- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Okay peoples, let me get some things straight.
In order to create maps, you need a few tools. Let me explain what they do:
3DS Max - A 3-D modeling tool required to actually build the geometry of the map, and other various things such as texture-assigning etc...
Guierilla: Halo is a game that uses .map files. .map files are made out of files called tags. Guerilla is a tag editor. And it just so happens a "weapon" is a tag :P
Some tags could be, level geometry tags, 3d model tags, texture tags, weapon tags, AI tags, shader tags (that have textures assigned to them, and then the models use these to render themselves). Guerilla is used to create tags, and it also uses tags that tool creates.
Sapien - Sapien is used to edit the map. Once you have the required tags setup (like the level-geometry tag, bitmap/shader tags, and the tag itself), you can edit the map by, say, placing vehicles (therefore embedding it in to the .map file, and then when, say, a vehicle wants to respawn, Halo knows how to reference it), placing spawn points, adding AI, scenery etc... And even using Halo Scripting. You cannot directly modify .map files, you must open up a level tag-file.
Tool - Tool is used to compile, say, texture files in to Halo's native texture files. It's used to take exported 3ds max geometry files, and turn it in to a level-geometry tag. If you have a tag, Tool made it. It's also used to build .map files themselves once you're done editing everything.
To sum it up:
You take various game assets, such as 3d models, textures, etc... And use Tool to convert them in to tag files that Halo will use. Then you use Guerilla to make, and edit tag files. Then you use Sapien to fly around your map and make spawn points, place vehicles, AI etc... Then you use Tool again to convert all the tags and embed them in to a .map file, which Halo can then run.
I woud post a tutorial, but there are plenty around the net. And HEK also comes with some documentation :P