We need to have a great upgrade for forge: a terrain editor is a must and an object editor would be amazing. Enough said.
…This forum loves to make me repeat myself, doesn’t it?
Fine, I’ll explain again what an object editor has above a map/terrain editor.
As you know everything in a game consists out of polygons, the characters, the weapons, the vehicles but most importantly the terrain.
Each of these polygons require 4 coordinates as they are essentially squares, the more polygons, the better the curves on an object can be (try it yourself, download any 3D editor, create a box, add some segments, add a bend modifier and play around with the amount of segments(these stop you from creating Ngons by accident), the more segments/polygons, the better the box curves).
Now an object editor doesn’t need much, just a point of origin for the object and the type of object, that x,y,z+degree coordinate is then used to draw the object out of, like if you would put a 3D stamp on a dot on a 3 dimensional piece of paper.
Everything is present in the game itself and can be loaded without downloading the entire map (and quite fast as well) again, it is simply loading existing content with parameters set by our object editor.
However with a map/terrain editor regardless of a map having similar coordinates to another a full fledged map editor would create an entirely new map that needs more space then our simple object editor which uses an existing map and objects that can easily be read from the game disc. We can use existing terrain to lessen the size of the file.
In other words, it would be like downloading DLC maps over and over while it can be done much more efficient and simpler (it won’t be as large as DLC since textures, the skybox and most things are present but it will ask more then a simple object editor save file to the point load times without downloading the map to the HDD could be annoying).
Also Forge is an object editor and it is a mighty fine one.
Halo 2 Anniversary made the smart idea to add sky box canvasses meaning we don’t even need to load any polygons we barely (if we ever even do) tend to use (think about Simplex and how it uses nothing of the terrain present on Ravine).
Forge is fine as it is.
> …This forum loves to make me repeat myself, doesn’t it?
No, that choice is yours.
A choice which I also make to demonstrate that an object editor can have the functionality of a terrain editor, should the developer choose to pursue that route.
> Forge is fine as it is.
Your opinion . . . which many of us do not share.
> > …This forum loves to make me repeat myself, doesn’t it?
>
> No, that choice is yours.
>
> A choice which I also make to demonstrate that an object editor can have the functionality of a terrain editor, should the developer choose to pursue that route.
>
>
>
> > Forge is fine as it is.
>
> Your opinion . . . which many of us do not share.
I’m not saying it can’t use some additions, just that for what it is right now (talking about the MCC H2A Forge) it is already an impressive tool for the creation of maps.
And no offence but some of you ideas like the plane that allows alteration of vertices almost are a terrain editor, it requires a tad more than what standard objects require in terms of information which again requires that information to be saved and loaded.
> > > …This forum loves to make me repeat myself, doesn’t it?
> >
> > No, that choice is yours.
> >
> > A choice which I also make to demonstrate that an object editor can have the functionality of a terrain editor, should the developer choose to pursue that route.
> >
> >
> >
> > > Forge is fine as it is.
> >
> > Your opinion . . . which many of us do not share.
>
> I’m not saying it can’t use some additions, just that for what it is right now (talking about the MCC H2A Forge) it is already an impressive tool for the creation of maps.
> And no offence but some of you ideas like the plane that allows alteration of vertices almost are a terrain editor, it requires a tad more than what standard objects require in terms of information which again requires that information to be saved and loaded.
Yes. The additional information is quite small (only a position grid for vertices, for example). That hardly turns the map into a DLC-sized download.
And as far as saved/loaded goes, you missed a key point (understandable, since the list is long): The ability to save a fully rendered version of the map. If a map is deemed quality enough to add into MP by 343i, then it can be distributed as a fully rendered map - just like CA maps. Otherwise for customs people could just use the object map, which again will have a file size well below that of a fully rendered map.
Forge is not fine as it stands. It is miserable to work with and the object and texture restrictions produce maps that are wholly painful to look at it. We tolerate it because the current Forge can do no better. But if a game released with developer maps that looked like Forge maps and played with such massive framerate issues, we’d all toss the disk in the garbage.
Rather than stand around proclaiming what is not possible, it is perhaps more useful for us to proclaim what we want and let the developer decide what they can give us.
I like the simple Forge we have and from the small glimpse that we got for H2A I think it is improving. We do need other colors then the boring gray though.
> Yes. The additional information is quite small (only a position grid for vertices, for example). That hardly turns the map into a DLC-sized download.
