Auburn's Portfolio

[Auburn]

I'm the kinda guy that enjoys viewing what forgers are working on, so its always fun to step back and do a little show-and-tell of everything a forger has dabbled with prior. Having done this with several people before, I can wholeheartedly tell you that you will have a good laugh. So, seeing as how its Tuesday (everybody hates Tuesdays), I'm posting this forge history to brighten your days with wondrous laughter.

I forged a little in Halo 3, mostly infection maps comprised of tunnels in addition to some random ghost-merging maps (if you could even call them maps, that is). I hadn't been too interested in the whole idea of forge until about late 2010 when I started lurking Forge Hub. By this point, Halo: Reach was out and everybody (forgers and your general players alike) were joining in on the new Forge World craze. I, being apart of this craze, set out on an adventure that would ultimately occupy a large portion of my high school memories. My first step into this new world was...
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Zombie Village | Using my clearly extensive knowledge of infection level design, I constructed the beauty you see above. Zombie Village was an infection map complete with several buildings to holdout in, most notably the OP bookstore. Despite how it looks, I would consider this somewhat of a breakthrough in regards to my infection forging. Again, just about every infection map I had forged prior was comprised of a series of tunnels. Sounds fun, right? I sadly never managed to test this with more than just a couple of friends who, might I mention, thought this map was amazing. I went on to create other beautiful infection maps like this, in case anybody was wondering. I wouldn't want to post them and embarrass those BIOC guys, though.
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Sierra 117 | I hope this looks familiar. Please tell me it looks familiar... If it doesn't and you couldn't already tell by looking at its title, this is a remake of the initial mission in Halo 3, Sierra 117. I absolutely loved that mission back when the game was still relevant, so one of my first projects was to replicate it in all its splendor... or something. The limitations of forge kicked my ass, so the map wasn't very accurate TBH. The most notable factor here, though, is that this was my first attempt at forging an invasion map. Needless to say, I didn't know squat about Invasion other than that it was a progression styled gametype. Thankfully, I was never able to test this. FUN FACT: I reforged this map at least six times before finally giving up.​

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Intrepid | Not long after settling into the #ForgeHubLife, I discovered a SketchUp thread in the MLG forums and learned some about competitive design through loooots of lurking. Through that, I was inspired to design my first competitive 1v1 and Intrepid was born. The design was as simple as the image looks; Imagine the number 8 sliced vertically down the middle with the left half being slightly more elevated than the right. Now imagine the bleak Forge Island palette and combine the two together. That was the essence known as Intrepid. I submitted this to what was the Testers Guild on FH and learned a little from the feedback I received there. As you could probably tell by observing the respawn points in the above image, there was still had a very, very long road ahead.
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Cherrygrove City | Not much to say about this one. It was a miniature replica of Cherrygrove City from Pokemon Silver. I was content with just about everything on this except for the columns I used for trees. They were pretty bad. The most important thing to mention here, though, is that I met xAudienceofone for the first time in an exchange that left what little pride I had in forge (and Pokemon) torn to shreds. I had planned to turn this into some kind of series, remaking every town from every Pokemon game ever, but that whole idea fell short when I maneuvered my way back into the competitive scene. NOTE: This apparently led me to discover the wonderful Purple filter we all know and love, so prepare your eyes.
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Intrepid II | After receiving some very warranted feedback from the Testers Guild, I revisited Intrepid when I had learned a little more about competitive forging. Imagine that same uneven 8 from before, but now the elevated half is even higher. Now throw in some pillars, covenant crates, a purple filter, and some frame rate. Finish it off with a very odd weapon layout and with that, you have Intrepid II. Bon appetit! That all being said, I was actually very proud of what I had created here. I was intent on getting her a FH feature, so I spent over an hour tricking out the thread with cool pictures and irrelevant, minute details. Ahhh, the good ol' dayz. DISCLAIMER: Intrepid never received that feature. ever... saidface.
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KFCP! | I forged a couple other small-team competitive maps (mostly unfinished) after Intrepid, but the most notable one was Kung Fu Chicken Power! or KFCP! for short. I don't mean to say this one was any better than the others by any means, but the feedback I received here, albeit harsh, helped me improve my understanding of forge quite a lot. The design was heavily based around tunnels like the one you can just barely see above. If the position you were in wasn't a tunnel, it was probably a very open space. You can imagine the problems. The whole idea behind this one was to create an enjoyed 2v2 CTF experience, but I didn't have nearly enough knowledge of Flag to make a decent design supporting it. Not to mention, 2v2 Flag is inherently broken. On the bright side, I learned that you should not designate your respawn points.
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The District the Beatles Never Got to See | Some time after the previous disaster, I met a forger named RoboArtist. We had a similar taste in musicz, so we got along pretty well. As you all should know, the only way to tie the knot is to co-forge a map. And so, "The District the Beatles Never Got to See" was born (nohomo). The design had a very evident urban-like theme, with each base being forged to look like office buildings. On the outer ring, you could find a nuetral Ghost on one side and Rockets on the other. The map turned out to be somewhat of a bust, but hey, it was a good time.
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Paradise | I decided to take my first break from Reach and delved into the world that was Oblivion. I was practically engrossed with it, so I ended up completing the main story line waay too soon. For those that haven't got too far into the game, there's a segment where the Hero is sent to another dimension to kill some evil guy (IIRC the dimension was actually called Paradise). With this map, I tried to capture the same setting as seen in that dimension while combining it with Covenant aesthetics. This was my first time really breaking out of my comfort zone, constructing the map on pre-made terrain as well as designing it to support 5v5 games.​

