any ideas?

I'm sure most inspiration comes from real life or other games/fiction outside of Halo. For example I made a basketball map: Real life. Another person made a race map of Bowser's castle: other games. Some person I saw on here made a spaceship of some sorts off of startrek: other fiction.

There are some genuinely unique games made by forgers, and those are usually some of the best for the very reason they are so unique (so long as they are actually good and well put together as well )

 

I generally pick a location I want to use and go from there, but I wouldn't recommend that.
Try picking a gametype first, then try to picture a very general layout while throwing a few pieces down to help you visualize it. Keep getting more specific with the physical features of the map until you have a solid layout. From there, it's just a matter of building that layout as practically and creatively as possible.

 

My complicated luck-based map making process:
1. Figure out what kind of map you want; big team, smaller, invasion, etc...
2. Mess around with areas and vehicles till you find something you kind of like.
Ex. I started work on a sawmill invasion/BTB map recently.
3. Try to build something there, maybe drawing it on paper first.
After this there is a high chance that a map will get started then ignored (Like my sawmill map). After this-
4. Play other games or go cool places (anything inspiring) until that idea just suddenly pops into your head. It can happen anywhere, so sketch it out as soon as you can.
Most of my good maps came out after step 4, when I am finally able to blend a cool theme with a design that is practical for the gametype. That is really the key, as is said above, you have to blend practicality and creativity to make a design come through.

 

I usually just start building something in a spot that looks nice and eventually I'll have something that looks a bit like a map. Most of the time I just think about how everything will look on the fly. I can't be bothered with drawing out a whole map before beginning.

 

sometimes with my map i'll have a solid idea in my head of what i wanted to build. and then i'll get half way done and completley change because i discovered something that would be way cooler. Sometimes i'll try to tell myself that i'm going to make walls using these certain peices or make the floor out something you wouldnt usually use for a floor. aesthetics and uniqueness can help your map dramatically as it helps people recognize areas of your map.

and sometimes thinking to much about it can screw you up to.

 

Questions you should ask yourself/things you should be doing:

- Pre-Forge -
A) Size?
B) Vehicles?
C) Layout? This is where you get to come up with your basic ideas.
D) Sketch sketch sketch, sketch more
E) Objective/spawn placement?
F) Flow check?

- Forging -
A) Find an area that works with your design
B) Rough mass-out, work out distances and heights of structures
C) Refine sketches
D) Flow check?
E) Forge main structures - first "rough" pass, pick which pieces to use
F) Forge main structures - second "detail" pass, clean up construction and add smaller details
G) Show your friends, bring in another set of eyes

- Post-Forge -
A) Flow check?
B) Additional construction refinements
C) Spawn system and objectives
D) Playtest
E) Adjust
F) Repeat steps D and E, ad nauseum

Finally, post your map.

 

Probably the hardest part about forge (in my opinion) is the imagination aspect; even on things like remakes where the layout is done for you, executing the design and making some old structures with blocky objects proves to be quite difficult.

When I make a mini game, the inspiration comes to me in real life (ex: I'm about to post a map of CTF like many kids used to play on soccer fields- by having a tagging system and jail cells: that came from a game we played in gym class and I thought "this could be done in Halo"). Many other people take parts from other good maps and morph them around and some even just create everything on the spot.

I think you need to spend a lot of time focusing on what you need to make; do you want a big team map/smaller maps? do you want it to be symmetric/ asymmetric? what do you want the layout to look like? aesthetics should be the last part of your design IMO because they can draw away from what is needed.

 

There have also been some great campaign missions remade through forge (sorry for no links). Such as:
1. Sierra 117
2. Cargo Port
3. Data Hive
4. The Cartographer

And what makes them great maps is the fact that they play the same as the campaign but with a multiplayer twist. Sure everything looks like its forunner but it is still fun.

In the case of infection maps, zombie based movies are great inspiration and in some cases even scifi hits like aliens can make a sweet infection map.