The Ultimate BSP Conversion Tutorial!
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 11:59 pm
~Proper BSP Conversions~
Tutorial made by Eaton
First of all, this is my very first tutorial so no flaming, please. I have seen a large amount of people who have trouble getting H2 Core to work for them and I hope to solve your problem with this tutorial. This tutorial is for beginner modders to advanced modders.
**Tutorial made exclusively for Windows Vista users.**
What you will need in order to attempt a BSP Conversion:
H2 Core and Guerilla (You need this specific one).
Entity 1.3.9
UberAnalyzeTool™
512mb of RAM or higher (1gig is recommended).
A clean copy of a Halo 2 multiplayer and campaign map.
Must be logged on an administrator account or have an administrator password.
~The Tutorial~
Step 1: Setting up H2 Core and Guerilla's exe files.
Download the H2 Core and Guerilla at the link provided and save it to the desktop. Right click the archive>Extract here. It is critical that you leave the H2 Core and Guerilla folder on the desktop! Do not move it anywhere else or a conversion will not be possible. Before we open H2 Core, right click H2 Core’s exe file, then click “Properties”, then go to the “Compatibility” tab as shown below and check all of the boxes I have checked.
Now do the exact same thing for H2 Guerilla's exe file.
What this does is set H2 Core and Guerilla into a compatibility setting that will make it work correctly in Windows Vista.
Step 2: Setting up H2 Core.
Open up H2 Core now. It should ask you to run it as administrator. Click “Allow” and then your screen will flicker. You will eventually see this window.
It will ask you to locate your mainmenu.map, single_player_shared.map, and shared.map. Locate them and make sure they are clean.
You should see this screen now if you located the three maps correctly.
Press the ‘Edit” button at the top and then click “Settings”.
You should see this window now.
First make a new folder on your desktop. Then click the “Browse” button I have circled in red. You should see this window now.
Now find your new folder (Red), select it, and click "OK"(Blue).
You do not have to worry about anything else on the "Settings" window so just exit out of the window now and exit out of H2 Core as well.
Step 3: Decompiling your multiplayer map.
Open up H2 Core again. Now before you open your map or do anything in H2 Core, open up the "Windows Task Manager" by right clicking on your "Task Bar" and clicking "Task Manager".
Once it is open, click the "Show processes from all users" button I have circled in black.
Click the "Continue" button when "User Account Control" prompts you to do so. Windows Task Manager should now re-open. Scroll down until you see H2 Core's process, right click it, "Set Priority", and select "Realtime". Click "Change priority" when the window pops up.
Now exit out of Windows Task Manger. Now open your multiplayer map in H2 Core. (File>Open) Take note of the size of your map right now because we will need it later.
Then find your multiplayer map in the window that just opened. I am using headlong. Use any base map you want. Then click the "Open" button I have circled in Red. The best maps for BSP Conversions in my opinion are Containment and Headlong.
The map should open in H2 Core now. Now go to "Map>Decompile"
Now wait! No window will pop up when you click Decompile. It is decompiling the map you have open in the background. Now go get a drink or something because it will take a few minutes. The time depends on the amount of RAM your PC has and your processor speed. Leave it alone! Do not click the Decompile button again or do anything else or you will mess up the process. If you don't believe me, minimize H2 Core and open the new folder and you will see the progress. When it is done, it will display this box.
The random numbers is the amount of time it took to decompile your map. It isn't an error code. If you see that box, you have done everything correctly. Just click the "OK" button.
Step 4: Decompiling your campaign map's sbsp and lightmap.
Leaving H2 Core open from the last step, go to File>Open again and find your campaign map that has the BSP you want to use as a multiplayer level. I am going to use one of oldmombasa's BSPs. Feel free to use any map you want. And click the "Open" button I have circled in red.
Once it is opened in H2 Core, go down to the map's "sbsp" (Structure Binary Separation Plane) tag class and click on the BSP you want. If you are unsure of which one to use, take a look at the BSP in Entity. Once you have the BSP you want, click on it. (H2 Core will freeze for a few seconds). The go to "Meta>Decompile>Decompile Recursively".
Now just let it decompile. Don't do anything like I said before. It will display a message box when finished. Click the "OK" button.
Now go to the "ltmp" (Lightmap) tag class and find the lightmap tag that corresponds with the BSP you just decompiled. It will have a name very similar to it.
You should see the "Done" message again. Just click the "OK" button.
