The Silent Cartographer: Evolved is a ground-up reimagining of the classic Halo level. Along with an almost entirely custom content base, including high-fidelity models, textures, animations, visual effects, and sound design, TSC:E features all-new environments, a finely-tuned gameplay sandbox, and a wide array of well-hidden secrets.
A: "Just don't take credit for things you didn't make."
The TSC:E scenario, its assets, and gameplay stuff should be credited to the Evolved team. Other common assets, like models, textures, shaders, and so on, should be credited to CMT (or the specific artist[s] responsible if you know which ones). The only non-custom assets in this release (i.e., from Halo games other than CE) are certain music and sfx files.
If you're using these assets in a project you intend to publicly release, maybe ask someone from the team to find out which members specifically were responsible for those particular assets, so you can call them out in your project's credits. It would be a nice gesture.
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Data release credits:
Source data (TSC:E) - Level geometry modeled circa 2012 - 2015 by SlappyThePirate, LlamaJuice (https://www.artstation.com/anthonychester), Siliconmaster, BobTheGreatII, MetKillerJoe, and Teh Lag - Level geometry textured by Siliconmaster, LlamaJuice, Dano, Lex, and Teh Lag -- (Some model and texture elements adapted from Halo CE)
Bonus data (Assault Rifle & Sniper Rifle) - Provided courtesy of BobTheGreatII (https://www.artstation.com/bobthegreatii)
Bonus data (The Truth & Reconciliation Revisited) - Based on CMT's public 2012 demo release of A50 (http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=6273) - Level geometry modeled circa 2011 by SlappyThePirate - Level geometry textured by Dano -- (Some model and texture elements adapted from Halo CE) - Lighting rendered by Siliconmaster - Level geometry & lighting re-touched in 2021 by Teh Lag
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File credits
The Silent Cartographer: Evolved v1.4 (2021)
Core team: - Teh Lag - Ifafudafi - Siliconmaster
Additional thanks to: - BobtheGreatII: Bonus 3D & texture art - Shelly Herself: Debugging support - Mimickal: Debugging support
Testing: - BobtheGreatII - Erich Plankey - Koscine - Mimickal - Neo Te Aika - Sean T - Shelly Herself - SlowBullet
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The Silent Cartographer: Evolved (2012 - 2015)
Core team:
Teh Lag - Project lead - Mission design - 3D & texture art - Animation - Mission & feature scripting - Programming & tools - Team administration
Ifafudafi - Gameplay design - Mission design - Visual FX - Texture art - Mission & feature scripting - Team administration
Siliconmaster - Environment art lead - 3D & texture art - Lighting - Game manual
Shadowspartan - Programming & tools - Tag references
Siliconmaster - Lighting
Sinow - Mission & feature scripting
SlappyThePirate - 3D art
SOI_7 - 3D & texture art
Wave of Lag - 3D art
Xalener - Sound design
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We would also like to credit the people at Bungie Studios (past and present) for the original Halo games, Gearbox Software for Halo Custom Edition, and 343 Industries for their continued stewardship of the franchise. Our mod makes use of content from across the Halo series, and would not exist without them!
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Lastly, we would like to re-credit those who were credited for SPv2, as this project draws on their hard work even if they were not active contributors to TSC:E: - Arteen - Boba - Conscars - Dano - Doom / Sneeze - FlyinRooster / Roostervier - HDoan - Higuy - ICEE - Kirby - Lightning - Lodex - Masterz1337 - Moses / Play4Phlx - NuggetWarmer - Phopojijo - P0lar Bear - Scooby Doo - Selentic - Teh Lag - Wave of Lag
Based on CMT's public 2012 demo release of A50 (http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=6273): - Level geometry modeled by SlappyThePirate - Level geometry textured by Dano - Lighting rendered by Siliconmaster
This release by: - Teh Lag - Ifafudafi
Testing: - BobtheGreatII - Sean T
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Precipice (H1 Spirit)
Based on Siliconmaster's 2011 map (http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=5708): - Concept, design, and modeling by Siliconmaster - Skybox by Con - Redesigned bridge by IceDragon - Scripts, bugfixing, and scenario support by Inferno
Original testers: - Ace of Spades - Adam Burrows - Arayian - Admiral Bacon - Codebrain - Dan Valiere - Dwood - FireScythe - Higuy - IceDragon - Inferno - Lightning - Llama Juice - Masterz - PlasX - ReaperMan - ShadowSpartan
Special thanks: - [EJ]Bean - IceDragon - Llama Juice - ShadowSpartan - Lightning - chrisk123999 - Con - Inferno - Kornman00 - Dennis and Halomaps.org - TheGhost and Modacity.net
This release by: - Ifafudafi - Siliconmaster
Testing: - Sean T - Shelly Herself
Donation Points system
This mod is not opted-in to receive Donation Points
