When I made a Perfect Dark remake of Facility on Halo 3, and Reach, I was looking at an emulator the whole time.
You'd think that after playing Countdown for 2 years straight I'd have it down in my head. I'm using videos for reference for the duration of my building seshes.
I look extensively at the original. I draw scaled layouts whilst looking at the map and then I forge from them. The two remakes im making at the moment are from Halo 3. I use respawn areas to measure the size of rooms and then draw layouts to scale. The respawn areas in Halo 4 are 33% bigger than they are in Halo 3 so maths gets a bit tricky sometimes.
just my opinion, but i would have to look at a visual reference the entire time. otherwise i wouldnt feel comfortable with calling it a remake, but rather a spiritual successor or simply a map based off a original work, but not quite the same. but props to anyone and everyone who does a remake.
While making my Damnation/Penance Remake, I switched back to the Reach disc like 50 times. I layed out all of the flooring and ramps/inclines first. Since the pieces are the same as Reach, I would look at each room seperately on Penance, deciding exactly which pieces to use to get the scale right. If I finished a room and it didn't look to scale with the rest of the map, I would delete the whole room and save a new copy of the map, then go back into Penance and try again. Eventually I had it to where I could walk around freely without second guessing any of the scaling. Once the scaling is done, that's the hardest part. Penance was a pretty complex map to make, so I didn't have much room for aesthetics, but I think it's better you spend your time worrying about scale anyway. I think it's important you use most of the texture on any piece that you're using if you wanna get the most out of your pieces. For example, just because you finished a part of the remake properly, doesn't mean you won't need those pieces later. I found I was doing that lots. Thinking a room looks perfect the way it is, bit in reality you spent too much budget on that room, and it just affects the rest of the construction of ze map. So yes, of course you should reference the original. You'd be foolish not to. Like Behemoth says, even maps that you've played forever aren't gunna turn out perfectly souly off of memory.
I personally like to go into the map and measure each and every section in forge units, and find a suitable map to mark these measurements onto. When building, I'll build it accurately first, then optimise the item usage.
For sure. I have two xboxs and two televisions, so I set them both up right next to each other and make direct comparisons. Even so, I still reference overviews and other remakes of the map I am remaking.
I'm using reference videos primarily and the original map and game itself recorded via pics and diagrams when I need them. I add up as many references as I can and make sure all of the angles and objects match up as best as possible. That being said, finding Longshore footage that isn't finding the freakin' skull gets kind of annoying.
You're damn lucky. Plus you aren't trying to make Zealot, from what I know. I look at the original. No way to get that scale right without it.
I actually just finished my first version of "The Pit" on Halo 4. I recorded in Halo 3 me looking at all of the angles, spawns, weapon placements, Ect.. and it turned out amazing. I went back to Halo 3 several times just to make sure I was doing everything correctly and in my thoughts, If your going to create a remake, you better do it right the first time. So spend some time in forge instead of throwing it all together and it should turn out great
I'm just now starting to get into Forge and I'm really missing a lot of the old maps from Halo 2. When I begin forging, I usually use 1 computer to run Halo 2 Vista, 1 computer for more visual aids, and then my Xbox 360 for forge. I begin in a small section and work my way out. What I've found is that Halo 4's forge just doesn't have any aesthetics that please me or that 343i has messed up pieces. I spend a good amount of time just looking at how I can make the map true to the original, but also make it stand out from the usual "white/gray forge pieces everywhere". And since we've only been given 3 maps to use, I feel trying to find an appropriate location for things is a lot harder. For example, I was starting work on a Cage remake late last night for some practice. I was being very meticulous, starting on tower side. But the next piece I needed, the stairway ramp, has not only been made smaller, but had railings added to the underside as well. It's quite the dilemma.
Not to mention the gameplay for H4 is SIGNIFICANTLY different. If you want the maps to feel anything like the original, you'll have to tweak scaling/ areas slightly.
2 TV's 2 Xbox's Screen by Screen, Making every detail possible exactly the same(or as close as possible), Even if default sprint makes a pit remake to small doesn't matter, It's not a remake unless its identical in every way possible imo. Anything added/removed to improve gameplay or aesthetics's or for any reason is a reimagining or spiritual successor or a gameplay emulation.