Step 5: Editing your multiplayer map's scenario tag in H2 Guerilla.
Open up H2 Guerilla. Now before you do anything, set it's priority to "Realtime" in "Windows Task Manager" as I explained how to do previously. Now go to "File>Open" and go to your new folder. This is what your new folder should look like now.
Now go into these folder with the open file dialog as follows:
1. Open the "H2" folder.
2. Open the "scenarios" folder next.
3. Then "multi".
4. This folder will have your multiplayer map's name. Open it.
5. There may be another folder after this. If there is open it, if there isn't you will see a bunch of files.
6. Click on your map's scenario file. This is Headlong's for example.
7. Then click the 'Open" button circled in red.
It should load into H2 Guerilla now. Scroll down the list until you see the "Structure BSPS" reflexive and click the plus icon (Red) to expand the options inside.
It should now look like this.
Click the "..." button that I have circled in red and another open fle dialog windows will pop up.
1.Open the "H2" folder.
2 Then the "scenarios" folder.
3. Then the "solo" folder.
4. Open the folder with your map's name.
5. Then the other folder if there is one.
5. Open the campaign map's BSP file.
Now do the same thing with the lightmap. Click the "..." button circled in purple and fine your campaign map's lightmap It will be in the same directory as the campaign map's BSP. Once you have found it click it and then click "Open". It should look something like this now. The 2 boxes should have your campaign map's lightmap and BSP instead of your mutiplayer map's. If it does, go to "File>Save". Then click the "Done" button. Close H2 Guerilla.
Step 6: Rebuilding your multiplayer map.
Open H2 Core, set the priority to Realtime again, open your multiplyer map, and now go to "Map>Rebuild". You should see this window open. Now click the button circled in red and find your multiplayer map's scenario that you edited in H2 Guerilla. (H2>Scenarios>Multi...)
Once it is open, you see the checkboxes? Those tell what H2 Core will transfer from the campaign map to your new map you are rebuilding. Check all of these I have checked. Feel free to uncheck some and check some more if you want specific things in or out.
Ok, now exit all open applications except H2 Core because you will need all the RAM you can get. Then press "Rebuild". H2 Core will now fly through the tags at light speed.
When it gets to the step where the tags go below the window, look at the top tag. Is it this tag I have in the big rectangle? This EXACT tag? If it isn't, end the H2 Core process in Windows Task Manager because you have a bad rebuild. Sorry, but try the conversion all over again.
Estimated time of completion based on RAM:
512mb - 1-2 hours
1gig - 10-20 minutes
2 gigs - 3-5 minutes (I have 2 gigs).
3gigs+ - 5 minutes or less
Do not do anything while your map is rebuilding. This application will draw off of everything your PC has. Just wait until it says 'Done". If you ever get and error while rebuilding, there could be three reasons why you see it.
1. You did the one of the steps wrong in some way.
2. Your system ran out of memory.
3. There are a few maps with unconvertible BSPs and will always error.
If you don't get an error, click"OK". Close H2 Core. I highly recommend restarting your computer after this process. Especially if you Have 1gig or RAM or less because your computer will go very slow.
How to tell if you have a bad conversion before you go any farther:
Remember when I told you to record your map's size? Pull that out and see if the map is bigger or smaller than the recorded size. If it is smaller, then your computer is not compatible with H2 Core. it is a common issue.. If it is bigger, you may have a working conversion!
Step 7: Analyzing the map.
Open your map in UberAnalyzeTool™. And go to the "Holes" and "Out of map" tabs circled in red. If there is any text in any of the tabs, you will have to do the conversion over again because it is a bad rebuild. If there isn't anything in any of the two tabs, move on.
Open up Entity 1.3.9. Now look at the very top of the map's tag list and see if the "<fx>" tag is there. if it is, great! If it isn't, redo the conversion. Now run an IFP check but clicking the 'Check IFPs" button. (Green) If you get ANY broken IFPs, redo the rebuild. The IFP check can take anywhere from 5-10 minutes depending on the size of the map. If you don't, that's great! You may have a working conversion! If you get a "Tag type doesn't have a plugin message", that is a good thing. Just press "OK."
Step 8: Setting Player Spawns in Entity's BSP Viewer.
If you have gotten this far, great job! The conversion you have done should work! Now we just need to move the player spawns into a playable area of the game.