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Aerowalk | I took another break from forge soon after Paradise and started playing Quake, the game that ultimately lead to the curvy-overly vertical-asymmorGTFO stereotype given to 2v2s. I took a liking to one of the maps in the game, Aerowalk, and journeyed back into the world of forge to remake it. It turned out to be pretty accurate surprisingly enough, but as it turns out, the scale of the original is far too small too support game play in Halo. Oh, and rockets don't work well in 1v1s like they do in Quake. Aerowalk probably marked one of the larger turning points in my forge career. Having playing Quake so much, I took a heavy interest in competitive design in general and started studying outside sources that I could apply to my forging. All in all, I took a pretty massive leap around this time.
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Atmosphere Supreme | This was a 2v2 I designed and co-forged with Audience-o-fone. The design was meant to have a circular flow, with the elevation becoming steadily higher as the loop continues (a design style that became my personal plaque later on). The lowest point and the highest point were connected via teleporter. Having just built in prior, I drew some inspiration from Aerowalk in that previously mentioned loop would occasionally force place to cross through the center. We forged the design for the longest time until finally finishing it a couple months later.
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Candy | This was the first map I designed and co-forged with Frenchys. The idea here was to create these catwalk-esque connections that players could use to get around the map efficiently. However, these catwalks were risky to utilize being in the open. Frenchys decided to turn his love for male and female anatomy into the core aesthetics, so no picture fer you. Again, this was another map that was completed but never actually released. TBH I think this map was deleted not too long after it was finished.
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Chichen Itza | Not too much to say about this one either. It was a remake of the Chichen Itza and my submission to Forgehub's Wonders of the World contest back in early 2012. I had used railings for the stairs, so it was nearly impossible to get near the pyramid without lagging to death. I was actually somewhat proud of what I had done here. The corners were impossible to make, but it looked pretty damn accurate IMO. FUN FACT: I had built this around the time the "brony" movement took off. Dark days those were.
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Jackbasket | This was a 2v2 I forged together with Jacknife (now known as Behemoth) on Forge World. Get it? Jacknife and basketskate3? Impressive, I know. The design was somewhat... random. We had decided it was time to co-forge this one late night and just started going to town; no real goal in mind. There was a single threshold of control that was countered by many, many different routes (two of which being the catwalk and teleporter seen above). He remade the map again in Halo 4 without me under the name Cache. sadfaic.
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Attribute | Attribute was yet another 2v2 design that I forged myself (just look at that beauty). I wanted to forge the design quickly hence why its so ugly. The idea behind this map was to create three distinct elevations within the map that would each have access to a pillar in the center (if you were on the lowest elevation, you could only reach the lower pillar). Each pillar held an Overshield, so if you are positioned on the highest level, you could stack all three. I liked the idea a lot, but the design just didn't support it very well unfortunately.
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Blackout | 2v2 you say? Never heard of her. Blackout was design inspired by both Quake and Zen by Nexn. The overall design was comprised of three box shapes; two stacked squares and a rectangle on the side. It was your average bank-brace infested 2v2. Nothing too special about it.
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Emor | 2v2. Like Blackout, Emor was another simple design comprised of box shaped rooms stacked around one another. This one in particular, although I followed the law of bank-brace, was designed to look something like a piece of Roman architecture. Looking back, the design was very reminiscent of something you would see in Quake.

