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Halo 5 Forge

Lots more FX than just those.


So far, only fog. But you can make it fall straight down.


It is, but you are not actually shaping the environment. You are selecting the correct piece from an expansive collection of terrain pieces, and melding them together.

The only thing which bugs me about those gifs is they make it look like you still need to be holding the object to move it. You can select and move objects so it appears as if they are being grabbed, but your camera can be focused anywhere while moving the object.

Yea i used the wrong word but thanks for clarfiying.

Are you able to say how the terrain works when you're not building close to it? If the pieces are picking up the canvas, what happens if you're way above it and happen to build over the water? Do the terrain pieces have native textures are all they all pulled from the canvas itself?
 

NOKYARD

Member
I think the advanced lighting options will breath way more variety into maps. Being able to build shadowy nooks and brightly lit spaces is what I am looking forward to. I am sure there will be some interesting lighting tricks to play with as well.


Do we know if the lighting can be linked to scripting? Like forcing a black-out or changing things as a round progresses?
I believe lighting is baked in at the start of each round.
 

Raide

Member
I believe lighting is baked in at the start of each round.

I am sure it will be way better than the old Forge lighting, so I won't count it out yet. :D

Did they mentioned in the video something to do with making a map that you can hold a button down in order to see a basic version or a baked shadow version? I am sure they said something like that, so I am guessing as you build the game will build shadows around what you make and then bake it?
 
Another thing i'm curious about are the glass pieces. in Halo Reach they were mostly transparent, but Halo 4 and H2A had a gloss to them where you couldn't even see through them. Has that been fixed so that they're truly transparent this time? I saw what looked like a long glass piece on the Glacier canvas and it looks translucent :/
 

Raide

Member
Another thing i'm curious about are the glass pieces. in Halo Reach they were mostly transparent, but Halo 4 and H2A had a gloss to them where you couldn't even see through them. Has that been fixed so that they're truly transparent this time? I saw what looked like a long glass piece on the Glacier canvas and it looks translucent :/

Yeah, some actual glass pieces would be handy. I remember using a few of them in weird ways in older Forge but just some straight up glassed out doors/windows etc would be handy.
 

NOKYARD

Member
When you hold D Pad down you generate lighting just like in the previous Forge releases. They just made it more convenient by allowing you to bypass the generate lighting phase by quickly pressing D Pad down. It simply speed up forging.

The Glacier glass pieces were quite visible on the video (ice walkways). Alpine's were going back to the art dept. to be reworked so i don't know what they will look like in the final game.
 
I won't lie, I'm not a fan of Alpine's environment art. It's all a little washed out and starved of color and detail. I wonder if the final iteration will do it a little different. I'd love to see an art style closer to the Tundra of Reach.

mbPVIky.jpg


(Obviously not Reach but rather Alaska, yet it's a similiar environment with richer colors)
 
Cauldron is one of my favorite Halo environments ever. Spops had some amazing spaces in it.

Got another question for ya Nok:

Do objects scripted to move make a sound when they move?

If you can't answer or if the answer is no (which would be disappointing), then it should damn well be a yes sometime in the future. An opening door or moving bridge that doesn't make any sound is hard to sell.
 

NOKYARD

Member
Cauldron is one of my favorite Halo environments ever. Spops had some amazing spaces in it.

Got another question for ya Nok:

Do objects scripted to move make a sound when they move?

If you can't answer or if the answer is no (which would be disappointing), then it should damn well be a yes sometime in the future. An opening door or moving bridge that doesn't make any sound is hard to sell.
I am not sure if there are any sound effects but there are usually other ways to accomplish this. I have embedded Weapon Holders, Fusion Coils, Mancanons, and Barriers inside walls and floors to generate sound effects. You could script one of these (or whatever is available) to appear inside the floor under the player while the door is opening, and have it vanish after a few seconds.
 
I am not sure if there are any sound effects but there are usually other ways to accomplish this. I have embedded Weapon Holders, Fusion Coils, Mancanons, and Barriers inside walls and floors to generate sound effects. You could script one of these (or whatever is available) to appear inside the floor under the player while the door is opening, and have it vanish after a few seconds.

I really hope one of the updates we get later down the line focuses on sound design. With all the updates they've made to Forge, I feel like that's the next logical step for them to take.
 
I really hope one of the updates we get later down the line focuses on sound design. With all the updates they've made to Forge, I feel like that's the next logical step for them to take.

Would they just have a list of sound effects that trigger on script then?

Select Sound
>UNSC Door Open (Crow's Nest)
>Forerunner Door Open (Assault on the Control Room)
>Covenant Door Opoen (High Charity)

Link to Event
>(Named "Door Open" Event)
 
Would they just have a list of sound effects that trigger on script then?

Select Sound
>UNSC Door Open (Crow's Nest)
>Forerunner Door Open (Assault on the Control Room)
>Covenant Door Opoen (High Charity)

Link to Event
>(Named "Door Open" Event)

Well, there's stuff like that, but you also have to consider you could make use of ambient sounds like gunfire, distant explosions / thunder, maybe even dialogue playing over radios, etc. As well as "ambience volumes" that played a sound over a certain distance, e.g. synth FX / soundscapes in Forerunner rooms, background music depending on the situation / objectives reached like during Invasion, and so on.
 
Well, there's stuff like that, but you also have to consider you could make use of ambient sounds like gunfire, distant explosions / thunder, maybe even dialogue playing over radios, etc. As well as "ambience volumes" that played a sound over a certain distance, e.g. synth FX / soundscapes in Forerunner rooms, background music depending on the situation / objectives reached like during Invasion, and so on.

Let me record my own audio over Mic/Kinect plz
 
Well, there's stuff like that, but you also have to consider you could make use of ambient sounds like gunfire, distant explosions / thunder, maybe even dialogue playing over radios, etc. As well as "ambience volumes" that played a sound over a certain distance, e.g. synth FX / soundscapes in Forerunner rooms, background music depending on the situation / objectives reached like during Invasion, and so on.

Hmm. In that case, rather than make it menu specific, it should be placed as a "sound effect orb" with the options to repeat the sound a set number of times. For ambiance, you'd just have it on a loop. For event specific sounds, you'd have it play once.

Would be interesting if they also let you change the sound distance/reverb size via a kill volume.
 

singhr1

Member
I won't lie, I'm not a fan of Alpine's environment art. It's all a little washed out and starved of color and detail. I wonder if the final iteration will do it a little different. I'd love to see an art style closer to the Tundra of Reach.

mbPVIky.jpg


(Obviously not Reach but rather Alaska, yet it's a similiar environment with richer colors)

You can change the lighting and add effects so the mood does change a bit.

Halo-5-Guardians-Forge-Grass-jpg.ashx

Halo-5-Guardians-Forge-Landscape-jpg.ashx

Halo-5-Guardians-Forge-Mountain-jpg.ashx


This last one in particular looks like Halo from CE or Reach
 

NOKYARD

Member
Seems so, got it from Xbox Wire. The first one is just called "Grass" so i'm guessing you can place your own grass around your map?

No placeable grass, and the grass does not transpose to the terrain pieces.

Those are 3 distinct canvases which take place in exactly the same location, at different times of the day, and possibly different "seasons" by the look of it.
 

nillapuddin

Member
So a Prisoner donut? I like it.

Prisoner was one of my top 3 CE maps, it did something that Halo always struggled to reproduce and that was really good vertical gameplay. I think its very much worth trying.
 

Raide

Member
I think one of the most interesting things about Forge and Map Design is how the Mantling and Ground pound stuff might alter the flow of maps. I really wonder what more advanced tricks people will figure out and how that will change how we build maps.

Zoba's map above could be an interesting one if the map mixes traditional pathways and then more inventive ways to navigate the map.
 

nillapuddin

Member
yeah learning how to forge clamber and slide points will be a learning curve to us all.

Slide doesnt get alot of talk, but on Fathom there is a slide wall and it is an excellent way to evade and cut through the map
 

Raide

Member
yeah learning how to forge clamber and slide points will be a learning curve to us all.

