Halo 3 ODST Editing Kit

The Halo 3 ODST Editing Kit (H3ODSTEK) is the official set of tools for creating custom content for the MCC version of Halo 3 ODST. It was first released by 343 Industries alongside the latest update as of March 2022. Similarly to the other mod tools, it is based on the old internal tools used by Bungie during the development of Halo 3, with modifications made during the porting of the game to MCC and some changes to make them more user-friendly.

Unlike the H1A-EK you do need to own [Halo 3 ODST on Steam][steam_purchase] to gain access to the toolkit.

Getting started

See the general installation steps for help installing these tools. Don't forget to run the extract script!

Changelog

This changelog is focused on known notable modding-related changes and is not guaranteed to be complete.

July 2023 hotfix

  • The Invisibility equipment and Overshields now work as expected when added to campaign missions.

July 2023

  • Add support for FSBs with custom names in MCC.
  • Fixed being unable to manipulate trigger volumes in Sapien.
  • Camera point transitions now interpolate correctly over 60 FPS.
  • Sounds imported into a new FSB bank no longer have corrupted playback in Sapien/Standalone.
  • Fixed instance geometry often failing to show correct dynamic cubemaps.
  • Fixed preference.dat error seen when converting an FBX to JMS while another ODST mod tool is open.
  • Fixed Sapien crashing when switching BSP/zone set.
  • Added play builds of Sapien, Standalone, and Guerilla.
  • Added forked MP biped for odst_recon and odst_oni_op.
  • ODST MP game variants are now in the PC build's game_variants and show expected settings.
  • Removed various unused or deprecated tag fields.
  • Removed Guerilla's Tag Mover dependency on tag depot.
  • Picking up a gravity hammer while skull_third_person is active no longer crahses Standalone.
  • Added a flag so that infection forms can kill other characters without infecting them.
  • Ported sound_impulse_time from H3 to ODST.
  • Fixed Guerilla tag blocks extending out of their borders.
  • Allowed chocolate_mountain_new tags to be assigned per BSP rather than globally in the scenario.
  • MP maps have rebaked lightmaps.
  • scenario_validate_game_progression has some fixes to better handle game_progression modding setups.
  • In modded maps, game_level_advance goes to the next mission now instead of the main menu.
  • Models with large import info can now be imported (fixes tag_data_resize() failed).
  • Explanation fields no longer take up space in Guerilla's grid view.
  • Fixed effect_scenery lights appearing in the wrong location of the skybox for non-hosts.
  • Fixed shader views under expert mode in Guerilla.

December 2022

  • Added Tool command extract-unicode-strings.
  • AI objectives crash fix
  • Unused fields removed from scenario and globals tags
  • bin/ManagedBlam.dll added
  • The Sapien/Standalone debug menu is properly scaled for the window size.

September 2022

A caveat to this update is that you will need to delete the following shader templates in tags\shaders\ from the previous update, as they are not compatible: beam_templates, black_templates, contrail_templates, custom_templates, decal_templates, foliage_templates, halogram_templates,light_volume_templates, particle_templates, screen_templates, shader_templates, terrain_templates and water_templates.

Otherwise, extract the new H3ODSTEK.7z as usual. If you don't want to update all your tags it's highly recommended you at least update the tags\shaders folder.

Content:

  • Various changes to tags and data files. Updating your tag set is highly recommended.
  • Added test, audio and lighting reference scenarios levels\test\box, levels\reference\audio, levels\reference\lighting_reference
  • Map info files have been added to the H3ODSTEK.7z which allows the main menu to load maps.

General:

  • Maximum string storage for cache files increased.
  • New flag for equipment to prevent AI from dropping them on death.
  • Script doc has new formatting and will now contain globals.
  • Reports are now contained within the reports folder.
  • Giants will now synchronize in co-operative Firefight games.

Tool:

  • New commands extract_unicode_strings and print_tag_to_XML added.
  • Various improvements to the export-tag-to-xml command output.
  • Export bitmap commands now have support for cubemaps.
  • The build-cache-file command now uses the flag use-fmod-data by default which should result in smaller cache files.

Guerilla:

  • Reserved chud text stringids are now listed.

Sapien:

  • Additional FMOD banks no longer stops working after a map reset.

Standalone:

  • Additional FMOD banks no longer stops working after a map reset.
  • Firefight maps can now be successfully launched from the main menu.

May 2022

  • Tags were updated to include the balance changes from the corresponding MCC update.

Comparison with H2

Naturally there is multitude of changes compared to H2 as the engine underwent a major revision, this document endeavours to list the major ones.

  • Tools now are all 64-bit, no more out of memory errors unless you actually run out of memory.
  • The graphics and tag subsystems went through major revisions.
  • Structures can no longer be created using JMS files, you need to use ASS files.
  • Tag import info is not stored in a tag block but in a separate tag stream
  • Debug logs are not saved in a single folder anymore, allowing you to run multiple tools at once without confusing logs.
  • Shader tag creation was streamlined, you no longer need to select a template.
  • If a shader template does not exist then it will be autogenerated.
  • Lightmap baking is usually faster.
  • Multiple structure tags can be loaded at once, the basic subdivision of a scenario is now the zone set.
  • A fancy new green loading screen.

Known issues

  • Resource sharing is currently not supported.
  • Single threaded lightmapping is not supported, you need to use the multi-process solution. This can be run with only a single client if only using one core is desired.
  • Guerilla uses red text and greyed out folders for all tags - this doesn't mean there is something wrong with your tags it's just a graphical issue.
  • Lipsync won't be generated when importing sounds that use a multilingual sound class such as unit_dialog as third party tools are required.