Ammo Meters?

[Sn0w.W01f]

I need help with working on ammo meters.
Frist off, I was working on is has 60 bullet meter but... when I shoot, the meter dosen't move until after a few shots (about 10). After the bullet meter start moving its loses bullet at the wrong ratio. I obviously used another meter as template but i dunno it thats the cause.

[Sparky]

http://www.halodemomods.com/wiki/Tools# ... _Converter

[TaxiService]

I think he's referring to the HUD ammo meters, not the one on the AR. (and by the way Eschaton does not use that converted value anymore. If you type in 45 you'll see 45.)

Sn0wW01f: Making an ammo meter is a tedious process. When i have to make one i usually use an existing one and "cut it off" when i need it.

Like, uh, let me find an example… (boots old imac containing bitmaps)
Here, in this case i had to make a meter for the MA5K. I wanted it to look like the AR's meter, but with 45 rounds instead of 60.

I took the original bitmap and, basically, deleted five bullets from every line of rounds.



The meters bitmap is the tricky part. It determines which parts of the meter black out when that particular bullet has been fired.



We might say it is a gradient of bullets from white to black, where white is 100% loaded and black is 0%.
Here is how my meters mask look in comparison to the original one:


Now you might notice that the colors are not exactly the same in the upper row, even if in theory i should not have touched for it to work!
That's because for some reason (probably because of wrong image format upon importation) the hud would act as you described in-game, so i had to fix it manually.

So how can you fix it? You have to adjust the shade of grey of every bullet in the meter mask until it fades out at the correct time. (that is when that specific bullet is fired.)

So yeah, that's all.


TL;DR: change shades of grey in meter's mask in PS until it works.

[Amy]

And this is why taxi is a god of modding.

[Sn0w.W01f]

Thanks taxi. But i was tryings to go from 32 to 60.

[TaxiService]

·_· oh, okay.

in that case here is the procedure i use: I take the whitest color that appears in the meters mask (it's not really FFFFFF, but F0F0F0) and the darkest color (that is 040404) and, like… make some calculations.

F0 - 04 = EC (the difference between F0 and 04)
EC = 236 (hex to decimal)
236 / 60 = 3.9(3) (the value we found divided by the number of bullets, 60 in this case)

so 3.9(3) is the increment of brightness you have to add to 04 for the color to be recognized as the next bullet by the game. o_o
What does that mean? That if you go in photoshop and with the color picker you add 3.9(3) to each of the R, G and B values, you'll get the color for the next bullet!

well, COOL AS FUCK!!! Too bad that the number is not an integer. So you'll either have to round it to 4 or with a calculator add 3.9(3) to 04 per each bullet and put that rounded result in the R, G and B values.

IF I RECALL CORRECTLY Halo wants that you add 4 each time instead of [the rounded result of 04 plus the sum of 3.9(3) per each bullet].

Anyway as you make the bitmap and import it, go test. Fire a magazine of the weapon you're modifying and NOTE which one bullets on the hud do not act correctly; then go in PS, modify the bitmap again and repeat.

Do not get discouraged if at first most of your bullets will fail to disappear from the hud correctly. :V Keep trying!




PS: oh Amy, i can assure you i am no modding god at all. Modding gods are all long gone. I am more of… uh, a modding janitor. Or artist, if you want! Too bad my mods never get released. -_-

PPS: OH WAIT FUCK, the AR has already the right colors for 60 bullets!!!! :V HERP DERP try using those!!

EDIT: PPPS: also uh, have you tried going in the whpi and messing with the bullet count float or something?
There was something like that...

[Sn0w.W01f]

I did some testing. Well the clip is 60 now but the meter dose not move. But when i shoot 28 rounds leaving 32 in the clip the meter begins to move.

[TaxiService]

Okay then. It's the whpi's fault this time.

Go in the weapon you're modifying's whpi tag and… look for something like "bullet count" or "rounds". o_o Sorry for being so ambiguous, but i am departing soon and i truly don't have time to go look for the right information and make a quick tutorial.

Anyway experiment! Somewhere there is a float that defines how many bullets the magazine holds, therefore in how many fractions the gradient has to be divided in. o_o Good luck! see you in five days!~

[Sn0w.W01f]

Hmm i can't seem to find it, but i'll keep trying,

[Sparky]

you might find this tutorial helpful:

From hce.halomaps.org:


Only pay attention to the photoshop part, especially regarding the gradients. When you're done modifying the image, just paste your bitmaps over the AR's ammo meter bitmaps (duplicate the tag first).
In the middle of the tutorial, he talks about what values to use in the metadata of the wphi tag. Modify the ammo offsets. You might also need to modify the sprite offset, but that's unlikely if you're using the AR's wphi tag.

Make sure you are using Sparky's Eschaton Plugins. (http://tools.halodemomods.com/)

[{DKW}drk]

Im trying to go from 32 to 60.

hold yeh horses mate, doesnt the original AR have 60 rounds in it? ._.
why not do this: Take the COLL,ANTR, and MOD2 of the first person and 3rd person view of it and put them into the original AR on bloodgulch\SC?
youre welcome.

[Sn0w.W01f]

Im trying to go from 32 to 60.

hold yeh horses mate, doesnt the original AR have 60 rounds in it? ._.
why not do this: Take the COLL,ANTR, and MOD2 of the first person and 3rd person view of it and put them into the original AR on bloodgulch\SC?
youre welcome.

1. It obviously isn't the original ar now is it?
2. Besides I said i was using as template, the reason is for the binoculars which is where the whpi comes in.
3. Also as you can see taxi was helping with hud problems not models problems
4. So swapping models will not help well it?
Well... thank you for trying to help anyway.

[TaxiService]

If it isn't in the whpi it's somewhere in the weap tag itself. Not in the clip though, eh.
Sorry for not being helpful enough. As soon as i land in croatia (and if i find an internet connection there) I'll try and look into both those tags and see where the damn value is.


…anyway it must be somewhere in whpi! I totally recall being able to set a value for the meter to start flashing when the ammo loaded was below a certain amount! Therefore there MUST be some float like that. Be sure to use Sparky's plugins! Or if not that… i don't know. Try all the plugin packs you've got. o_o


EDIT: PS: probably there is useful information in sparky's video too! I cannot load it atm because of the shitty connection i get in this kitchen >.< but check it out!

[Sn0w.W01f]

sparky vid was useful.
edit: meter works THANKS

[TaxiService]

YAY I am happy for you! Post some pics of it just for my curiosity? Or is it a secret project or something?