HMT: How To Open HaloCE Maps In HMT

jimmsta · Post by **jimmsta** » Thu May 06, 2004 1:13 pm

A new day, and some new findings...

I have been able to open the maps with HMT v3.5, but I had to make some adjustments to the map files... here goes my tutorial...

Take bloodgulch.map for example, and look at the header in a hex editor.
You should see the following... (This is the original file header)

6461 6568 6102 0000 DCA5 D400 0000 0000 7419 8500 688C 4F00 0000 0000 0000 0000 626C 6F6F
6467 756C 6368 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 3031 2E30 302E 3030
2E30 3630 3900

(it would appear as follows: daeha...........t...h.O.........bloodgulch......................01.00.00.0609)

And change the things marked in red to... (This is the modified file header)

6461 6568 0700 0000 DCA5 D400 0000 0000 7419 8500 688C 4F00 0000 0000 0000 0000 626C 6F6F
6467 756C 6368 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 3031 2E30 302E 3030
2E30 3536 3400

(it would appear as follows: daeh............t...h.O.........bloodgulch......................01.00.00.0564)

You can now edit the tags in hmt v3.5, and then just modify the header back to the original after editing to be able to play them in Halo:CE...

Enjoy

Dark Cloud · Post by **Dark Cloud** » Thu May 06, 2004 1:30 pm

I.

Love.

You.

Thanks.

A.

Lot.

God, doesn't that get annoying? lol... thanks man!

jimmsta · Post by **jimmsta** » Thu May 06, 2004 1:36 pm

I'm going to add a bit more to the tut...

Just so everyone knows what those two modifications do...

The first set of hexadecimal numbers changes the map version to HaloPC's version 7.

The second set of hexadecimal numbers changes the build number to HaloPC's build number.

The rest of the file is left untouched.

frozenflames · Post by **frozenflames** » Thu May 06, 2004 2:18 pm

nice find -- thx

Tack122 · Post by **Tack122** » Thu May 06, 2004 3:09 pm

someone needs to make HMT do that automatically

Pwn4g3 · Post by **Pwn4g3** » Thu May 06, 2004 3:52 pm

Mono said he might release an update to make it work with CE maps...but i dont see the point, cos like guerilla is HMT on steroids

Spar13 · Post by **Spar13** » Thu May 06, 2004 4:20 pm

omfg u rock

Pwn4g3 · Post by **Pwn4g3** » Thu May 06, 2004 4:22 pm

My only question now, is if HMT can be changed so that we may export items fromSP maps to the new map format, sort of like a conversion mode lol. That would own

Monte_Kano · Post by **Monte_Kano** » Thu May 06, 2004 4:27 pm

Dark Cloud wrote:I.

Love.

You.

Thanks.

A.

Lot.

God, doesn't that get annoying? lol... thanks man!

couldn't have put it better...ty! lol

Some Random Guy · Post by **Some Random Guy** » Thu May 06, 2004 4:52 pm

Good job!

jimmsta · Post by **jimmsta** » Thu May 06, 2004 7:21 pm

sweet... My first sticky... ever... hehe... I always knew that I'd get something good up on the forum... someday...

Pwn4g3 · Post by **Pwn4g3** » Fri May 07, 2004 6:46 am

jimmsta, I have a question...

Can SparkEdit open CE maps with that alteration? It basically says seek failed error when you try and open any CE map, so I'm just wondering, I might try it, but I assume that you may have tried it already and know the answer :]

And will we be able to get some form of extractor for the normal maps and convert them into the tag format for CE? Cos that would own. That combined with HEK would mean we have everything at our fingertips...

mattp001 · Post by **mattp001** » Fri May 07, 2004 11:16 am

get this shit: i actually figured this out on my own too. i saw it last night when i was comparing maps! yay me!

Knight · Post by **Knight** » Sat May 08, 2004 10:27 am

Whenever I click on anything under bitmaps/ I get an error:

An unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will be shut down immediately.

Specified argument was out of the range of valid values.
Parameter name: index.

MasterNeoChief · Post by **MasterNeoChief** » Sat May 08, 2004 12:16 pm

Bitmaps and models don't work.
You have to do it a different way.

Knight · Post by **Knight** » Sat May 08, 2004 12:22 pm

Bitmaps and models don't work.
You have to do it a different way.

Or... stupid noobie you can't use skins this way!

So there's no known way of injecting skins to CE maps, yet, gotcha.

Matus · Post by **Matus** » Sat May 08, 2004 2:15 pm

can u use hex to make PC maps into a CE map, and leav it that way?

so u can just change the modded PC map to a CE map...

jimmsta · Post by **jimmsta** » Sat May 08, 2004 9:34 pm

no clue... anyone? anyone? ... Beuler? anyone? ....

nizon · Post by **nizon** » Sat May 08, 2004 11:17 pm

I wrote a little program based on this tutorial to convert maps automatically.

Thanks jimmsta

see http://files.halomods.com/posting.php?mode=reply&t=6140

MonoxideC · Post by **MonoxideC** » Sun May 09, 2004 2:10 am

Ok I posted this in the forum where Nizon released his app, but it's not there now for some reason.

First off, all you have to change is the version number, not the build number. HMT doesn't check the build number.

So basically, just change "6461 6568 6102 0000" to "6461 6568 0700 0000"

Second, this is basically a trick to fool HMT into thinking that the map is a file that it understands. Fortunately, the basic layout of the file is the same so most meta tags can still be edited.

However, sounds and bitmaps (perhaps models too, I haven't checked) are referenced differently and cannot be edited by the latest version of HMT.

I dont want any confusion here - this in NO WAY makes CE maps compatible with current editing tools - it is a trick to BYPASS HMT's error checking that determines if the file you are trying to open is a valid supported map file - which in this case it is NOT. They still WILL NOT open in Sparkedit. Batch extraction and rebuilding also WILL NOT work.

Hope this clears things up.