Just recently an idea popped into my head. The idea grew. It developed. It thrived. This idea is so flexible and intuitive Im surprised it has not been implemented or even thought of by Bungie/Certain Affinity/343. The first part of my idea is simply, why not be able to change the sizing of the Block as if it were a hill. All the other predefined sizes would remain, but spawn as the basic block with a specified value. The rest of the structure categories would also remain, with a few exceptions. The basic bridge, basic glass panel, basic ramp and basic bank would be new additions, all adjustable. Obviously there would be some sort of restriction, say 20x20x20 for the Blocks. Theres more to my idea, though, that makes it much more reminiscent of what Forge is about. The second part involves what I label as 'Texture', 'Shade' and 'Hue'. Rather than solid colours as I've seen so many people mention, this system could cycle through a list of textures that are much more basic and uniform than what we have now. Some of these textures can include: - Forerunner (think the architecture) - Covenant (that honeycomb texture, but not restricted by colour) - Metal (what the objects are made of now) - Concrete - Asphalt - Wood - Rock - Grass The textures would be designed so that no matter the size of the block, the texture stays continuous. Now onto 'Shade'. There would be 3 choices, light, neutral and dark. And like, the brightness controls in Photoshop, it changes the brightness of the texture. (think Ravine compared to Erosion) The third item is 'Hue'. This is either developed as in depth as you'd find in Photoshop, or more restricted to what you colour your spartan with. This depends on feasibility. So in a nutshell: - Blocks, ramps, banks, glass, and bridges have a basic item that are all adjustable like a KoTH hill - All other objects would remain but not be adjustable. - Texture cycles through various textures that are much more uniform than what we have now - Shade adjusts lightness of the texture - Hue adjusts the hue Oh yeah. The objects also rotate around there own axis rather than a global one. Discuss. Share. Tell 343. Ask me a question if something doesn't make sense or you need clarification.
Why restrict yourself to the system already in place. Why not rebuild forge partially from the ground up?
You'd need to switch to an entirely new system.. that would take ages. Besides, if they did that, there'd be no point in forge objects, just allow the game to import files from Gtk or whatever.
I dont think so. See the other objects are still useful in terms of aesthetics and what not. Its the structural items that could use an overall, and what better way to do it than adjustable sizes. See the system Ive suggested keeps forge as forge rather than turning it into a Far Cry 3 editor or a 3D Modelling program.
like the idea, sure there would be some challenges or roadblocks, but that is expected with any development of software. if they couldn't scale and felt they needed to keep havok, you could just create three sizes of certain items so that it would give you a different sense of scale for each. then each could have its own texture and the stitching together of textures wouldn't be blocky with lines in it. would really love the variation in textures which has been mentioned many times before, but still it is a great idea so thumbs up!
At this point they're clearly aiming more for people just messing around than seriously trying to make a map since there are already programs to do that albeit not for halo. Despite my love of forging I'd rather see effort put into making the game itself less glitchy so objects don't disappear when only partially obscured and revert to boxes when halfway across the map, lighting isn't downright bad, and framerate doesn't drop every time you get a nice view or something interesting happens (ie the times when you want framerate to be high). tldr: Move the rest of the game on from the beta then worry about fixing forge.
If Halo 4 handles map objects the same way Halo 2 did, then that means all objects are saved to the .map file. If this is true, then that would mean each forge map would need to have a geometry file for every possible combination of object and size (ramp 1x1x1, 1x1x2, 1x1x3 etc...) This simply wouldn't be plausible in terms of hard drive and disc space to have this type of a system on multiple forge enviroments, which means that there would need to be one dedicated forge map (ala Forge World). Once again, we have a problem though. Back in Reach's development Bungie stated that they were having difficulties getting all the objects to fit and render properly on a map that large. With this system, there would EASILY be a hundred, maybe even a thousand times more geometry files than Forge World contained. Even if they could get them all working properly with a new Forge World, the map file would likely be a few hundred gigs, which simply isn't possible to distribute (or load in-game for that matter.) Though it's a novel idea, they would have to completely redesign their forge engine, and the way maps and objects are packaged in the game, which would take a MASSIVE amount of time and resources. Simply put, never gonna happen for a side feature of console game.
