I'm making a redesign and cross of Boarding Action and Narrows. Like Boarding Action, there are two ships side by side, and like Narrows, there is a bridge where a majority of the combat would/does take place. There are three levels, with the middle one being the bridge where people can cross; the top, where the flag rooms are but you can only see across; and the bottom, the purpose of which has yet to be decided upon. It's all Covenant, and I was having some trouble trying to think of where to start building. Should I do the bridge first or the flag room or should I try and make the exterior of the ships?

This is one side of the map (It's symmetrical)


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The top is the flag room, and it has a window that allows you to see into the other team's base but not shoot through it. The second floor is the bridge like the one on Narrows. The little things sticking up are just bits of cover and whatnot. The third level is the unspecified one, which will either be a small hangar for Banshees or another walkway. Like I said before, the ships are Covenant, so the outside will be smoother and rounder than the drawing. So where should I start with this, and does anyone have any tips for me? Thanks.
Edited by electricSquid on Mar 2, 2009 at 04:41 PM
Edited by electricSquid on Mar 3, 2009 at 11:24 AM

Depends what you want.

What do you mean by that? I'm just wondering where the best place is to start with when making ships/structures.

Ground up.

What modeling program are you using?
I'd start with both the ships, so depending on how much room the bridge takes up you can just move the ships around accordingly, and ships are usually easier than bridges in my opinion.

Well it's symmetrical, so I'm gonna build one side then mirror it. I don't have a full idea what I want the exteriors to look like yet, I've done more sketches of the bridges and flag room than I have of the outside. I have a vague idea, I guess, but not enough to work from.
And I use SketchUp, but before someone starts flaming and ranting about it, don't. I already spent a whole thread arguing with someone about it, and it comes down to opinion. You don't think it's suited for mapmaking, good for you. It's the program I'm comfortable with and the one I'm pretty good with.

Ah, my friend that I'm working with uses Sketchup too. I don't understand how he does it..I can't even move around in there.
Anyway, I'm out. I don't know the first thing about modeling in that, so..good luck.

This is exactly what I mean. You guys haven't even seen it, and I haven't even started on it in earnest! Don't judge it on what I use to make it, judge it on the quality of the model and the map.

you should use gmax instead

bottom floors should have armory and a hanger. hanger should have banshees. make a teleport to some kind of a sniper tower with a shade turret.

Same thing as MAX, and I have MAX. I also have gmax. I don't use gmax because of limited abilities and I use MAX mostly for import/export stuff. Sketchup is my main one.

And I think I'll go with that idea and stick a hangar and/or armory down there, but not the Shade turret. Maybe something else for that.
Edited by electricSquid on Mar 1, 2009 at 03:05 PM

Eh? what are you guys whining about? have you been looking too long at the marathon mod?
This dude can use whatever he wants, and hell i'm sure it will look cool, people that make it look ugly by using sketchup just arn't good with it, end of discussion.

I think that the best option is to make a rough model of the whole, then make detailled stuff in it, like working from collision model to end model, weird but it keeps it organised =P

i think sniping gameplay would add a bit of fun. (if you notice, any bungie's medium-large multiplayer map has atleast one sniping position which adds to gameplay. so i think this ideas would help (using covenant weapons)

placing that laser shooting things on the map. (forgot name)

placing some shade turrets on some places, prefered pushable turrets on platforms entered by teleport.

yes the covenant carbine would be a nice change for a sniper oppertunity
i never really liked the beam rifle though
Edited by BeachParty clan on Mar 2, 2009 at 10:11 AM

Well I would really like to make the weapons Covenant, so I'll see if I can get a Beam Rifle and tweak it a bit or something. Maybe give it slightly higher damage and range, because the ones I've seen take a few hits and only travel so far. As for the turrets, I didn't have any kind of place for them planned, but I guess I could work it in or something. I don't know, the Halo 1 gun turrets suck.

Modify the Beam Rifles in Extinction and give it the Halo 2 Texture.

Since I'm sticking with Covenant-only weapons, (If tagspace allows I'll keep UNSC stuff in it.) I've decided on the following weapon set:

*Carbine
*Plasma Rifle
*Plasma Pistol
*Needler
*Beam Rifle
*H2 Fuel Rod Cannon (the one found in Downflow/Extinction)
*Brute Shot; only if I can find a good one.

I need a close-quarters weapon, like a shotgun equivalent and I'm not using any kind of energy sword or gravity hammer. Maybe I can use that weird needler rifle thing that's on Danger Valley and some other maps.

Do you guys think a Covenant Flamethrower would be cool? So instead of a jet of flames, it would be a stream of plasma and it would look like a Covenant-ized H3 flamethrower.

less heavier one could be a weapon that shoots 15 slow, heavy plasma bolts, like the shotgun on chaosgulch, just plasma pistol bolts and shot for less distance.

Why not have the default FRG instead of the Extinction one?

use the beam rifle from my map, Napalm... It has the H2 texture (pink, not red) and the shots dont randomly split up and explode
Edited by Koo294 on Mar 3, 2009 at 02:30 PM

Because A) I hate the Halo 1 FRG and B) the Halo 2 one looks cooler.

reds fine, but fix the shots.

That has to be the first time Ive seen someone give the preview for their map in keyboard strokes...

lol good or bad?
I've done it before, but I don't have a picture of it or anything anyway. Only paper sketches and the idea in my head. And being a forum noob I don't know how to put pics in my posts anyway.
So I'm basing the central bridge on the one in Narrows. I guess I'll do what BPC said and start out really simple and add detail in. Once I get to a presentable stage in the WIP then I'll show some renders or somethin on here or the WIP-thread. (They'll be here, if this thread hasn't dried up or been deleted/locked.)
Edited by electricSquid on Mar 4, 2009 at 11:21 AM

Something like that would be nice, people focus too much on the model, instead of the shaders too

I mean, it looks nice in the viewport and stuff, but covenant maps do look to shiny like midship or just dull, We're going to need the campaign hallways of the T&R to make good shaders =P
Edited by BeachParty clan on Mar 4, 2009 at 11:39 AM

I don't want it to be uber-shiny, just shiny enough that it looks smooth and glossy. Halo 1 shaders, to me, often are at the extreme ends of shinyness/dullness. And Halo 3 had shinyness to a ridiculous extreme in some places. (It made you wonder whether the surface was supposed to be wet or something) And my computer's graphics aren't the best, so I often need to have specular, shadows, and a range of effects turned off for smooth framerate, and I want to try to have as little of that as possible with this map.