If you made it this far; Congrats!
--NOTHING HERE IS FINAL UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE--



1. SO, what is this thread I stumbled upon?
Hello there; once again, Halo Maps Forums! Pepzee and I are now working together to our best extent to provide the community with a fun series of SP maps. (Name currently unknown. Suggestions welcome :P)
This level; the first of many revolves on the assasination of the grunt, Flipyap. (Okay. Stop right here. We KNOW its not exactly canon. Well; IMO Canon<Gameplay and Fun.) So this is a quick summary.

1.Flipyap is a great believer of the High Prophets, and the Great Journey,etc; The rest of the Unngoy (grunt Race) Is not, but as they all follow the deacon Flipyap.
2. UNSC Spies have found out about this and think killing the grunt leader will cause a revolution in the covenant making them easier to take down.
3. You and a highly trained ODST are on a covert mission on the arctic planet (name unknown) on to assassinate the grunt and escape.

This mission revolves around being stealthy. Insipred by All Ghillied Up; One Shot One Kill, Call of Duty 4.

2. THE team.
Spartan-279 (TauSigmaNova): Tagging; BSP; Ideas; modeler/animator
Pepzee; Original idea; Encounters; Approval; Partner In crime.


3. SO, just another promised big project that will fail with no progress?

Okay. We are making progress. To some extent. More eye candy will come as the final BSP gets ingame. After that; scenery; encounters; etc.

Beta will be private. Don't beg to be a tester.
Final Release will be open-sourced.
So far; the tags are a "tactical" style.
The H3 arctic sniper I made (will be tweaking).
High damage, silenced, low ROF (for balance).

Halo 3 ODST Pistol and SMG by Gamma927
ya know the drill with that. Standard UNSC Spec Ops Issue.
Tactical Battle Rifle byJessee;Broke:Gamma (If i forgot someone:oops)
Single shot. High Damaged. Good for stealth.
Covenant Weapons -Still working on for now-

Bipeds-
Flipyap will be custom;Arbiter inspired.
Other -Halo 3 and CMT

BSP Pics!
This is just the base, will be expanding on, working on, etc etc etc.
Gonna mabye edit textures also. Mostly model. (Tiling, adding major parts and structures, yada)



Edited by Spartan 279 on Aug 30, 2011 at 01:40 AM
Edited by Spartan 279 on Aug 30, 2011 at 11:23 PM

Cool Sniper rifle. I like the map aswell.

Thanks.
Still, Dont expect much but BSP for the next few weeks.

Essentially you can later state that the grunt you killed as the target wasnt Flipyap, but instead his brother or something. Go make use of sidestories and random coincidence.

On that mark, The Scope is missing it's details and decals. If anything you can run the same .weapon tag with the modified model texture...and moved node for the silencer but meh. Nothing here is quite "eyecandy" just yet. Use Sidewinder's Sky for this map if your not going to make your own. and give yourself some white armor and etc.

BSP Could use some work. Mainly around the edges because it's quite obvious this is a heightmap. make use of irregular angles, sides, and spaces. If anything, Model some structures and such into the BSP so that you'll have a decent amount of intresting parts to the BSP, otherwise you'll end up having one of those "Good idea, poorly executed" maps
Edited by R93_Sniper on Aug 30, 2011 at 02:05 AM

@Scope. Forgot to re-reference proper shaders. Fugh. Will fix . To tired to take pic. Its 108a here. And yeah, BSP is not mine, but I will be editing it, modelling more on it, and adding forerunner structures for the encounters. etc.

The groundmap looks pretty awesome, liking the BSP a lot at the moment.

MAKE CLIFFS NAOO

Sniper looks kinda yucky. You don't need all that camo.

Camo should be on the barrel, the scope, and the foremost part of the middle.

Plus, that bsp might be good if you can make the textures better and add things. Like, y'know, covenant outposts, rocks, ice trees.

BSP looks uninspired and was probably just made by using one of them terrain generator programs.
I don't see any thought put into gameplay, if you had done this then you wouldn't be showing off the entire BSP top to bottom.

This is not how you make fun maps.

Meh. Its probably just an alpha version.

