Lies! It's all lies! The coliseum wall is your best friend! As a primarily BTB forger, I have a whole different set of limitations when it comes to "aesthetics" - efficiency. Maps like Paranoia's make me cringe. Sure they're pretty, but making your whole map out of 2x2 banks is just about the most wasteful way possible. In his first picture: the arch made out of banks is made of thirty-two objects. If you replaced those with 1x4 blocks you would have four. You're using eight times as many objects as you need to to achieve the same map structure. When you're making a BTB map, you don't have the luxury of "prettying up" your map. Every single object counts, and putting some dumb colored dots on your wall is often the difference between a playable map and one with terrible disco. In my opinion, if you need to resort to using color and texture help players around your map then you're doing it wrong. Those are just band-aids. Form is a forger's greatest tool. Humans eyes naturally pick out edges and shapes before they pick out colors or textures, so it makes sense to design your map to take advantage of that. By properly using form, a forger can convey just as much or more information with the silhouette of his map than he can using the colored lines on a 2x2 flat. Form can also be done efficiently with large, simple objects like the coliseum wall, 4x4 tall and brace large, instead of needing a bunch of tiny ramps thrown everywhere to add color. Lemme ask a quick question: What does this look like? Some sort of Forerunner-ish tower, no? You don't need any color or texture at all to tell players what an object is supposed to be. A good map designer can create a theme just by using form and silhouette, which is a must when you don't have the luxury of using many small detail objects.
The human eye is almost always attracted to the brightest area of a scene. So, while form is definitely a TOOL a forger can use to guide and orient players, so is color and contrast. Saying one is better than the other, or one is right or wrong (a crutch or whatever) is just foolish and selling your map short. Understanding how to balance these is key. Just look at any of Bungie's or 343's maps. These elements exist in perfect harmony with each other. But you are right, some times color is used to compensate when all other attempts at fixing an issue have failed. But so is form. typically, I think people just remember bad use of lighting more often because it is more obvious and less subconscious.
I agree that form is important, although contrasting pieces are very important. As he said though, big team and invasion maps often don't have this luxury, even ones built into the terrain. While you can use brace larges and larger blocks in interesting ways (as well as some other parts) things like banks or small blocks for color is out of the question unless used exceedingly sparingly. Colly walls look bad in many cases, though using just parts of them in the right areas looks alright. That said, a lot layed out flat or as tall walls does not look good and should be avoided on any map.
I disagree. If you select the most efficient object for the tool at hand you end up with an emulgimation of different blocks which look horrendous together, it can also cause framerate drop also. If you design the map well from the start you can afford to utilise budget on areas of aesthetics and framrate drop prevention. Again I disagree with this. A good design is all that it needed to make an aesthetically pleasing BTB map. Both these maps support BTB. They are large, play well, under budget and all having good aesthetics without the jumbled mess of ugly objects used. I would also say that putting a coloured object in a wall is not dumb, as you said. If it helps the player to know where he or she is then it is a gameplay enhancing element of the map.
Its not so much about "prettying up" a map, its about have a clear and concise aesthetic design that flows together. Pretty it up too much with random stuff, your just adding unnecessary objects to the screen, dampening performance, and making a mess of the visual due to aesthetic noise. What I look for is a unity in aesthetics and the inclusion of color. The color is important as it aids player orientation, and also because its easier on the eyes than the constant drab gray. This is also a reason to open up your maps to the air. Even a blue sky goes a long way in freshening up a map's aesthetic appeal.
personally i belive thhat by simply adding rocks in the right way can stop the map from being a sea of grey toaday i made 1v1 map outside of ridgeline mainly out of the rocks i chose thos map for three reasons 1. the map had much cooler looking rocks with more colours on them and gave it a more of a old overgrown feel 2. there are trees which makes the map looks alot more like a forest and the other grey objects if used properly look great tin cups also look good upside down 3. maps on ridgeline are different than forgeworld it makes you use your tools avalible more efficiantlly (forgive me if i spelt that wrong) making smaller but more asthetic filled maps what i build with a smaller budget of $7500 a good way of balencing out gameplay and asthetics is to use them together for instance crate you can use it to make your map look more built up or for somthing to stop a laser from oblitorating you (don't even think i spelt that right hhmm) but that"s just my opinion.
Lets just say I learned a lot from making Embarcadero. I definitely wouldn't nominate it for prettiest or cleanest big team map.
I tend to agree that in general maps should have VERY FEW pieces on the canvas. I think that The cage was quite an exception, but it was also a fail in many ways. But my point was that his map made extremely good use of shades to draw contrast out in striking ways that made his aesthetics wonderful and fulfilling in a map. Most maps dont come close. No where close. Would I want a map with his structure on it for BTB or Invasion? Probably not. But let's take Exodus (the damn map pictured above). It is an outstanding example of a map that presents an illusion of where the player is at to such an extreme that the player is immersed and kept WELL IN THE IMMERSION of the location, the place. That is all I feel it offers, but that is a powerful tool for a map that plays well.