This is the Second Part to our Creators Spotlight article to check out the 1st part: Click Here H: Absolutely that and the ability to go into those places (Like the Scripters Guild and ForgeHub) and tag the people that know what they're talking about to get that assistance, it's game-changing and allows us to not bang our head against the wall on a problem. If you ever need help don't be afraid to tag me or anyone else in the Scripters Guild or ForgeHub for help/assistance. I will gladly help anyone if I have the time. C: What's crazy is Programmer 163/The Guardian163, our last spotlight Guest said the exact same thing, so it's nice to see that a lot of people are very open to providing the help people need by request. It's always nice to chime into conversations in the Scripters Guild and in the ForgeHub discord and help people out or just see what people are talking about by lurking, it's honestly crazy to see how much stuff is still being looked at and still being helped out in general in the community; especially now with what most people would consider the "off-season" of the community/Forge H: Oh yea absolutely, the way I look at it is the more people that we bring up with us, the better community we can have in the future. That's one of the things I love about the Halo community, yes there are a few bad apples, but it is drowned out by the overwhelming wholesomeness of the rest of us. C: One Hundred Percent, I'll definitely say that something I've been pondering on a lot recently is how fragmented the community has become in some ways like seemingly the competitive community hates the casual community or their opinions on a subject, the casual community hates the competitive community vice versa, and then there's the Forge Community which is like a middle ground between the two and it hasn't always been like that, typically we'd hold each other up and make the community stand tall even if the game was bad to a majority or certain sect of the community. Over time we've stopped pushing each other up, at least it's advertised that way seemingly in forums, on Twitter, Reddit, etc. But if you look in discords like the Scripters Guild, like ForgeHub, like the main Halo Discord, it's a lot more tame and people are seemingly uplifting people still which is awesome to see. Honestly, even though we are in a bit of a content drought when it comes to content for the game, this is kind of one of those moments where it's like how MCC was, to where it's really broken and we needed more content to suffice the wait between content drops/games to where now is the time where most of us need to keep propping each other up, keep propping the community up, and keep creating more content to grow our community more and get everyone through the wait for Forge, more content, etc in Infinite. Now is the time more than ever, just like how MCC was, to prop each other up. H: Yea I think I tweeted about this a while ago, Dev's are humans too, having more patience will allow us to have a better product for the community to run with, all will be fine. C:100%, a lot of people have been kinda vitriolic recently, which is somewhat understandable but sending death threats or calling them out on every single post a dev makes (Calling them out as just throwing hate their way just because you're upset), you don't have that happen to you for your job, I get it's a different story with game development, but even so it's common courtesy. H: Little bit of faith and patience will go a long way I think. C: Speaking of "coming soon to Infinite" and Patience, what're some things you'd like to see in Infinite's Forge? H: The robustness of a new scripting system is my primary want of the new Forge would be my #1 want, something that allows us to have complete granular control. The number of things we could do, we could make entire games inside of Infinite if that's the case, allowing us to make years of content no matter the drought. I can't wait for something like that, I really hope we get that. C: I'm sure that's going to be where we go and what we get, given the fact that everything has been incremental in the past, the jump from MCC scripting to Halo 5 scripting was huge, same with the object count and other areas like terrain, object variety, etc. I'd say there's a pretty good chance to expect it to be incrementally better than 5's scripting haha. What is one of your favorite things that you've scripted? H: I think I'd have to give that to my Easter Egg I leave on every single one of my maps (Not the one I previously mentioned) on every single map I have here is a statue of a pineapple with sunglasses, his name is Pineapple Dave, and I'm sure you'll be able to find him if you go play my maps, and if you shoot him he makes a Grunt Birthday sound effect, it is so simple and I love it haha. C: Sounds like quite the Easter Egg haha. So you put that on all your maps? H: Yes every single one of my maps and ones that I've helped out on. Just to leave an, "I was here" haha. P: So now I need to make a map showcasing where he is on every one of your maps to spoil it for everyone right? haha H: Feel free haha. P: One thing I'd ask to add into all of this, talking about things in Forge and what you have made, is there anything that you are specifically looking forward to making or at least to be able to make should you be able to in the new Forge that we'll be getting in Infinite? H: So I made a proof of concept in Halo 5, to where it is technically possible to imitate the mechanics of Portal, Valve's Portal. I would