File list

Introduction

We will start by going over how Halo requires your folders to be structured for import.

Creation of a level directory

For the sake of organizing your asset files you should consider keeping all your source files in similar paths used to create the level (.blend, .tif, .psd, .ass, etc..).

Tool will search for subdirectories in the level directory that contain the raw asset data for compilation and eventually package the resulting assets from the raw data into a map cache file that can run in Halo 2. Any assets that you compile will end up in the tags directory plus the local path to the raw assets in the data folder. For example the file below:

(H2EK Install Path)\data\scenarios\multi\example\structure\example.ASS

has the compiled assets outputted to:

(H2EK Install Path)\tags\scenarios\multi\example

When creating a level the scenario tag will take the name of the folder containing the sub directories and raw assets while the structure BSP tag will take the name of the ASS file itself. Compiled scenario tags can then reference other tags for use in the level.

Let's first start by creating our very own level directory in the data folder. We'll call this level tutorial for simplicities sake but you can call it whatever you would like:

1. In the root of your HEK install find a folder named data. If it does not exist then create it.
2. In the data directory find a folder named scenarios. If it does not exist then create it.
3. In the scenarios directory find a folder named multi. If it does not exist then create it.
4. For our last step we will now create our first level in the multi directory.

Your final path in Windows explorer should be something like this:

(H2EK Install Path)\data\scenarios\multi\(My Level Name)

Once this is done you may want to create new folders any custom assets that are specifically for your level. If you have any images or custom models then the folders you will need are as follows:

1. bitmaps * (H2EK Install Path)\data\scenarios\bitmaps\multi\(My Level Name)
   • Like you probably already guessed this is where you will place your .tif/.tiff files to compile bitmaps tags from. Keep in mind that when we talk about bitmaps in Halo we are not talking about images with a .BMP extension. We are talking about a tag type called bitmaps that stores image data for use in Halo specifically.
2. structure * (H2EK Install Path)\data\scenarios\multi\(My Level Name)\structure
   • This structure folder name is something Tool.exe specifically looks for when compiling object meshes. Be sure that the folder is named exactly this. As you have probably already guessed this is where you will compile your example level from.
3. scenery * (H2EK Install Path)\data\scenarios\objects\multi\(My Level Name)
   • As you have probably guessed this is where the raw assets for any level specific objects can be placed. This folder should probably contain multiple folders with their own sub directories for model and bitmap assets.

End of file directory info

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following individuals for their research or contributions to this topic:

• General_101 (Writing this guide)