I started from memory, but then I started going back and adjusting based on run-throughs and taking notes. I had to settle for that because I don't have the current ability to have both open.
I set a hill marker in the dead middle center of the original map I want to make and measure everything written onto paper as detailed blueprints and lists of the the Top, bottom, width and depth of each coordinate. That way I when I goto forge it all of the measurements are exact. When starting a remake in a new game I expand the hill out to its full finished map measurement and drag it around all 3 forge maps to decide where it will fit and how the aesthetics look around it. I remade Narrows and put the Ravine Canyon behind blue base to substitute for the waterfall. As far as ParanoiaUK saying they are 33% different in size I completely disagree. Paranoia should measure two 4x4 flats layed out next to each other by coordinates in Halo 3, Reach and Halo 4. They all equal 4 long by 8 wide... Yes, some of the pieces in 4 are changed, but the pieces don't dictate the ratio. The hill markers measured a section that says 4 x 9.5 in Halo 3 will scale themselves correctly if you make a hill marker in Halo 4 at the same size... I am still very interested in seeing and now measuring Paranoia's map.
Your welcome to take a look mate. And no offense intended but having seen your map I can already tell that your scaling isnt right. The map is way too small. I dont want to insult your forging or your map but the scale just isnt right. Im happy to do measurement on 4x4 to check as you say but I think it will be a waste of time tbh. Im not sure there is a 4x4 block in Halo 3, and i know for a fact there isnt coordinates. Me and Stevo took a long time working out that Halo 4s respawn areas are 33% larger and the in Halo 3. At first we forged a large part of a narrows base using the Halo 3 sizes and could straight away tell that it was way too small. We then set about finding an object which is in both games. We settled on a ramp with unmistakingly a 2x2 footprint. After measuring it we found it only measured 1.5 across both axis.
I am in no way offended, its all a great learning process for all of us. You could quite possibly be onto something I am unaware of. I only give my input to hopefully help others or to learn things myself I didn't know. When I refer to coordinates I mean to use the hill marker on Halo 3 as your 0,0,0,0 starting point. For example Narrows was somewhere around 58 long and 18 wide (not exact, but I'm not home to reference the numbers). When loading up Halo 4 I would expand a hill marker out to the same size and place Colosseum Walls at all of the edges and that way I never ended up building outside of that area. (When forging with a hill marker as your measuring tool, you only reference actual 4's Coordinates to place items or to double check the width of an object it the same as the other side). I hope you will be online today Paranoia cause I would like to learn about the scaling difference you refer to.
I built a remake of Wario Stadium from Mario Kart 64 (on my fileshare now). While forging I used an overhead map from mariowiki and also had an emulator open so I could see the other details. It's about 10 posts in on this thread: Share Your COMPLETED Halo 4 Maps Here... - Forge Hub
You took the words right out of my mouth. This is exactly how I would go about doing a remake. Over the years I have used a few different techniques though. For example I used google sketch-up to build a model of citadel, all protractor for Assembly, and more recently I have been using the official bungie overheads in conjunction with sketchbook mobile and a graph. Although one thing has always stayed consistent and that is I use multiple hill markers to capture the precise geometry of the original maps. Also I have gone back an forth from original to remake many, many, many, times. I've even had two TVs side by side a few times, and used video. I understand the confusion with scaling. This was very difficult for me to decipher as well when Reach first came out. The main problem is that in halo 3 none of the forge pieces matched the ones in reach. I had done many things like use snipers, compare pieces, screenshots, and so on to figure out if these hills are truly the same scale as reach's. Where reach tends to uses 2m Halo 3 uses 1.343(33% smaller than reach/halo 4). What really helped me was when I built Citadel. If you take a hill marker set to one around that map you will find that the face of the struts are in fact 1m at the base. Now I am 99.99% confident that the hills are equal. If it were true that the hill zones were 33% smaller in halo 3 than the remakes where people used these zones would be noticeably diff(A 30x30 map would be 40x40 in reach/halo 4 and this is a huge noticeable difference). I think the thing with Fames map is the heights. X and Y are easy to get with the hills but getting the z axis can be tricky and I think thats Why his Remake might look small. I hope that cleared things up. This video should help you see HCTF Pack01 - YouTube