Because that's what i'm doing when I highlight the edges of ramps? Hardly worth the innuendo. Let me stop you there. The main reason I forge is to design environments. Whether it is terrain, structure or a mix, the ultimate goal for me is to create an airtight space that immerses the viewer in a painstakingly crafted world. The player count that I enjoy most that allows me to do this with as much detail as possible is 2v2, therefore it is what I've resigned myself to designing. There was a period of time where I was obsessed with creating a great playing 4v4 arena map to get into matchmaing. I thought it'd be cool to get pros on my map and see it in tournaments. But then I realized that I don't care about that kind of gameplay and I'm not going to waste my time building maps for matchmaking when that selection is out of my control. If 343 wanted to use it in a playlist and I was forced to make a bunch of changes, I would tell them no. This is my vision and if it is not what you want, then you wont have it. I'm considering moving into actual development because I want that vision to be explicitly represented as best as possible. So what happens after it is built in Maya? I make a badass flythrough video, and then put it on the shelf and move on to the next project with no regrets. I am glad that people enjoy my map, and I would absolutely want for people to play the high quality version. But what brings me satisfaction is walking out of a door and admiring the distribution of lighting; or in watching the fog blanket the winding pathways and hearing the ambiance as I dash through the halls. What makes me feel like I did a good job is when I can pan the camera through the space and lose myself in the world I have created. That's why I Forge - to prove to myself that I can make something extraordinary. I'd enjoy it even if no one else did, but even if everyone else did, I wouldn't if I did not. Optic Prison is a map built with gameplay first and the palette can be swapped a million times while still maintaining that gameplay. That doesn't mean that it can't be arted up or given more atmosphere; however, it wasn't integral to the design, therefore the map can be functionally completed without it. Unfortunately for me, that is not how I approach maps in Forge. I am a "campaign Forger" in the sense that the mood, emotion and implied narrative a map conveys is more important than the way it plays to me. Everything I make has a theme, color palette and set of emotions attached to it. Now you will never see me release a poorly playing map because I don't think those things have to be mutually exclusive. A decent layout should be expected. But you'll also never see it posted until the emotion I want to convey is captured. It's not complete. I rushed the areas I wasn't comfortable with to make a deadline I gave myself. So now I'm wracking my head against the way those areas are build while trying to squeeze the object limit to put point lights everywhere, because apparently the map has been dark all this time. Forge is very powerful right now, but the moment I start pushing the limitations is when I begin wonder why I haven't been forging aesthetic maps.
Bro, I don't even know what that means. It was a little petty joke because that's as far as I got into your post before I stopped caring enough to continue reading.
Rim lighting is an outline. Ambient rim lighting is the light that bounces off of a surface to create an outline. The light below is ambient lighting from the global light source being reflected off of the grass ramp onto the rock wall and then back onto the ramp. Without that lighting, the ramp would be dark. I swear some of you guys look at me like I'm speaking a foreign language.
Put your future Maya projects into a portfolio, take a few semesters worth of courses a local community college and start applying at dev studios to be a 3d environment artist. Forge is a hobby which develops many skills that are applicable in a variety of gaming industry (and others) positions. Nobody can blame goat for wanting to use a different medium when its the medium itself holding back his full artistic potential.
ZombieVillain meant it as a perverted humor joke as in "Rim Job" and no I didn't mean for him to hold back his artistic potential. Just wanted to keep him motivated creating maps in forge for his enjoyment and others. I hope to see more of his work, preferably not scrapped... lol On the topic of what we are working on - I have been trying to build H2 Midship, I don't think I'm gonna be able to make the curved areas of Carbine look much better unless someone can suggest a cleaner option? P1, P2, P3 is coming along nicely though. I really want to make the walls smoother from the bases to P side, but they always look segmented. I want a bit more of organic curved feel. Any suggestions on the progress so far? The map is not as shiny as it appears, I just have a ton of lights at max brightness while I'm building.
yup if you wanted to take it beyond a hobby, that's definitely the way to do it. i don't think it's the kind of career i'd want though because very rarely would you have any creative freedom at that point. I know it was a joke but it highlights an issue I have with the Forge where it seems like the fact that it's a "hobby" means you shouldn't take it seriously. The Halo custom edition forums and other mapping communities invest a lot more time in the technical and artistic sides of development; you can learn a lot just by reading through some of the forums where people discuss their lighting techniques and other elements of design. But Forge still has that stigma surrounding it because we're "just playing with lego" or something.
All this aesthetics talk makes me wonder: does anyone even see that stuff when they're playing? I'll appreciate aesthetic for a while if I'm running around the map by myself to study it, but when actually playing it if it's not something that can be verbally identified quickly I don't register in terms other than how it will affect my gameplay. I don't look at a beautifully designed cliff or skybox in the middle of a game. I just note them as a rough block and lighting respectively. It's why I never got why people complained about Reach's Forge mostly being grey. As long as objects were lit and contrasted well enough to not ruin my depth perception I simply didn't notice any of that. Another example would be any of the remastered Anniversary maps for Reach in CEA. Great to look at, but short of areas where there was a notable gameplay difference utterly indistinguishable from their originals from 2001 to me while in the middle of a game. I guess what I want to say is that just because we can, doesn't mean we should. Simple can be just fine, and in some cases can actually pay homage to days of yore which in turn is a pretty cool look on its own.
