Orbit Beta

A wealth of applications with which you will need to mod Halo 2.
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Prey
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Orbit Beta

Post by Prey »

Orbit
Version: b1.1
Author: Prey

This project ended up pulling me in two directions; concentrate on the rendering which is the bit I'm interested in, or concentrate on the functionality which is the bit my target audience(hey guys) is probably interested in?.. In the end I think I did equal amounts of concentrating, but you be the judge!

Code: Select all

Change Log
-------------
b1.0 --> b1.1

    - DXT compressed textures will now inject into the map properly.
Orbit is a 3D, halo 2 map renderer and editor, and is the successor to my previous application Prophet. Here's some images of what you can expect:
Image
Image
Image
Image

So hopefully I've peaked your interest. The app is attached to the bottom of this post, along with source if your a wantin. What follows is now a bit of a tutorial on how to use:

Load your map
Maps load much faster with the new internal design. Mainly, models and textures are now cached so there's never two of one thing. This has cut down load times and memory usage substantially, by half at least I think.

The goto feature
The coords, lightmap, skin and spawns tabs all have the goto feature. It allows you to zoom from your current location to a specific point on the map, be it a bookmark or object you're editing. Bookmarks are there in case you have places on your map you want to come back to at a later date (just remember to save the bookmark!)

The lightmap editor
Nothing you haven't seen before, but this time edit's will show up in the render window almost as soon as you change a value. I say almost, as when you have all lightmaps selected there can be a 3 second delay.

The skin editor
Here's a (or rather, the) feature from Prophet, but this time round much more fine-tuned. Whereas Prophet only let you edit what it though was the diffuse map, or the bump map, etc (and it wasn't always right), now Orbit will show you all a shader's bitmaps and just tell you in brackets what one it is using for what.

One thing to note about this tab is the Import button: It can inject textures that are bigger or smaller than the texture it is replacing, meaning you can inject anything anywhere! But do remember though you must keep the format the same.. i.e. don't inject DXT1 over a DXT2, etc, otherwise it may break your map.

Spawns
Select a spawn and move it around with the IJKL, UO keys. What's nice is the movement is relative to your camera position, so it's pretty easy to move spawns wherever you want.

Save
No explanation needed here I think: just check what you want to be saved and click the button.

The render window
The main reason I started this project was to better my skills with the XNA framework (a 3D toolkit), so the renderer was really my main focus. I got sidetracked along the way though adding in all the editing tools, so I didn't get to everything :( not yet a least anyway. Sooo what is implemented, new stuff-wise?:
  • - Transparent geometry, for the most part, can be seen through properly.
    - Alpha textures, and the bump map's alpha channel, are combined with diffuse textures for transparency in the right places.
    - Detail textures are rendered.
    - Only default model permutations are loaded.
    - More light is applied to textures, to mimic in-game textures
FAQ
It's not working!!!
There's two pre-requisties required to run this aplication.
1. The .Net Framework 3.5 and
2. The XNA Runtime 3.1

Well I think I've touched on everything, so enjoy.

Special thanks to brok3n halo, tf6, XIU, Starglider, Photonic, MJP, jwatte and rentreg for their help.
Attachments
Orbit b1.1 Source.rar
orbit b1.1 src c#
(7.62 MiB) Downloaded 693 times
Orbit b1.1.rar
(121.18 KiB) Downloaded 727 times
Last edited by Prey on Sat Jul 10, 2010 7:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Eaton
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Eaton »

This has got to be one of the most stunning releases I have seen this year.
Great work! :D I was a big user of Prophet back when I needed to skin. (It was the only program that really injected bitmaps properly..) I probably won't use it since I mod Reach/3 now, but I'm sure the members here will appreciate it.
Good to see you back and active, hopefully you will show off some more goodness. :)
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Ogrish
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Ogrish »

Looks good, ill give it a run thru later when i have time.
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Gary
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Gary »

Don't know if you were going for something like this, but maybe you could integrate entity's meta editor(or a one that can read it's plugins). So when you select the Warthog, you can edit it.

And I would put work into both, it would be great if you could get the renderer to simulate Halo2 as much as possible, so that you can see what your map will look like before you play it.

Also, I'll tell you how well it runs for me. What GPU do you have? 19fps seems a tad slow.
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Gary
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Gary »

Whoa, this is awesome, it's so smooth. It doesn't feel bulky like most tools I've used.

Performance wise:

Most places, it runs 58+ fps. When loading SP levels with a lot in view, it sometimes dropped to 40. Anything above 30 is usable, so I'm good.
Loading was fast, smooth, very good.

Overall, it never used more then 200MB Video memory or texture memory and about 790,000k in RAM. This was flying around oldmombasa.
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OwnZ joO
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by OwnZ joO »

Gary wrote:Don't know if you were going for something like this, but maybe you could integrate entity's meta editor(or a one that can read it's plugins).
Or you could just use another app for meta editing... Why should he bog down his nice tool to try to cater to every type of modding when there are decent meta editing tools already.
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JacksonCougar
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by JacksonCougar »

Your dxtn compression problem sounds like an easy fix. Hit me up on AIM sometime and I'll see if I cannot offer some suggestions.
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neodos
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by neodos »

Omg with source? that's if fucking impressive =D

Tested: works very well, clearly the lightmap applied to the bsp is too bright.
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Click16
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Click16 »

This program is so cool to use, I didn't really edit anything yet, I was having fun flying around the map. If this thing could render a sky correctly, that would be awesome too...
Image
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kornman00
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by kornman00 »

Just FYI: downloads aren't visible under the "remnantmods" board style. I was sitting here wondering if I was blind or something then I switched to prosilver and poof, download links appeared ;p.
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JacksonCougar
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by JacksonCougar »

I noticed this as well. I will look into why they are broken as soon as I can...
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Prey
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Prey »

Meta editors are a funny thing, there always seems to be some sort of trade off.. Insolences was fast but had a limited UI.. H2X had the same problem.. Entitys has a good UI but is slow to load and just, in general, consumes your whole computer.. my 1 second ME was quick to load, but crappy to use...