>
> And as far as saved/loaded goes, you missed a key point (understandable, since the list is long): The ability to save a fully rendered version of the map. If a map is deemed quality enough to add into MP by 343i, then it can be distributed as a fully rendered map - just like CA maps. Otherwise for customs people could just use the object map, which again will have a file size well below that of a fully rendered map.
>
> Forge is not fine as it stands. It is miserable to work with and the object and texture restrictions produce maps that are wholly painful to look at it. We tolerate it because the current Forge can do no better. But if a game released with developer maps that looked like Forge maps and played with such massive framerate issues, we’d all toss the disk in the garbage.
>
> Rather than stand around proclaiming what is not possible, it is perhaps more useful for us to proclaim what we want and let the developer decide what they can give us.
The additional information is small if the amount of vertices are small, in which case the object can be less complex and thus you can achieve only a limited amount of curves that do not look awkward or bad.
I also think you do not understand the meaning of fully rendered, a render is what the game does when creating frames, 30FPS means 30 frames being rendered per second, prerendering (which what you actually wished to say) does not apply to real time gameplay.
What you’re talking about is saving the map as a completely separate map where it is seen as 1 entity rather then consisting out of several (the objects within) which basically is what a terrain editor does and as I said before is a waste of information considering it is mostly build on existing information, why save Settler as a separate map of Ravine if it uses a lot of similar data and would be better in the long run (each “map” saving less information because they have the same starting point).
And the reason for the FPS issues in Split screen is because the Xbox 360 has to render 30FPS for what can be seen as 2 images (but is sent as 1) which granted still do not exceed 720 pixels each but still require a lot more processing power to used in order to be rendered.
This is not to say an object editor is perfect compared to a terrain editor.
To give an overview;
-Object editor
Less information being thrown around because it uses a lot of game disc information, thus easier to distribute and load in MM
Lots of unseen Polygons are being rendered (e.g. side of a wall the player never sees or bottom of a rock that is used as a hill together with the terrain under it) resulting in FPS drops with split screen if already intensive for 1 player
-Terrain editor
-If executed right (because I know even Far Cry had problems with the above when trying to create caves), less cases of useless polygons being rendered.
-But more information needed to keep track of all the polygons coordinates meaning bigger file sizes.
It all depends what the developers see as the best trade off.
EDIT: Forgot to mention with the object Editor down points that the Skybox canvases fix this problem to an extend (no ground being rendered) but still result in polygons being rendered that are not really needed (the bottom part of most of the blocks that make up the ground)
Last reply. Feel free to say whatever you want after this.
> The additional information is small if the amount of vertices are small, in which case the object can be less complex and thus you can achieve only a limited amount of curves that do not look awkward or bad.
I am mystified as to why you would reject a clear improvement based on it not being able to do something that I never claimed it would do. And you’re wrong, besides . . . one object with a grid of 8x8 vertices spaced by 3 - 5 units linearly using 3D splines (or similar) for interpolation can recreate most of the main ground area for Ravine. You don’t need many of those to create rather complex natural surfaces or boundaries, and hardly any to create levels for artificial surfaces. And since vertices require only positional information (so 3 axes rather than 6) and only one object attribute definition is required per plane, the grid would require less total disk space to define than to populate the same area with the standard objects in almost all cases.
By using objects with a prepopulated grid of moveable vertices, results similar to a terrain editor could be obtained with far less information required for the processor to build the object. Still object-based, but with much more flexibility.
> I also think you do not understand the meaning of fully rendered, a render is what the game does when creating frames, 30FPS means 30 frames being rendered per second, prerendering (which what you actually wished to say) does not apply to real time gameplay.
I understand just fine regardless of whether I used the correct term. And prerendering certainly does have to do with real time gameplay. Lack of it is what creates framerate issues for Forge maps as the system has to consider the hitboxes (and do alpha testing for transparent portions of the hitboxes) for each object independently - including portions of the object that are not even visible. Fully prerendered maps would not have phased “objects” at all. It would just have hitboxes + texture definitions like the on-disk maps.
> What you’re talking about is saving the map as a completely separate map where it is seen as 1 entity rather then consisting out of several (the objects within) which basically is what a terrain editor does and as I said before is a waste of information considering it is mostly build on existing information, why save Settler as a separate map of Ravine if it uses a lot of similar data and would be better in the long run (each “map” saving less information because they have the same starting point).
