How to create Source quality effects in Halo CE

[Rambo]

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.

[legionaire45]

Pics.

[Rambo]

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.



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



Tell me what you think.

[Heathen]

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

[malolo420]

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.

[Rambo]

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.

[Jean-Luc]

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.

[p0lar_bear]

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.

[Rambo]

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.

[.Wolf™]

Dont see any glow or any difference.