HaloMods "Classic" Read-only Archive

I am going through the beginners video guide here: http://www.halomods.com/index.php?topic=Tutorials

I am stuck on step 7. Originally it told me my ground.tif Was compressed and it couldn't read it. I fixed that by using Jasc (sp?) Paint Shop, but now Tool tells me " Couldn't read map file './toolbeta.map ". Then I realized that the directory the tutorial tells you to tell Tool to look in "levels\splinter\bitmaps" under the Halo CE root directory, doesn't contain anything but my tif. Is there possibly an error in the tutorial or am I doing something wrong? Is my best bet to start over? I hope not.

I hope thi is enough info.

Thank you,

goye2cz aka - GenDscmfrt

Is this the only error? Bucause this can be ignored with out effecting preformance.

thing is, bungie and gearbox made all the tools reference [toolname]beta.map
Even ahobo references a map (ahobobeta.map) but none of these files exist.

If it says that, you know it's doing something
But, if you see another command line prompt, then something is wrong.

Ok, I tried again. These are my results:



Which is a different message than the tutorial describes. I then tried tool++ which of course is only a gui, but I figured maybe I would see something that would make sense:



Hmmm... doesn't exist eh? Well, I browsed to the file. I didn't just pull that directory out of my butt.

More than a little confused. Any help?

As a possible related note, this wouldn't have anything to do with the actual work I did in Gmax would it?

Dont use Tool++ no offence but it freaking sucks.

If your trying to make a bitmap then there is nothing wrong. What does the tutorial say the tool feedback should say?

Umm it says you dont have your bitmap Tiff.
So, A couple things are wrong here,
1). You didn't save your bitmap as a Tiff type.
Also need to save the option to:
512x512x24bit
compression=uncompressed
color channels=RGB
2).You didn't save the bitmap to the right folder...(data\levels\mapname\bitmaps)
3).You didn't go into Guerilla and convert it to alpha. If you remembered to create the alpha mask that is.
4). Did you create the bitmap to tags by using tool.exe (tool bitmaps levels\mapname\bitmaps)then go into Guerilla and change to compressed with explicit alpha and resave. then you need to hit the arrow up button and press enter and run it again.
If you didn't run your bitmaps in tool its not going to be there. your mirror should be in (tag\levels\mapname\bitmaps) not in data to work correctly. thus the reason why you need to run it in tool.exe to create the tag.
Did you follow the first of the tutorial exactly,
first tutorial http://www.halomods.com/tutorials/Mappi ... ntshop.rar

The tutorial says:

And you'll notice it did give us a warning... warning says "warning bitmap with greater than one bit alpha being compressed as dxt one" we actually don't want that to happen so we'll open up guerilla... open file, browse to folder, tool created directories that mirror the directories you created in the data folder.

Well, it didn't create any directories as far as I can see. Whatever it did to my tiff, I don't know. It's still there, looks the same to me.

And is it just me or does the guy in the tut keep referring to a directory called levels that exists in the halo ce root directory? Levels is actually under Data in the ce root.

I don't know if it makes a difference, I didn't think it would, but I'm using adobe photoshop 4.0le because it's what I have. I did save the tif as uncompressed.

Thanks for your patience. Hope you've got some good help for me.

The new directory should be in the tags folder. Sorry but I think everything is going all right and its a user error.

I don't know what you consider a user error, but what I did is certainly not one. I now see that you are correct that it is in the tags directory but that wasn't mentioned in the tutorial, which I followed.

User error = User is why things arn't working out.
That was your problem.

are you saying it should come up with the warning saying
"!!!warning bitmap was created using alpha being compressed as DXT1"
as in Kirk's tut??

If so, you have to make an alpha map. If you dont get that warning, it means there was no alpha-map

Thanks for the help. I understand what was going wrong but I've decided I don't have time for this. You guys keep working on the awesome maps I love to play.

No further assistence required on this problem.