Forge Art Style - Forgers, get in here!

Games Other Halo
1

Below please discuss the art style of forge pieces and the potential art style of maps, provided by these pieces.

I’ll go first:

I personally believe we need two major changes to forge.

Map Art Style Variation

The current art style of the building blocks are way too busy. These blocks make simple maps look so complicated. Take the new community map, Relay for example. It’s a very simple layout, rotationally symmetrical map that looks so complicated because of the textures of the building blocks.

Another problem is that all the building blocks have the same base colour, so floors, ceilings, walls, pretty much everything looks the same. Maps need variety in colour to help players quickly identify pathways and obstacles when watching over a map. Again this problem is shown with the name map, Relay.

Compare Halo 2’s version of Lockout and the new Halo 4’s Shutout. In my opinion the Halo 2 version of this map looks a lot better because the textures are clean and consistent.

Editing Landscape Geometry

It would be nice if we had more options for editing landscape geometry. I’m not taking about being able to extrude segments of the current landscape of a map. I’m talking about being able to place new segments of geometry that end up changing the current landscape. Currently all we can do is add rocks to maps. This has allowed map makers to be able to remake some maps such as Guardian, however the current rocks are very limiting because of their current size and shape variations.

We need more rock types and large-ish landscape style rocks (low poly) to allow forgers to design and create new landscapes. Each rock should be editable to allow forgers to pick a selection of textures (grassy, grey rock, dusty etc). This would be a huge step with fixing the ‘no colour variation’ problem. Think about how well Asylum worked in Reach. Admittedly it wasn’t perfect but it looked a lot better than if it had a flat grey texture instead of grass.

I hope we make pull together to make forge maps better looking and in turn, make players, pathways and obstacles easier to identify at first glance.

Thanks for reading.

2

Anyone care to add any input?

I’ve just made a map that uses rocks to create a piece of terrain. It works pretty well. I just wish we had more options like this.

3

My favorite part of the Forge in Halo 4 is the Three different Forge Worlds, the Lighting, and the Shadows. (The latter two tend to cause lag, and Frame rate issues sadly, but what are you gonna do?)

Anyways I agree with what you said about the Halo 2 Lockout looking better. But I do LOVE the shininess of the forge pieces, so the Forge Remake does look pretty decent.

Sorry I can’t add anything useful to the discussion. As I am the worst forger this side of the Milky Way…

4

Thanks for the reply :). I agree, it’s nice to have these three themed maps. I prefer Ravines style the most, but that has the least rocks to work with, which is upsetting =[.

5

The main thing is that objects need to be textured much simpler like in Halo 3’s Sandbox.

Sandbox’s palette was also more optimized than Forge World, Erosion, and Ravine, believe it or not. It had more flat surfaces to work with. I think its more optimal/ efficient than Impact too, but I’m not certain.

For example, I made a maze map in Sandbox that cannot be remade by Forge World’s palette, and definitely not Erosion or Ravine’s palette either, and I highly doubt Impact’s palette can remake it either.

And one other thing that is needed aside from simplified textures that are less busy like in Sandbox’s objects, is optional colors/textures. We need to be able to change the color/texture of objects through multiple colors/ textures.

I don’t understand how this has not made it into Reach OR 4 by now, considering forgers have been saying this since Halo 3.

6

I completely agree. We need to see changeable and more simplified textures for building blocks. Currently I have been using lights inside rooms/buildings to help players quickly identify which is a inside or outside wall. It works well, but far from ideal.

7

Shameless bump :slight_smile: