itt: sel begins unwrapping cliffs, makes shitty map better

[Ki11a_FTW]

And? The map has a good environment, and im pretty sure selentic is aiming for something similar.
Oh yeah selentic, if you want a better sand detail map just hit me up on xfire

[Sel]

Should be smaller and have more detail....I've been saying this from the start.

You either have it large and bland, or you make it smaller and put more emphasis on awesome things. You'll push the engine to its limits either way with its poly limits, but one will look crappy, and the other will be beautiful.

I see your point, and you're right, but both me and mass like the size, and epic driving opportunities so that won't be changing.

If halo 3 pc comes along, then I'll work more on it, and add all sorts of detail, but until then it's going to sit here as another ce map, with a nice sky, sound gameplay, and still a huge jump on most of what gets released nowadays.

You picked to use a desert as your environment. Just because it's a desert doesn't mean it should be passed off automaticly as ok to be boring. Everything is very monotone, so add some more colors to it. Maybe place some little shrubs here and there. Or just get even more creative. The map design is very poor. You have all these areas on the map that a player would never be interested in going to. Almost as if there was little thought to it. I'm sure you did put a good amount of thought into it, but all those areas a player would rarely go and doesn't change anything in a gameplay sense. You mine as well just take out those areas. I'm trying to make the map overall better and that's where I'm going.

I'd like to talk to you on xfire later so I can get your input on some of this stuff. I know the map is lacking in colours and such, and I hope to change that with lights, textures etc, but those are later on down the road.

[Neuro Guro]

I recommend fixing the cliff/ground's bland nature by going through and making a more detailed UV skinning of it. Like, paint all sorts of crevices that will be unique to that certain area, and then dual detail the cliffs. That sort of thing takes some more time and patience, but it has some nice effects when done right. Go look at H2CE's Zanzibar's cliffs to see what I mean.

I did that in Immure 2. I thought it looked cool.

[Sel]

I recommend fixing the cliff/ground's bland nature by going through and making a more detailed UV skinning of it. Like, paint all sorts of crevices that will be unique to that certain area, and then dual detail the cliffs. That sort of thing takes some more time and patience, but it has some nice effects when done right. Go look at H2CE's Zanzibar's cliffs to see what I mean.

I did that in Immure 2. I thought it looked cool.

I wanted to do that, but con didn't want to !

(and I can't use photoshop at all lol)

I'll try to convince him more though


Also, I've got killa makin some dead trees.

[jcap]

There's too many problems with this map, so I'd like to offer a solution that would hopefully meet in the middle and solve A TON of problems, both gameplay-wise and aesthetically.



In general, "wrap around" path would be shortened a little. To illustrate this, I shrunk HALF (bottom half) of the picture's height in Photoshop. This by itself did a great job at connecting the vehicle path with the walking one.

The next thing I did is decide to put the vehicle path underground, and completely REMOVE THE BRIDGE. The bridge really looks like SHIT, and there really isn't any way to fit it in well. So, by putting it underground, you can instead have SUPPORT RAFTERS LIKE IN HALO 3 (black lines on drawing) that can be used instead of a bridge. Maybe a hole in the ceiling of the underground vehicle path would be cool too so you can let some light in. (I REALLY WANT TO EMPHASIZE THE FACT THAT THIS IS AN UNFINISHED RING!)

The middle of the map would be very much like the forerunner hallways you see in Assault on the Control Room (and here in Halo 3). They're tall and have a lot of open space on the side of them for cover and passing by. The hallways would flow into a center area that would contain a PULSE GENERATOR which you can fight around. The structures in the room will provide the cover we're all familiar with in campaign, so it would be just fine. You would also have the option of going left, right, or directly through the center of the room to get to the other side of the tunnels.

