[WIP] Omen (Working Title)

[English Mobster]

Immediately after Domain was finished, I began work on another project.
While I actually went to work on about 5 different projects at once, this one was the most promising.
This map was actually an unnamed WIP from a long time ago. I stumbled across it, and, to my surprise, the BSP was salvageable, unlike most of my old stuff (Box maps made out of extrusions and displace modifiers... *shudder*).
I took a look at what I had, got rid of some things which I didn't need, fixed some open edges which were a result of my early modeling, made things less boxxy, and drew up a concept of the map.
http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq80/Mudkipz47/omenconcept.png
As you can see, this is a medium-sized map, with Yoyorast Island V2-style "Panic Rooms", which shut any entrances or exits to the structure.

After some fixing up, this is what I have ATM. None of this stuff has any kind of permanent smoothing, it was just a quick autosmooth I ran before I rendered:
http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq80/Mudkipz47/beach_cliffs_overview.jpg
Beach overview
http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq80/Mudkipz47/bluebasebeachhead.jpg
Blue Base
http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq80/Mudkipz47/redbasecliffs.jpg
Red base Forerunner structure
http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq80/Mudkipz47/redbasewateroverhang.jpg
Alternate angle of red base's Forerunner structure
http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq80/Mudkipz47/riveroverview.jpg
The route of the river.

I have modeled a swamp, but it's uninteresting right now.

As you can see, the beach and Forerunner areas have some heavy influence from Halo 3. While H3 WAS an influence, I'm not going to be using H3 weapons or vehicles. Classic weapon set FTW.
The swamp area will have a heavy Halo 1 influence, and I will be using either the stock or slightly modified H1 textures (except the ground, the ground might be UVW unwrapped) to texture the map. I will not be screencapping textures, so no worries. Just because an area is based on H3 doesn't mean that it HAS to use H3 textures.

One other thing I noticed is that I seem to have a fascination with destroyed Pelicans. Most of my early maps (or rather, attempts) have some sort of destroyed Pelican in them. Even one of the recent concepts I made has a destroyed Pelican in it. I don't know why the hell I keep putting destroyed Pelicans.

[Higuy]

I know this is all a wip, but heres some stuff:

Your forerunner could be alot better though. Right now all I see is extrudes and boxes. You can make it more interesting by using certain angles on some of it, instead of just straight lines.

Your cliffs are kinda fugly, more polys in some places could make it look better without those super sharp angles. The cliffs didn't look weathered naturally really. The terrain, is looking pretty decent so far. You can also use Noise (don't know if you have or not) which is a simple modifier that moves the vertex's around to add some variation to your cliffs as well.

The caves seem uninteresting in your layout, just seem like this pretty long tunnel from one side of the map to another. You should open it up a bit, put some forerunner stuff in there, with a bigger middle. Maybe add a skylight, a little forerunner structure, ya dig?

These are just some of my stuff I have to say. Your map is looking good, just needs to be fixed up so far. :downs:

[Chainsy]

I remember when this was posted back then, and jay, tbh, the thing looks like a piece of a shit. Quit being lazy, and make a new bsp for god's sake.

[Sel]

I remember when this was posted back then, and jay, tbh, the thing looks like a piece of a shit. Quit being lazy, and make a new bsp for god's sake.

Yeah, really, this.

This sucked in early 2008, and still sucks now.

Your cliffs are shit, caves aren't box shaped, etc etc

[odseraphim]

Why are Pelicans always crashed? I'd hate to see the insurance policy rate for such a piece of shit.

[Llama Juice]

Well, how many times in campaign have they successfully landed with you in em?... they crash more often than they land it seems haha.

I agree with most of what was said above too... it doesn't really look... good... that forerunner structure for example just looks bad. It doesn't make me think of forerunner architecture at all.

[Sel]

Well, how many times in campaign have they successfully landed with you in em?


Uhh, every single time?

[Llama Juice]

Uhh, every single time?

Yea, I suppose in H1 they don't crash that often.... the downed one on The silent Cartogropher comes to mind though.

I was thinkin more of H3 where like every time you start a mission in a pelican it crashes for lulz.

[klange]

Yea, I suppose in H1 they don't crash that often.... the downed one on The silent Cartogropher comes to mind though.

I was thinkin more of H3 where like every time you start a mission in a pelican it crashes for lulz.
All I can think of is Halo 2. Last I checked, in H3, you're never in one when it crashes (The Covenant - not in the one that crashed; later in the Covenant - not in it when it crashes; Halo - you jump out before it crashes if I'm not mistaken...) Please, correct me, I think I'm wrong on some points.

[Llama Juice]

My point was that they get shot down a lot in H3 so if he's going for an H3 theme, he's on the right path there haha.

First level two of them get shot down by covie drop ships in that scene when they're above the water when Johnson is all "Cheif, the Pelicans are at the river, so hustle up."

There's another downed one on Tsavo highway near the end of the level.

Another on The Arc when the brutes come at you with the choppers and such. (group of marines stationed by the downed peli with tons of equipment thrown about)

The covenant - Johnson's peli crashes in the beginning, and there's an already crashed one off on the right of the AA wraith.

Miranda later crashes a peli through the command center of the same mission and yet somehow doesn't destroy the extremely fragile bird.

Cortana - There's a crashed peli with a ton of ammo spilled all over... but somehow that peli is still functional 'cause they use it to escape.

They then take that peli and crash it into the snow in Halo because... well... that's how pelicans are parked apparently according to the last two encounters with pelican crashes.

What I don't understand about the silly pelicans... is they have all that crazy firepower to them (as seen in the end of Sierra 117) but... that's the ONLY TIME they ever use it. I'm sure that kind of firepower could take down a scarab no problem... but instead the UNSC uses the pelicans as a fucking taxi to drop off marines rather than using it to whoop some ass like we've seen it do before.

I probably missed a few pelicans... but... my point is that pelicans just... they're rather crash happy lol.

[Gwunty]

https://yhsbiology.wikispaces.com/file/view/normal_pelican.jpg
/pelican.


Yhea well this map looks absolutely terrible, the geometry for the cliffs is bad that forerunner is bad and the caves are boxes.

[English Mobster]

Again, I know I need to fix some stuff up. The cliffs have an unsmoohed noise modifier added to them, the caves are a little... Bland, I'm working on that. I was thinking of redoing them to make them into something like the Forerunner rooms in "343 Guilty Spark" and take it from there.
E: Also, anything marked "Transition" isn't a cave. It's a Forerunner... Well, "Transition". Look at where you get the tank on H3's "The Covenant". You drive straight from grassy mountains to a snowy vista. It's the same concept as that.