I think this time a round I would try and render it with something like this. But it's not really at the top of my list at the moment.

I'm on a laptop which uses an ATI Radeon Xpress 5975.

The lightmap is rendered the same as in entity, modulate2X, but I have also modulated the other textures too. To me in looks more right than wrong when compared to in-game, but it is true that it's not perfect.

The skybox is just a matter of time as it's simple enough to do, for this release though I just completely forgot about it :)

I've now uploaded beta 1.1 as I finally found a way to inject dxt compressed textures properly that works in game!
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rentreg
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by rentreg »

it pretty much works on any graphics card =P
Most users ever online was 152 on March 16th, 2012, 7:02 am
what happened on March 16th, 2012 at 7:02 am? 0_o
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Ogrish
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Ogrish »

The beta didnt work for me, and after your update sonar removes the app, for suspicious activity.
I hate sonar it aslo removes CH2R, and fucks with some other apps.
Last edited by Ogrish on Sun Jul 11, 2010 4:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Eaton
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Eaton »

Can you include the XNA runtime?
I downloaded the redistributable package, ran Orbit, and same file not found exception. So I did a global search and no dll anywhere. :(
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Ogrish
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Ogrish »

Image
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neodos
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by neodos »

I really doubt it has a virus if the source is there, its probably just you antivirus thinking its one because of what it does.
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iBotPeaches
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by iBotPeaches »

These thing is sweet. I just flew around the maps though looking at them, so haven't pushed its limits yet.
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Ogrish
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Ogrish »

No not a virus, the Apps just doing what its suposed to but Sonar thinks its accessing areas of the file system that it shouldnt.
I turned sonar off and tried to run it but im still having problems, is it cause im using XP.
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Prey
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Prey »

I do access the user32 dll in this app so I can figure out what control is in focus on the form, so this is probably what your scanner is highlighting as suspicious; it is possible to do malicious things through this dll :mrgreen: - ch2r probably throws the same exception because it accesses dll's for it's fancy xp-style drop down boxes and such.

Orbit should work on windows XP/vista/7. If it doesn't you'll have to be specific about the error, i.e. does the application fail to load? is there a detailed error message? what graphics card do you have? does the application load but you see a red X across the render window?

Eaton what exactly did you search for? I would try installing again. (and make sure you also have .net3.5)

edit: additionally you might also want to look at the requirements for net3.5 and xna3.1, on the download pages above, to see if your system qualifies.
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kornman00
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by kornman00 »

You should try to stick to pure managed code whenever you can: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4354 ... 606#439606
Kantanomo
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Kantanomo »

Why do people keep Modding h2x i mean the gameis pretty much fully modable i think. why not challenge your self to new things like H2V or games that no one has modded yet.

Im not disrespecting here im just saying my opinion

BTW Nice app.
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Zieon Eslador
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Zieon Eslador »

Ignore Shock120, he's ...eccentric(?). That's not really the right word, but you can't exactly describe him. We still mod Halo 2 because it isn't fully mapped out. Gary's Mod is fun, but when everything is available what is there to strive for? Overcoming bugs and program errors makes modding Halo 2 a challenge and adds to the feeling of accomplishment when you release a successful mod.

Note: I've never released any of my mods. I'm a perfectionist and even though quite a few, almost all, were worth playing, they weren't worth note as outstanding mod. Now they're all lost somewhere, so I'm determined to release atleast one mod in my modding career. That's the only reason I still mod besides the community.
Zieon Eslador (1:23:09 AM): I haven't seen Watchmen, but I plan to eventually...
NotZachary (1:23:15 AM): it has nukes, random things happening, and retards screaming
NotZachary (1:23:19 AM): kinda like MW2
SikSemper
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by SikSemper »

I tried to use orbit having downloaded the prerequisites but it instantly crashes. Is this because of my 64 bit windows 7 operating system? is there a fix for this

EDIT:
system specs

Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
GTX 980 graphics card
.net framework 4.5 (tried using 3.5 also)
xna framework 4 (tried using 3.1 also)

I just get an instant "orbit has stopped working" dialog box.

Whenever I use the windows 7 pro "XP mode" I get unhandled exceptions and the program loads the gui with a red X.

Whenever I open the source code in visual studio and try to debug it tells me:

"An unhandled exception of type 'System.IO.FileNotFoundException' occurred in Orbit.exe

Additional information: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework, Version=3.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=6d5c3888ef60e27d' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified."

So I'm assuming it can't find the XNA framework, how would I fix this?
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Click16
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Re: Orbit Beta

Post by Click16 »

Yes this can be fixed. I downloaded the source and recompiled it to run as x86. The XNA Framework (and its components) only run in an x86 environment, so building the source as x86 is required to run unless you are on a 32-bit operating system. Anyways enough with the details, here is the x86 Compiled version.
Attachments
Orbit Beta (x86 Compiled).zip
Orbit Beta compiled for x86
(9.54 MiB) Downloaded 303 times
Image
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