Hack 79. Improve Your View of the Battlefield

Use this hack to alter your field of view.

The Field of View (FoV) is the angle of your perspective in the game. By default, Halo 2 presents a 70-degree FoV. However, using a hex editor [Hack #54], it is possible to alter this value.

Halo 2 .MAP files store the FoV value in radians 70 radians equals the value 1.221730471. To alter the default FoV value, open up your map file in a hex editor. Search for the number 1.221730471 and replace it with a different value. In this example, you will use 1.6 (i.e., 90 degrees).

When you use the find feature in the hex editor, you will need to select the float type. The easiest way to change the value is to use the Replace All option (see Figure 10-7). However, if some other value that happened to match the FoV number, it would also be replaced. In other words, be careful with Replace All.

After altering the FoV, Sign your map [Hack #53] and FTP it to your Xbox [Hack #54]. Once you load your modded map, you will find that you can see a lot more of the arena (see Figure 10-8).

If you want to use a value other than 90 degrees, you will need to convert the numbers from degrees to radians. Google.com will do this for you if you type in the search string convert 90 degrees to radians.

Figure 10-7. Replace all of the hex references for the FoV

Figure 10-8. The original FOV and the enhanced FOV