Forge Style Intro One thing I have noticed that has revolutionized many things is the introduction of a new style. My example is the Beatles. When their music first came out people were to say the least amazed. Why? They introduced a new style. If new styles were introduced to forge incredible maps could be made. Forger's Block Forgers block is another thing that really gets me. You have to know where to start. If you pick a style then your idea for a map will come a lot easier. My Goal Obviously we know what forge style is. Some common styles include forerunner, urban, and covenant. What my goal is is to create a master list of styles people can look at and say, "Okay I'm going to make this style map." This will make building a map much easier. New Styles How do you do something that hasn't been done? Right now my only idea for new styles is to hybrid styles. For example a forerunner city, or a covie construction site. Final Note Depending on how well this works I will update this thread as often as possible adding to the master list. PLEASE comment with styles not on the list or new styles you have! Style Index (will be updated constantly) Covenant: Basically a covenant map. Including Covie weapons and Vehicles. Some famous covie maps include Midship, Assembly and Zealot. The maps are usually purple and blue with sort of a smooth pattern (Round edges) Forerunner: These maps are generally human maps. They have a sort of steel color to them. With huge structures. With this style you tend to hear forerunner tower. Some famous forerunner maps are Valhalla, Forge World, and Relic. ONI (Human): Similar to forerunner. Also contains traces of urban. I believe the style was first introduced in ODST. Steel colors with some plants. Structures are not as giant as forerunner however are tall. credit to GunnerGrunt for ONI/Human style
Interesting idea. I'm not sure what the practical application of this list would be, but whatever. I would add "Natural" style. Implementing the scenery to create a completely organic environment.
Yup, like my Fusion Lagoon map. I have a completely Natural environment in one area of the map. Although, I'm not convinced just picking a style will bring "something new to the table". It's usually an original centre piece or map layout that is the "new" thing. Like Vanilla's centralised Tree, it's now incredibly overused and not implemented as well. Or... Semi-Submerged maps. They were new, and pretty cool at first, but now they're pretty boring and getting a little old. I personally like to create pools (either Natural or Manmade) in my maps. Not a lot of people do them (Which is surprising) but they can be used in different ways (E.g. as Centre-pieces, or different Aesthetic appearances)
That is a good point about the center point, but I don't mean picking a style will revolutionize forging I mean comming up with a new style will.
I don't think it's so much as an 'aesthetic style' as to an approach to how you use objects and the environment to totally capture the mind of your players. Since most, if not all the pieces in Forge World are Forerunner themed, you're quite limited to what you can do in terms of aesthetic variety. Like for example, you can't successfully make a stone castle without forcing your players to use their imagination that all that metal that makes the structure of the castle should actually be in their mind, stone. One thing I've noticed since the release of Reach is that people are trying too hard to make complicated geometry and are ignoring the fact that they should use certain objects for certain pieces of geometry; merging 10 blocks to make a metal Swan with random pieces of glass in it isn't going to look good, and it certainly isn't going to play good. Less is more guys. Forgers should try to emphasize 'object harmony' which basically means, keep your aesthetic theme throughout your entire map. Don't use 30 different approaches to a wall in every room unless you have a good reason to. Try to use objects that have the same texture style together. Try and keep your floors and walls separate from eachother, I can't tell you how many times I've seen a map that uses the same piece for floors and for walls; It's confusing, and ugly. Don't use odd angles, the pieces of Forge World aren't designed to make odd angles, and when they are they look tacky and just plain not fun to look at. The best approach is to keep your objects at 90 and 45 degree angles. Look at Bungie's Forerunner architecture in campaign for inspiration on how they do things. Basically, if you keep your map consistent, in return you're going to get a great looking map. I personally think forgers should stop trying to make the players 'use their imagination' and start making maps themed around the pieces given to us to use in Forge World. Like I said above, a map themed around a castle isn't going to get much attention to me unless it's a futuristic castle, or pulled off perfectly. You want to make a map on a lagoon? Awesome, why not instead of making a boat out of metal pieces that has 100 odd trashy looking angles you make a forerunner structure over the water? I've seen this over and over again, and again, in my opinion it just doesn't work. There are so many options for original maps with original locations, yet people are still forging like this is Halo 3 and just using any object for any task. You also don't need to merge as much as in Halo 3, so forgers should find the right pieces for the tasks and not merge 8 block 4x4 together to create an octagon, because there's easier ways that look better, and are more efficient. Another thing forgers need to really practice is 'color theory' which again basically means using color correctly throughout your map. Using the colors orange and blue is going to look a lot better than using red and blue, simply because orange and blue are complimentary colors. Same goes for blue/green, green/yellow, yellow/blue, red/purple, purple/blue. If you have a great looking map without lights, try putting 'color theory' to use and add in complimentary colors throughout the map. It will make the difference. Anyway, that's all I got for now. I might come back and expand upon what I've written some other time. Here's an example of color theory and object harmony put to use in my upcoming 1v1 map Lime,