Thanks for taking the time to read. I've been forging since Halo 3 and I'm well acquainted with the idea of budgets. There were workaround glitch maps for Halo 3, and there aren't any now. 10000 is fine, but I'm having problems getting past something in the area of 6880 on a map I'm forging on Impact. I'm aware that some people have raised questions about budgeting as a form of memory stability and a type of lag prevention. I'm also aware that during a demo a while ago it looked like Forge was going to have a 1000000 budget. Reasonable limits are fine, but building a legitimate map takes planning, especially when size and symmetry are accounted for. Starting a map, I know that I have to allot a certain amount for basic map structure and then objects for each individual game type thereafter. I have much bigger plans for my map than 6880 (again, an estimated figure). It was disappointing to reach this budget cap when I haven't even finished the basic framework of my map yet! I was planning on using the full 10000, and this reasonable expectation was guiding my work all the way along. Is this a problem that is idiosyncratic and something I can troubleshoot, or is there a unique budget cap on each map that is lower than 10000? Are there generally accepted budget caps out there for each map that most people aren't aware of yet? If the caps are in fact less than 10000 (which is low enough as it is), it would be really helpful to compile a list for people who are forgers and seriously want to generate content with high standards. We need as much creative freedom as we can get if we want to continue to bridge the gap between community and company driven content.
It would be a good idea to read this thread. It fully describes how there is another budget that isn't officially shown in the game. You should keep under it or the dynamic lighting stops working. It is pretty difficult to reach the budget of 10000 anyway since each object type has a limit too. And with the budget being a lot larger in the first forge videos; everything simply had an extra zero on the price. So, although the budget was 100000, objects were, say, 100 instead of 10. I guess they just decided to change it back to how it was before for some reason.
I was there at RTX when they did that demo and Franky commented saying that that wouldn't be the final budget. Also, I've hit the budget building my pit remake but luckily I had just finished it. Hopefully with the next Halo game being on the next xbox console will allow for a higher budget due to the higher specs of the hardware.
Thanks for the feedback guys, I appreciate it. Thanks for the thread and the extra info. And thanks for the live account of RTX. Information at its source is the best.
I'm confused as to what your issue actually is. What limitation do you believe you're encountering? If it's the lighting problem, that thread linked above breaks it down nicely; you just need to steer clear of certain objects as much as possible (not unlike the notorious framerate-breakers in Reach, which included anything with lights on it and most anything with glass). If it's not that, and you're just having screenlag, that could be for various reasons - too many objects (especially complex objects) in view simultaneously is usually the cause. There was also, at least in Reach, a thing called disco where the map's objects would flash white rapidly if too many items were in your field of vision at once (items including players, vehicles, and weapons; also, it didn't matter if the items could even be seen or not, just that they were in front of you and theoretically visible based on your orientation). I haven't verified if this happens in Halo 4 or not, but with forge and the game engine being very similar, I wouldn't be surprised. If you search the Reach forge discussion forum for "disco" you'll probably find threads that mention the actual known object limit. This was a very variable problem - you could be way under the 10000 budget and have disco due to using basically every available $10 item, plus weapons, etc. (It was even easier to see it in forge due to the engine having to render spawn points and objective markers that aren't physically rendered in a custom game.) Or you could hit the 10000 limit and never see it, if your map used a lot of more expensive pieces like decoratives and gadgets. And then there was (again in Reach, not sure about Halo 4) a hard object limit over which you could not go. Sometimes people would be somewhat under budget but hit this limit while placing spawns and weapons, and suddenly not be able to place another object of any type - even a free one. It's especially prevalent in BTB maps since they can use more objects, and again on maps where a lot of less expensive items were used to stay under budget but allow for more complex structures. All you could do in that case was reduce and streamline your object count wherever possible. Basically, forge's 10000 budget is the only obvious, clear limit, but there are some others in the background to be concerned about. In my own maps I try to aim for under 350 total structure pieces, regardless of budget - preferably well under - and also keep my overall budget to 7500 or less. I also often will start by building my "dream map," extravagantly pretty and complicated, and then take a few passes stripping it down to essentials to get it performing as well as possible. Basically, you need to be economical. If you find yourself building $10,000 maps, they will often encounter glitches as described above, or prove to be less than optimally playable due to bad performance.
