This was a little project I developed out of some other work I was doing for a client. Essentially it is a high(er) resolution version of the screenshot gallery for the maps except that it features only the best looking or innovative designed maps from Halo Custom Edition and only select screenshots. Although the website is live there is still much content to be added and only a dozen maps have been placed on line. This is the reason I was asking you to list the best looking maps.

What is on-line right now is just a smattering of the maps to be added and no importance or relative value should be inferred from the selection of the first maps. Many more will be added to the site over the coming weeks and months and I will announce changes and updates in this thread. So I give you:

The Art of Halo Custom Edition
http://art.halomaps.org


Feel free to offer suggestions in this thread.

Looks pretty good, although two maps you could put in are:

• Mystic


• Cityscape

This website also seems like a way to filter out the nicer maps of halomaps for easier browsing. (Not trying to offend anybody).
Edited by Xoronatus on Sep 20, 2011 at 12:22 AM

I like it, very cool Dennis!

I have to say that I like Destiny, Ancient Sanctuary, Valkyrie, Corrupted, Precipice, Chiller, Church, Valis, and Outpost Rio.

Very cool.

Are users allowed to submit pictures of maps the deem beautiful? Or is that what the screenshot galleries are for? Can there be multiple pictures of the same maps? Either way this is a very good idea becuase it allows users to search by screenshots instead of maps.

I'm not sure how many screenshots you plan on adding but you may also want to add in a search function if there gets to be a lot of them. I do like the layout though, perfect for this kind of thing.

Looks promising!

Church and Precipice should be 1st on the list, and the 1st thing that catches the eye.
Really good idea though, nice one man.

Definitely Mystic. And Autumn Slay.

Church

and lumoriz
Edited by Higuy on Sep 20, 2011 at 06:11 AM

Mystic

and lumoriz

It'd be neat to see the images when you're on the page of a specific map cycle themselves, instead of having to press next and reload the page.

Either way, neat showcase.

Again Dennis, the things you do for us without expecting anything in return is absolutely amazing.

Thank you :D

imo it would be neat to have a map-of-the-month. :P

How about contests? Like themed contests. (CE3 is kind of just an exposition.) They would be for bsps, of course.

Three new maps have been added to the site, you can sort the list by newest to oldest to see which ones were just added. I will be adding more each week and announcing it here and via the email list (Email Notices) and twitter so if you subscribe to either of them you'll know. Just so you know it takes over two hours to do three maps mainly because of the time to frame each shot, review then often re-shoot then write descriptions, organize the screens and upload. Unlike the screenshot gallery each screenshot is 1600X1200 and even with a fast connection it does take some time.


This particular site does not allow user submissions. Unlike the general screenshot gallery there is a strict requirement for the quality of the screenshots. We are trying to show off the quality and detail of the design, not necessarily and not even considering the game play or fun factor. We don't care about the weapons, bipeds, vehicles, the tricking or hidden rooms. This site is strictly about the art of the design.

There are. Each map has a least eight to ten or more screenshots showing off the map design. For example Church has twenty one screenshots because of the intricate detail that was put into the map.
The original design did just that but I wanted to allow people to download the screenshots and it caused too much confusion as to how to do that when the images were scrolling. The testers were downloading the wrong ones as the image changed. This was the best solution having the download links for each image as well as the zoom feature on the display image.



I am still working on the list I made and have added several I missed from your suggestions so don't be afraid to suggest something but don't be disappointed if it doesn't make the gallery either because we are using a different criteria for the maps on this site.

What criteria are you using? Frankly some of the maps and screenshots are outright ugly, no offense to anyone in particular...but there's screenshots that feature extremely "pointy" and sloppily modeled terrain along with somewhat awful textures.

I know picasso is considered art but the stuff I mean ain't no picasso.

Though of course this is a nice idea, just don't feel some of the maps and/or screenshots up there are worthy of the label "art" by far (while other maps up there certainly deserve to be called art imo, no doubt about it).

Oh, and I forgot to mention Seclusion. Seclusion looks pretty nice in my opinion.

Dennis, can you look at my Gallery on Deviant art and see if some images are good for you to post on your page, im always takin Halo CE images *scenery that is* to me Halo CE has the best Scenery/places where I could just live on, more on the ones people make.

http://halo-photographer.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=384
Edited by Halosnake on Sep 21, 2011 at 01:30 PM

Extinction.

...

Kidding, of course. Seriously though, this is a great idea. It's a chance to showcase some of the best maps that many people tend to overlook. I remember Asterisk, that was a fun one.

This reminds me of an old Halo website called Halo louvre. I've been missing this site:)

Added a few more maps. http://art.halomaps.org/index.cfm?sort=-2

http://forum.halomaps.org/index.cfm%3Fpage=topic&topicID=38942




*shameless plug*

TM Fracture:
A centrral forrunner structure of unknown purpose

Just a couple typos I spotted, great idea though!

We were having a special on "r"s this week.

Might I dare suggest Yoyorast Island? It's very beautiful, imo.

Some day... my maps will be in there.

Anyways, how about Quagmire?
and Immure 2?
Edited by Xoronatus on Sep 25, 2011 at 09:32 PM

New maps have been added to the The Art of Halo Custom Edition gallery. You can see them here http://art.halomaps.org/. Sort the list by newest for the new maps.

f yeahh. my map made the list. top one tooo :DDDD

Lawl, haven't posted here in forever ;)

Can you make the image downloads 16:10 or 16:9, 4:3 monitors at this point are uncommon at best, so there isn't much point in using that resolution for screenshots that would potentially be used for wallpaper.

I use a 4:3 ;) trolol. But I'm getting a 16:9 soon, so it really doesn't matter, haha.

I haven't seen a 4:3 monitor or notebook sold anywhere, or used anywhere for the last 6 years.

This ^

also 1920x1080

Crap! I completely forgot about the -Vidmode command line settings. Anything new will be in 1920X1200 and when I get a chance I'll re-do the existing. Thanks for the reminder.

Dennis stop putting my old work up and do lumoria!! >:O

<3

*coughYEScough*

Here's another map:

Sniper Canyon Redux
http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=1042