I was getting sick of fussing with the same map and I couldn't get motivated to do much with any others but I did want to try my hand at doing some high detail forging. I hadn't planned on remaking this map, but it seemed perfect for this task. Tonnes of work to do and scaling issues aside, the basic layout is there. I chose to raise the ceiling and stack everything high as opposed to lowering the ceiling and putting inv blockers everywhere. I'm going to miss having the ability to lob grenades over the lower crates. Oh well, things gotta change.
Yes You light areas of the map you want to draw the player's attention to. You vary detail with negative space to further direct players and illustrate the boundaries of the playspace. All of that is related to depth perception, orientation and composition. You don't need "aesthetics" to accomplish this, but that doesn't mean it is irrelevant. When you are mastering a track in music, you EQ the instruments to arrange them in a certain way so no one part blares over the other. You tune their frequency so that they can all be heard individually, but come together to form a whole. Do you want to leave the bass muddy and the drums too loud? No, you want to EQ that **** so it doesn't blow your speakers or otherwise sound obnoxious. IAnd that's the problem I see on a lot of 343's maps. They're jumbled piles of over processed detail splattered across every corner of the screen "just because they can" and it makes their maps difficult to read. On some of them I can't tell walls from floors and doors. The fact that people will eventually learn the map isn't an excuse to neglect its presentation.
As a guy that read your post after adding my own, I can't help but notice the obvious connection. Aesthetics aren't everything, but as you can see from my post, visual impact does play a factor. As someone remaking his own map, it's kinda nice when you can see something closer to what you had in your minds eye. Will it make the game more enjoyable? It's arguable. I would say the best way to describe it is, if you had the opportunity to sleep with someone, wouldn't you prefer to do it when they look hot?
I just don't take it serious enough. Even less as of late but no need for anyone to get all worked up about it. Goat, that's great that you do take it that serious & everyone knows you are great at it especially in the artistic side. I am stunned by the stuff you pull off but I just don't care enough anymore so I was just making a joke. Regardless of how anyone feels about forge & level development, you guys need to just chill.
I agree with this post. I just don't take forge that seriously. It's just fun for me when it stops becoming fun I just stop doing it for awhile. I got burnt out on forge about 2 months ago and I haven't touched it since. I figure I'll pick it back up in a few weeks and start where I left off. I get burnt out on forge all the time and quit then return several times a year. I've never understood why some people feel the need to make a dramatic exit and return to forge. I view it as just a game because, well, it's just a game. I simply don't take it seriously. I never sit around and think 'I don't feel like forging anymore should I continue doing it or not I still have so much room to improve.' I just quit when I feel like it and return when I feel like it. I can't wrap my head around it being more than just something I do for fun. With that said, I understand others have different opinions and do take it as more than just a hobby. And to that I say do whatever you want and don't let anyone's post dictate what you do. In regards to map design. I find it boring now. I just focus on aesthetics. I come to this thread to see pictures of cool looking maps. When someone posts map progress, I just look at the aesthetics and disregard the design. Lol
I don't disagree with any of that. But when you're constantly chasing perfection for the sake of minuscule details that definitely don't fall under the boundary of necessary to the point that you never actually release any of these maps to let people play on them and then refine them based on a significant amount of real film data and talking to players you're ultimately going to end up hitting a personal glass ceiling repeatedly. Of all the various screenshots, annotated or not, that I've seen of Spellbound over the course of lurking for a few months my view as a player is that they're basically devoid of information. You focus agonisingly on drawing the eye and highlighting doorways and such but until people are actually on the map and playing it to scale none of those screenshots really help add to our mental images (again, I don't know if other people do this but personally I try to hold a mental 3D representation of the map I'm playing in my head and extrapolate other player positions based on audio and visual cues) and let us think about how we would approach moving about the map in a real game. I know you can make maps that play well, Goat. You did it capably enough in Reach (let's ignore that giant diamond hallway X shape thing that I can't recall the name of) whilst also making the map look good for their time, and I know you can do it again if you'll just release a map and then allow yourself to iterate on it once it's been out of the lab for a while.
Ignore that "diamond hallway x shape thing" and I have one decent map under my belt, which I was never fond of either. Anyway, I released the map and I am iterating on it based on what I have heard. People said it's too dark, so I put more lights in a few places and I'm redoing some of the walls to increase the negative space. The map would not have gotten to where it is if I didn't keep pushing myself to make it better, and i'm not going to put it aside until I am content with it. At this point I've annoyed everyone for long enough so whatever. I don't want to hear it anymore so I wont say anything.
You aren't annoying me. That's what this thread is for. That's cool I just didn't feel like reading it so I skipped through & just made a little joke. Just being me, I like to make people laugh so now, without even trying, I always make little comments because my mind has been trained to do it. My wife hates it lol. Wasn't meant to throw shade at you or to be rude. If I don't want to read it I'll skip it but lots of people probably are interested in your posts.
I agree with everyone, lol. Matclan is right. Goat is also right. You're just looking at this from two different perspectives. One is primarily concerned with how the map plays, while the other is primarily concerned with creating a setting they're satisfied with. Those goals don't align, so obviously your opinions on what's important are going to be different. Goat, reading your goals and perspective today has changed my opinion, so thank you for sharing. It all makes sense now. I think learning Maya is a great idea, because it'll line up with your goals perfectly. You're never going to feel satisfied with what you create in forge, so why bother with it? You could always use it as an extra tool to see how a space would play, if that's something you're ever interesting in, but otherwise Maya with be a much better fit for you.