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GUIDE - How to make your own Custom Menu Background


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I recently uploaded my own custom background and felt like it be good to have a guide on what I did to make this happen. This is the video file I uploaded: https://www.nexusmods.com/halothemasterchiefcollection/mods/342

 

 

I gathered all this information from reddit r/halo and also r/halomods. One thing I saw on reddit was WMV files to bk2 works better than converting MP4 to bk2 files. I don't know the details, but I failed to make a bk2 file when the source was a MP4 video. What I also gathered is you can use RAD Video tools to convert WMV files to bk2 files. This is a free tool that anyone can download. You just need to change the file type to bk2 when converting.

 

 

What I did is download a YouTube videos as MP4, convert them to WMV file formats then convert the WMV to bk2 files. What I did is merge three WMV files together since I wanted multiple trailers. When I merged the files I merged the video only and not the audio. The menu plays the bk2 file and if the bk2 file has the audio from the original YouTube video then you will hear that and also the menu background music at the same time. What I ended up with is a 5 minute custom background with no audio. I'll break down these steps into details and try to include screenshots from imgur.

 

Things You'll Need:

 

RAD Video Tools

This is used to convert WMV files to bk2.

Link for download - http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

The files are 7zip and with password RAD.

After you install and if you keep all the defaults the location will be:

C:\Program Files (x86)\RADVideo and the exe we will use is radvideo.exe

 

7zip File Manager

You need this to open the RAD Video Tools

Link for download - https://www.7-zip.org/download.html

 

 

YouTube video Downloader

There are hundreds of ways to download a YouTube video, but I used this:

https://videomp3convert.com/en/video-mp3-converter

If offers wmv, but it does not work and it keeps generating a file to mp4. I even tried changing the extension to wmv and that broke the video.

 

MP4 to WMV converter

Again there are hundreds of ways to convert a video, but I used this:

https://cloudconvert.com/mp4-to-wmv

 

Video editing software to merge multiple videos.

I used Openshot since it is free. You can try your own video editing tools.

Open shot download:

https://www.openshot.org/download/

I only merged WMV videos. I never tried merging MP4 then converting it as a WMV. So if you guys want to try it out let me know.

 

 

Step 1 - Downloading YouTube videos

 

Here's the source of the video that I'll use in this guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KTc2aZEaeg

 

- I'll go to the video downloader site I mentioned on my Things You'll need.

https://www.videomp3convert.com/video-mp3-converter

 

- Paste the URL and change the file format to mp4 and click start. When it finishes you'll get a download button.

https://imgur.com/a/wRKuKF5

 

- The page will change and you can download the MP4 now. Right-Click the blue Download button and click Save Link As and name it whatever you want. I'll name it halo3.mp4

https://imgur.com/a/R0nQOZu

 

Step 2 - Converting MP4 to WMV

 

Next we will go to the MP4 to WMV converter website.

https://cloudconvert.com/mp4-to-wmv

 

- Click on the Upload button. Find your downloaded MP4 video.

 

- After selecting your video hit convert

https://imgur.com/a/2vlh5Je

 

- After the conversion finishes you can download it. Click download and the filename will be the same as Step 1, but now it will be WMV. So mine will be halo3.wmv.

https://imgur.com/a/9ZsSpkd

 

Step 4 - Edit the WMV file to remove the audio and shorten the clip.

 

The MCC has a bk2 file for the main menu. This file has no audio. The main menu also plays the menu music from a different source. If we were to just use the WMV that we converted then you'll hear the trailer audio (this includes the kids talking in the beginning of the video). We need to edit the video and save it without audio. If you want to keep the audio you can skip this. step and lower the menu volume in-game so you can hear the bk2 audio.

 

- I used openshot to merge the WMV files and remove the audio.

https://www.openshot.org/download/

 

- I don't want to go into detail how to use open shot since the export will remove the audio and not a edit. You can find their tutorials on their main page and also on youtube

- http://www.openshot.org/files/user-guide/quick_tutorial.html

https://www.openshot.org/user-guide/

 

- Whenever you are ready to export go to File - Export Project - Export Video.

https://imgur.com/a/Qm9rGfe

 

- Go to Advanced - Advanced Options and select Export to Video Only

https://imgur.com/a/bFfwpVw

 

- Go to Video Settings and change:

Video format - wmv

Video codec - msmpeg4

https://imgur.com/a/zYA859J

 

- After that you can hit Export Video

 

 

Step 5 - Converting WMV to BK2

 

This will be the last conversion. Download and install 7zip File Manager. Then you can download and install RAD Video Tools. Both installs are straight forward you don't need to make any changes.

 

- After Installing RAD video tools you need to run radvideo.exe.

The default location is C:\Program Files (x86)\RADVideo and radvideo.exe can be found there. Double click it to open upt RAD Video Tools.

 

-Go to where your WMV file is and select it. Mine is halo3.wmv. After selecting it click Bink-IT! at the bottom.

https://imgur.com/a/30tGINd

 

- A new window will open. Change the .bik under Output File info to .bk2. Then click Bink. You can click Browse to change the save location. By default it will save it to the same location of your WMV file.

https://imgur.com/a/RMIES7k

 

- Wait for the video file to process. After it finishes click done and you can now double click the bk2 file to see if the video plays. The Bink video player is a bit flunky so skipping to the middle of the video is a hit or miss, so I would just play the convert video.

 

Step 6 - Replacing the Original menu bk2 file with our own

 

This is pretty much the last step here. This is what everyone does when they download the custom menu from Nexus so it'll paste my instructions from my submission here.

 

To Install:
- Go to your game install location (Steam\steamapps\common\Halo The Master Chief Collection\MCC\Content\Movies)
- Backup the original file by renaming it (example. FMS_MainMenu_v2.bk2 to FMS_MainMenu_v2.bk2.old)
- Extract the modded menu file
To Uninstall:
- Delete the file you extracted (FMS_MainMenu_v2.bk2)
- Rename your backup file to original name (example. backup FMS_MainMenu_v2.bk2.old > FMS_MainMenu_v2.bk2)
And that is it. I know it is a lot of conversions, I know this will affect the quality in the videos, but I just don't know how to preserve the video quality while making all the changes. If you guys have any tips on how to improve the quality let me know.
Edited by MrAssault08
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