Changes and improvements: - Added checkpoint launch menu when developer mode is enabled. - Reworded waiting-for-checkpoint HUD message to better distinguish from checkpoint-done message. - Increased melee damage for all weapons. - Reduced melee damage against Hunters to compensate. - Decreased sniper Jackal vitality. - Made Wraiths easier to board. - Allowed AI to occasionally fire Wraith side guns. - Redistributed some weapon and ammo drops to better suit nearby encounters. - Allowed the Hunter elevator to crush a careless player. Watch out! - Added a checkpoint when leaving the security pit. - Overhauled EAX sound environments across the map. - Recompressed many textures using better tools, significantly improving quality. - Touched up lightmaps across the map. - Touched up several Forerunner textures and shaders. - Touched up sand textures to hide obvious tiling. - Restored gentle swaying animation to foliage scenery. - Added buildup effects to weapons that detonate when droppped. - Added a new melee hit sound for armor materials. - Overhauled Hunter model, textures, and shaders. - Added a soft ping animation to Hunters. - Added ammunition-based effects to Hunter weapons. - Touched up the Grunt's model, textures, and shaders, adding vitality-scaled lights. - Added more Marine faces. - Added new effects as Auto-Carbine's rate of fire increases. - Lightly touched up Auto-Carbine shaders. - Made it harder to destroy Warthog regions. (Total vitality is unchanged.) - Added more damaged effects to the crashed Pelican. - Overhauled Ghost shaders and weapon effects. - Overhauled AA Wraith weapon effects. - Overhauled Brute pillar's model, textures, and shaders. - Reduced intensity of the overshield's light and lens flare. - Reduced lightning flash rate in the skybox. - Adjusted LZ supply Pelican timings to better highlight the weapon drop pods. - Adjusted waterfall sounds and effects for better consistency. - Added a timeout to the "Lockout" music. - Made it slightly easier to make it down the Cartographer field's upper ridge ramp. - Made Brute pool water a little more lively. - Allowed beach debris to fall all the way to underwater structures. - Restored unique scope masks to the DMR and scoped Pistol. - Added a new secret weapon to the map. - Added a new bonus exchange if you accidentally save the galaxy. - Disallowed assassinating the Master Cheif from behind. - Made it easier to survive the Spirit of Halo 1. - Many other special-difficulty enhancements.
Bug fixes: - Worked around a crash when some dropped weapons detonate. - Fixed a potential crash when player dies out of BSP bounds. - Fixed dropship camera markers, improving gunner AI, and allowing Phantom teleportation hacks to be replaced. - Reduced Covenant crate's bounding radius to improve pathfinding. - Redid collision geometry for some scenery and devices to better fit the actual model. - Fixed phantom BSP in several locations. - Reduced potential hitching when the opening cutscene starts. - Fixed LZ units getting stuck in the destroyed Wraith. - Fixed crate lids potentially despawning LZ units. - Fixed Cortana telling you to proceed down the Cartographer shaft even when bypassing the area. - Fixed checkpoints getting saved in compromising locations when sequence-breaking past the locked door. - Fixed canyon units getting trapped in a BSP switch. - Completely refactored the Hunter elevator encounter for better consistency and stability. - Fixed errors in the Hunter elevator area's collision BSP, allowing AI to pathfind correctly. - Fixed the server room's stealth Elites getting trapped in a BSP switch. - Ensured LZ Marines are dead after returning from the Cartographer. - Gave exit Zealot the capability to retreat if player is safely on the other side of the lightbridge. - Fixed player action issues during and after the extraction cutscene. - Fixed many lighting issues across the map. - Fixed Brute flags not always spawning. - Reduced potential sound popping during some cutscenes. - Fixed undefined behavior in particle systems. - Clamped errant sound gain values to 0-1. - Fixed animation issues when firing the Auto-Carbine at fully automatic speed. - Fixed minor timing issues in Auto-Carbine's posing sound. - Fixed potential z-fighting on the Assault Rifle display. - Fixed Shotgun's moving animation. - Fixed Brute Shot's posing animation. - Fixed duplicate flashlight marker on the Sniper Rifle. - Fixed out-of-date bitmap in a Plasma Grenade contrail. - Fixed DMR firing sound using the wrong sound class. - Fixed some minor Warthog animation issues. - Increased Warthog's bounding radius to assist pathfinding. - Fixed AA Wraith front boarding actions. - Fixed some potential collision issues with Forerunner doors. - Removed erroneous detail maps from some shaders. - Fixed inconsistent cubemaps used by damaged Covenant shaders. - Fixed too-small bounding radius for detail stones. - Fixed Pelican glass using the wrong sky cubemap. - Fixed excessive shininess on Covenant ground barriers. - Fixed minor mip bleeding issues in Forerunner glass. - Fixed several misaligned scenery and equipment placements. - Fixed missing ocean sounds at the LZ. - Fixed issues with Hunter elevator holograms. - Fixed UV and animation issues with the big bridge. - Fixed rotation issue with underwater fog shader. - Fixed attenuation on the Cartographer door's ping sound. - Fixed minor stuttering in Cartographer projector's animations. - Fixed obvious BSP switch when exiting the Cartographer room. - Fixed Cartographer projectors being toggle-able after the first use. - Fixed excessively large falloff distance for Cartographer projector sounds. - Fixed incorrect difficulty-based checks for a couple of easter eggs.
