The 'VACANT' Forge Canvas Halo 5’s forge is shaping up to look like the greatest customization tool to ever be implemented in to a Halo game for the players. While the current upcoming forge canvas’s look absolutely stellar, I do believe they each lack a feature which was done decently well in the previous forge canvas’s ‘Forge Island’ and ‘Awash’; and that is the concept of an OPEN SKYBOX. When I say OPEN SKYBOX, I mean a forge canvas that is practically nothing but FLOOR and CEILING, with nothing in-between. The forge canvas ‘Awash’ almost nailed this concept, however was held back by its lighting issues, and extremely poorly rendered ‘natural terrain’ (The cringe worthy Play-Doh ocean water, and the even more distasteful ‘bright green mountains’ that sat off in the distance of the sky box.) For almost every map I made on ‘Awash’, I found myself flying up to build my map as high as I could on the top of the canvas in order to avoid the water, and green, disconnected mountains from residing in my maps skybox. In other words, I wanted to build my OWN skybox- something I cannot do on ‘Alpine’, ‘Glacier’, and ‘Space’. While all three of these canvases look incredible on their own accord, I cannot escape the mountain range skybox on ‘Alpine’, and ‘Glacier’, and I cannot escape the Halo Ring, and massive, looming planets on the ‘Space’ skybox. (I say this knowing I have not seen the full extent of this canvas, I am simply speaking from my impression of the canvas.) In addition to this, myself and a large sum of the forging community are already in talks referring to the missing ‘SAND’ canvas we’d like to eventually have. You’ve given us grass- you’ve given us snow- and you’ve given us space- but we have yet to master the fourth element, sand, something that will greatly incur us forgers from becoming the Avatar. So here is what I am suggesting, a canvas that is bound to knock out multiple stones with one bird, The ‘VACANT’ canvas: About the same size of 'Awash'/'Forge Island,' the VACANT canvas would be an EXTREMELY flat map, made up of half OCEAN Water (hopefully copy and pasted from 'Alpine', for the water on that map looks amazing) and half SAND (a large, flat sandy/beachy island to be precise. Think an extremely broad, stretched out, sandier version of the 'RELIC' island, but WITHOUT ANY STRUCTURE, JUST SAND. It needs to stay simple, as for the catch phrase for this map is: LESS IS MORE. The less on the base canvas, the more the player can manipulate it. Another view of the 'DAY THEME' on the VACANT canvas. The great thing about having a large, flat, plain island that's naturally covered in nothing but sand- is that we can make it look natural ourselves. If I want, I could add Alpine terrain to make this all-sand island look more like a real island- but at the same time, maybe I would like it to be an all sand island, that way I could create a map set in the dessert. If the developer were to give us an island covered in grass, with sand only on the beaches (in an attempt to make the island more 'realistic') than I wouldn't be able to make said dessert map. We're not going for 'realistic' with this canvas. We're going for options and customization. THEME 2 for the VACANT canvas: Night Time. I'm not sure if something like this will be possible thanks to 'Space', but even if it is, I still see draw backs due to the large glowing planets, and massive pungent Halo ring present on the different themes of the canvas. What I want, is a SIMPLE starry night time sky- the kind I'd see if I were to walk outside my home with a warm cup of noodles, and look up in sentimental aw. LESS IS MORE: I do not want to see northern lights in the night sky, I do not want to see planets in the night sky, I do not want to see a sunset that illuminates the horizon a separate color from the rest of the skybox in the night sky- I would like to see a plain, simple, and consistent night time sky. The occasional SMALL shooting star whizzing by overhead in the distance would be welcomed however. As for the 3rd theme... I was thinking something somewhere in between the night and day. Something dreamy. Something we may have seen before... This has been my outcry, my request- If you'd like to see this type of canvas eventually make its way into Halo 5, please feel free to share this post, in the hopes that will eventually see it and consider it! Once again I want to thank for putting together an GREAT game, and an even greater FORGE Hopefully together, we continue to perfect it with additions such as this, not as Community and Developer... but as lovers. Now, I'm going to go finish my noodles. -CommanderColson
This would be really great. Its really the only thing missing from the three canvases were getting. I personally think that Alpine, Glacier and space look amazing, But this would really fill out what the other three don't provide. Great idea Colson. Did I mention that the Sandbox skybox looks amazing.
If we had this sand map, Halo 5's forge would be PERFECT! (Until we found something else to ***** about lol) But no, I'm all for adding this fourth map to the lineup.
changed your thread title since Halo 5 already has 4 forge canvases and it was misleading. I think sand would be a great addition, we will set up some polls after forge is released for everyone to really pitch in.
Didn't mean for it to be misleading. Honestly didn't put much thought into the thread title besides the fact that it was my idea for a 4th canvas (forgot about the Breakout canvas), therefor titled it '4th Canvas' or whatever it was.
If I may suggest they have a sand based atmosphere on the map The Rig, so they could delete the rig, add solid floor as the sand and done. It would be really cool for them to empty the Fathom map and offer that box as a build space also. We may be able to get out of Empire map and build on the outskirts towards the city.
I would like to see basically the mid level of sandbox without the preset kill zones so that you can forge anywhere in the sand. I believe that that fathom outer environment art would be very good. Even though you can currently get out there, I'm sure it will lead to some frame issues. An inner city area would be great too. Basically where you have the walls set for you like in a box though the outside is surrounded by very simplistic sky scrapers and such To match you theming but not make your forge pieces look too out of place. Maybe even have 4 different sized areas decided by the building in a + shape.
A remake of SandBox as a whole would be fantastic. Why not bring the crypt back as well? The only reason I did not suggest this however is the water. Currently the ONLY water we have is on Alpine, and that in itself is only a small bit, plus the fact that it's stuck in a fixed mountain range theme. Not to mention, Sandbox has the 'Guardian' structures surrounding it, which immediately impede on the players choice of theme, and would need to be removed if ever seriously considered. It would be cool if they were willing to give us two brand new canvas's: 1. Ocean: Literally Awash, but with better water, and no terrain (those green mountains) in the skybox. In other words, nothing but water in all directions. 2. Dunes: Literally just a flat sand dune, similar to sandbox and sandtrap (with out the middle dipped area in which the actual maps resided) stretching as far as the eye can see just like the water on Ocean. I'm just not sure how willing they are going to be about shipping entirely new canvas's though, which is why I tried to nail the two in one.