Nickster5000

Yep, you are absolutely right, and this is a very fair statement. However, I think each platform has their various strengths and weaknesses. My idea is to combine all of the strengths of these platforms, and create the best possible experience for modders to launch & distribute their content, and for players to find the content they are looking for. For example: - Most platforms require manual human approval before uploading content. Plus, there are various "steps" a modder needs to take to get their content live (Write some information, download / play instructions, uploading photos, uploading the map, etc.). I want Halo Hub to simplify this process for them. - Most platforms have different kinds of experiences for the players browsing the content (I.E, some platforms have no mobile UX at all while others have great mobile UX, some platforms have great filtering while others have a lot of nesting & pages, and finally others have various download speed throttles). I want to combine all of the positive experiences, and allow the player to spend the least amount of time needed on the platform browsing mods (as ironic as that sounds), and more time playing. And to be honest, I'm not really sure how to achieve alot of this (I have some ideas, but who's to say they can't be done better?). But I do know that the community gets the final say (since they are the users), and I want to try to build a platform that they will enjoy. That's why I am approaching the development of this platform with an open mind & using an agile & iterative approach, so that the vision is realized to the best of my abilities! All in all, It's important to hear this feedback, because I'm not really sure if the community wants another platform, or if I'm spending time on features they don't care about. Thanks for your feedback Tarikja!

Hey guys, I wanted to get some feedback on an idea that I'm working on realizing... I looked around on the OC forums, and I think this is the best place to post this. The general idea is to create a platform where modders can release their mods more easily to the community, and players can have a fun platform to find cool mods. Here's a brief description that I have for it on the home page: Let me know what you guys think! Thanks for the feedback URL: https://www.thehalohub.org/ -Nickster5000

More info here: https://github.com/Nickzster/Halo-Lua-Projects/tree/master/Raids Hey everyone, so I've been working on this with my bud Ender (GoldyDeWise) for the past couple of weeks, and I think it is in a good state to demonstrate. You can watch the video here: Feel free to leave any feedback or suggestions! Documentation, copied from the github page: What is Raids? Raids is a dungeon-styled gametype for Halo Custom Edition, in which players must work together to defeat bosses. Classes Each class in Raids serves a function that is essential to killing the boss. Each class has a set of weapons to choose from, and an ultimate ability. Players can also use equipment to enhance their player with passive effects, like damage boosting, damage reducing, dodging, and critical strike chance. Spartan (Tank) Purpose: To hold agro, and have the boss attack them Max Health: 500 Ultimate Ability: God mode for 10 seconds Ultimate Ability cooldown: 90 seconds. Medic (Healer) Purpose: To heal other players Max Health: 100 Ultimate Ability: Heal all players nearby to full health. Ultimate Ability cooldown: 75 seconds. Special Notes: Healers can shoot friendly players to heal them, and shoot bosses to deal damage. Soldier (DPS) Purpose: To deal damage to the boss. Max Health: 100 Ultimate Ability: Bottomless clip for 10 seconds. Ultimate Ability cooldown: 60 seconds. Valiant (Gunslinger) Purpose: To deal damage to the boss from a distance. Max Health: 100 Ultimate Ability: Active camoflage for 30 seconds. Ultimate Ability cooldown: 90 seconds Special Notes: Is an elite. Bandolier Purpose: To deal sustained damage to the boss. Max Health: 100 Ultimate Ability: Fill all nearby player's ammo to full capacity Ultimate Ability cooldown: 75 seconds. COMMANDS /class <classname> | changes your class to <classname> /loadout <primary> <secondary> | changes your current class's loadout to <primary> and <secondary> /equip <equipment> | equip <equipment> to your player /ult | Activates your ultimate ability. You can press flashlight key to activate this now! /greed | Perform a greed roll for a boss drop. /need | Perform a need roll for a boss drop. /whoami | Prints your current class /moreinfo <item> | Read more information about a specified item in the mod RAID SIZES The raid will automatically scale depending on the number of players present. Here are some metrics you can expect depending on the number of players Extra Small Raid 0 - 3 players 1 Tank Allowed 1 Healer Allowed 1 Bandolier Allowed Boss Health is scaled at 1.0 normal health. If a boss has 1000 health, then the boss will have 1000 health in an extra small raid. Small Raid 4 - 5 Players 1 Tank Allowed 1 Healer Allowed 1 Bandolier Allowed Boss Health is scaled at 1.5 normal health. If a boss has 1000 health, then the boss will have 1500 health in a small raid. Medium Raid 6 - 10 Players 1 Tank is allowed 2 Healers are allowed 1 Bandolier is allowed Boss Health is scaled at 3.0 normal health. If a boss has 1000 health, then the boss will have 3000 health in a medium raid. Large Raid 11 - 12 Players 2 Tanks are allowed 2 Healers are allowed 1 Bandolier is allowed Boss Health is scaled at 5.0 normal health If a boss has 1000 health, then the boss will have 5000 health in a large raid Extra Large Raid 13 - 15 Players 2 Tanks are allowed 2 Healers are allowed 2 Bandoliers are allowed Boss Health is scaled at 10.0 normal health If a boss has 1000 health, then they will have 10,000 health in an extra large raid. Crates Crates are physical entities that players can find in the map. They come in three different flavors: Iron Crate Drops Equipment based items. Gold Crate Drops Armor based items. Crystal Crate Drops Weapon based items.

