.MAP How To Use Custom Images For Halo: Reach Maps

[OrangeMohawk 407]

For everyone who doesn't want to follow this tutorial, or is incapable of any of the steps, DeadCanadian made a simple program to do exactly what this tutorial does. Download here.
What you'll need:

• Jtag/RGH/DevKit
• An Image Editor
• A hex editor. I use HxD, which you can download free here.

These are the .blf image files you can edit:

Multiplayer
m_00_forge_halo - Forge World
m_10_sword_slayer - Sword Base
m_20_settlement - Powerhouse
m_35_island - Spire
m_45_aftship - Zealot
m_45_launch_station - Sword Base
m_50_panopticon - Boardwalk
m_52_ivory_tower - Reflection
m_70_boneyard - Boneyard
(dlc)
dlc_invasion - Breakpoint
dlc_medium - Tempest
dlc_slayer - Anchor 9
condemned - Condemned
trainingpreserve - Highlands
cex_beaver_creek - Battle Canyon
cex_damnation - Penance
cex_hangemhigh - High Noon
cex_headlong - Breakneck
cex_prisoner - Solitary
cex_timberland - Ridgeline

Firefight
ff_10_prototype - Overlook
ff_20_courtyard - Courtyard
ff_30_waterfront - Waterfront
ff_45_corvette - Corvette
ff_50_park - Beachhead
ff_60_airview - Outpost
ff_60_icecave - Glacier
ff_70_holdout - Holdout
(dlc)
ff_unearthed - Unearthed
cex_ff_halo - Installation 04

Campaign
c_010 - Noble Actual
c_M10 - Winter Contingency
c_M20 - ONI: Sword Base
c_M30 - Nightfall
c_M35 - Tip of the Spear
c_M45 - Long Night of Solace
c_M50 - Exodus
c_M52 - New Alexandria
c_M60 - The Package
c_M70 - The Pillar of Autumn
c_M70_bonus - Lone Wolf

Unused
cex_terminal - Terminal?

The files listed above are the big ones that show when a map is selected in the lobby. A file name here followed by _sm is the small picture that shows when selecting a map.

Tutorial
Step 1: Copy the file you want to edit to your desktop or another easily accessible spot. Make sure you make a backup! Open the file in your hex editor. Put your cursor at the offset 0x44. Copy everything past that.

Step 2: Create a new file within your hex editor. Paste what you just copied into this file.

Make the file extension .jpg.

Step 3: Open the file you extracted into photoshop or another image editing program. This will have the correct image dimensions you need. In case your image editor didn't keep the original image dimensions, the normal image size is 400x160 pixels and the small image is 229x141 pixels. Now copy the image you want to replace the standard picture with in your image editor. Just make sure you keep the right dimensions.

Save in .jpg file format.

Step 4: Open your new .jpg file in your hex editor.

Step 5: Paste what you copied in place of the former internal image saved within the .blf, at address 0x44. Save it. If you want both the large and small images both changed, you'll need to go back and repeat this tutorial with the second image. Put it back onto your hard drive, you're done. Pretty simple, huh?!?

Before/After of Small Images:


Credits:
This was found and written completely by me, although its simpleness suggests that someone else possibly may have known about it before me.

Changelog:

2-29-2012:
Added link to DeadCanadian's file at top of tut.
Edited part regarding jpg's file beginnings.

 

9-10-2013

Clarifications now that I'm not a total N00B anymore

Edited October 16, 2013 by OrangeMohawk

[Balisong235 4]

Nice tut can't wait to try it

[Krazy Pigeon 102]

This gives me an idea...

Edit: 100 Posts!

Edited February 29, 2012 by Krazy Pigeon

[OrangeMohawk 407]

This gives me an idea...

Edit: 100 Posts!

Care to Share?

Edit: Congrats!

Edited February 29, 2012 by OrangeMohawk

[Nate the Great 560]

This gives me an idea...

Edit: 100 Posts!

Snow?

[deadcanadian 271]

i havent done manual blf injection in a long time, although it looks like you need better res images in your previews

i might code up a small program to easily do this

[Krazy Pigeon 102]

Snow?

I geuss it would include that, yeah.

At this stage it's just an idea though.

[deadcanadian 271]

heres a quick program i made, seems to be working although i didnt test with small blf's, but its the same process.

ill be adding it to ascension later since it fits. lol

http://www.mediafire.com/?ng2by5yd6b3ywbc

[OrangeMohawk 407]

heres a quick program i made, seems to be working although i didnt test with small blf's, but its the same process.

ill be adding it to ascension later since it fits. lol

http://www.mediafire...ng2by5yd6b3ywbc

What the hell!?!? Norton didn't even let me click it (after I downloaded) before it removed it. Ugh stupid sh*t thinks everything is a virus

Edited February 29, 2012 by OrangeMohawk

[deadcanadian 271]

What the hell!?!? Norton didn't even let me click it (after I downloaded) before it removed it. Ugh stupid sh*t thinks everything is a virus

norton deleted half of the programs on my computer when it got installed without me knowing. i hate that program.

[Nate the Great 560]

norton deleted half of the programs on my computer when it got installed without me knowing. i hate that program.