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Blackout II | Blackout II was just as it reads; the second rendition of Blackout. This time around I gave the map a little more depth, with each room interconnecting with each other in unique ways. This design also incorporated a little bit of overlap as well as an interesting weapon layout. That all said, I was most proud of that wall you see in the image above. It was sexy... very sexy. I had originally meant to forge this around a 2v2 shotguns gametype that had just been released, but it didn't support it very well, being room-based and such (something I unfortunately had to figure out the hard way).​

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Luna | Luna is was a 2v2 design I had adopted from a forger named Itz_NexN much earlier in my forging career. I was skeptical about forging it at that time seeing as how I didn't know too much about competitive forging, but after pushing out the previous 2s, I figured I would tackle the project. The design idea was very similar to Atmosphere Supreme in that the design formed a circle, with its height steadily increasing until it reached its peak at the end of the loop. To balance its heavy emphasis, there were two teleporters in the design that could be used to break the intended flow. I was still a little rusty as far as forging clean looking textures is concerned, so the map wasn't very pretty in its initial stages.

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Tangerine | Tangerine was somewhat of an odd 2v2 design. Imagine two squares - one within the other - and you have Tangerine. However, there was so much overlap and general height variation littered in that you could hardly grasp how simple its shape really was. It was an experimental design and, like most, didn't play very well in its initial stages. This was, however, one of the three maps I would come to recreate after I got an even better grasp of competitive design. All that aside, can you tell why it was called Tangerine? I bet you can't.

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Flywire | Flywire was yet another 2v2 design that adopted, this time from a forger name Eightball. The design was composed of four, open atriums that were all connected via the central atrium (which just happened to be a death pit). There were some risque connections through the center, but the predominant connections were around the outer perimeter of the design. Unfortunately, it was those same cramped connections that led to the downfall of this map. The aesthetic appeal of the map was, for the most part, not there. I was going through one of those "rock-and-coliseum wall-combination" phases. #RockTunnels4Dayz

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TBA | Ohey, another 2v2. This was a Quake inspired map I forged with Frenchys that did not have a name. As such, it will be regarded as TBA. The map was duel-atrium and my first serious attempt at incorporating overlap into a design. This was probably one of the better designs I had forged in Reach although I never played a single game on her. I could try to explain the design, but I would fail. Again, this was probably a point that marked another pretty large leap for me as far as design knowledge goes.

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[Skyward Shoe]

Nice Auburn, these are always fun. It's crazy when you look back and see just how much you've learned in that time. I hope you keep it up as long as there is a Halo to forge for (here's hoping that's more than a few months.)

 

[RogerDodger]

I wish that I would have had more experience with a forging community back in the final days of Reach, when I began to play Halo. There's so much genius that came out of that game and time period, that has now been dissipated or obscured. Veteran forgers are extremely important for the posterity that they create. Hopefully not too many more leave us behind.