Preface: If you're comfortable with Lua's MetaTable system, and are comfortable with Lua's prototype inheritance chain, then feel free to scroll down to the bottom of this post for the full implementation. For those who haven't worked with Lua's prototype system, metatables allow you to expand the functionality of an object by defining metamethods. Normally, if you try accessing a value in an object, and it does not exist, then it will return nil. That's not entirely true: It will first check the __index metamethod to see if it can find the value in there. If it can't find the value in __index, THEN it will return nil. This allows you to create multiple unique objects that conform to a class schema. Motivation Let's say you needed to have some stuff occur concurrently in the background for your project. For instance, you want to implement a class system (I.E, DPS, Tank, Healer, Etc.) and you want to give them all "abilities" that last x amount of seconds, and have to cool down for y seconds. You could probably use something like w8 x to allow the ability to run, and do the same for w8 y to execute the cooldown. There's two problems to this though: 1. It blocks the function that it is called in. 2. What if you want to do stuff during these times? Like tell the user that their ability has 5 seconds left, or that their cooldown for an ability ends in another 10 seconds? That simply will not work. So, I've taken a bit of inspiration from JavaScript, and I implemented a pseudo-EventQueue system for SAPP. EventItem Class If you've already peeked at the implementation, you'll notice that EventItem has three methods you can call. Let's go over them and see how they work: EventItem:new() function EventItem.new(self) ... end This returns a new object with the __index metamethod being set to EventItem. Basically, you can use all of the operations and values from EventItem on this new object. EventItem:set() function EventItem.set(self, props, eachTickCb, completedCb, time) ... end This allows you to set some values for your EventItem. Let me explain what each parameter does: time - The amount of time you want this event to last, in ticks. If you want this event to last for 30 seconds, then time should be 900 (30 * 30). If you set the time to be -1, this is a conditional event, and will only terminate once eachTickCb returns true. props - place any values in here that you want this EventItem to have access to. completedCb - Did you know that lua functions are first class citizens in lua? That allows you to treat them like a value. Simply define a function and reference it, or define the callback function directly in this parameter spot. This function is called when the event is completed. The props parameter is automatically passed into it when it is called. eachTickCb - This function is executed on every tick. This function is called with two parameters: props and time. This will execute on every tick, and allows you to do stuff while the event is counting down (I.E, display that status message from earlier). EventItem:isTimedOut() function EventItem.isTimedOut(self) ... end This function has no parameters, but it is important that you understand what it does: If you set the event with a finite time, then it decrements that time by 1 for every tick, and executes the eachTickCb until time is zero. When time is zero, the completedCb is executed. If you set the event for -1 time, then it will execute the eachTickCb until it returns true, in which it will then execute the completedCb. This allows you to queue events that are related to different things other than time. Full Implementation EVENT_TABLE = {} EventItem = { time=nil, completedCb=nil, eachTickCb=nil, props=nil } function EventItem.isTimedOut(self) if self.time == -1 then --conditional event if self.eachTickCb == nil and self.eachTickCb(self.props, self.time) self.completedCb(self.props) return true end return false elseif self.time == 0 then -- timed event expires self.completedCb(self.props) return true else --timed event has not expired self.time = self.time - 1 if self.eachTickCb ~= nil then self.eachTickCb(self.props, self.time) end return false end end function EventItem.set(self, props, eachTickCb, completedCb, time) self.time = time self.props = props self.completedCb = completedCb self.eachTickCb = eachTickCb end function EventItem.new(self) local newEventTableInstance = {} setmetatable(newEventTableInstance, self) self.__index = self return newEventTableInstance end function OnScriptLoad() ... other callback definitions register_callback(cb['EVENT_TICK'], "handleTick") end function handleTick() for key,_ in pairs(EVENT_TABLE) do if EVENT_TABLE[key]:isTimedOut() == true then EVENT_TABLE[key] = nil end end end I know it's a lot to take in, but I have found this VERY USEFUL for the stuff I am working on, and I love sharing these cool solutions for the interesting problems they solve. Please let me know if you have any questions about anything pertaining to this EventItem class or lua itself, and I'll be happy to help!