Slide doesnt get alot of talk, but on Fathom there is a slide wall and it is an excellent way to evade and cut through the map

Utterly forgot about slide!

Making a map that makes use of slide, regular movement and clambering is going to be fun!
 
So a Prisoner donut? I like it.

Prisoner was one of my top 3 CE maps, it did something that Halo always struggled to reproduce and that was really good vertical gameplay. I think its very much worth trying.

In a sense, yes. Although it spun off of a less walkway oriented design so there are still residual concepts being used. I imagine the bases and the side terrain areas going through significant revision to push it a bit closer to Prisoner. A map like this needs multi-dimensional side paths moreso than multi-dimensional "towers", otherwise it will end up playing primarily like a donut.

I'm definitely looking forward to some of the abilities with this one though. It's a very ground poundable map and Clamber opens up a lot of traversal opportunities.
 
Man, I can't wait for Forge and to see all the great things that will come from it. Reallyyyy hoping their fileshare system is on point.
 
I won't lie, I'm not a fan of Alpine's environment art. It's all a little washed out and starved of color and detail. I wonder if the final iteration will do it a little different. I'd love to see an art style closer to the Tundra of Reach.

mbPVIky.jpg


(Obviously not Reach but rather Alaska, yet it's a similiar environment with richer colors)
i never liked the colors in Reach. Too much like living in Seattle. Overcast and yuck all the time.
 

Granadier

Is currently on Stage 1: Denial regarding the service game future
Since there's no Forge OT yet I'll post this here. After seeing how clean the ice canvas looks, I've been inspired to design some stuff for it. I've been going through some old concepts and reimagine one (of many) scrapped ideas, but it didn't end up feeling the way I wanted to. Through iteration, my friend and I stumbled upon this design and I ran with it for a bit. I'm not sure how it'll play yet and it will probably need more revision, but I really like the pathing. The trick will be to make it feel cozy and very small, that way I can add more overlapping paths.

I am liking this a lot.

The only concern I have about circular maps now with sprint and more mobility, is that it could just turn into "ring around the rosie" like it did for Zealot in Reach.
 
I am liking this a lot.

The only concern I have about circular maps now with sprint and more mobility, is that it could just turn into "ring around the rosie" like it did for Zealot in Reach.

Easy solution: place two one-way shield doors bisecting the map so as to force movement in a single direction. Script shields to rotate at a fixed rate. Dynamic map flow!
 

Raide

Member
Easy solution: place two one-way shield doors bisecting the map so as to force movement in a single direction. Script shields to rotate at a fixed rate. Dynamic map flow!

I am kind of hoping the new scripting will allow us to alter the map via things moving etc to also lock out the same route over and over. Could lead to some great cat and mouse matches where the map changes to help/hinder both sides.
 
So, I just realized: we're getting Pegasus and Orion at launch. Are we getting access to Alpine (just without forge) as well, or will it just get unlocked in December?
 

NOKYARD

Member
So, I just realized: we're getting Pegasus and Orion at launch. Are we getting access to Alpine (just without forge) as well, or will it just get unlocked in December?

Blank canvases are typically available for custom games, and they should be "on the disc" as the base maps for Pegasus and Orion, but i'm not sure.
 
Blank canvases are typically available for custom games, and they should be "on the disc" as the base maps for Pegasus and Orion, but i'm not sure.

I don't know how developed it was at the time, but do you know how scripting objects to move works in terms of placement, number of "moves," etc? Likewise with velocity. I'm picturing a system akin to:

*object has a coordinate / XYZ placement on spawn*
*movement can be set to true*
*"movement coordinate" is an advanced option, which just provides the destination / vector for said object*

I'm mainly curious if the object can be scripted to move in more than one direction, whether or not it's possible to keep this movement on repeat (e.g. Mario platform), and how you determine the speed of the object. Is it limited to seconds, like spawning? Or do you actually provide a speed value?
 

NOKYARD

Member
I caught a very, very brief glimpse of the scripting settings so i am not able to give an accurate or detailed answer. I do believe you can program a piece to reciprocate, or rotate, on a timer as one of the options.
 
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