Welcome to my latest map preview! I had been doing some thinking about the Halo 2 map Gemini because a while ago (11 months) a friend of mine had remade it. And at the time, with our very limited forge knowledge and skillz, we thought it was pretty darn good. It was not. It looked terrible, framerate was poor, aesthetically looked like a toilet even the tree was built out of random things. It was all around bad. We had talked about rebuilding recently but my friend has since stopped forging and has little to no desire to start again. After a few more weeks or months had passed and I had still been thinking about the map, I decided to rebuild it myself. However some of the original design ideas for the map, on my opinion, did not play well. For example the teleporter ledges or perhaps the limited ways to traverse the map. I finally came up with an idea, a way to improve flow, ways to make it play well with Reach. So here it is, they may not look the same, they may not play the same but they’re still twins… I present to you Fraternal! Yes I know I’m a few months late on the “tree trend” Uploaded with ImageShack.us This is looking up from Blue spawn. This is the top room of the map with the Rocket Launcher This is an overview to show the extra paths from the stairwells and power weapons And here is an overhead of Gemini for comparison NEW PICTURES There are 3 major changes of note here (1) The obvious floor change. Now it drops a little around the tree no more coli wall. (2) I actually decided to add those teleporter ledges so everyone can hate my map like they're supposed to. However they do not provide much cover and not a safe place to be. And finally (3) I moved the sniper spawn so its no longer in the teleporter room. Here is the new and improved rocket room. Clearly it is now much bigger and open air more like the original map. Backside view of rocket room And here is looking up from red spawn to show where the sending nodes are for the ledges Thanks for looking!
It definitely doesn't look as long, and probably not as wide. But I was never exactly a huge Gemini fan, so a straight remake isn't of much interest to me anyway. Curious to play on it soon!
"And so begins the era of eye-catching map titles that oddly correspond with the map." The area with the tree looks weird. Maybe you could put something around it? Are you going to replace the brute shots with CRs?
With respect to the tree, it looks well done with the rocks placed as such, but having the sudden transition from the grass to metal never looks good. If you can avoid that with some sort of ring that makes it look like a potted plant rather than something growing in a blob of dirt the janitor missed that would be good. The coliseum windows overlooking the ocean are great and remind me of reflection. The way you have the center set up with two levels I think the ribcage flow design will work quite well. Hopefully I'll have time to join one of your games to play this.
I like it! Gemini was one of my favorite maps from Halo 2, but it did have its issues atleast compared to how much gameplay changed from Halo 2~Halo 3 then Reach. I hate that you have to sacrifice that neat little pond for the tree or vice versa, was one of the reasons I stopped work on my remake of Gemini. But perhaps this is the way to go by doing a reimagination that has some of the originals flair. I've always felt gemini needed more size in general. I'd say rooms should be added that connect to the teleporter pad area overlooking the tree area and overlooking the now rockect spawn to add more risk/reward to what was its small out door area.
Doesnt look bad, but it does look open. I very well could be wrong though. Hopefully I'll get to play a game on this at some point. Also, I dont like the collesseum wall florring. Can it be replaced with something else? Anything? Im fine for using Colosseum walls in some cases, but they look bad as floors.
I agree for the most part, I dont like using colosseum walls as the highest level flooring I can never seem to get it to place itself level enough and it tends to look bland. Even if im running low on pieces I normally try to stick to using blocks and incline pieces for flooring, occasionally ill use brace larges depending on the maps overall build. I normally use the colloseum walls however for flooring on the lowest level to save pieces for the most part, add a little scenery or aesthetic and it usually ends up looking pretty nice. However whats your piece count and budget like at the moment?
I figured doing a straight remake would be nearly impossible so re-imagination was the way to go. So it is a bit smaller. But I have some ideas for expansion which I think it will need. A lot of the things that you guys mentioned were done on purpose to avoid frd issues. I used as few peices as possible. But I'll look into sprucing it up a tiny bit. As it stands the remaining budget is $4340. And the power weapons in case you missed them are.. Rockets 1 spare 180 Sniper 1 spare 180 Sword 150 2 concussion rifles 0 spare 120
Map looks great remember me Gemini but why rocket spawn is Indoor ? Normally on Gemini this part of the map is outdoor ...... Anyways I like the name : We're actually FRATERNAL twins... Hope you will keep it like this !
OP updated with new pictures for your comparing pleasure! Also of note, I made all of those changes and retained a budget of $3800 even. Did several more split screen FR tests and its still smooth. Now we have to see how it handles 8 players...
The new tree does a much better job of filling the room. I like it. The pink/purple room could use some sort of cover in the middle to block some of the room of from the rocket spawn. Otherwise with the height advantage whoever picks up the rockets will dominate that room instantly. Teleporters don't seem necessary in a map this small with the layout so interconnected. I don't know if they were in the original map you're recreating. I just always prefer maps without teleporters to those with them.
I personally dislike tele's too but they were in the original. However after some testing I may remove the one that takes you from top to bottom. And I see what youre saying about covering the rocket spawn, it could get ugly in there, I'll look into it.
Really loving the improvings Grenade, it looks much more temple like with the changes you made. Also like the improvements to the rocket room, Id say if you do decide to add more cover keep the column theme with 1x4 or 1x2 blocks, perhaps in the corners of the ramp, and entrances. Your teleporters above the doors look much better than the ones the original had, and arent nearly as cramped so I support them they should work really well. The tree looks much better and natural, it just will never be able to appear like the originals did. I wish that 343 would give us the ability to use the new pieces they added with the update and new maps, I think the Dead Tree would work pretty well in that spot to. The open air balcony looks really nice and gives you a nice view of forge world, this is all definately nice improvements .
Thanks! I plan on using 1x4's in that exact spot! And that dead tree would have been perfect. (wondering if it's possible to rebuild on ridgeline? Probably not) I'm starting to second guess my weapon placement. I'm thinking that it's too strong of a position for the rockets? What if I swap sniper and rockets? Or replace rockets with something else entirely?