Source release: - Added bonus "a50_revisited" campaign scenario, and dependent tags. - Added bonus "precipice_h1_spirit" multiplayer scenario, and dependent tags. - Added bonus beam_cannon weapon to h1_spirit tags, for use in precipice_h1_spirit. - Added bonus new Assault Rifle and Sniper Rifle textures. (Thanks BobTheGreatII!) - Added more range_test variants for all tagset permutations. - Added new pause and difficulty selection menus for non-TSC:E scenarios. - Added MCC-compatible tag patches for globals, HUD, and weapon displays. - Removed "human" / "covenant" distinction from tag directories. - Consolidated many more non-Evolved-specific tags under _shared. - Reorganized lots of tags with more consistent conventions. - Removed lots of unused and broken tags. - Removed stock duplicates, replacing references with the original stock tags. - Reorganized music tags with more descriptive names. - Internalized transparent shaders that were converted to shader_transparent_generic in MCC, preserving MCC compatibility. - Removed a large amount of useless / broken unit animations that accumulated over the years. - Ensured all unit animations tags are now stock-compatible, spinning off new ones where necessary. - h1_spirit tags now use stock-compatible animations by default. - Added Halo 1-scaled small Hunters to h1_spirit tags, for stock compatibility. - Restored Banshee support to default Cyborg animations. - Removed use of metal (hollow) for Grunt armor in h1_spirit tags, preserving stock compatibility. - Removed unused LODs and variants from Brute models. - Added Assault Rifle to h1_spirit Marine bipeds and a missing h1_spirit Sniper Rifle Marine, preserving stock compatibility. - Added Assault Rifle to stock cyborg_mp, preserving compatibility with stock multiplayer maps with no starting profiles. - Fixed crewmen and marines having incorrect unarmed poses. - Ensured weapons that use change color have correct defaults, fixing issues with color change in multiplayer. - Disallowed ball, h_skull, and Rocket Launcher ammo from detonating, preventing multiplayer crashes. - Optimized Battle Rifle model. - Added missing pickup strings for Devourer prototype. - Added collision model to Focus Beam prototype, and fixed its bounding radius. - Overhauled Fuel Rod Cannon shaders, fixing issues along the way. - Fixed h1_spirit Needlers not using our updated ammo crystal. - Overhauled SMG LODs and shaders. - Restored silenced SMG. - Added night vision to h1_spirit Sniper Rifle. - Fixed several bad references in h1_spirit Fuel Rod Cannon. - Fixed Flamethrower using the wrong collision material. - Fixed several issues and inconsistencies with Flag and Ball weapons. - Added more multiplayer-friendly vehicle tags. - Fixed existing multiplayer vehicles having useless health HUDs. - Fixed missing / incorrect rider damage fractions and collision settings for existing multiplayer vehicles. - Overhauled Banshee shaders, including support for a crashed variant. - Fixed Banshee gun issue that allowed multiple projectiles to be fired instantly. - Spun off combined no-script-required model for Shade ball turret. - Added Spirit dropship with overhauled shaders. - Removed useless Ghost boost references from non-boosting Ghosts. - Added yellow-painted skin for Rocket Warthog. - Cleaned up h1_spirit Scorpion tags and visuals. - Combined regular and crashed Pelican models. - Fixed corrupted halo.vehicle. - Ensured HUD globals are stock compatible. - Restored stock terminal font. - Unified all weapon reticles into a single, tightly-packed bitmap. - Restored uncompressed HUD pickup icons, using more intelligent bitmap packing to save space. - Reorganized pause game UI to make more sense with multiple scenarios. - Added a generic pause game UI for stock scenarios. - Added comments to b30_evolved.scenario with our internal names for each major area. - Refactored scripts to remove the overcomplicated component system. - Simplified many scripts to reclaim syntax nodes, needed for other features and fixes.