Norton sucks. Why do they even make it anymore? Its been long surpassed by free anti-virus programs like Avast!.

[Krazy Pigeon 102]

Norton sucks. Why do they even make it anymore? Its been long surpassed by free anti-virus programs like Avast!.

I could make a better anti-virus than Norton with my dishwasher.

[OrangeMohawk 407]

norton deleted half of the programs on my computer when it got installed without me knowing. i hate that program.

Norton sucks. Why do they even make it anymore? Its been long surpassed by free anti-virus programs like Avast!.

I could make a better anti-virus than Norton with my dishwasher.

Lol damn. Its my dad's favorite anti-virus and if I uninstalled he'd probably be like "why'd you get rid of norton?" But I'm going to look at other anti-viruses this week, I'm tired of stuff like this. It happened for Grunt Modder too.

heres a quick program i made, seems to be working although i didnt test with small blf's, but its the same process.

ill be adding it to ascension later since it fits. lol

http://www.mediafire...ng2by5yd6b3ywbc

I haven't actually tried it yet, but if it works good, you should upload that to the downloads section, even though the process is quite simple to do it manually already

Edited February 29, 2012 by OrangeMohawk

[deadcanadian 271]

Lol damn. Its my dad's favorite anti-virus and if I uninstalled he'd probably be like "why'd you get rid of norton?" But I'm going to look at other anti-viruses this week, I'm tired of stuff like this. It happened for Grunt Modder too.

I haven't actually tried it yet, but if it works good, you should upload that to the downloads section, even though the process is quite simple to do it manually already

i already put it in the downloads section, also included a picture of it in there. and i know its a simple process but some people for some reason cant hex worth shit. all the digets confuses them. especially being you said that it would start with ÿØÿà where as they dont, the image starts 0x44 after the start of the blf. all of the images i extracted and put in with ascension that shows when you choose the map none of them start with that sequence.

[OrangeMohawk 407]

i already put it in the downloads section, also included a picture of it in there. and i know its a simple process but some people for some reason cant hex worth shit. all the digets confuses them. especially being you said that it would start with ÿØÿà where as they dont, the image starts 0x44 after the start of the blf. all of the images i extracted and put in with ascension that shows when you choose the map none of them start with that sequence.

They don't start with ÿØÿà, ÿØÿá, or ÿØÿâ? That's how I've always changed internal jpg images, including this tutorial. Should I re-write that part of the tutorial then?

[deadcanadian 271]

They don't start with ÿØÿà, ÿØÿá, or ÿØÿâ? That's how I've always changed internal jpg images, including this tutorial. Should I re-write that part of the tutorial then?

i think it depends on your editor, me using adobe photoshop CS4 my png files start with ....

[OrangeMohawk 407]

i think it depends on your editor, me using adobe photoshop CS4 my png files start with ....

Ohhhh, I had only been using jpg files, I wasn't aware you could re-inject a different file format and it stays functional As far as I'm aware, jpgs always start with one of the various ÿØÿa's. I'll edit that in the tut when I get home. Have you tried other file types other than png?

[deadcanadian 271]

Ohhhh, I had only been using jpg files, I wasn't aware you could re-inject a different file format and it stays functional As far as I'm aware, jpgs always start with one of the various ÿØÿa's. I'll edit that in the tut when I get home. Have you tried other file types other than png?

lol sorry, meant jpg. not png but none of mine start with that

although i imagen that theres alot of formats that would work cause you can literally rename .jpg with .png and a few other formats without converting and they show fine normally

[OrangeMohawk 407]

lol sorry, meant jpg. not png but none of mine start with that

although i imagen that theres alot of formats that would work cause you can literally rename .jpg with .png and a few other formats without converting and they show fine normally

Ahhh, I just tested that and it does work (.bmp seems to work also). I'm going to try saving/injecting a couple pics, one bmp and one png, and see if they load up on Reach, then I'll update.

Edit: To clarify, I mean save as bmp and png formats through photoshop, not just merely change the file extensions

Edited February 29, 2012 by OrangeMohawk

[AMD 885]

Ohhhh, I had only been using jpg files, I wasn't aware you could re-inject a different file format and it stays functional As far as I'm aware, jpgs always start with one of the various ÿØÿa's. I'll edit that in the tut when I get home. Have you tried other file types other than png?

JPEGs are only guaranteed to start with 0xFF 0xD8. Just run a search for the hex "FFD8" and I would think it would work every time.

[OrangeMohawk 407]

bmp and png save format didn't work

Powerhouse bmp:

Spire png:

JPEGs are only guaranteed to start with 0xFF 0xD8. Just run a search for the hex "FFD8" and I would think it would work every time.

Thanks, that should be helpful! But what about DeadCanadian's CS4 jpg then, as he said it started with 4 dots? I've never seen anything like that myself.

Edited February 29, 2012 by OrangeMohawk

[[Iconoclast] 693]

can you do this with halo 4?

[OrangeMohawk 407]

can you do this with halo 4?

Just tested and yes it does work with halo 4. Same method, but the only difference is you have 3 blf files per map, and image dimensions would all be different.

Edited April 27, 2013 by OrangeMohawk

[Guest Gamecheat]

Are people really having trouble with this?