I'm surprised at some of the super-complex suggestions some folks are making lately. This game is running completely maxed out on hardware that's almost a decade old. If Halo 5 gets released on it (or if we're talking Halo 4 still) simple will be the name of the game. Now maybe on a next-gen console we'll see more complexity, but I doubt it'll be to the level veteran forgers expect. I see more objects, but not world geometry manipulation -- ever. It's a totally different type of engine than, say, Far Cry 3. One relies on BSP (Binary Space Partitioning; look it up) while the other is essentially objects placed on terrain (lots of RTS games are like this). BSP just isn't built for that kind of manipulation, and I don't see 343i dumping a well established system just for forgers no matter how much they care/don't care for the community. **EDIT** That being said, I think there's room for improvement still. *Similar to the OP's idea, shaders can be used to inexpensively (resources-wise) change the dynamics of a texture. I've used this trick many times before in other games. It could be used to desaturate (take all the color out), lighten or darken, or even add a tint. This is something that could be (relatively) easily introduced some time in the future (maybe Halo 5). Rather than loading two whole sets of textures the shaders would dynamically change the attributes of those textures, relying more on one-time processor use (during load/render) rather than trying to squeak inside what must be an already maxed out memory pool.
Everyone acts as though it's not possible... It's a video game. Everythings possible. Halo 5 (If properly made and not just spit out after a year) will have an incredible forge system. It gives 343 and Certain Affinity a chance to make their own forge. Not just a copy pasta from Halo: Reach. Like I always say. With 343 taking over the franchise, it's a new cycle. Bungie's Games = Halo 1 < Halo 2 < Halo 3 343's Games = Halo 4 < Halo 5 < Halo 6 They're learning. Halo 5 will present truely EVEN gameplay. DMR will be balanced with BR. (It would already be balanced if they had just used the same one that came out with Reach. Huge bloom. Forge was not their top priority in bringing the franchise back to life, it was story, accuracy, experience. THEN came multiplayer, then came forge. If you're still reading this, props. Maybe Halo 5 will stop everyone from bitching so much. Don't get me wrong, I'm one of them, but only with a few things. This game is basically REACH with nostalgic aspects to it. Halo 4 isn't meant to be the next big thing. It's a stepping stone to it.
halo map files are extremely small compared to most digital media now days... measured in kb, rather than mb or gb. That doesn't contain the individual pieces, jsut the information of where to place each piece, which type of piece it is, and its orientation and other settings. I've read somewhere that it is basically a text file with a bunch of coordinates and other stuff like that... more textures and more sizes for certain pieces wouldn't mean that these map files would grow very much, but they would grow. They would grow because they would need to store additional information for each piece. The size of the piece, and the texture number. If you have a piece, it's info may be listed something like this: Code: x,y,z=0,0,0 (position) 0,0,0 (orientation... sorry I couldn't remember what each value was called) size=1 (default size) tex=3 (third variation of texture) startspawn=True spawndelay=0 phys=Fixed those are all gueses of how it is notated, but these are the things (among others) that need to be stored for each piece. At most when you add a choice of size and texture for a piece, you are only adding a few bytes of data for each piece, which in total would only be a few kb of additional data for each map file. that is miniscule. Notice that when you download DLC it takes many minutes because you have to get all of the new information about that new map or pack of maps? When you upload or download someone's forge map, it takes maybe two seconds! That's the difference between mb and kb respectively. I don't think there's anything difficult about implementing additional sizes or textures. It's just a matter of will, and where there's money, there is a "will" lol I just don't know if they would implement these things unless we paid more. And that is pure crap given the fact that we have almost no forerunner pieces but have decor on Ravine that is forerunner and can't make things match.