Halo 1 & 2 for PC
This topic has moved here: Subject: Halo 2 custom maps.
  • Subject: Halo 2 custom maps.
Subject: Halo 2 custom maps.
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

I'm thinkong about getting halo 2 for pc so I can make custom maps. But Im not a die hard tech freak, and Ive seen videos of it and it looks pretty complicated. Is it simpler than it looks or is it difficult? And can I play Multiplayer online with the maps?

  • 02.07.2009 2:29 PM PDT

Thinking of something witty to write here since 2004...

Yes you can play custom maps online. It does take quite some time and commitment to learn the H2EK and you need additional (expensive) 3D modeling software such as 3Ds Max (No, Google Sketchup won't work).

  • 02.07.2009 4:11 PM PDT

It's a tad complicated. The HEK for Halo CE is a lot more friendly and easier. Especially since the bitmaps don't demand shaders out of all of them. If you want to make maps that have only one instance (All one fluent object) You can use any version of 3DS Max with the Bluestreak Exporter. Otherwise if you need another instance,(An extra plane for a pane of glass for example) you will need to get 3DS Max 5, 6, 7, or 8. All of which are not Vista compatible. I have no idea how most others get their early versions of Max to work, when 9 alone needed a patch to not suck on Vista.

  • 02.13.2009 9:30 PM PDT

* Pr: ĭnʹtərnĕts: "I hear there's rumors on the uh (pause), Internets...

Fluency in any of the these programs is a must, and self-teaching is not recommended. Of course, you can follow any number of tutorials online.

  • 02.13.2009 11:59 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: Zekkalkan
It's a tad complicated. The HEK for Halo CE is a lot more friendly and easier. Especially since the bitmaps don't demand shaders out of all of them. If you want to make maps that have only one instance (All one fluent object) You can use any version of 3DS Max with the Bluestreak Exporter. Otherwise if you need another instance,(An extra plane for a pane of glass for example) you will need to get 3DS Max 5, 6, 7, or 8. All of which are not Vista compatible. I have no idea how most others get their early versions of Max to work, when 9 alone needed a patch to not suck on Vista.


Posted by: darthbob
Fluency in any of the these programs is a must, and self-teaching is not recommended. Of course, you can follow any number of tutorials online.


WTF are you guys talking about? Have either of you ever used the SDK?

First off all versions of 3ds Max work with Vista. I have 7,8,2009 installed and they run perfectly fine. The Bluestreak exporter isn't exactly a good thing since it's not capable of doing things that the .ASS exporter is. If you're making a map one object it's not going to be optimized very well so you'd better learn how to instance geometry.

Fluency in any of these programs is not a must, I taught myself max, photoshop, mudbox, c4d, hell even maya (stay away maya it's retarded) and the list goes on. Self-teaching is recommended. There's plenty of free online tutorials that will get you started and lots of good communities for 3d/game dev that will help you out. I and many others are self taught and we have no problem creating things. You don't need to go to college to learn this stuff, it's all on the internet.

As for the SDK. Unless you like throwing your monitor threw a wall I'd stay very far away. Hired Gun screwed up big time with the port. Things are missing from the SDK, parts of it are broken (seriously lol, run Tool and you'll see what I mean), the SDK is locked down ie. no custom models, objects, animations, skies (you're stuck with 4 basic skies....). There's so much wrong with it I couldn't list all the problems. Oh and that's just the SDK. the game itself has some serious issues with the engine since nobody optimized it for Vista.

You might want to invest in UT3 or Crysis since they have much better SDK's and communities behind them.

PS. Other things that i'd just like to note about the SDK sucking... You want water? Good luck lol. The water shaders are a pain to get working and some of them don't even work. Hell there's no such thing as water really because you either have splashes and collision (jesus effect) Or no collision and no splashes (fake water). Then there's the help file that comes with the SDK lol. It references to files that aren't even there FFS....

  • 02.15.2009 12:06 PM PDT