This is a follow-up to: However, this is brand new enough to warrant its own thread. Now if you're a fellow Software Developer / Software Engineer like myself, you will quickly come to realize that maintaining thousand line long LUA scripts for SAPP is a pain in the you-know-what. Using LUA's built in module system is also a pain in the you-know-what, as you have to ship all of the dependency files. Basically, there is no good way to create your own project file structure, and bundle the files down to a single file. Well, I'm here today to end that misery for you. Look no further than the BRAND NEW Lua Bundler for SAPP. This bundler allows you to use new statements to modularize your lua projects: -- BEGIN_IMPORT -- END_IMPORT -- BEGIN_IGNORE -- END_IGNORE import ... end To automate the creation of a single output file, and avoid issues like these: myCustomPrintFunction() function myCustomPrintFunction() print("My Custom Print Function!") end More info about what the statements mean, and how to use them here: https://github.com/Nickzster/Lua-Bundler-For-SAPP I literally just created this in a day so that I can start using it immediately, but thought others could put it to good use. It's kinda primitive, and untested, so I plan on iterating and making it better as I use it more. If you find any issues, feel free to post an issue on the Github repo. I hope this helps someone!

INTRODUCTION If you have written advanced LUA scripts for SAPP, you will quickly realize that the size of the file can grow dramatically, to well over 1k+ lines. This can be very inefficient for busy bodies like myself who don't have a lot of time to work on halo projects. In my experience of LUA scripting, I have realized there are 4 main components of a LUA script that can be abstracted: API version, Global values used by LUA scripts (BIPED_ID tables for biped switching, tables that store directories for biped models, etc.) Callbacks (OnScriptLoad callback definitions & implementations) Functions (That you can call from callback implementations to make them look neater. This also includes utilizing the prototype model to implement complex classes) Cleanup for OnScriptUnload Using this utility, you can now initialize an empty project that gives you a template project to start from. This template consists of: callbacks (directory) callbacks.lua --> allows you to implement your callbacks in this single file. NOTE: You can make as many files in here as you want. You can even implement each callback in a separate file. definitions (directory) config.lua --> allows you to define basic config (API version) definitions.lua --> allows you to define callbacks in this file (OnScriptLoad) garbage_collection.lua --> allows you to define your garbage collection in this file. (OnScriptUnload) variables.lua --> allows you to define global variables in here. NOTE: You can make as many files in here as you want. functions (directory) functions.lua --> utility functions that you call from your callback functions (So that you don't clutter your callback implementations) NOTE: You can make as many files in here as you want. You can implement all of your utility functions in separate files. config.lua --> For the API version, and Global values used in LUA scripts (listed above in #1) Figure 1 - Shows the working directory in VSCode. Once you are done, you can use the utility to build all of the lua files into one working .lua file. Figure 2 - Shows the built lua file from the files in Figure 1. GETTING STARTED Simply download lua.py located here: https://github.com/Nickzster/Lua-Projects-for-Halo There are three commands for this utility: python3 lua.py init <name> Run this command to initialize a new project. It will create a new directory named the specified <name>, and create the respective files and directories listed in the Introduction section. Write your LUA script. When you are done, run this command: python3 lua.py build <name> This will take all of the LUA files located within the specified directories, and build them into one file, named <name>.lua, that you can then use for Halo. To better understand how to set up your scripts, the build process builds in the following order: Builds all of the files in definitions directory, in alphabetical order. Builds all of the files in the functions directory, in alphabetical order. Builds all of the files in the callbacks directory, in alphabetical order. Running python3 lua.py help Displays the two commands in the terminal for reference. Admittedly, it has been a while since I have messed with SAPP LUA scripting. Before getting back into it, I wanted to build a utility for myself to make this workflow more efficient. If there is anything that I missed, forgot, or made a mistake on, please let me know! I hope this is helpful for some of you! *Made some major edits to the original workup, as I thought this was a better layout.

