Hey guys sorry for the noob question but I got Forge O.C.D. I know about this issue since Halo: Reach and I am sure it has been discussed several times so I apologize for that. I would like experienced forgers to share their technique on how to make smooth flooring with station corridor pieces, you know since the pieces move slightly when you reload the map. I am just trying to make a simple floor for an arena/grifball/baskeball court type area of a map on Impact. I tried with coordinates, magnets, etc. and they just keep having that damn bump when you walk over the line to pass from one piece over to the next. It's bothering me and I am not sure if it is even possible to make a smooth floor without any bumps? What is the best technique for this...if there is one? Or do I just have to suck it up? Everything I try just doesn't work and have been wasting a lot of time redoing the floor. Thanks EDIT: I guess there is no way around it, I just thought I seen a grifball court that didn't have any bumps where pieces connect for flooring. ::sigh::
I watched one of ducain23's videos, there's a really good way to do close-to precision forging. You know how LB/RB lift or lower your map piece. If you press A immediately after pressing LB or RB, you get small level changes. This is the closest thing, and I've smoothed out most of my station pieces with this. P.S. I did not know pieces move slightly when you load a map! No wonder sometimes I had to keep re-adjusting my pieces even after I thought I made them perfectly aligned. Is there a way around this?
Thanks. I know about LB/RB/A method, that won't work for this. I'm just building basic flooring with Station Corridors for a grifball size court. So using coordinates or magnets the pieces are perfectly lined up. Saving, Ending Game, Reloading map...no more lined up, slightly misaligned and walking on the floor you get a bump moving over each section where a corridor piece is connected to another. I know why this happens and that it is unavoidable. I know there is a pain in the ass method from Reach to compensate for this. But I'm not about to do that for a floor this big using corridors for 20+ pieces. I thought maybe there was an easier way. Usually this isn't much of a problem since maps don't have such big open floors like grifball courts and you don't notice it. I just thought I saw a few maps that avoided the issue, but I could be mistaken?
One method I've used for getting floors to align perfectly is by using magnets. What I have done is set up a sort of central piece I want to align everything else with and build out the rest of the floor using magnets. Now, reloading the map will make everything unaligned, simple fix is to, while having magnets turned on, drag the piece in the opposite direction of where it ended up (up or down) enough so it's still attached to the magnet point, but you see it sort of pop back when you don't let go. Now you need to let it go before it gets back to that point and rinse and repeat for the rest of the floor. Also having your rotation snap set to 0 and editing coordinates might help to keep things rotated correctly, but I'm not entirely sure on that bit.
I see two issues in your question, not sure exactly which or if both apply. first, ducains' video teaches how to move blocks up and down in tiny increments, but they never get it perfectly right. Why? Because despite the strange popularity of his video, it is the wrong approach. To get blocks to line up at the same Z value, use magnets or use the coordinate editor directly. second, the blocks will rotate a tiny bit causing bumps, gaps, all around flaky appearance, when you SAVE the file to disk. There is nothing you can do to stop this and the magnets don't help. Magnets are only useful when you are forging. When you load the file into forge or into customs, the magnets are not active. To deal with the rotation issue that saving to disk causes, you can see a tutorial with a quick demo video I put together for forging reach, which is the same problem with the same solution.
Take a step backward in time to halo 3. Use magnets, but save and quit while holding the object and it should stay in perfect place. Do this for every object. Should be the smoothest floor you'll get.
I think to myself about how much work it feels like now, but then I think about what we went through in Halo 3, and it amazes me! Constantly lining things up, new rounds, guess-work, save/quits, it was a pain haha
That (and the reason I didnt know of any of that in Halo 3 until I got here in Halo Reach) is precisely why I didnt do much in forge there.
I recently did the same thing, make a floor from the station corridors, but I locked the pieces after I had them where I wanted them, and they did not seem to move again when I went into the custom game, maybe this will help?
Ahhhhh... I didn't realize station corridors could not be perfectly connected side by side without a bump on the floor!! If it's not one thing it's the other. I'm guessing we won't see a grifball court using corridors as a floor because of this. Since a grifball court can't have any bumps on the flooring. You can get them vertically connected nice and smooth using the "God-Hold" method and magnets but not side by side due to the slope in the piece still having a bump when phasing.
Are you using them upside-down? If not, do that. I've made a floor out of upside-down station pieces with just magnets (no save/quit or vertical precision editing) and had no bumps.
Don't let anybody join your forge session. Thats the main cause of pieces shifting. Different IP address, different object position. Also, when you're done forging on 45° switch it to 0° and quickly grab every piece once.
upside-down is the only way you can make a floor out of station corridors, so yes. you aren't noticing the bumps then, doesn't mean you don't have them. I've tested this over and over so I know you got the bumps. they can be very subtle and you don't notice them running. walk real slow and go back and forth over the spots where the magnets connected the pieces. [br][/br]Edited by merge: yeah I always have my session on invite only so nobody ever joins. I usually set the degree to 90 to flip the corridors upside down in two pushes, then i switch it to 5 degrees to rotate them horizontally for whichever position I need them. Does this apply to what you are saying? The problem I am having now is lining up the station corridors side by side (on the sides with the slope). They have a slight bump. They are perfect when connected on the edges where the black lined edges are but not on the sides with the slope. even using co-ordinates there is a slight height difference on that sloped section when phasing 2 corridors together.
don't use magnets, just fine tune it into place and bump it up/down until it's perfect. I don't use corridors though, just the 90's upside down as floors. you can then slide one over to overlap the pieces and that leaves only a black line but no apparent bumps. I say apparent because I have not tried to roll a ball on it or anything...
I used station ramps (rotated to be flat, of course) for flooring on a recent map of mine, and haven't noticed any appreciable bumps. To line them up I first used magnets, then turned magnets off and pushed them together to make the black join line disappear.
sorry I meant that I also used the station ramps, not 90's though I've used some of them as walls too. yea that black join between the ramps is undesirable, but when you're done Nutduster, do you still see a thin black line no matter what? That's what I see. like in this floor in LaForge...
it's not the black line section that is the problem though, I can connect 20 of those in a long line perfectly. It's the side of the corridor that has a slant/slope... i cant get 2 of them side by side without a bump. I'll try the 90s and ramps to see if those do it also. I'm trying to make a grifball court type of floor not just a thin hallway. I just don't think it can be done with these station pieces. Grifball floors have to be absolutely flawlessly smooth and flat, without any bumps when you walk.
Why? I'm not the biggest grifball fan but I did play some in Reach, and I can't think of any reason why a small bump would matter.