 

[Zandril]

Just made mine. This thread and Shoe's timeline thread kind of inspired me to show you guys my story.

http://halocustoms.com/threads/my-forge-history.14578/

 

[Auburn]

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Savage | Savage was a 1v1 map that I coforged with Frenchys for Forge Hub's 1v1 Smackdown contest-tournament thing. The map drew a lot of inspiration from another map titled Worthy, in that it was mostly composed of simply shaped rooms that interconnect with each other via an assortment of different connections. It was actually a very solid map IMO, but it was not one of the finalists because Staff iz Corruptz. FUN FACT: The lifts in the image above don't actually have a purpose, but you could jump into them for fun.

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Blue Stone Boys | I revisited Attribute and created Blue Stone Boys from it, this time abandoning the pillar idea and just simply polishing the original design based on feedback. This was another one of the better creations I had forged in Reach if you ignore the concussion rifle spawn location. The design was just as vertical as the last, so I made a jetpack game type. I mean, whats a vertical map without a jetpack game type? amirite?

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30 Juliet | Continuing the trend of remaking older designs, I revisited Tangerine. You know, that orange one... like a tangerine. Anywho, in this new rendition, I practically polished just about everything about this design while still keeping it similar to the original. The height variation was toned down a ton, connections were less tight, and the gameplay flowed much better overall. This was, again, probably one of my more solid designs in Reach, but I was never able to release it. Cries

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LunaSand | I reforged Luna in the sand of Forge World and updated its aesthetic appeal to give it some more pizzazz. I learned a little more about weaponry and spawning as well, so I updated those two aspects, too. The concussion rifle jumps never really happened in game despite how cool they were, so I ended up removing that feature altogether. Unforunately, I never got around to releasing the map before Reach died out.

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Shelby | She's a beautiful woman with a curvy body. She's also a 1v1.

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Hazard | If you know me, you also know that I am terrible when it comes to finishing maps. Hazard was about the seventh map I started in forge but the first that I actually managed to finish. It was a very simply 1v1 with its predominant feature being the fact that it does not have outer walling. It provided an ever-present risk to players that constantly moved around the outer loop. The design turned out to be too small with sprint and such, so I scrapped it early on.

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Abomination | This was what I thought would be the start of my 2v2 craze, but it surprisingly didn't continue long after this map. Abomination was a asymmetrical, room-based 2v2 map. There was nothing too special about this map. I like to think the map was somewhat solid, but at the same time, its just another generic room-based map. Moving on.

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Hive | Hive was the next 2v2 project that turned out to be a complete failure in the end. The idea behind the design was similar to that of Luna, with its inclination slowly increasing as you move around the loop until you reach the peak. The problem was that there was no counter to said peak thus that location was abused often. The fact that it was room-based made the issue even worse. I reforged and tweaked it over thirty times before finally giving up on it about two months after starting it. I probably could have worked out its problems, but I'm lazy.

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Degausser | Degausser is a 2v2 I adopted from Tyrant (or purely fat). The design made extensive use of pipes, with them working as both movement options and the core aesthetic of the map. Unfortunately, it was room-based and each seperate location was too open to itself. I tweaked attempted to tweak the design before hitting the lighting glitch, but there was no light at the end of the tunnel. She is no longer spoken of.

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Ophelia | Ophelia is one of my more recent forges as well as the first 4v4 design I've made in Halo 4. Three curved bridges makes up the midsection with each having its own designated base located directly behind. I could lie and say I honestly attempted a 4v4 with it, but the map was initially meant to be a 2v2 like everything else I make. It became apparant, though, that the map wouldn't support that player count after I forged the bridges. In the end, I've run out of usable objects and will probably scrap the project. This turned out to be

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[theSpinCycle]

But wait! There's more!

gangnam style PPPP #neverforget

 

[Auburn]

But wait! There's more!

gangnam style PPPP #neverforget

I was going to add it in actually lol. The SketchUp designs apparently don't exist anymore and my Reach disc is broken, so I couldn't manage to get an image of it. If you have any, I'll throw it in there, hahaha.

 

[xAudienceofone]

The most important thing to mention here, though, is that I met xAudienceofone for the first time in an exchange that left what little pride I had in forge (and Pokemon) torn to shreds.