If I were to develop my own multiplayer map with AI, could I use hsc to spawn AI? (for instance, me and a group of people walk through a trigger volume to spawn the AI) Or do all of the AI need to be spawned in on match start in order for this to work properly? Great work on this stuff!

I built it for me personally. I've learned that being able to highlight and differentiate functions from types helps me speed up my productivity, and allows me to cut wasted time reading scripts in notepad. Being able to save time developing maps in my busy day-to-day life is a win for me. I decided to release the extension because I felt it would be selfish to withhold this tool as it might be useful to someone else. Plus, since it is open sourced, someone who is better than me at Regular Expressions, Context Sensitive and Context free grammars can make a contribution to make it better.

Title and image describes it all. Installation instructions can be found at: https://github.com/Nickzster/hsc For those who like old school Halo LISP scripting. Thanks DSali for pointing out the errors in my original image. Fixed the image to fix the errors.

The purpose of the website is, when a noob asks "What is Halo Custom Edition?", www.haloce.org will serve all of their needs. I would also like to make it a one-stop-shop for resources for the community. DSali, I like how you mention that each website can be ran with its own "tastes" and "spice", and I absolutely agree. However, how do you find these different communities? Where do you start? I want this website to be able to bring these new players to these communities. As soon as I posted this thread, I was invited to several discords that I didn't even know existed. Wouldn't it be nice to have everything in one place? I appreciate the comments everyone, please let me know what you think. Also, for those web developers / programmers out there, the website is open source, so if you wanna contribute: https://github.com/Nickzster/haloce

Hey everyone! I was thinking of a way to contribute to this community, as I feel that Sector 09 wasn’t enough. I have a bunch of projects (as you might have read on my release thread a while back) that requires too much work for me to complete in this day and age. So I got thinking, and I realized my contribution was under my nose this entire time… I am currently majoring in Computer Science (I graduate in December, woo hoo!), so a big thought on my mind is landing a job when I graduate. I am a firm believer that the web browser and mobile applications is going to be a big part of the future. Now isn’t a better time to get into Web Development, and learn serious skills like designing websites and building full stack web applications. I have been learning HTML / CSS / Javascript, Front End frameworks like React & Redux, Node JS on the Backend, and other backend frameworks like Express. The answer to my contribution is in the form of a website / web applications, of course! Now let me ask you a question… When someone asks you “What is Halo Custom Edition?” or, you try your best to explain what Halo Custom Edition is to your friends… how do you explain it? After pondering these questions, I came to the realization that this community has two problems: 1. It is very fragmented (Some users actively participate in Discord Servers, some users actively participate on Halomaps, and some users actively participate on OpenCarnage, some users actively participate on Youtube, and the list goes on) 2. With the tremendous amounts of projects, it can be very difficult to explain what Halo Custom Edition is, what Halo Custom Edition is capable of, and what you can actually do with it. Now I get to the point of this post, and my solution to this problem: www.haloce.org I have built a simple landing page that is designed to “describe” what Halo CE is, how to install it for those folks who are new to the community, and to have a central HUB for the entire community. If you follow the link above, you will see this landing page in full (note, that it is not responsive yet. I will make a pass to make it mobile friendly). You’ll probably also notice a lot of Gibberish on the pages (This is Latin text placeholder, called Lorem Ipsum) and you’ll also notice ugly empty images (that display 1900x1080 rather than a pretty image). This is why I am writing this post today. Have you ever gone through the same spiel that I have, not having any ideas to contribute to the community? Or not having the technical experience to make a map? For those who want to contribute something to the community, I ask for you to help me replace the Lorem Ipsum text with actual content that clearly describes Halo Custom Edition. I also ask for you to help me create or find images to replace the ugly 1900x1080 images. I also want to reach out to the mappers / modders of this community, and direct you to this page: www.haloce.org/sector09/sector09.html Now, I am not trying to toot my own horn with Sector 09, but I am very intimate with the project (I made it, for those who are unaware), so it was easier for me to build a sample “Project” page. I wanted to come up with a proof-of-concept “Project” page, and build project pages for those in the community that are deserving of one. So I ask of you, the modders / mappers to take a look at the Sector 09 page, critique it, and think of other content that a “Project” page might need. I thank you for taking the time to read this post, and to contribute to this website for the fellow community! -Nickster5000