(btw, the hallways would be the extra-wide hallways that have the offshoot to the side of them, like the hallway before you get to Johnson's Warthog at the end of Halo 3. (indicated in dark blue))

The center room would also be unfinished, though, almost like in Halo 3 with the terminal room. It would have a hole in the wall which would flow into the vehicle path. More specifically, it would allow a player to walk directly on to the support rafters I was talking about earlier (that's how you would get up to them). You could also drop down to the vehicle path if you want to from there.

If you do this, you will absolutely have an awesome map. It would be almost perfect, and you wouldn't need that STUPID door syncing and teleporter shit.

[Sever]

I believe this is one of the best posts I've seen by Jcap. I fully agree with every point he made in his proposed solution. Not only does it fix the gameplay issues, but it also fixes any architectural qualms one might have had with the map. Using the standard AotCR Pulse Generator room is a great idea, even though it may not be that original. Using one that is under construction, however, allows you to put in very original detailing on a well-known area without directly copying it, and without favoring gameplay over visuals. The hallways and tunnel idea are both in the same vein, and both should definitely work.

Well played, good sir, well played.

[Sel]

In general, "wrap around" path would be shortened by about half. To illustrate this, I shrunk HALF (bottom half) of the picture's height in Photoshop. This by itself did a great job at connecting the vehicle path with the walking one.

The next thing I did is decide to put the vehicle path underground, and completely REMOVE THE BRIDGE. The bridge really looks like SHIT, and there really isn't any way to fit it in well. So, by putting it underground, you can instead have SUPPORT RAFTERS LIKE IN HALO 3 (black lines on drawing) that can be used instead of a bridge. Maybe a hole in the ceiling of the underground vehicle path would be cool too so you can let some light in. (I REALLY WANT TO EMPHASIZE THE FACT THAT THIS IS AN UNFINISHED RING!)

The middle of the map would be very much like the forerunner hallways you see in Assault on the Control Room (and here in Halo 3). They're tall and have a lot of open space on the side of them for cover and passing by. The hallways would flow into a center area that would contain a PULSE GENERATOR which you can fight around. The structures in the room will provide the cover we're all familiar with in campaign, so it would be just fine. You would also have the option of going left, right, or directly through the center of the room to get to the other side of the tunnels.

(btw, the hallways would be the extra-wide hallways that have the offshoot to the side of them, like the hallway before you get to Johnson's Warthog at the end of Halo 3. (indicated in dark blue))

The center room would also be unfinished, though, almost like in Halo 3 with the terminal room. It would have a hole in the wall which would flow into the vehicle path. More specifically, it would allow a player to walk directly on to the support rafters I was talking about earlier (that's how you would get up to them). You could also drop down to the vehicle path if you want to from there.

If you do this, you will absolutely have an awesome map. It would be almost perfect, and you wouldn't need that STUPID door syncing and teleporter shit.

I'm fine with working on doing some of this stuff, if I see a lot of support from other people.

The door based layout we have now would probably stay, because honestly, I really like that idea, and it mixes up regular boring halo gameplay.

I am all for redesigning the hallways, and the middle, and even making the middle underground.

I'm not going to kill off the far sides of the blue terrain.

Those work fine, as the only part of the level that's meant to be a chokepoint is the middle, which should be tweaked quite easily once placed underground.

[jcap]

The sides should really really really really be made more narrow. When you look at other maps, none are as open as that. Making it open gives such less control and makes it SO much more difficult to play on. It's also useless. As one rarely ever uses anything other than the main path, it's better to just cut the map back to what actually matters here and then work on making the main route BETTER.

You're really not losing much of anything by cutting back the sides. The open area is just a waste. When you look at essentially every other Halo map similar in design (icefields, danger canyon, wartorn), they all have more narrow vehicle paths than this.

This all goes back to what I said before. You can have a lot of detail in a smaller space, or a lot of space and no detail. The smaller space and more detail is what people want to see, and it's what makes one map stand out from another.

[Mass]

Sounds fucking good

I'm getting started bre!

[n00b1n8R]

Fucking get onto that shit sel or I'll make another post extolling how DoW is > CoH.