception, period. All objects look flat or 2D.

Anyway, enough about all that. I didn't come here to argue. I came here to share an idea I had.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rambo

Imagine, if you can, walking inside of a hospital. The floor is white tile and very shiny. Reproducing this in Halo CE seems to be a nightmare. Well, not anymore!

Start by creating your base geometry and giving it the normal texture as you normally would (e.g. shader_environment with tile texture). Next, create a second plane for the floor just above the collidable surface and make this render-only. give it a shader_transparent_glass with a dynamic mirror property in Guerilla. What will happen is the mirror will be reflective but not supersede the texture as it would if it were a shader_environment dynamic mirror. Now, the tile will show up beneath it and it will have a dynamic glare to it that looks like Source's reflection mapping.

---

Unfortunately the illusion would be immediately broken when you notice that the dynamic glare isn't bending in accordance to the normal map on the tile. Total buzzkill right there.

Also, I'm going to be honest. I understand what you're trying to do, but you and a lot of other people need to accept the fact that the Blam! engine is completely antiquated and there are many better alternatives to devote your attention towards. When you think about it, you're trying to update the visuals of an ancient engine to the level of a slightly less ancient engine. The intent is fine but it's an exercise in futility.

There are severe limitations on this method. First and foremost, as someone else said, the reflection effects aren't effected by any effect masks, in particular reflection masks and normal maps. The floor will appear flat, flawless, and waxed; bad idea if you want a scuffed and/or damaged floor, or something else besides laminate tile that was just waxed.

Secondly, dynamic mirror planes cannot intersect each other at all, meaning they can only be used on a single perfectly flat surface. To further your floor example, you could only apply the effect to the ground on one floor if it's a multi-leveled building, at least that's how I think it works.

Furthermore, doubling up on geometry is a bad habit to get into. The whole point of designing and making levels is to create a believable environment that looks pretty and is optimized, unless of course the design goal is complexity, e.g. High-Res Halo.

Yeah... I see what you mean. Well, it was a nice thought I had. I figured it might work but then again, what you said is also valid.

Anyway, here's another video showing off the crystals underground. It looks OK, but yes you're right. I think I'm pushing the bar a bit too much on the head room of this engine, trying to squeeze out too much potential from something that won't allow me to milk it as much as I'd like.

Anyway, here it is.

http://video.xfire.com/1e7d87-4.jpg

Dont see any glow or any difference.

xfire vids are hideous, but i could see where this could be useful

Good from far, far from good.

I do like the fact your experimenting, and I loved the bubbles underwater. Lighting does look good, but I'm worried that when I'm in game and I get close to the walls, it will look bad and low res.

The only thing that looks bad/boring are the structures underground. Everything else is just awesome!

Hmm... I don't know how to literally make them glow, so it's simulated through the reflection. That's the best way to put it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rambo

Hmm... I don't know how to literally make them glow, so it's simulated through the reflection. That's the best way to put it.

---

attach lens flare's in the shader then give off the corresponding color to the crystal.

The commentary for the video is just awesome. :P

Yeah, Your voice are made of pure awesomeness.

the voice made me want to rip my brains out, ARGH!

SuperSunny...where are you :S

What was the map with 2 castle/fortresses at oposite ends of a bloodgulch sized box with the waterfall near one base and the caves going into the other?

In the caves there was a huge red goo/crystal thing which glowed with the fire of all the suns of tatooine, see if you can find how they did that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by n00b1n8R

What was the map with 2 castle/fortresses at oposite ends of a bloodgulch sized box with the waterfall near one base and the caves going into the other?

In the caves there was a huge red goo/crystal thing which glowed with the fire of all the suns of tatooine, see if you can find how they did that.

---

I think its Siege your talking about: http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=558.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by n00b1n8R

What was the map with 2 castle/fortresses at oposite ends of a bloodgulch sized box with the waterfall near one base and the caves going into the other?

In the caves there was a huge red goo/crystal thing which glowed with the fire of all the suns of tatooine, see if you can find how they did that.

---

Warning: This post contains extremely nerdy imagery.

At last, we finally have the results we were looking for with regards to the glowing crystal theory.

We placed tiny planes inside the crystal with a separate material that has a lens flare attached to that material. The lens flares overlap nicely and have no bitmap to them and the material substance is non-reflective.

See for yourself, the awesomeness of this glowing crystal.

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/s...g?t=1263528835

Looks pretty good for Halos ancient engine.

How low does the framerate go again?

Looks good enough buuuut VVVVVVV

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ro0ster

I think its Siege your talking about: http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=558.

---

yesyesyes that :neckbeard:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Syuusuke

How low does the framerate go again?