Because doing it my way means no framerate issues during play. Doing it your way ensures that more processing power is required to render each frame during play. And your downside you mention assumes that we have to be restricted to prebuilt canvasses, which is certainly not the case if planar objects with movable vertices and boundary objects are allowed. In that case, the “canvass” is nothing more than a skybox.
> And the reason for the FPS issues in Split screen is because the Xbox 360 has to render 30FPS for what can be seen as 2 images (but is sent as 1) which granted still do not exceed 720 pixels each but still require a lot more processing power to used in order to be rendered.
Irrelevant, as the above applies to both Forged and on-disk maps.
> Less information being thrown around because it uses a lot of game disc information, thus easier to distribute and load in MM
And how many Forge maps make it to matchmaking? The tradeoff between smaller file size and improved performance is incredibly one-sided in favor of performance.
> Lots of unseen Polygons are being rendered (e.g. side of a wall the player never sees or bottom of a rock that is used as a hill together with the terrain under it) resulting in FPS drops with split screen if already intensive for 1 player
Precisely.
> -Terrain editor
> -If executed right (because I know even Far Cry had problems with the above when trying to create caves), less cases of useless polygons being rendered.
Irrelevant. I’m not asking for a terrain editor. I’m asking for an object editor that can be saved with all overlapping phased object hitboxes merged (or prerendered, if you prefer).
> -But more information needed to keep track of all the polygons coordinates meaning bigger file sizes.
>
> It all depends what the developers see as the best trade off.
There is no question what is the best tradeoff. The real tradeoff is whether the developer wants to expand Forge or work on something else. Between file size and performance, it’s a slam dunk in favor of performance - especially since the file can be saved as an object-based map for distribution with your friends or customs. It’s only in MM that it would require the prerendering (unless you wished to play your own map splitscreen).
> EDIT: Forgot to mention with the object Editor down points that the Skybox canvases fix this problem to an extend (no ground being rendered) but still result in polygons being rendered that are not really needed (the bottom part of most of the blocks that make up the ground)
To which I have already proposed a solution.
As before, the only real tradeoff is the development time to expand Forge or do something else.
> …This forum loves to make me repeat myself, doesn’t it?
>
> Fine, I’ll explain again what an object editor has above a map/terrain editor.
>
> As you know everything in a game consists out of polygons, the characters, the weapons, the vehicles but most importantly the terrain.
>
> Each of these polygons require 4 coordinates as they are essentially squares, the more polygons, the better the curves on an object can be (try it yourself, download any 3D editor, create a box, add some segments, add a bend modifier and play around with the amount of segments(these stop you from creating Ngons by accident), the more segments/polygons, the better the box curves).
>
> Now an object editor doesn’t need much, just a point of origin for the object and the type of object, that x,y,z+degree coordinate is then used to draw the object out of, like if you would put a 3D stamp on a dot on a 3 dimensional piece of paper.
>
> Everything is present in the game itself and can be loaded without downloading the entire map (and quite fast as well) again, it is simply loading existing content with parameters set by our object editor.
>
> However with a map/terrain editor regardless of a map having similar coordinates to another a full fledged map editor would create an entirely new map that needs more space then our simple object editor which uses an existing map and objects that can easily be read from the game disc. We can use existing terrain to lessen the size of the file.
>
> In other words, it would be like downloading DLC maps over and over while it can be done much more efficient and simpler (it won’t be as large as DLC since textures, the skybox and most things are present but it will ask more then a simple object editor save file to the point load times without downloading the map to the HDD could be annoying).
>
> Also Forge is an object editor and it is a mighty fine one.
> Halo 2 Anniversary made the smart idea to add sky box canvasses meaning we don’t even need to load any polygons we barely (if we ever even do) tend to use (think about Simplex and how it uses nothing of the terrain present on Ravine).
> Forge is fine as it is.
So the only problem of a map editor to is the amount of information?.. That’s is not even a problem now, we have the hardware and technology to support this. We’re ready to use the full potential of the xbox one. By object editor I mean, let’s say that I wanna make a cube shaped object of 3x6 or 5x9 or 4x4 and I could choose between a preset of textures for each face of the cube. Of course it would be nice to create whatever shape we want and then import it into the map and put it whhere ever we want. That way we could shape a map exactly as we want it with beautiful textures. Despite the fact it is a bit harder with a controller, I seriously think it is possible to implant a map editor on a console.