love if there was a way to make the actual portal mechanics work, so when you look at the portal you can see through it and see what's on the other side of the portal, if there was a way to do that I would absolutely never stop playing this game haha. C: So a sort of line-tracing script and an image projection script? H: Yea exactly that would be absolutely stunning. P: yea and I mean I can understand where you're coming from with that, in previous Halo's, it was set up so projectiles would travel through portals when shot in, primarily in MCC in the Thorage update that tool was brought in. Getting that back would be a big game-changer, then we could use portals for gameplay rather than just moving people. To take it to the next level and say put a camera and some sort of display on each portal to display to a player what's through them, that would be quite a leap. C: Honestly that might be a fix to teleporters in general as that kinda fixes the issues most forgers have with teleporters and that's you don't know where they go unless you learn them, and even then you don't know what's on the other side of them (player-wise). P: Yea and classic teleporters shouldn't be taken away with that either, similar to projectiles going through it should be more of an optional thing to toggle/add. Having that to show up on a surface too like a TV screen could be really cool just to add more atmosphere. H: Realtime adjustment might be a bit out of the way of course, but that would be really cool to get to. Even if it's just a static camera, we could have real-time security cameras in control offices and make that a unique part of a map or minigame, heck someone could even recreate Five Nights at Freddy's if they wanted to too. Even for minigames, instead of it being you in a top-down view, you could be looking at an actual TV monitor with a camera. Security cameras are in among us too. P: A camera actor would possibly work too to allow a display similar to our loadout cameras. There are a lot of ways that could be implemented and I'm sure any dev listening to this is having a panic attack just trying to think about how to get the feature in haha. C: I think I have a way to make it kinda simple, the easiest way to probably do it would be to have a separate camera piece that when you are on the map takes a picture/recording, and sends that data to a projector piece. This piece would work identically to the intro cameras but the piece that is projecting would project as light does in H5, so we'd have a spotlight that shines and we can change if it's a circle, square, and the size of the picture. So it would paste whatever the new camera piece is sending to the projector in the confined area defined by the player (similar to the spotlights in H5 we use for lighting). If there's a way to make it animated so it's real-time then awesome, if not then it's still cool to have for more atmospheric reasons. H: This is exactly the type of conversation that me and my buddy Tom have, one of us has an idea, then we talk about it for 5 minutes, then we go "Hey that might work" haha. P: It really just all depends on what the engine has for us to use and if they can manage to make it work, and what doesn't manage to get broken by desync. It's a big juggle. H: The Forge/Custom desync NEEDS to be fixed, it's been a thing for so long and has affected scripting in Halo 5 that it NEEDS to be fixed if we are going to script things as fluently as we all want. C: Even if desync isn't fixed I think the camera could still work fine, but I do agree scripting does need it fixed as much as possible. Sure it would delay the image but it wouldn't be the end of the world. P: It could break some gameplay people are trying to make if it isn't closer to real-time, but what I would be more worried about is things like, if something had a label on it, which is how you would target things for scripting and designate items for an objective/objective mode when you went into customs the rotation and location of the item would be offset like there was some sort of rounding error. That kind of stuff never got fixed and stops people from certain maps and map ideas. H: That actually stopped me from making a map for the ForgeHub Attrition Contest, which isn't the same Attrition as in Halo Infinite haha. The idea of my map was there were 3 different versions of the level that would interchange and shift randomly, and I had it working in Forge, and it worked perfectly in Forge, but the instant I went into customs everything would just be ever so slightly off and rotated. P: And that's why I'm hoping that we have the more robust ability to test in Forge as we did in Halo Reach. The Start new round function allowed for that so we could test it all in Forge, however, if a different/better system could be implemented to replace that then that's a plus too. Those kinds of things we had in the past really helped a lot, especially to save time. Hopefully, those legacy bugs will be squashed too because as much as you can do without them being fixed is going to hamper the creativity and how much people actually do with the tool. H: Let's phrase it like this, I would happily wait another Year if it means that 343i can iron out the small bugs that have rippling effects, just leave it alone and let us wait so it can be better and refined. P: Yep, because even Halo 5's was pretty great for what it was, I hope that ripping it out and starting over (the engine) allows them to iron out those legacy bugs C: hahaha I definitely don't think it should be