Although, yea, the only good thing I see about that bsp is being surrounded by covies on the cliffs. That'd be hard, specially if they have snipes.

Lol @ incorrect use of alpha version on these forums.

BSP is just a start. I will be making it larger, cliffs, forerunner structures, and lots of covenant outposts.
Hope yall will enjoy when its done.

So? It's an SP map and the design of the map shouldn't make much difference to gameplay as long as the AI is setup properly and applied to match the layout. Using a terrain generator is actually more realistic as the world isn't as perfect as Sidewinder, Ice Fields, etc make it seem.

I admit I don't like it much, but here is my version of the tac sniper.



It uses different animations.

In a nutshell, SP map design, or SP level design, is the art of designing fun encounters in an interesting environment. The design of the map VERY MUCH affects gameplay since gameplay goes hand in hand with weapon set and encounter implementation (or simply AI as you call it).

Tldr? You contradicted yourself and don't know what you're talking about.

wat.

So then I can make super smart AI and put them in a box map and it will be on the same level as the original campaign?

I meant that if the AI is setup to match the layout of the map and the style of gameplay designed by the OP, it doesn't make much difference. The design of the map does not affect gameplay IF the style of gameplay AND the AI are both setup to match the design. You seem to hanging on to this idea of having the environment specifically designed for what you want. The current design is in the alpha stage and if left alone, it could be fine for survival as swarms of enemies could attack while you snipe them. Obviously though, once more scenery is added it can fit any style of gameplay. The current BSP shouldn't make much difference to gameplay quality so I stick with my original statement(Although I suppose I should have stated it shouldn't make much difference to gameplay QUALITY rather than just gameplay).

I have lost the ability to take you seriously, Jaz.

I don't think that's right... you're saying as long as the AI match the design, the design could be anything? That's... every map, ever. People design a map and put AI into it.

I have lost the ability to understand your incredible stubornness.

E:

That's exactly my point. The OP has designed/auto-generated a bsp and will put AI into it. You actually said "That's... every map, ever" which kinda means you agree.
Edited by Jaz on Aug 30, 2011 at 03:49 PM

I guess, but you're saying the design of the map "doesn't make a difference" or that it doesn't affect gameplay... I think you mean any bsp will work if you put ai that works with the gameplay.
I disagree, as elefant said, just putting good ai into a box map doesn't make it good. Design matters, you have to incorporate a lot of stuff into your designs to make a good map.
If I'm missing the point, then whatever, no need to persue this any more, we can all get back to the topic in live without judgement of each other.

I dunno, but I added Gamma's super smart AI into tutorial and I have a hard time killing it because it really knows how to use the environment (hiding behind rocks, seeking me out, ect).
Edited by Jesse on Aug 30, 2011 at 04:18 PM

Perhaps you're right... and I'm not really sure anymore.
One the one hand, I would like to imagine good gameplay coming from a well-thought-out plan of encounters, weapons, and bsp, like Bungie and TM probably have.
On the other hand, you can ai into a map like tutorial, or a heightmapped bsp such as this, with just scenery, and have it work. This is basically shaping the encounters and weapon abilities around the rest of the design.
??

Jaz you are horribly incorrect. While the player can determine what's fun or not, there's is a strong line that can make things alot better. In order to do so, you really do need to tailor your bsp to the gameplay, not the other way around. If you don't, it docent neccesairly make bad gameplay, but you don't know for sure, and you also won't even have much control over it other than tweaking the encounter. A really bad example of this is indeed generating terrain.

"The UNSC Remorse (A frigate) has launched dropships to the far side of the planet, far enough from the Assault Carrier to go largely unnoticed. Due to the weight of your prototype armor, the captain and you must get to the surface by drop pods. The pelican sent down with you contains 8 elite marines from the 206th Environmental Combat unit. On the trip down, however, their pelican takes damage from an unexpected blizzard and crashes. Once deployed, your HUD displays the last known position of the other team. Your first objective is to find the marines, and continue the mission.
The year is 2534. You are the first of your kind, a Spartan-III. Captain David Bradley has tasked you with the elimination of a particularly high-ranking grunt deacon, Flipyap. He is currently located on the planet Arctys Novalisp. to discuss armor upgrades with the old Prophets of Tolerance and Restraint. Spartan-A173, or Dawn for short, has been inserted with Captain David Bradley to eliminate the target. While it would be more conventional to launch a fleet, the UNSC is thinly stretched with battles all over various theaters of war. In addition, a Covenant assault carrier has taken position in geostationary orbit, so you're on your own.

