I have a question that I have wanted to ask for such a long time since I became a member of ForgeHub, and now seems like a great time to ask. So many people on ForgeHub make so many wonderful maps, and for the new Forger's amongst us that are working hard to make their own map niche on this site, I bet they would love to know where do you get your inspiration from? Does it only come from other video games, or do you just come up with this stuff right out of the clear blue? I myself, have gotten mine from mostly previous Halo maps, at least the ones I have posted, but ForgeHub Members, where do you get your inspiration?
I Get My Inspiration from all over. From Other Video Games, to Everyday Life. I see something in a picture or in a movie and think "Maybe I Could do Something Like that in Forge" I get inspiration in Real Life from things like Bridges, Buildings, Schools, Banks, and Streets. Some video games I've been inspired by Include, Crysis 2 and 3, Halo, Need for Speed, Section 8: Prejudice, and Rainbow 6 Vegas 2. Although I am inspired greatly by whats around me, I still have the "Original Build" status to maintain. I have quite a few maps made from scratch with no inspiration from anywhere. "It's like Having an Entire City Built for an Entire Population and you Want it to Thrive"
I was forging with A Haunted Army one day, and discussing a map that I made that he really hated. Lamenting how bad that map was, he said to me, "Green, I have never seen you experiment with elevation before." I asked him what he meant by that. We were in forge, so he popped up two large blocks and moved one relative to the other and began to explain how line of sight can be broken up by their positions and stuff. I sort of was getting what he said, but I wasn't really certain of how I could use what he was teaching me it all, to tell you the truth about it. Then he said the magic words... Power House... the light turned on.
I, too, find inspiration in my mirror. But then again, I'm a bit of a narcissist. Try any and all methods you can think of, don't limit yourself to just one method for acquiring inspiration. Sure, I always look through old maps to get ideas, see what works, and what doesn't. But other times I'll just sit down with a pad of graph paper and a pencil and just let my imagination lead the way. Also, when you're actively out looking for inspiration, don't just look at old maps. For instance, try looking through architecture magazines, find something that piques your interest, and see if you can somehow incorporate that into a map.
Me and my brother shoot each other with nerfguns a lot. So it kinda became a habit of mine to carry a loaded nerfgun around the house, ALL THE TIME. I look out at my cul-de-sac and I see an urban setting with a nice little park in the middle with too long streets running down the sides. I am turning this idea into a map as we speak So just take a step back and look around. There is inspiration in everything.
I look at Mass Effect 3 for architectural inspiration. It's in inspiration behind Jade, but no other maps with that game in mind have yet been released. Other games such as older Halos, gears of war (somewhat), and battlefeild have also been examples where I pull ideas from. I look at shapes and text, for example, Opal was in the shape of a broken O, or doughnut (due to the death pit hole in the center). Older maps of mine have been inspired by cylinders, boxes, layers of triangles... And then there's real world archetecture, but tat's still tough to convert over to forge.
Architectural websites and magazines have helped me immeasurably. Looking at tokyo, the UAE and germany for the latest artistic building designs etc have inspired me for most if not all my maps. I also follow about 5 different youtube channels showcasing different community forged maps and although I don't like about 95% of them, most of them have small aesthetic touches or aspects to them that help gameplay in tight spots etc that I would never have thought of and this inspires me for maps or for portions of my maps which I am not entirely content with. Another thing is to get to know other forgers. I recently got stuck on what to add to one of my maps. basically a whole 3rd of it was destined to play blandly and look like ****, so i invited two of my forging buddies to the game and asked them to put random stuff down, what they would do with said space and the stuff they put down inspired me to create something really amazing and now it is the standout part of the map. So like a few of the people said before, inspiration is everywhere ^
My college Seriously I was reading this thread on my phone and suddenly thought that with my college building with its 90 deree turns and such could make a good ap. With modifiations of course. I will get my current project done, then I might try this new idea. So, cheers for the inspiration! EDIT: As many have already said before me: Inspiration is eveywhere. EDIT 2: Sorry for the rubbish words I am doing this on my phone here.
i get inspiration from either everyday life, out and about and when i get home i think, wouldnt that be good to have a map on like battlefield or something as it would be present day but odviously i can only make it on halo so i adapt it to that i get inspiration from mostly other forgehubbers tbh, i try and not steal designs, even though sometimes i do, but i do thank the person i got it from but i try and adapt it to my map if it fits in well and i get inspiration from other games or previous maps etc
I often get ideas from other maps right here on Forge Hub. Not like whole portions of maps, just different ways pieces can fit together well and other little things like that.