held back for another year to iron out those bugs, I think that could easily be a bug fix down the line if the majority of the project worked. H: I just hope the live service extends to the Forge community as well so if the whole community says "Hey fix this bug" or we "would like X" item then we'll get it with time similar to Halo 5. Make Forge a Hotlist item for bugs and other fixes in these upcoming updates. C: Looking back at Halo 5, with its live service, it's one of those things where Forge got as much content as Multiplayer arguably; so I'd expect a similar content flow, but more or less it'd be more assets from the new maps coming I, rather than actual new pieces coming in like how it was with 5. Just to make it easier to provide more content. Going back into what we were talking about with the camera thing, going into my previous gaming knowledge I remember that's kinda funny to me, we haven't had that tool and I hope we can have that tool for the camera stuff, for this sole purpose; Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) had a piece of equipment that you could place anywhere on the map that was a camera, and it'd show up in the top left-hand corner of your screen with a little box. If Black Ops 1 can do it, Halo can do it haha. I know it's not that simple when it comes to game development and engines and all that, but I'm sure there's some way to do it in some capacity for us to use and create with or even use as a new equipment piece. To move on to our next question though, to keep this all going haha. When it comes to new Forgers in the community, what's some advice you'd give to them when it comes to getting tarted on scripting or started on a new map in general? H: Great Question! New scripters, because the scripting system is so in-depth and so granular it can be daunting at first sight, now the simple answer is not very simple...haha. If you see or have an idea, let's say opening a door when something happens, it might not be obvious how that is meant to happen at first, I'm sure there will be YouTube Videos, but the ForgeHub Wiki is a great place to go, that's how I got started. Also, feel free to tag me or anyone else in the scripters guild and we'll help you out too! What I do is think in basic terms though, if something needs to move to one area, work with that first and go from there, solve that problem. What's the next problem on the list? This thing needs to do that, alright, solve that problem. It's just one step at a time, take it as a step-by-step process rather than looking at it all at once. Your first map will probably not be great of course, but if you keep at it, and you keep learning from your own shortcomings and listening to feedback, eventually you'll become a true prodigy! Also, don't be afraid to ask for help! C: When it comes to Halo 5 and MCC Forge what would you say has been your biggest hurdle to overcome as a forger? H: I think the hardest struggle was in Halo 5 because I wanted to be more a part of the community and make more complex things as a whole. Getting into the tool more and learning all the new elements available to me was quite the hurdle, but it was also very rewarding after I crossed the hurdle. The things Halo 5 can do, limited though it is, is astonishing. We went from barely being able to make doors, to nearly Turing complete. That leap is huge, there are hurdles and then there are hills and skyscrapers, with Halo 5 we had a skyscraper to climb with the innovation we received but a very rewarding and worth it skyscraper. P: It definitely went from being a situation of the situation being the ceiling is what we had as options for things to do, now it's more that we have so many things that we can do, that we're running out of room to do them. You know, there's so much that the system was able to do, but only limited by "You can only have this many scripts on the level" your Xbox can only process so much at once. That's where the limitations came in and stopped being a matter of there being no way for there to be a button there that opens this door, to make a warthog spawn in at 25 kills and a tank to spawn in at 40. But with Halo 5 suddenly there just was, we could make it happen and do it all, which was quite amazing. It was just a matter of what of it we could do, so I definitely understand the notion of we climbed a Skyscraper haha. I'm super excited to see what the future brings with that. C: 100% and I think we're all right there with you! Well, thank you, gentlemen, for joining me today, and without further ado, if you'd like to say anything before we close out please let it be said! H: Thanks for having me, Let's Forge A New Halo! C: Damn it, you stole the phrase haha. H: Sorry I couldn't resist haha C: You're good haha, Ducain will be happy that we're using that phrase/Slogan! Well everybody, thank you for joining us today on this episode of Creators Spotlight! We will be having another interview next month on the 15th, as you may have seen on the announcements page this was delayed to the 16th for technical difficulties so we were able to clear those out. Please be sure to leave a comment and tell us what you think of the series and any feedback you could provide to us is greatly appreciated! In case you missed it here's the previous Creators Spotlight Article: Creators Spotlight: The Guardian163 We'll be back next month with Bacon Media as he and I interview our next guest! Thank you all again for sticking around through the long haul of this article, and remember, Let's Forge A New Halo!