The Forerunner Side:
Did you know the planet Arctys Novalisp was once a old forerunner storage facility? A place where the forerunners stored flood for examination, and their ultimate weapon, just in-case the halos were destroyed. Just a random glacier, in the middle of know where. The forerunners thought. No one would ever find it, until now."



Edited by Spartan 279 on Aug 30, 2011 at 11:13 PM

Finished the sniper, looks ok for a two minute job.

FUUUUUUUUUH IT LOOKS SO MUCH BETTER THAN MINE.
But I suck at PS anyway.


The Human side:
The year is 2534. You are the first of your kind, a Spartan-III. Captain David Bradley has tasked you with the elimination of a particularly high-ranking grunt deacon, Flipyap. He is currently located on the planet Arctys Novalisp. to discuss armor upgrades with the old Prophets of Tolerance and Restraint. Spartan-A173, or Dawn for short, has been inserted with Captain David Bradley to eliminate the target. While it would be more conventional to launch a fleet, the UNSC is thinly stretched with battles all over various theaters of war. In addition, a Covenant assault carrier has taken position in geostationary orbit, so you're on your own.

The UNSC frigate Remorse has launched dropships to the far side of the planet, far enough from the Assault Carrier to go largely unnoticed. Due to the weight of your prototype armor, the captain and you must get to the surface by drop pods. The pelican sent down with you contains 8 elite marines from the 206th Environmental Combat unit. On the trip down, however, their pelican takes damage from an unexpected blizzard and crashes. Once deployed, your HUD displays the last known position of the other team. Your first objective is to find the marines, and continue the mission.

The Forerunner side:
Did you know the planet Arctys Novalisp was once a old forerunner storage facility? A place where the forerunners stored flood for examination, and their ultimate weapon, just in-case the halos were destroyed. Just a random glacier, in the middle of know where. The forerunners thought. No one would ever find it, until now.

Amazing. At least to me anyway, I have no eye for this stuff. But to me it looks great.

I just noticed that the scope said Noble 6 on it...
Edited by Pepzee on Aug 30, 2011 at 11:29 PM

And the silencer. Personally I liked the H3 Origins, but Its still pretty damn good!

This is looking so it might gonna be good. If you use that sniper, and add a bit more of a varied camo pattern, that'll be good.

Maybe have the start where your SOIEV lands just on the top of a cliff. You fall out, dazed, and your sniper slides off the edge! You have to use your pistol until you can link with Bradley down at the bottom of the cliff or something, and retrieve your sniper.

that would be good, but it kind of beats the stealth. Well, what about, it lands on the edge and the rock crumbles unbder as it falls?

Question is, would you know how to animate that so it looks convincing?

Jesse's Sniper looks nice, but the origins seem a bit low and too far to the left imo. As for the Camo, Make the Darker splotches a bit more prevailant.

Sniper Sliding off edges would completly disrupt gameplay. The idea of the Mission is to be very Stealthy and make quiet takedowns to get into position to take down that special grunt.

Honestly People, pay attention to what's being stated and think about how you can keep the style and asthetic into the gameplay.

((also Jaz, you're wrong, You have to build your BSP for gameplay and then make your AI and etc work with it. I understand what your saying but you're not doing a very good job of explaining it.))

i;m not planning on it.

Anyway, I know its a stealth mission. (duh) But yeah, any commments on the plot?

Yea, but the sniper falling off would be a snag. You would ahve to improvise, it'd add a lot of good plot. Also, if you made it work that if any covenant saw you for, hmm, say 1 second straight, you'd have five seconds to kill them before you signal.

That'd actually be fun. Although it prob only work with open sauce. Dangit.

And yes, make the map centred around the gameplay, nbot gameplay centred aorund the map.