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I tore you to shreds? I feel like I should remember that. I also feel like I should remember finishing (and naming) Atmosphere Supreme. Either way, I'm really glad that we crossed paths. It was fun to read this, almost makes me want to play the game again. But my gold is out, just like my patience with forge. I never had a very healthy process of creating maps.

 

[theSpinCycle]

I was going to add it in actually lol. The SketchUp designs apparently don't exist anymore and my Reach disc is broken, so I couldn't manage to get an image of it. If you have any, I'll throw it in there, hahaha.

There should still be one on my FS. It's a horrible image, but hey, horrible image for horrible map

 

[Auburn]

Hopping on the bandwagon and updating this I also added a couple more entries to both the sections above!

Ratchet | Ratchet is... well, ratchet. She started off as a remake of my Reach map, Shelby, but then she changed. She developed more than I could ever imagine. Then on one, steamy night, the newest rendition you see above popped out. The design has many ratchet qualities, ranging from a weird middle bridge and an even weirder lift that launches you to that bridge... sometimes. Join the movement today. #RATCHET /lestweforget

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Ugly + Uglier + Ugliest | The Ugly trio are three different renditions of the same inverse-symmetrical, 2v2 design, each one tending to be slightly more ugly than its predecessor. The original, Ugly, was one of two submissions to the recent 2v2 tournament contest. Following that was the Ugliest, a revamped version of Ugly that fixed its larger problems. When I noticed that the Ugliest also had its share of problems, I revamped the revamp and created Even Uglier. The overall design is pretty simple, with six rooms forming a circle around the central atrium.

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Botanist | Botanist is my first attempt at forging a linear flood map and the most reforged map evar. The map makes use of the Plague gametype with the survivors being forced to make their way into sewer in order to reach their safe destination. The map is still currently in production and will probably never be release. Chyeah!

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The Longest Way Around | The Longest Way Around was my second attempt at creating a linear flood map after the initial versions of Botanist failed horribly. The design takes heavy inspiration from Pants' Reach map, Argile, in that the humans have to take advantage of a tank in order to progress. It was pretty bad at first, but Im still slowly ironing out its issues.

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Sycamore | Sycamore is my most recent 2v2 design. If it wasn't already obvious looking at the image, the design takes some pretty heavy inspiration from HCE's Damnation. The idea was to create a heavily inspired map that fixes the problems that the original had. Its pretty cool and stuff.

To those that did, thanks for reading!

 

[Zandril]

Sycamore looks shmexy

 

[Dax]

This turned out to be

This is le sad. :/

Also, I fucking love Ratchet. (Mainly because my hometown is infamously nicknamed Ratchet City and I'm somewhat acquainted with hurricane. I really hope someone knows what this means.)

 

[Auburn]

Also, I fucking love Ratchet. (Mainly because my hometown is infamously nicknamed Ratchet City and I'm somewhat acquainted with hurricane. I really hope someone knows what this means.)

hahahaha, you must live in the south, daxxon. That in mind, I also got acquainted with a Hurricane during a little trip to Bourbon Street last year. She must be a whore.

 

[theSpinCycle]

shelby is named ratchet?

been a long time since I've seen you aubs, hows it going?

 

[Auburn]

shelby is named ratchet?

shhhhh

been a long time since I've seen you aubs, hows it going?

ikr you need to blow $60 on XBL, man.

 

[purely fat]

Haha degausser. The map was doomed. The funny thing was is that I made that map when breaking the lighting on erosion was the thing to do.

 

[Auburn]

Haha degausser. The map was doomed. The funny thing was is that I made that map when breaking the lighting on erosion was the thing to do.

Yeeeah, I liked the idea with the pipes, but I just couldn't figure anything out. I was thinking about designing a room-based map around the idea, but I honestly don't want to go back to H4, hahaha.

 

[purely fat]

I actually made the map on impact that I scaled down but, I tried something really dumb in the overshield room involving a troll of a teleporter setup.