---

Such a thing depends on one's gfx card, sir.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rambo

At last, we finally have the results we were looking for with regards to the glowing crystal theory.

We placed tiny planes inside the crystal with a separate material that has a lens flare attached to that material. The lens flares overlap nicely and have no bitmap to them and the material substance is non-reflective.

See for yourself, the awesomeness of this glowing crystal.

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/s...g?t=1263528835

---

theres no need for the extra planes, thats just creating more work. Just go into the diffuse texture shader and apply them, and then set the spacing to like 0.25 so its glowing even more.

Right. I have an NVidia GeForce 7350 LE in a Pentium Core 2 Quad running at 2.4 GHz with 3 GB RAM on Vista. The GeForce doesn't perform as well as it aught, since for some reason it won't recognize its own RAM for some games. Halo 2 lags some for me. Crysis I get 6-8 FPS. Crysis WARHEAD and Crysis Wars do better.

Average framerate as of right now is 15-25 around lighting FOR ME. Mason reports good framerate on his PC and so do some of my other friends.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rambo

Right. I have an NVidia GeForce 7350 LE in a Pentium Core 2 Quad running at 2.4 GHz with 3 GB RAM on Vista. The GeForce doesn't perform as well as it aught, since for some reason it won't recognize its own RAM for some games. Halo 2 lags some for me. Crysis I get 6-8 FPS. Crysis WARHEAD and Crysis Wars do better.

Average framerate as of right now is 15-25 around lighting FOR ME. Mason reports good framerate on his PC and so do some of my other friends.

---

I See 2 problems with your build causing that Fps drop.

1. Way old Vidja card...
2. Vista.

If you do a simple ($150 right?) upgrade to even just an ATi 4850, the fps difference will be Massive.

Yeah i wanna get an ATI 5970 or whatever it is for like $399. It'll kick ass.

Hmmm. Looks nice so far, anyway did I hear you say beta?

Yup.

Here's a more recent vid of the crystals.

http://video.xfire.com/1eadd1-4.jpg

That's a weird idle animation on the sniper.

And the crystals look a bit too transparent (making them more opaque would be cooler imo)
I like the bubbles and the river though the modeling leaves a little to be desired (for a RP map in halo though, it's fine :P)

Coming along well (but seriously, look at the crystal in seige!)

Making them more opaque is no problem at all. All I have to do is adjust the alpha on the diffusde bitmap a bit. That should make it better.

As for the river, tell that to GRUNTS. He modeled the river.

And what exactly needs done to it? How can we improve if we don't have any idea how? Provide suggestions and I'll have Ro0ster or someone good at natural terrain fix it.

Here are my attempts at better crystal opacity.

This is a glowing crystal.
http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/s...g?t=1263642807

and this is a crystal that needs "salt" put into it so it glows. This is perfect right now for opacity demonstrations though.
http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/s...g?t=1263642957

Very Meh, it just looks like glass, which is a bummer deal.

Then tell me how to fix it!

Latest crystals are too white, liked em when they were blue.

I don't feel bad when I say the animations in that video are absolutely horrid.:saddowns:

Other than that, looks cool. Why can't you just have scenery emitting a lens flare instead of doing it in the BSP?

Super sunny was better at lighting.

Also having ridiculous amounts of dynamic lights is bad. Just use lens flares or shader models with illumination interpolation shit.

Or just make a regular cave.

And the bubbles are already in the game. All you did was make a weather particle system using the bubbles already in the tag set.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JackalStomper

Latest crystals are too white, liked em when they were blue.

I don't feel bad when I say the animations in that video are absolutely horrid.:saddowns:

Other than that, looks cool. Why can't you just have scenery emitting a lens flare instead of doing it in the BSP?

---

Yeah the animations are crap I know. I'm getting rid of that damn thing because it's outdated and junk.

As for the crystals being too white, I realize this, but I want to correct that last. Is the opacity factor fine now?

Why can't I have it as scenery? It would be a horrid nightmare to place inSapien for me. Plus, bump maps on them would no longer be possible.

i think the cave looks awesome

but then again...maybe i'm not elite enough to know better :eng101:

Hey thanks.

Leetness doesn't matter. It's realism i strive for, not fame. I just want to produce something I hope people will enjoy and that will endure for a long time, kind of how coldsnap and Hugeass do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rambo

It's realism i strive for, not fame.

---

crystals self illuminate irl?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Heathen

crystals self illuminate irl?

---

Yeah duh. Everyone knows that.


....

Oh wait never mind.

I could say that crystals refract light emitted by other objects irl but i wont

right, because there is always light in caves :downs: :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Heathen

right, because there is always light in caves :downs: :P

---

you wouldn't know there were crystals if there wasn't. :haw:

Listen. There's a cave somewhere in this world (I forget exactly where) that has such rare and exotic things, that it's completely off-limits to ordinary explorers. The reason is so that none of the specimens get damaged or disturbed while the scientists continue to investigate the strange nature of what's down there.

