I'm trying to make Ricochet great again. Working on some proof of concepts in my free time -- getting inspiration of a Ghost Town/Sanctuary map. I don't know what it is, but I love maps with plenty of vegetation and hopefully the 343 Forge team releases more vegetation in the coming months.
Now that I don't have to be nice to everyone anymore, I just have to say... You all SUCK!!! Every damn one of you. I feel better now. kthxbai
So something was said in Ascend's stream that got me thinking. I think I am going to stop Forging and invest in learning Maya. I thought releasing Spellbound would allow me to clear my mind and focus on one of my two dozen other projects, but it has instead made me more anxious of the things I dislike about it. This path should be rocky, but I don't have the pieces. This rock should be angled like this, but I don't have the invisible barriers to prevent players from getting up there. This should be in view of this, but the rocks aren't thin enough to bring it that close. There should be sun rays here, but it'll drop frames. I could fix all of those things with unlimited budget, but the more I sit there tweaking things like rock placement and ambient rim lighting while scraping away to find objects, the more I realize that the art will never look as good as I want it to in this game. Meanwhile, I boot any screenshot up in Photoshop and all those things can be painted on in an instant. At this point I'm even considering doing an art book for the map. While the reception thus far has been overwhelmingly humbling in the sense that I now know I am capable of producing something if I put my mind to it, I feel like nobody will ever understand why I have issues with it or see what I wanted out of it. I am officially at the point where I look crazy if I start listing problems. Therefore, I think I need to stop working within arbitrary limitations and stretch my creative muscles. Fortunately, I have a 100% original design under my belt to begin with.
Making your map in a developer quality rendering and seeing it finished would be pretty awesome, but once it is built, what will happen? Will it be uploaded to PC games to get play time on it? The forge we have now is great because of the diversity in aesthetics, but I think we have too high of expectations for it. We all forge to share our creations and hope they get play time on them or perhaps even into matchmaking. Let's say you only had Halo Reach to build your map on, you wouldn't be so critical of the art work part of it atmospheric feeling. It would be simple yet effective. Optic prison has a unique look to it, but if it were all primitives, it wouldn't look much different. It however would still play very well. If you build it in Maya and nothing else happens with it but to share aesthetics of what you envisioned it to be is it worth the time? My point is that you completed it with the tools you have currently. Build it in Maya to learn it, but in the mean time, start new projects with a vision that matches what the forge system is capable of. Once you have solid layouts they get play time on them and tested for future map software. We are all looking forward to forge on PC, with hopes that it's more of a developer quality build options.