Leaving Entity 1.3.9 open from the previous step, go down to the "sbsp" tag. It should now be your campaign map's BSP. If it isn't, you either didn't save earlier in H2 Guerilla or you didn't select the campaign map's BSP. Anyway, now view the BSP. Here is a picture if you do not know where the button is.
If you get an error when you click the "View BSP" button, then you have a bad rebuild. If you don't get an error and it load the BSP, great! I will take a while to load the BSP depending on the size of it. This is the error you will get if you have a bad rebuild.
Anyway, once the BSP loads, it will most likely load to a blue screen. Click the "Spawns" button on the side and a window will expand from the side.
Now expand the "Player" tag and double click ANY one of the player spawn tags. It will bring you to that spawn. Zoom out a little and you will see a little white Master Chief figure.
Ok, now click the Masterchief Figure once, go to the "Edit" tab, click the "Move All Spawns Here" button and you will see a bunch of them in that one spot. Finally, click the "Select All Spawns" button. Now move all of those Masterchief figures into a playable area of the map.
Then go to the "Main" tag, and click the "Save Changes" button. Great job! Just one more step!
Step 9: Nulling the lsnd and snde tags.
The reason you have to null the tags is because H2 Core does not transfer them correctly and they usually cause the map to freeze. Go to the "sbsp" tag again. Display Idents, and scroll all the way down until you see some "lsnd" and "snde" tags.
Null them all out by right clicking each one, click "Swap", then the "Ident Swapper will pop up. Select "Nulled Out" and then click "Swap Ident".
Step 10: The End
Congratulations! You made it all the way to the end of my tutorial! Just three steps remain...
1. Resign the map by simply clicking the "Sign" button at the top of Entity.
2. FTP the map with your FTP program to your Xbox.
3. The hardest step of all... Play your map!!!
End of tutorial. Thank you for reading and enjoy your first successful BSP Conversion!
Bugs to watch for while playing:
Bug: Some of the weapons FP animations may be corrupted resulting in the weapon not being visible while being held.
Solution: Redoing the conversion.
Bug: Corrupted weapon fire sounds and explosions.
Solution: Redoing the conversion.
Bug: Masterchief/Elite dying and freezing the game.
Solution: Redoing the conversion or building in another biped into the map and using that instead.
Questions? Comments? Typos? Unclear on anything? Post here in this thread!
Tutorial made by Eaton
First of all, this is my very first tutorial so no flaming, please. I have seen a large amount of people who have trouble getting H2 Core to work for them and I hope to solve your problem with this tutorial. This tutorial is for beginner modders to advanced modders.
**Tutorial made exclusively for Windows Vista users.**
What you will need in order to attempt a BSP Conversion:
H2 Core and Guerilla (You need this specific one).
Entity 1.3.9
UberAnalyzeTool™
512mb of RAM or higher (1gig is recommended).
A clean copy of a Halo 2 multiplayer and campaign map.
Must be logged on an administrator account or have an administrator password.
~The Tutorial~
Step 1: Setting up H2 Core and Guerilla's exe files.
Download the H2 Core and Guerilla at the link provided and save it to the desktop. Right click the archive>Extract here. It is critical that you leave the H2 Core and Guerilla folder on the desktop! Do not move it anywhere else or a conversion will not be possible. Before we open H2 Core, right click H2 Core’s exe file, then click “Properties”, then go to the “Compatibility” tab as shown below and check all of the boxes I have checked.
Now do the exact same thing for H2 Guerilla's exe file.
What this does is set H2 Core and Guerilla into a compatibility setting that will make it work correctly in Windows Vista.
Step 2: Setting up H2 Core.
Open up H2 Core now. It should ask you to run it as administrator. Click “Allow” and then your screen will flicker. You will eventually see this window.
It will ask you to locate your mainmenu.map, single_player_shared.map, and shared.map. Locate them and make sure they are clean.
You should see this screen now if you located the three maps correctly.
Press the ‘Edit” button at the top and then click “Settings”.
You should see this window now.
First make a new folder on your desktop. Then click the “Browse” button I have circled in red. You should see this window now.
Now find your new folder (Red), select it, and click "OK"(Blue).
You do not have to worry about anything else on the "Settings" window so just exit out of the window now and exit out of H2 Core as well.
Step 3: Decompiling your multiplayer map.
Open up H2 Core again. Now before you open your map or do anything in H2 Core, open up the "Windows Task Manager" by right clicking on your "Task Bar" and clicking "Task Manager".