I have received a request for source for Sector 09, so I figured I'd publicly release it (I know, its been long overdue.) Sector09 RAW Release - ALL BSP's - Nickster5000 NOTE: Files preceded in _ means that they are important. I marked them with this underscore as I was going through the files. Description: Included in this release is ALL of the iterations that sector09 went through from 2012, all the way to its release in 2016. Included in this release is the following directories, and notes about what this directory consists of: ***bitmaps -RPG_Rips and RPG_Rips2 should contain all of the bitmaps that I ripped from halo 3 ODST. NOTE: SOME OF THE FILES WILL HAVE BROKEN REFERENCES. I DID NOT RENAME ANY OF THE FILES, but they may be in different locations. I recommend that you rip your own version of the Halo 3: ODST bitmaps using adjutant to suit your needs. ***misc -Contains files that were used in showing sector09, and other documentation used in its development. ***sector09-2012 -The very first iteration of sector09. I could not find the original... however, I found two animation demos that I created on the original model, which should suffice. ***sector09-2014 -Old sector 09 build. I believe one of these didn't even make it ingame. Don't remember a whole lot about these files, so have fun playing around with them! ***sector09-2014-b -Another old sector 09 build. More files that I made for sector 09. Don't remember a whole lot about this one either, so have fun playing around!!! ***sector09-ce3-2015 -Second to most significant file in this pack. This was the demo that was showcased at CE3 2015. ***sector09-2016 -Most significant file for sector09's release. Contains the version of the BSP that was in the final release, as well as some updates to it. xtra -Extra files that I found laying around. README.txt - this file. Download Here! Please let me know if there is anything missing. Enjoy! -Nickster5000

Hello Halo CE Community, I know you were probably expecting a really cool "GTA" mod for Halo CE, and we want to deliver on that. However, we have recently done a couple of thorough play tests and decided that the mod is not ready to be released as quickly as anticipated. We want to take some time and really polish the mod, and perhaps remake some aspects of the mod. I deeply apologize for showing this off before it was ready. I feel terrible revealing all of these details, and then not delivering them as soon as we are anticipating. To make up for this, we are going to deliver a high quality GTA Halo mod in the future that is extremely fun to play. Most of the features we announced will still be there. Thank you for your understanding, and I hope you guys are looking forward to what we are making. Happy New Year! -Nickster5000

I agree. I try to stay away from doing too much memory access outside of the SAPP functions, but that implementation is much more concise. I changed it to your implementation if that's okay with you.

I figured since I couldn't find a command to do this in SAPP's documentation, and I needed it heavily in the mod I am working on, I thought it'd be a nice utility function to release: function getDistance(Player1, Player2) --returns the distance between two players Player1X = get_var(Player1, "$x") Player1Y = get_var(Player1, "$y") Player1Z = get_var(Player1, "$z") Player2X = get_var(Player2, "$x") Player2Y = get_var(Player2, "$y") Player2Z = get_var(Player2, "$z") local diffX = Player1X - Player2X --x1-x2 diffX = diffX * diffX--((x1-x2)^2) local diffY = Player1Y - Player2Y diffY = diffY * diffY local diffZ = Player1Z - Player2Z diffZ = diffZ * diffZ local sum = diffX + diffY + diffZ return math.sqrt(sum) end