What you would expect...

[Click16]

If someone would make the ultimate halo 2 modding tool, what features would it include? Go as crazy, abstract, or impossible as it gets. I don't want you to feel limited. Just reply with a single, or list of things you would envision being in the ultimate halo 2 modding tool.

[xxpenguinxx]

The ability to test the new mod on my PC :p

Seriously though, I would like to be able to make a project map just like you can make apps in visual studio. The best way I could describe it would be like building a development kit for the havoc engine.
Although in reality it would be easier to use a different open source engine and just make a game that plays like halo.

[nullen]

1) Compatibility with both the PC and Xbox versions
2) Editing the properties of .chars without all of those nasty "unknowns."
3) Automatic resigning when changes are saved.

[troymac1ure]

Custom BSPs.

2) Editing the properties of .chars without all of those nasty "unknowns."

Use the plugin updater to get the newest CHAR plugin. Grim's only has 4 unknowns under "Look Properties".

3) Automatic resigning when changes are saved.

You just triggered an idea. I will have entity resign when a map is closed, then as long as you close the map in entity, the resigning will take place.

[XZodia]

3) Automatic resigning when changes are saved.

You just triggered an idea. I will have entity resign when a map is closed, then as long as you close the map in entity, the resigning will take place.

I don't like that idea, I often open maps which I don't want to make changes to...
Just have it resign on save.

[bumlove]

lv.1 Patch editor, A set up that only changes settings that non modders can appreciate, RTH, Custom bsp's, make your own geometry instances, a proper building on cloned elements. Essentially, Entity with yelo neighbourhood, with serenity, open sourced with complete notation.

[troymac1ure]

I don't like that idea, I often open maps which I don't want to make changes to...
Just have it resign on save.

Screw you hippy!

...meh, alright, I guess so...

[Click16]

... havoc engine.

Havok is the physics engine, the game's engine is Blam.

[nullen]

2) Editing the properties of .chars without all of those nasty "unknowns."

Use the plugin updater to get the newest CHAR plugin. Grim's only has 4 unknowns under "Look Properties".

I apologize for going a bit off topic here, but where is the plugin updater?

[troymac1ure]

Only exists on 2.1.18 (new option I added)
Look under "Tools" / "Update Plugins"
It will select the newest plugin versions, but you can deselect any you do not wish to have.

*note* there is a bug I just found yesterday. I don't think it effects anything, just shows an error. Has to do with any plugins that are 3 chars in length, not 4 (fog_.ent for example)

I'm hoping people will add their plugins so we can have the most up to date versions out there. All that needs to be done is to u/l them to the Remnant Misc server in the "Plugins" folder & run the updater. It will rename them using hash codes accordingly and remove duplicates.

[CaptainPoopface]

• Simultaneously edit multiple maps, ideally but not necessarily including tag injection. I.e., when I change something in one map, it is also changed in the other map(s) I have open. OR, a patching/scripting format that could apply the changes in one map to any other map.
• Ability to view markers on a model in a model viewer and adjust them numerically and/or graphically. I know jack about modeling, but I really want to be able to move markers around and see where they are pointing.
• Phmo/mode/coll resizer incorporated into a BSP viewer, even if it only applies to cubes and spheres, which are easy to resize. I would like to build a map in real time by expanding/shrinking, rotating and moving pieces with the mouse and keyboard, with at least a biped to scale things with. Having a BSP rendered around it would also be nice, but that can be phase 2. I don't have the ability or time to make a model in a modeling program (after learning to model), manually create the objects in it in a Halo 2 map, and then assemble those into the desired arrangement, even with Darkshallfall's nifty program.
• Ability to preview effects (prt3 and pmov) in some kind of simple rendering, including how they look over time (animated).
• Automatically convert the 4 byte floats in the effect tags to decimal world units.
• Auto-spawner: Some kind of simplified way to place weapon and player spawns. Right now, I place about 8 or 10 player spawns on the bsp, write down their coordinates, and then write a script that automates the keystrokes and mouseclicks to save these 8 spawns randomly over the 50 or 80 or 100 spawns in the scnr in Entity (with random yaw too).
  
  It would be cool if an algorithm could determine what portions of the BSP a player could walk on, assuming they start on a legal ground position and can only jump or walk. Then figure out places to spawn players and/or weapons based on that surface contour. Probably pretty advanced (think of Ivory Tower), but this is pie in the sky.
• Auto Internalizer: Let me tell a program what tags I want to edit, and have it tell me if any of them share meta such that I would need to give them their own internalized meta. And then do that automatically for the subset of shared meta I select. For example, if two guns use the same firing effect and the same weap meta, if I know I won't edit the firing effect but I will be changing the weap meta for one of those guns, then I would internalize that meta only.
  For a simplified version, let me see a graph or tree list of how all the tags share meta with each other, and I'll take it from there.
• Freeze checker: Check the map for holes or broken idents or whatever internal inconsistencies might cause a map to freeze or fail to load. I realize there is the Uber Analyze tool, but gives more of a binary answer (yes, your map is screwed) than a specific or more nuanced one. Would be nice if I could narrow it down to only the tags that are spawned on the map, and any tags that are created or accessed by those.
  
  Less important ones:
• Announcer tag randomizer (just for laughs). It is pretty funny if you swap some of the more boring announcer comments with the flavor comments in random languages. For example, if "five minutes remaining" becomes the Chinese announcer saying "Killtacular!" and "Hill Moved" becomes the German announcer saying "Running riot!" and "gained the lead" becomes the Italian announcer saying "Double Kill!"
• Sound tag batch extractor. Their are many sounds in the H2 universe, especially in campaign maps, that I probably have never heard. I would like to rip all of these out and hear them, but that process is far too slow with the existing programs. So a program that could extract all the sound tags from a map, or some subset of them (e.g., all the Grunt speech sounds in a particular campaign map).

I'm sure I could come up with more...

[DoorM4n]

Captain just raised the bar here.

All right, I'd like for it to do bsp conversions, AI, sound injection, tag injection, bitmap injection, model injection, clone chunks PERFECTLY--without having to fuck with the order that you do them or fuck with the system linkability. This would have saved me so much damn time. I always have to redo shit because i didn't do them in the right order or all at once.

[bumlove]

Oh yeah a phmo viewer/ editor

Why you asking click?

[Click16]

Oh yeah a phmo viewer/ editor

Why you asking click?

http://abide.codeplex.com/