Once it is open, click the "Show processes from all users" button I have circled in black.
Click the "Continue" button when "User Account Control" prompts you to do so. Windows Task Manager should now re-open. Scroll down until you see H2 Core's process, right click it, "Set Priority", and select "Realtime". Click "Change priority" when the window pops up.
Now exit out of Windows Task Manger. Now open your multiplayer map in H2 Core. (File>Open) Take note of the size of your map right now because we will need it later.
Then find your multiplayer map in the window that just opened. I am using headlong. Use any base map you want. Then click the "Open" button I have circled in Red. The best maps for BSP Conversions in my opinion are Containment and Headlong.
The map should open in H2 Core now. Now go to "Map>Decompile"
Now wait! No window will pop up when you click Decompile. It is decompiling the map you have open in the background. Now go get a drink or something because it will take a few minutes. The time depends on the amount of RAM your PC has and your processor speed. Leave it alone! Do not click the Decompile button again or do anything else or you will mess up the process. If you don't believe me, minimize H2 Core and open the new folder and you will see the progress. When it is done, it will display this box.
The random numbers is the amount of time it took to decompile your map. It isn't an error code. If you see that box, you have done everything correctly. Just click the "OK" button.
Step 4: Decompiling your campaign map's sbsp and lightmap.
Leaving H2 Core open from the last step, go to File>Open again and find your campaign map that has the BSP you want to use as a multiplayer level. I am going to use one of oldmombasa's BSPs. Feel free to use any map you want. And click the "Open" button I have circled in red.
Once it is opened in H2 Core, go down to the map's "sbsp" (Structure Binary Separation Plane) tag class and click on the BSP you want. If you are unsure of which one to use, take a look at the BSP in Entity. Once you have the BSP you want, click on it. (H2 Core will freeze for a few seconds). The go to "Meta>Decompile>Decompile Recursively".
Now just let it decompile. Don't do anything like I said before. It will display a message box when finished. Click the "OK" button.
Now go to the "ltmp" (Lightmap) tag class and find the lightmap tag that corresponds with the BSP you just decompiled. It will have a name very similar to it.
You should see the "Done" message again. Just click the "OK" button.
Step 5: Editing your multiplayer map's scenario tag in H2 Guerilla.
Open up H2 Guerilla. Now before you do anything, set it's priority to "Realtime" in "Windows Task Manager" as I explained how to do previously. Now go to "File>Open" and go to your new folder. This is what your new folder should look like now.
Now go into these folder with the open file dialog as follows:
1. Open the "H2" folder.
2. Open the "scenarios" folder next.
3. Then "multi".
4. This folder will have your multiplayer map's name. Open it.
5. There may be another folder after this. If there is open it, if there isn't you will see a bunch of files.
6. Click on your map's scenario file. This is Headlong's for example.
7. Then click the 'Open" button circled in red.
It should load into H2 Guerilla now. Scroll down the list until you see the "Structure BSPS" reflexive and click the plus icon (Red) to expand the options inside.
It should now look like this.
Click the "..." button that I have circled in red and another open fle dialog windows will pop up.
1.Open the "H2" folder.
2 Then the "scenarios" folder.
3. Then the "solo" folder.
4. Open the folder with your map's name.
5. Then the other folder if there is one.
5. Open the campaign map's BSP file.
Now do the same thing with the lightmap. Click the "..." button circled in purple and fine your campaign map's lightmap It will be in the same directory as the campaign map's BSP. Once you have found it click it and then click "Open". It should look something like this now. The 2 boxes should have your campaign map's lightmap and BSP instead of your mutiplayer map's. If it does, go to "File>Save". Then click the "Done" button. Close H2 Guerilla.
Step 6: Rebuilding your multiplayer map.
Open H2 Core, set the priority to Realtime again, open your multiplyer map, and now go to "Map>Rebuild". You should see this window open. Now click the button circled in red and find your multiplayer map's scenario that you edited in H2 Guerilla. (H2>Scenarios>Multi...)
Once it is open, you see the checkboxes? Those tell what H2 Core will transfer from the campaign map to your new map you are rebuilding. Check all of these I have checked. Feel free to uncheck some and check some more if you want specific things in or out.
Ok, now exit all open applications except H2 Core because you will need all the RAM you can get. Then press "Rebuild". H2 Core will now fly through the tags at light speed.
