BY: Monkey Terd
Seeing as many people are dumbfounded about using Serenity, I decided to write a full, in depth tutorial on using all of the aspects of Serenity. (Because for some reason, people always complain about how "hard" Serenity is to use, when infact, I find it the easiest to use.)
All of this is using the most up to date Serenity (Currently
Serenity 3.30). So if you don't have it, you will most certianly need it.
Part 1: Adding Serenity to your Windows Shell.
Adding Serenity to your Windows Shell, is byfar the easiest and most convenient way to access Serenity. When you first download a .Serenity file, your computer will not recognize the file extension type...
Step 1:
Locate a .Serenity file, and double click on it. (A dialog should pop up, asking you what you would like to open it with.)
Step 2:
In the dialog, select "Serenity" from the listbox, if "Serenity" is not listed, use the browse button to locate it. (Make sure that the "Always use this program to open this type of file" checkbox is checked.)
Now, if you locate your .Serenity file, you will notice that instead of being solid white, you see the Serenity Icon in the center.
Now everytime you double click on a .Serenity file, it will launch Serenity, and fill in the Patch, Source Map, and Output Map Automatically.
Part 2: Applying a Serenity Patch
Applying a Serenity Patch is way simpler then people make it out to be. If you have added Serenity to your Windows Shell, it is even simpler.
Step 1:
Locate your Serenity Patch (for this tutorial, I will be using "
End of the Line", By: Zenon). Once you have located the patch, double click on it, and Serenity should launch, automatically filling in the information for you. If you wish to change the information, you may do so.
If you are changing the information,
Patch: Is the Serenity file (Duh)
Source Map: Is a clean copy of the original map.
Output Map: Is the location for which Serenity will place the modified map (So your original map is kept clean).
Step 2:
Verify that you have a copy of the original map (In my case Headlong) in the same directory as the Serenity Patch. If you do, then go ahead and click "Apply Patch".
Step 3:
There is no step 3. Applying a patch is so simple it's only 2 steps.
Note: With Serenity, it automatically fixes the map's Encryptomatic Signature, so there is no reason for you to need to resign the map after patching it. Part 3: Creating a Serenity Patch
There are quite a few features Serenity has when creating patches. When you goto the "Create" tab, you will see 2 checkbox's and 2 selection buttons. (Which of coarse each has it's own purpose)
Checking the "Secure Patch" box, will encrypt the patch (and the map of all who apply the patch) to be unreadable in map editors. If you wish to see what I mean, you can try opening "
Cassiopia", By: Aequitas in a map editor.
Note: The only catch to using this feature, is that you map has to be "Proper" with no holes.
Serenity used to have a restriction that it would only create a patch if your map was "Proper", but with the release of Serenity 3.0, came a new feature, to bypass this restriction.
Checking the "Non-Compliant" box will allow you to make a patch if your map is not proper. To find out if your map is proper or not, you can either scan for "Holes" with
UberAnalyzeTool™ , or try creating a Serenity patch with the "Non-Compliant" box unselected.
The next options you will find are the "LZMA" and "ZIP" selection buttons. These are the 2 compression methods that Serenity uses when creating patches. I suggest using the "LZMA" option, as the patches will be at their maximum compressed size, and will be smaller than if you rar'd a "Zip" patch (most likley). The only noticable diffrence between the two, is that the "Zip" method is a little faster when generating a patch.
Step 1: Once you have selected the "Type" of patch you want to make, fill in the textbox's with the appropriate information.
Patch: The name of the patch, and location you want it to be saved.
Original Map: The file location of the clean original map.
Modified Map: The file location of the map you are creating a patch for.
Step: 2 Hit "Generate Patch" and wait for Serenity to do it's stuff, and thats all there is to making a Serenity Patch.
Part 4: Using the Mainmenu Features
The Mainmenu Features of Serenity can be used both when applying a patch, or creating a patch.
Alright, here, we are going to use the mainmenu options while applying a patch.
Step 1: Navigate to the "Mainmenu" tab of Serenity, and select the "Use Main Menu" box.
Serenity Patches can store the Mainmenu information within the patch itself. You can find many patches that already have mainmenu settings in the patch, such as "
End of the Line", at the
Serenity Repository.
Note: If the patch you are using does not contain Mainmenu data, you can enter everything yourself, and Serenity will still add the map to your mainmenu. Step 2: Check again, and make sure that the "Use Main Menu" box is checked, then go back to the "Apply" tab and apply the patch. Doing so will not only turn the original map into the modded one, but will also add the map to you Mainmenu (If it is in the same directory as the map), complete with Title, Image, and Description.
Creating a patch with Mainmenu data is just about the same. Before you "Generate the Patch", just make sure the "Use Main Menu" box is checked, and enter a name, description, and a DDS image (Must be AxRxGxB format, with a size of 224x207), and that will be saved into the Serenity that you create, so others can use it too.
Part 5: The Serenity Repository The Serenity Repository isn't really a feature of Serenity, but a clever script made by Aequitas, that grabs Serenity Patches with complete Mainmenu Information from hosted .Serenity files, and organizes them into a nice clean webpage.
If you want a mod added to The Repository, (Assuming its decent enough), Simply host a .Serenity file here on Halomods (must be under 10mb), with the "Name", "Description","Image", and "Author" entry's in the hosted file.
[Image by Aequitas and his sexy MCE PC] XD
Part 6: Errors
As with all Halo 2 programs (with the exception of ADI), while using Serenity you may experience a few errors. (None of which are Serenity's fault though
)
Error 1: Source Map does not match the original...
That just means that when you are applying a patch, that the map you entered as "Source Map" did not match the same as the person who made the patch. (Most of the time, meaning you did not use a clean map, if you were, then the person who created the patch did not create it using a clean map.)
Error 2: Removing tags is not yet supported. This just means that you have some stuff unrefrenced in your map (Holes) and it couldn't generate a patch. To fix, simply check the "Non-Compliant" box.
Error 3:Unable to add [...], please verify the path under setup, and try again. This simply means that it tried to add a map to your mainmenu, and couldn't find your mainmenu. To fix, just go to the "Setup" tag, and refrence your maps folder.
And amazingly those are the only three errors I have ever encountered with this miraculous program.
Edit 2: Thanks to Iron_Forge for pointing out to me that I wrote the compression method's wrong. LZMA compresses slower, but considerably smaller than the Zip method.
Applying Serenity's
Linear Mode