For all we know, there could be irridescent crystals down there. just because nobody's seen them, doesn't mean they don't exist. people find rare oddities all the time. Look at the undersea discoveries that take place.

Rambo... You are awesome at making points my friend. :D

The cave roof seems rather blocky and the banks of the river too steep (from flat to / in no space at all isn't cool).
That help?

Also, google quartz or whatever other crystal you want to emulate and work from pictures of that.

Hm... The reason the river is so deep is so that tanks can't cross very easily, let alone other vehicles. It is climbable though, so the biped can cross. How can we fix it and still keep the big vehicles from crossing very easily?

Smooth out the river bank a bit so that it looks believable and maybe add some stalagmites so to act as barriers, with say 3-4 actual crossing points for tanks?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Phobias

Smooth out the river bank a bit so that it looks believable and maybe add some stalagmites so to act as barriers, with say 3-4 actual crossing points for tanks?

---

This is a good idea, unless you wanted the river and edges to be nice and smooth, but using stalagmites and perhaps crystals would be nice.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rambo

Listen. There's a cave somewhere in this world (I forget exactly where) that has such rare and exotic things, that it's completely off-limits to ordinary explorers. The reason is so that none of the specimens get damaged or disturbed while the scientists continue to investigate the strange nature of what's down there.

For all we know, there could be irridescent crystals down there. just because nobody's seen them, doesn't mean they don't exist. people find rare oddities all the time. Look at the undersea discoveries that take place.

---

I believe that this is what you are looking for.

There are crystals that glow, either due under UV lighting or something to that effect, under a black light. If you really wanted to take this that far, you could make the cave very dark and use whatever effect is used by the grunt blood to make it look like the place is glowing. Have the glowing stuff illuminate pathways and stuff and it may just augment gameplay enough to make it worth the time spent on figuring stuff out.

Personally, I'd recommend trying your hand at Source or Unreal if you really want to go crazy with the effects since it's a lot easier to get decent looking effects. Yes, that defeats the purpose of "source quality effects in Halo". Then again, 100 people or so play Halo Custom Edition. I don't know the exact number, but it isn't too far from that. Thousands play Source and Unreal. Your time is better spent on the newer engine.

Well I don't want to abandon CE just yet. I still do want to finish the map and one other. Then we have a machinima to film.

De-compile one of my last maps and try to dissect it if you need any help! Halo looks and runs quite well when you combine graphical tricks with optimized shaders and a by-hand lighting system.

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/400...n2version2.jpg

The trick is to make it "look" good. Work on the visual (so it's attractive to the eye) first, then optimize. The mistake people make with lighting is to try and structure it first. Everything is by hand and eye. Logic should be secondary in this case. It's all understood through experimentation, and I'm glad you're taking that approach. Difficult in the beginning, but it leaps boundaries.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by legionaire45

Then again, 100 people or so play Halo Custom Edition. I don't know the exact number, but it isn't too far from that. Thousands play Source and Unreal. Your time is better spent on the newer engine.

---

more then 2000 people still play halo pc and ce together.
half of that is ce

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by higuy

more then 2000 people still play halo pc and ce together.
half of that is ce

---

On 1.00 lol?

SuperSunny what map is that?

valkyre or something.

Yeah, you are right. Thanks!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SuperSunny

De-compile one of my last maps and try to dissect it if you need any help! Halo looks and runs quite well when you combine graphical tricks with optimized shaders and a by-hand lighting system.

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/400...n2version2.jpg

The trick is to make it "look" good. Work on the visual (so it's attractive to the eye) first, then optimize. The mistake people make with lighting is to try and structure it first. Everything is by hand and eye. Logic should be secondary in this case. It's all understood through experimentation, and I'm glad you're taking that approach. Difficult in the beginning, but it leaps boundaries.

---

You did you get that picture of halo :O

I'm Peruvian, I speak Spanish and I'm using google as a translator:iamafag:

pls help :bowdown:

http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com...ad.php?t=62910

http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthread.php?t=8744

@Heathen: He was talking about the effects, something like modify config.txt. http://www.chw.net/foro/images/smilies/zippy1.gif

Who? Last I checked, it was in the map file itself.

Quote:

---

---

Danger Canyon, after editing config.txt

That has nothing to do with the pretty lights picture.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lateksi

That has nothing to do with the pretty lights picture.

---

no...but but it does have some shine to it

It's rendering the shaders' cubemaps without the reflection mask. It looks ugly, as if everything was covered in plastic wrap.