When it gets to the step where the tags go below the window, look at the top tag. Is it this tag I have in the big rectangle? This EXACT tag? If it isn't, end the H2 Core process in Windows Task Manager because you have a bad rebuild. Sorry, but try the conversion all over again.
Estimated time of completion based on RAM:
512mb - 1-2 hours
1gig - 10-20 minutes
2 gigs - 3-5 minutes (I have 2 gigs).
3gigs+ - 5 minutes or less
Do not do anything while your map is rebuilding. This application will draw off of everything your PC has. Just wait until it says 'Done". If you ever get and error while rebuilding, there could be three reasons why you see it.
1. You did the one of the steps wrong in some way.
2. Your system ran out of memory.
3. There are a few maps with unconvertible BSPs and will always error.
If you don't get an error, click"OK". Close H2 Core. I highly recommend restarting your computer after this process. Especially if you Have 1gig or RAM or less because your computer will go very slow.
How to tell if you have a bad conversion before you go any farther:
Remember when I told you to record your map's size? Pull that out and see if the map is bigger or smaller than the recorded size. If it is smaller, then your computer is not compatible with H2 Core. it is a common issue.. If it is bigger, you may have a working conversion!
Step 7: Analyzing the map.
Open your map in UberAnalyzeTool™. And go to the "Holes" and "Out of map" tabs circled in red. If there is any text in any of the tabs, you will have to do the conversion over again because it is a bad rebuild. If there isn't anything in any of the two tabs, move on.
Open up Entity 1.3.9. Now look at the very top of the map's tag list and see if the "<fx>" tag is there. if it is, great! If it isn't, redo the conversion. Now run an IFP check but clicking the 'Check IFPs" button. (Green) If you get ANY broken IFPs, redo the rebuild. The IFP check can take anywhere from 5-10 minutes depending on the size of the map. If you don't, that's great! You may have a working conversion! If you get a "Tag type doesn't have a plugin message", that is a good thing. Just press "OK."
Step 8: Setting Player Spawns in Entity's BSP Viewer.
If you have gotten this far, great job! The conversion you have done should work! Now we just need to move the player spawns into a playable area of the game.
Leaving Entity 1.3.9 open from the previous step, go down to the "sbsp" tag. It should now be your campaign map's BSP. If it isn't, you either didn't save earlier in H2 Guerilla or you didn't select the campaign map's BSP. Anyway, now view the BSP. Here is a picture if you do not know where the button is.
If you get an error when you click the "View BSP" button, then you have a bad rebuild. If you don't get an error and it load the BSP, great! I will take a while to load the BSP depending on the size of it. This is the error you will get if you have a bad rebuild.
Anyway, once the BSP loads, it will most likely load to a blue screen. Click the "Spawns" button on the side and a window will expand from the side.
Now expand the "Player" tag and double click ANY one of the player spawn tags. It will bring you to that spawn. Zoom out a little and you will see a little white Master Chief figure.
Ok, now click the Masterchief Figure once, go to the "Edit" tab, click the "Move All Spawns Here" button and you will see a bunch of them in that one spot. Finally, click the "Select All Spawns" button. Now move all of those Masterchief figures into a playable area of the map.
Then go to the "Main" tag, and click the "Save Changes" button. Great job! Just one more step!
Step 9: Nulling the lsnd and snde tags.
The reason you have to null the tags is because H2 Core does not transfer them correctly and they usually cause the map to freeze. Go to the "sbsp" tag again. Display Idents, and scroll all the way down until you see some "lsnd" and "snde" tags.
Null them all out by right clicking each one, click "Swap", then the "Ident Swapper will pop up. Select "Nulled Out" and then click "Swap Ident".
Step 10: The End
Congratulations! You made it all the way to the end of my tutorial! Just three steps remain...
1. Resign the map by simply clicking the "Sign" button at the top of Entity.
2. FTP the map with your FTP program to your Xbox.
3. The hardest step of all... Play your map!!!
End of tutorial. Thank you for reading and enjoy your first successful BSP Conversion!
Bugs to watch for while playing:
Bug: Some of the weapons FP animations may be corrupted resulting in the weapon not being visible while being held.
Solution: Redoing the conversion.
Bug: Corrupted weapon fire sounds and explosions.
Solution: Redoing the conversion.
Bug: Masterchief/Elite dying and freezing the game.
Solution: Redoing the conversion or building in another biped into the map and using that instead.
Questions? Comments? Typos? Unclear on anything? Post here in this thread!
thats a long tutorial, good job! 