While Nutduster pretty much hit the nail on the head, there are always exceptions to the rule. My current project (no I won't promote it) is hovering around 9,500 budget, but I don't have any problems with broken lighting, disco, or hard limits. I've used all my blocks, almost all my walls, most of my platforms, and a fair number of inclines. It still plays well, and I've heard no reports so fare of framerate issues or screen lag.
Thanks for the additional info Nutduster. I wasn't aware of most of the issues in your post. I'm not having lighting problems or frame rate issues. It sounds like I just might have hit a hard object limit. My exact problem is that I'm forging a map on Impact and I can no longer place any objects (free or not) at a budget limit of 6880. It seems strange that I would have already hit the object limit, but I guess my map might be large enough for that to happen. All that extra space on Impact is inviting, but I guess having an intensively condensed and truly expansive map might be hard to accomplish right now. It is nice to hear about exceptions though, Fragsturbait. I'm really hoping that this changes with the next console. Or by some alignment of the planets a Steambox becomes involved and just obliterates all of these limitations. Maybe the next console will do this anyway. Assuming 343 is on board with letting us generate this kind of content. I don't see any reason for them not to be. Thanks guys.
There is a hard object cap. I hit this with every map I make, though usually when placing spawns. I'm not sure what the actual cap is but on Ravine I discovered that objects and spawns had separate caps that might somehow be connected. An example would be I could not longer place railings despite having 50 of those left, but I could place spawns, objectives, etc.
have you ever run into an issue where you can't place a free item like a spawn point or objective? Since they are not really "objects" but place-holders for an event to take place, I don't think the game would limit them except by the arbitrary limit imposed in that section of the item menu. I think it is 250 spaws, right?
Spawns and objectives are limited by the hard object cap mentioned by myself and Sinoguard. If you place enough total objects you'll get to a point where you can't put down a spawn point, even though it's free and doesn't actually render outside of forge. In Halo 3 and Reach it seemed like this cap was strictly the total number of any kind of object, so if you hit it, you could delete one block or weapon and it would let you add one spawn point or hill marker. Not sure how it works in Halo 4 except that it seems to still exist in some form, and Sinoguard suggests that the relationship between object types may be more complex than before.
cool. so you know you've hit the limit by it just refusing to place the object, much like when you exceed an individual pallet's limit? thanks for the good info, BTW. I'm posting a thread with a map that is at 10,000 so that's why I'm so curious. It does need some spawn and objective stuff added, but the level is largely finished. not giong to promote the map, but it will be the next one I post a preview thread for
Placing as many $0 objects as I could (zones, spawns, objects) the hard object limit for Impact and Ravine was 652 for me.
Great idea. I'll have to investigate that too. We'll see if it lines up with yours. Then at least we'll have isolated one constant. That's assuming all free objects have the same value in categories other than money, like memory. If you post a list of the objects you used, maybe other people will also try to run the exact same test. Nutduster and Sinogard are probably right about there being several relationships with different weights associated with them. We don't know how free objects relate to each other, other than costing the same amount of money. We don't know how free objects relate to non-free objects, and we don't know how free objects relate to objects of different monetary and "other" value. We also don't know how objects of varying monetary and "other" value relate to each other. We do know that we are capped for a single or combination of the above factors. We know that we have been capped at different values on different maps. Because of this we know that there are other factor(s) at play other than money. We know that once we are capped we cannot place objects of any value type. I'm trying to be as reductionist and thorough as possible so we can further investigate and nail this down. [br][/br]Edited by merge: Observation: I was initially capped at 6880. I removed all of my initial and respawn points (maybe a couple hundred), and I was able to continue placing objects and resume my project. This was a direct substitution of free objects for objects worth money. I wish I had counted the spawn points before I removed them, to see if it took the same amount of monetary objects as spawn points to get capped. I can't say for sure, but it is looking more and more like free and monetary objects are treated equally, under a universal hard object limit. The limit may appear to happen at different budget values because people are using varying amounts of free objects and monetary objects. It seems possible that the budget total of 10000 acts as a final ceiling if the hard object limit isn't reached first. If we find that a consensus is reached for a hard object limit of 652 for free objects only on Erosion, Impact, and Ravine, that seems like it will bring us closer to figuring out the solution. It appears that some people have maxed out the budget, possibly avoiding the hard object limit. If someone can count their object total as they forge a map that maxes out the budget, we will know if 652 (or the consensus number) applies only to free objects, or if it applies to both free objects and monetary objects, separately and/or together. I have a feeling that using the highest priced items and working downward, maxing out the budget, will yield a lower item total than 652 (or the consensus number). If we know the outcomes of the isolated extremes, that is we know what the picture looks like using only free objects (preferably the exact same objects across tests) and what the picture looks like using the highest-priced objects moving downward (again, identical objects preferable), we may be able to infer the result of every outcome in between. This would be huge, because if the relationships are as stated, free objects would tax the hard object limit just as much as monetary objects. Again, I have marveled at how many more objects I've been able to use once I removed my spawn points in the scenario I have talked about in this thread.
