Useful Dave said:
But do they qualify as maps at all? They are merely different placements of spawn points for vehicles, players and weaponry. When you say in the title of this thread 'Who is the better mapmaker?' you automatically assume that moving a few props around on a map means that you've made an entirely new level.
http://www.garrysmod.org/img/dl/63946_2.jpg
Look at the above image as an example, that isn't simply the making placing down a few trees, he created thaat landscape from scratch using the textures and models that was provided with them game. Although it is similar in a way to what you are doing, it is like comparing a pre-coloured snap together model aircraft to a custom built handmade one.
So, what you've made isn't a map as much, instead simply an edit to the entities placed throughout the level. Sure, some may work well, but ultimately all you are doing is using what is essentially a real-time gamemmode editor rather than a fully fledged map editor, which even Far-Cry 2 has a much better example of, heck they even had them in the Tony Hawks games at a better standard than Forge.
So shouldn't you be asking 'Who can make the better layout?' or something more along those lines, seeing as there is no actual mapmaking program released for Halo 3.
Bleh, I like Forge a LOT more than Far Cry 2's map editor. I mean sure, you can make much larger maps with Far Cry 2's map editor, but the things you can create aren't nearly as interesting. When you place something in Far Cry 2, it's immovable. In Forge, only certain objects are immovable. The rest are affected by the physics engine once you place them, allowing for complex switch activated doors, drawbridges, and elevators.
Also, Far Cry 2's map editor doesn't allow you to place balls of red or blue light, miniature suns, gravity lifts. You also can't place real time visual filters. For instance: place the "colorblind" filter to make the map black and white. Place the "juicy" filter to make the colors more saturated. Place the "Pen and Ink" filter to make the map look like it's in pen and ink (the black looks very saturated and it bleeds a bit). The "Gloomy" filter makes everything much darker and gloomier, hence the name. You can make videos and screenshots of maps in Far Cry 2's editor and then apply a filter with an editing suite, but you can't apply filters in the game that affect the look of the level in real time.
And also, in Forge, you can merge/fuse different items together to make complex patterns, shapes, tunnels, etc... I used quite a bit of merging in my map, especially with the floors in the floating courtyards. Forge is not a map editor, you're right, but the results you can produce can be better than that of a standard map editor like Far Cry 2's. I mean sure, all you have to work with are a bunch of objects and items made by bungie, but the things you can do with those objects and items, especially if you merge them together, are nearly infinite. You clearly have never actually spent any time with Forge and a good Forger. You should get Halo 3 so you can see the kinds of maps (not layouts) that can be made with Forge.
Pyronox said:
I heard bungie was working on a farcry2-esque map editor?
That was just one of the many rumors that turned up shortly after Bungie's Edge acceptance video. They showed a video of a number of AI characters (probably just a tease, but it could be a look at ODST's Forge. Who knows) and they showed a spartan walking around on the sky box. Bungie probably isn't making a fully featured map editor, they're probably just going to add more stuff to Forge.
I guess no one has made any custom maps on Sandbox.
