Drums in the deep and another week of content.
The MoleN steps up this week to deliver Aberrant Designs' second round of community spotlight content. He also has some post mortem details charting the construction of his map variant, Lords of Moria, and some ideas covering what he thinks could help Forge become a better tool. Read up.
Q. What inspired Lords of Moria?
A. My creation was inspired by my favorite movie series, The Lord of the Rings. The map itself is based off of an area located in the Mines of Moria, and is a direct remake of Balin's Tomb. For all of you who are not familiar with Lord of the Rings, the map is basically a chamber filled with pillars, a tomb and more. I do feel I accurately remade the map, as it is nearly identical to the area I was attempting to remake.
Q. How long did it take to excavate and remake?
A. This map took much longer than I expected, coming in on around twenty hours of building. Many things took much time to perfect, and I had many versions. I had to test it, make improvements, make sure it was to scale with the original, and test some more. It also had to be aesthetically pleasing for me to be satisfied with it, so I went back to this map a lot to fix things up. Over all, it was worth the effort, as I highly enjoy the final product.
Q. Which part of the finishing process took up the most amount of time?
A. The aspect that took the longest to get right was the gate. I probably remade the gate three separate times, changing my design, adding more, and fixing any problems that may have affected the map negatively. I wanted the map to look real, so the gate was a must have and it must look great. The well was a close second, as it was a real challenge for me to make and to design (as it was supposed to be quite smooth and yet function properly, killing any foolish enough to jump into it's depths).
Q. How could Forge be improved?
A. Although Forge is already amazing, it could use a bit of touching up. I would love features that allow you to interlock, geomerge, etc. without the need to glitch. The thing I would like to see most in Forge however is a weather and environment filter. These would alter things such as objects you can place and the environment you place them in. Maps with storms occurring above would be as easy as spawning a filter, and those looking to remake old maps or construct new masterpieces would only need to add an environment filter (such as valley), and items such as trees, rocks, etc. would be placeable, adding a whole new meaning to 'forge'.
Well, we don't know about easy, but we do know that the second week of Aberrant Designs' Community Spotlight has come to to a close. Check out their latest batch of
Bungie Favorites - they're online and ready to go, right now. Since they're primary focus is snapping screenshots, we've slapped up the latest MLG map and game variants in case you've yet to become acquainted.