Version 1.3 (04-22-2015)
- fix horrible inconsistent map behavior caused when player backtracks footpath approach to cartographer after starting down vehicle path - fix some fp view clipping at high FOV for shotgun, plasma rifle and plasma pistol - fix ai freezing itself if player is slow to exit server room - fix pathfinding sphere radius values on crashed pelican - fix over-dark pr in catacombs - fix population issues in waterhall - carbine offset and missing door - fix duplicate crate in pit - fix badly-placed torch in cave - add zoomvisr to rl and noble (zoomable) pistol - add one final noble feature
Version 1.2 (03-16-2015)
- add missing credit for axial's contributions to the early days of the project - add extra playerclip to reduce chance of clipping into cart interior brute war shrine - add easter egg hints - add better (not yet perfect) support for out-of-order backtracking among cartographer return paths - fix double-spawning dropship door in post-cartographer cliffs area - fix units taking damage when unloading from cliff dropship gravlift - fix disappearing objects during map activation cutscene - fix bug where map room hunters sometimes miss the elevator to the exit if they're still alive - fix mysterious shredder crates w/ incorrect ammo counts; standardize to use 8 / 16 rounds - fix bad offset of bounding sphere on c_storage_large - fix bad offset of bounding sphere on c_regen_station - fix bad bounding sphere radius on rock_boulder_large and medium - fix another potential issue with interior sequence breaking - fix assorted extraneous objects floating around in the map when they shouldn't be - fix marines going braindead +/ freezing across bsp switches when riding some wraith wings - fix hunters shooting during cart activation cutscene - fix mysterious floating lights on player's leg in first-person when shredder is their secondary weapon - fix footpath return units sometimes missing their spawn - fix zealot potentially going permanently braindead on lightbridge
Version 1.1a (03-05-2015)
- reduce assault rifle melee animation clipping through camera at 90-degree fov - fix grunt occasionally spawning inside a rock during pool fight - fix unintended side-effects of 1.1 sequence-breaking logic, affecting "shafted" cutscene and vehicle return path
Version 1.1 (03-04-2015)
- add minor buff to warthog health - add extra volume to c_storage_large playerclip so ghosts get trapped less often - add logic to make interior mission more friendly for sequence breakers - fix missing death volume in cave pool - fix shaft bridge collision model's animation to match render model's timing - fix unused heat meter still in gauss cannon hud - fix ar, pistol, rocket spawns on noble - fix assorted floating trees and other object placement - fix covenant vehicle emp system - fix mysterious floating phantom dropship pieces when main body is destroyed - fix grenade hud icon flash misalignment - fix hole in ar/gl model geometry - fix compass north not pointing towards threshold - fix incorrect damage scale on wraith sideguns - fix missing zoomvisr mode for hidden dmr
Upon its release in 2015, TSC:E became the highest-rated map ever on Halomaps, and was soon accompanied by a complete and fully-documented release of all source assets and scripts. These have served as a foundation for numerous further Custom Edition mods.
Six years later, core TSC:E developers Teh Lag, Ifafudafi, and Siliconmaster have returned with a new patch. Along with over 100 bugfixes and feature improvements, patch 1.4 offers an updated source release with stock Custom Edition- and Master Chief Collection-compatible versions of nearly every source asset. We've even used the source release's bonus assets to include two new maps: the "Precipice (H1 Spirit)" multiplayer map, and the "Truth & Reconciliation: Revisited" campaign map!
Why Release a New Patch?
While we're incredibly proud of the level of polish we managed to ship in 2015, we still left behind some known bugs, and a few minor regrets. With Halo modding newly reinvigorated by the Master Chief Collection's journey to PC, it seemed like the perfect time to go back in and put these issues to rest.
More philosophically, we want to provide a tribute to the enduring resilience and creativity of the Halo modding community, a place where we grew up, and of which still have fond memories. Our hope is that a re-release of TSC:E, and an updated source release compatible with every version of the HEK, will inspire Halo modders to continue breaking the limits of their creativity for years to come.
What Do I Need to Play?
TSC:E requires Halo Custom Edition, patched to version 1.0.10, and the OpenSauce game extension. You'll need a valid CD key for Halo PC to install Custom Edition.
Along with a map-only download, we offer an all-in-one package with every installer you need, plus the Universal UI, which allows you to launch TSC:E without setting up the in-game console.
Note: While the updated source release includes MCC-compatible assets, the TSC:E map itself is not compatible with the Master Chief Collection!
Is This SPv3?
Not really! TSC:E was developed in parallel with SPV3 as part of then-CMT, sharing assets and a handful of supporting developers, but featuring substantial differences in look, feel, sound, and play -- in particular, TSC:E has its own completely distinct gameplay sandbox.
The version of TSC:E eventually included in SPV3 was dramatically modified without the input of TSC:E's core team, up to and including the removal of major features. So, even if you've played SPV3, we'd strongly encourage you to try this new, official release from TSC:E's original developers.
Our website: Tsce.info For more information about Halo Custom Edition modding, visit our friends at the Reclaimers Discord server: Discord.reclaimers.net
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