A Sentient Keyboard
Member
Foundry, a DLC map for Halo 3.
Halo 3 shipped with Forge mode, a tool for custom games. It allowed you to go into multiplayer maps and do things like place or delete weapons and vehicles, move spawnpoints and objective zones around, and maybe add a crate or barricade here and there. However, with the first set of DLC maps, Foundry was released. Foundry was made entirely out of objects that could be manipulated in forge mode. While it came with a default configuration, you could remove all walls, buildings and other geometry and be left with the empty room pictured above, a blank canvas.. a map editor!
Forge mode clearly was never made for full-on map editing, so the actual process of making maps was cumbersome. Placing objects was finicky, creating smooth surfaces required tricking the game into unloading objects, and the industrial color palette of Foundry made it hard to make a good looking result. However, the Halo community perservered and made countless of awesome, creative, and sometimes against-all-odds beautiful maps. I wish I could show examples, but none of the forgehub.com pages of my favorite maps have functioning images anymore..
Foundry was eventually succeeded by Sandbox in a later DLC pack and Forge World in Halo: Reach, but Foundry still has a special place in my heart. It awakened an appreciation for map and game design, and indirectly is the reason I'm studying to become a game developer today!
EDIT: Here's a good video showcase of some of the best forge maps from Halo 3. Not all of them are on Foundry, only those that look like they've been made entirely out of ugly metal boxes and walls (because they are).
Halo 3 shipped with Forge mode, a tool for custom games. It allowed you to go into multiplayer maps and do things like place or delete weapons and vehicles, move spawnpoints and objective zones around, and maybe add a crate or barricade here and there. However, with the first set of DLC maps, Foundry was released. Foundry was made entirely out of objects that could be manipulated in forge mode. While it came with a default configuration, you could remove all walls, buildings and other geometry and be left with the empty room pictured above, a blank canvas.. a map editor!
Forge mode clearly was never made for full-on map editing, so the actual process of making maps was cumbersome. Placing objects was finicky, creating smooth surfaces required tricking the game into unloading objects, and the industrial color palette of Foundry made it hard to make a good looking result. However, the Halo community perservered and made countless of awesome, creative, and sometimes against-all-odds beautiful maps. I wish I could show examples, but none of the forgehub.com pages of my favorite maps have functioning images anymore..
Foundry was eventually succeeded by Sandbox in a later DLC pack and Forge World in Halo: Reach, but Foundry still has a special place in my heart. It awakened an appreciation for map and game design, and indirectly is the reason I'm studying to become a game developer today!
EDIT: Here's a good video showcase of some of the best forge maps from Halo 3. Not all of them are on Foundry, only those that look like they've been made entirely out of ugly metal boxes and walls (because they are).