wow, that's a lot of spawns, but maybe your map needed it? also, it sounds like you are enjoying having more objects to place, so maybe you've found a way around having so many spawns? "LaForge" is a maxed out budget map, and I will try to count the number of objects it currently has and post it here... though, that will be a daunting task and I tend to get distracted very easily
Ha, yeah. Don't think I'll be placing as many spawn points now until they are completely necessary. And I probably won't set that up until all of my other editing is done in the future. Nice job on LaForge by the way. Meticulous work! You may not need to count the objects on your map any more. Ok! I have run two separate tests on Impact, Erosion, and Ravine to determine once and for all the nature of the limitations we are up against here. Tongue and cheek, of course, this is a consensus-driven forum. For both tests, I made sure that I cleared the preexisting initial spawn points and initial loadout cameras to restore all of the categories to their full capacity. The first test involved placing the following free objects until a limit was reached. This was the same for all three maps: Initial Spawn Points [250] - Used: 250 Respawn Points [250] - Used: 250 Ordnance, Initial Drop Points [32] - Used: 32 Ordnance, Random Drop Points [32] - Used: 32 Ordnance, Objective Drop Points [64] - Used: 64 Objective, Flag Stand [50] - Used: 23 *Hit the limit here* TOTAL OBJECT COUNT - 651 The second test was an investigation of monetary objects. In theory, if we could find the upper limit with free objects, we should be able to find the lower limit with the highest-priced objects, counting downward. It panned out like this, $250 being the highest price for an object, followed by $200, then by $150, and then by one $50 object to accomplish the budget maximum of $10000: Gadgets, Special FX, Colorblind [4] - Used: 4 @ $250 = $1000 Gadgets, Lights, Red [4] - Used: 4 @ $250 = $1000 Gadgets, Shields, One Way Small [6] - Used: 6 @ $200 = $1200 Vehicles, Warthog, Default [8] - Used: 8 @ $150 = $1200 Vehicles, Scorpion [8] - Used: 8 @ $150 = $1200 Vehicles, Mantis [8] - Used: 8 @ $150 = $1200 Vehicles, Wraith [8] - Used: 8 @ $150 = $1200 Vehicles, Banshee [8] - Used: 1 @ $150 = $150 *Started to hit the budget limit here* Vehicles, Mongoose [8] - Used: 1 @ $50 = $50 *Maxed out the $10000 budget here* TOTAL OBJECT COUNT - 60 The budget limit can be reached in as little as 60 objects. Here is the interesting part, though, and the second part of this test. Once the budget is maxed out, you can still place free objects until you hit the hard limit of 651. This means that we can subtract the amount of monetary objects already placed on the map from the total of 651 to find out how many free objects we can place (In this case, 651-60=591). With 60 monetary objects and a maxed out budget, I cannot place any more monetary objects, but I can place 591 free objects. The number of monetary objects on a map can range from 60 to 651, and free objects will make up the difference until the hard limit is reached. Other variables aside, this means that monetary and free objects are treated as 1:1. It's possible that certain objects are assigned higher values because they are more interactive and complicated. Like the difference between a low value Coliseum Wall that just sits on a map, or a high value vehicle that is constantly moving around and interacting with the gaming environment. But this is a separate issue. From these tests, we can infer that the range of possible object totals is between 60 and 651. Both types of objects are treated the same under the hard limit of 651. If we can duplicate the tests above multiple times, we will probably have ourselves some hard and fast rules about our limitations. Contribute, if you can and want to, at your leisure.