Beacon Straits

Yet another Narrows remake...

Regardless this looks decent. It has an overall clean look to it. I can tell the frame rate is really good by the pics. You could maybe stop players taking damage on the lifts by adding a block which they slide down as they land. Might work :/

 

Narrows.... The first thing is thought when i saw this map.
But as i see it isnt a remake, it must be inspired by the real map Narrows, because it looks very much like it.

I can tell there must be an difference in mechanics and such, but it looks like an very solid map, intresting... il will DL, and maybe play a game on it.
At least getting an view on the map in Forge World.

 

Well, the influence from Narrows was obvious, but you pulled it off very well. You've tested framerate, split-screen, and multiple playtests? Wow, the noobs grow up so fast. :') This is a great map.

 

I hate to burst your bubble, BC, but just because it is not scaled to the original proportions does not mean that it is not a remake. You say you wanted to make a map similar in design and gameplay, yet your practically remade Narrows. Everything from the original map is here, the man cannons, top and bottom mid, the snipe perches, the tac jumps etc.

It is okay to remake a map dude. It is a fun project to work on and you always have something to reference to. My only problem is that it seems you refuse to lend credit where it is due. Is it inspired by a certain map? Say so. Is it a remake, scaled to original or not, of a certain map? Then simply say so. Honestly, I would fess up to the latter...

The forging seems fairly clean, and the aesthetics are definitely there. It's not gray all over, and you seemed to have color-orientated the map well. There is not obvious z-fighting, and it looks like you have use your objects very efficiently, which shows that it was well thought out and not rushed.

Personally, I am not in favor of having FFA or TEAM ONLY weapons. It is inconsistent. Also, I hate the Concussion Rifle, hate hate hate. I guess it must be fun to blow another player off the map while they are left powerless to do a thing about it.

I've been offline for a while, and would like to get a game on this with you and the others. Hit me up sometime man. Also, I misspelled your map's name as Bacon Straights. I like it better.

You are one to talk. You run around the forums only ever commenting 'Great map' on almost every thread just to get your post count up. Why is it such a big deal if someone tests for framerate and split-screen compatibility anyway? Shouldn't every forger run tests on their maps before they post them?

 

I disagree with this statement. I can see a lot of objects that could cause frame drops, such as the bridge, xl on bottom, the railings, the glass sails, and the many walkway covers in each base. All of these pieces have lights on them (and some have transparent glass) so if you ever do encounter problems with framerate drops, these should be the first objects to go. That said, I find it highly unlikely that there are absolutely no framerate issues on this map, especially looking down the longer lines of site. I would get a full game of 4v4 going and really check every sight line.

Aside from that, I can't really say much about the map. I don't see any glaring problems with the layout, but since it's essentially a remake of a tried-and-true Halo 3 favorite, there wasn't exactly any risk of failure.

Edit: Nooch is right, you really ought to just flat out credit Narrows and call this a remake or at least say it was heavily inspired by it.

 

I recently checked out 'BACON Straights' in forge and a custom game by myself. Sorry again, Cloud, but I gotta retract my previous statements about z-fighting and object efficiency. There is a good amount of z-fighting and your object choice was inconsistent throughout the map. You also used a lot of object that include lights; railings, large walkway covers, glass sails etc, and this will contribute to framerate loss.

You did say that the map's framerate held up in-game though and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Should you decide to clean the map up a bit, then try to replace some of the objects with lights with objects without lights. Also, I would try to be very selective about the objects used, and not throw down a piece simply because it fits.

 

BC previously made a narrows remake that was pretty much pixel perfect but had some pretty nasty performance issues.

In this version, he has made the map fit the blocks rather than trying to make the blocks fit the map. The resulting object efficiency has improved performance MASSIVELY at the expense of compromising the original dimensions of the map somewhat. A good trade off in my opinion. I'm sure you could make the design even more efficient however.

Agree with Nooch. You should deffo post this as a remake, even though it is not an exact remake. The game play is virtually identical after all.

 

I'll take your word on the lack of any frame rate issues, but I would like to let you know for future projects that, regardless of the direction a piece with lights is facing, the frame rate problems they can cause are still present at full effect.

Absolutely anything that light hits and bounces off of will have to be rendered as such, even if the light is hitting polygons that aren't visible to the player. Any kind of render will compute every face and polygon in the scene, even those that aren't visible from the camera- if it's there, it has to be rendered. In Forge it is no different; if you can see the tiniest corner of an object, the whole thing is rendered lights and all.

So, for example, all of your walkway covers that have their lights facing inward toward each other. The player never sees these, but the engine still has to render the entire walkway cover, inside and out, plus the 4 lights that are all bouncing off the other walkway covers forming the pillar.

Sorry if I got a little long-winded, but again, this is just for your future reference when designing a map. Cheers.

 

Quoted for truth. It doesn't matter whether or not they actually cast light on an object. I is still being rendered.

Also, another thing to think about is that players activate lights as they walk by them. This means you could have players activating different objects with lights around the map at any given time. This may appear to be a seemingly random frame rate drop, which may be confused with object density or something else, when really too many lights are being activated at once across your map.

Lastly, there were only 3 players on the map while we were playing BC. While I still take your word on lack of frame rate issues with a full 8 player party, the 3 player FFA doesn't prove to me that there are no frame rate issues.

 

I have to disagree with you on this blaq, when we played 5v5 the framerate drops were scattered across the map. most of it was in the far back corners where you can see straight across. near the middle it was actually very minor but the FR in the each corner of the map was definately game-breaking. maybe these are issues you have already taken care of but that was my immediate first impression. I suggest working on an updated version.