HaloMods "Classic" Read-only Archive

Adding custom weapons and vehicles gets to become difficult when you have to keep sacrificing sounds for your new item(s). We can duplicate bitmaps using the EOF>Update method, but is there any way to increase the number of sounds we can use in a map without overwriting any of them?

Any method that adds a new space for it in the sounds.map file or just internalizes it inside the specific map itself? This was already done for Mac I think, I'm just wondering why we can't do it.

Exactly what I'm thinking. If we can do this with bitmaps, why not sounds? Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they use the same sort of structure?

EchoRanger449 wrote: Any method that adds a new space for it in the sounds.map file or just internalizes it inside the specific map itself? This was already done for Mac I think, I'm just wondering why we can't do it.

What are you talking about done for mac?

They do use the same thing, that being they're located in a seperate .map file. What EOF basically does is basically adding another bitmap tag to the End Of File.

I'm sure it can be done with sounds as well. Ask Alt to add it into eschaton.





Quick question, if you change the ID from the sound into a [bitm], then use EOF with HMT, theb change it back, I think that might work in theory, the only catch is that it might add it into the bitmaps.map file as opposed to sounds.map

How I see it, the result is that it does is "copy" the tag, and then make a new reference point for it. So if you did it, it would "copy" the sound tag, then make a new reference for it, which would probably be in the bitmaps.map file, assuming that HMT handles it that way

Someone try it, I don't wanna risk corrupting any of my map files, I'd much rather someone else take that chance.



Oh, and if I'm totally wrong with my reasonings, someone please feel free to correct me.

What a lot of modders don't realize is that sounds are just as important as skins and models. How authentic would your battle rifle feel if it made a plasma pistol firing sound?

I dont think they're as important. If you need a sound, chances are you can find it in the sounds.map file, and all it'll need is a quick rebuild and a single dependancy swap.

As long as it sounds somewhat close to what I'm going for, I'm more concerned with what the gun looks like.

DeadHamster wrote:They do use the same thing, that being they're located in a seperate .map file. What EOF basically does is basically adding another bitmap tag to the End Of File.

I'm sure it can be done with sounds as well. Ask Alt to add it into eschaton.





Quick question, if you change the ID from the sound into a [bitm], then use EOF with HMT, theb change it back, I think that might work in theory, the only catch is that it might add it into the bitmaps.map file as opposed to sounds.map

How I see it, the result is that it does is "copy" the tag, and then make a new reference point for it. So if you did it, it would "copy" the sound tag, then make a new reference for it, which would probably be in the bitmaps.map file, assuming that HMT handles it that way

Someone try it, I don't wanna risk corrupting any of my map files, I'd much rather someone else take that chance.



Oh, and if I'm totally wrong with my reasonings, someone please feel free to correct me.

If you think it was that easy we would have already done that. Injecting sounds or internalizing them is not very feasible due to the amount of linkage each tag needs. Also, sound tags are nothing like bitmap tags, stop comparing them.

bcnipod wrote:Sound tags are nothing like bitmap tags, stop comparing them.

Don't they use the same stucture or something? Raw data or whatever? Surely this is a possibilty?

Philly wrote:

bcnipod wrote:Sound tags are nothing like bitmap tags, stop comparing them.

Don't they use the same stucture or something? Raw data or whatever? Surely this is a possibilty?

Oh, I am sure it is possible at some future point. Bitmap tags don't have any linkage in them. Whereas sound tags are linked quite complexly. All I am saying is stop comparing the two when you don't understand how they interact with eachother. Bitmaps can be easily internalised because they don't link, they act as separate entities. Whereas soundtags don't so they are much more complex.

Thanks for the info. So internalizing sounds is just as difficult as injecting and extracting them?

Philly wrote:Thanks for the info. So internalizing sounds is just as difficult as injecting and extracting them?

If I had to take a guess that would be it.

Couldn't you add more sound tags in CE, then convert to PC?

That would sound great, but everything- the bitmaps and the sounds (used harbinger even) do not work. I can't even extract them, internalized or not.

bcnipod wrote:......Bitmaps can be easily internalised because they don't link, they act as separate entities. Whereas soundtags don't so they are much more complex.

Wat?

i is confused, also you people are talking two things. eof!= internalizing
Bitmaps and Sounds map files have the same layout and the tags have the same pointer information, its a char saying if its in the support map or local map then a pointer to offset.
There is no reason it isn't possible now except no ones taken the time to make the programs.

One problem with the current method for duplicating bitmaps is that HMT will only duplicate the slot of an existing meta within the map. You cannot resize the slot you want (unless that's where the insert blank space into meta file comes in?) for either the meta in the map and the bitmap in the bitmaps file. What I mean is that you cannot create a new type of bitmap slot for a map, just a duplicate one.


Like if you wanted to create as slot for your 540 byte meta, 470008 bitmap, 256x256 dxt1, you couldn't. you'd just have to find another set of sprite bitmaps (I think they're called) that are most similar to your current one (then you have to hope the sprite animations match closely enough).

Well, you can change the dimensions.

Of the DDS file, yes of course.

I'm saying, what if you got a really wierd bitmap, like DXT1 with 1024x1024?
You don't want to decrease the quality, but you have to...the best you can do is cut down to 1/4 the size to a 512x512

Umm... you don't?

What do you mean?

FYI, the only really complicated thing about sounds are that they are not continuous. Even things like the intro music are made up of several 5 second long chunks. And that's actually made up of like 3 sets of of linked together 5 second sound chunks. Sound effects are a bit simpler since they are usually shorter than five seconds and exist as a single chunk.

So aside from the sillyness involved in sound chunks they act the same as any other form of raw data. Pointed to by certain offsets with options for internal and external locations. Of course there are other silly things like adpcm codecs and ogg formats, and that even if you import something longer than 5 seconds, modify the meta tag appropriately halo will still cut it off at the 5 second mark.

BTW, it is quite possible to inject a bitmap of higher dimensions. You just need sufficient space in your raw data section (very easy when doing EOF) and to change the meta data so that it knows it's of x by y dimensions. This was discussed a while ago. Talking about high res bitmaps and such. A method was even posted. Ah, found it.