Forge Tips I've been reading a lot of threads from people who are struggling with Forge in Reach. Forging is all ive really done since getting the game and im now pretty fluent in its controls so I have decided to write down a few things which I feel may people. One fo the main problems I have read is that people are struggling to get pixel perfect placements when forging. At first this can seem confiusing but there is a way to make those perfect placements everytime. To explain it I first need to explain how the new system works. This may seem confusing as im never very good at explaining my thoughts on paper (so to speak). If anyone needs or wants any help feel free to add me on XBL or invite me to game if we are already friends. There are two ways to manipulate an object. There is the old skool method of free hand movement. This means moving an object by using the anlogue sticks. This is a fast yet innacurate way of moving. The second method it to go into the physics properties by selecting an object and then pressing B. This method is slow but incredibly precise. This part is where it gets slightly tricky, apologies if it is difficult to understand. Every object is movable by either method. The reason people are struggling is because the two methods do not work hand in hand together. Not at first anyway. When moving an object by nudging it along an axis you see a figure appear. For example - X Axis says 59.9. By nudging a object in this way it will always nudge it by multiples of one decimal point. That means it will continue in the following trend: 1.0 - 1.1 - 1.2 - 1.3 - 1.4 - 1.5 etc..... When placing an object using free hand it will be accurate down to more than one decimal place. It is completely random but can following a trend as below: 1.00 - 1.01 - 1.02 - 1.03 etc..... This is where people are starting to struggle. If you place an object down using free hand it could end up on an axis equalling 59.15. You could then place an object next to it and then try to nudge them until they form and even surface. You will end up with your starting object at 59.15 and then nudging object will be nudging between 59.1 and 59.2. It is impossible to get an even merge like this. It will keep going either side of the original object. You will notice if you place an object using free hand and then go to change its axis it will move slightly. This is because it is reverting back to the scale which the AI likes. This is not a bad thing. The way to get a perfect placement everytime is to either use the nudge tool from the beggining an nudge every object into place. The other way is to move the object into roughly the right place and the nudge the remainder of the way until you are happy. Both techniques can be used together providing the last manipulation of the object is a nugde. This will allow all objects to merged perfectly. I hope this helps some people and also hope it wasnt too difficult to understand.
I think, but am not sure yet, that this also goes for other axises as well, just like moving a piece up or down. So you could rotate an object to a certain angle, then merge another object to it, but not be able to line up the second with the first exactly because the first object may be at a more precise angle than the second object. But I haven't tested it yet, so I'm not sure. I noticed what you're saying here already while I was forging. I don't find it to be a problem at all really though. All you have to do is go to the original object and move it up or down to one of the closest two decimal points.
It's also worth adding that if you're using free-hand, don't even select "edit co-ordinates" for whatever reason. As stated by the OP, the object will then 'snap' to its nearest co-ordinate value, effectively erasing any of your freehand 'fine tuning'. I just do every last bit on the co-ordinates scale, so that everything is relative to everything else. Just watch out for Z-fighting, and the fact that there is ALWAYS a bump, even when you line identical objects up with the co-ordinate method. But that was always the case, so there's no need to be a perfectionist with free-hand to try and fix that for every friggin piece :/
Interesting observation. This is very helpful and I will be sure to "finish off" all my pieces with co-ordinate editing when I work on my first map!
Im glad people understand what i mean. Another way to look at it is to imagine a ruler. Using the Nudge tool will move the object in Centermeters (CM). Using the free hand tool will move it in Milemeters (MM). So unless a freehanded object luckily lands on a Centermeter value nudging up to it will never work.
Hi there, Thank you for posting this. I'm not sure I fully grasp this yet, but I'm going to bookmark it for when I'm in front of my 360 next. I'm a noob when it comes to Forging (even back in Halo 3) and I really appreciate the knowledge and passion on this site. I'm excited to see what you truly skillful people will created. Thanks again
TL;DR version. Place your object, then just go into the nudge menu and it will snap to a nice even decimal coordinate that you can then snap other object snugly with. It helps with symmetry too. Have an object placed at the absolute center of your map at a nice even coordinate number like (100,100) and then you can go to one side and see that some object is at coordinate 122.4 so you just have to subtract the 22.4 from 100 to find exactly where that object's mirror needs to be on the other side of the map.
My issue is that, even with co-ordinates, it doesn't work. Go into forge, take two like objects obviously intended to fit together, like the halves of the disc, and put them together with snap and coordinates. There'll be a tiny little gap between them, or overlap, and they'll be slightly askew from one another. Nothing ever actually meets. You can always see through the seems. You can get the rotational snap down to 5 degrees, but it's the coordinate adjustment that is annoying me.
This isn't Halo 3 where grenades and such get lost in those random miniscule gaps between objects. They bounce nicely now. Most of the time, snapping is just fine except when using odd angles and stuff like that.
All that says, however, is that it's not a BIG problem. Still though, why not just give us a patch that allows us to nudge to the hundredth (.01) instead of just the tenth (.1) so that things could actually match up? Bungie's official forged maps don't seem to have this problem.
In other words, whenever placing an object use coordinates for at least the final placement so all items are all lined in increments of 0.1 on the world's grid.
Even better would be the option to "snap" all objects to a 3 dimensional grid so all of the objects with this option selected would line up perfectly.