Halo 3 ViDoc: Mapmaker, Mapmaker Make Me a Map

Halo 3 ViDoc: Mapmaker, Mapmaker Make Me a Map is a video documentary by Bungie Studios released on April 9, 2008 that focuses on the Legendary Map Pack downloadable content for Halo 3. The name is a reference to a song from the movie "Fiddler on the Roof" called "Matchmaker, Matchmaker Make Me a Match."

It details the three maps of the Legendary Map Pack, Avalanche, Blackout, and Ghost Town, in talk show-like fashion, with designers and artists for each map discussing the architecture, features, and Forge possibilities of each map. The ViDoc is a machinima; unlike the others in which the developers appear in real life, here they appear in-game as their multiplayer avatars in the maps they helped create.

Transcript

I am Lars Bakken, multiplayer designer here at Bungie. I was the designer on Ghost Town.

I'm Cameron Pinard, I was an artist on Ghost Town.

And I'm Vic DeLeon and I was an artist on Ghost Town.

Why is Vic pink? That's the question.

I'm Mr. Pink. (laughs)

The map  itself is medium-sized, assymetric map.

Assymetrical means there are no similar portions of the map that are copied from one side to another.

Did you just look that up on Wikipedia or something?

No, actually uh.... yeah.

Professor Vic.

Cameron I'm gonna shotgun kill you just for that. Jerk. (Vic kills Cameron with a Shotgun)

Now the fiction on this map is, it is a water reclamation plant that is on the outskirts of the jungle.

At some point there is this fictitious thing called the "Global Water Campaign," that was supposedly feeding the world water. So occasionally you'll find a barrel. (begins meleeing a barrel) You know, I'm really thirsty but I just can't seem to get anything out of this.

Pretty much every area has got at least two ways in and two ways out.

Yeah.

And this back area was designed by the nature of the map. We kind of needed a big place for people to spawn in when we were doing one-way CTF.

Vic and Cam did a really good job on this map. There's a lot of destruction, and you just don't get hung up at all, and that' really important in a multiplayer map that that does not happen.

You're definitely gonna get stuck on this thing. I think this is my dad's computer, if it had switches.

There definitely aren't the same weapons placed all over the map. They're more in unique locations. One side starts near the Rocket Launcher. And the other side spawns near the Shotgun. (Vic shotguns Cameron and humps his body repeatedly) If you run in here, throw down a Power Drain down into the center, and Brute Shot the hell out of this area it really makes it difficult to defend. (Lars kills Vic with a Brute Shot)

Oh! Ow!

We don't want people to find places that are out of the way, where they can sit with the Sniper Rifle and just take people out. We try to keep them out with this thing called a soft ceiling.

There's the Grav Lift down below, the Power Drainer and the Bubble Shield, and they're all kind of centrally located so...

Wait, there's a Grav Lift in this map? Where?

Yeah, it's right here, right where I'm humping.

Obviously the Forge allows you to place everything so there's some pretty cool stuff here.

We were looking for something kind of new and exciting to add and what we ended up coming up with was using some of our under-utilized systems, doing HGR (?) adjustment. So we can do things with screen effects now.

This allows them to put a screen effect over the entire level, so they can create their own version of Ghost Town that looks like, super-saturated, like this one.

Do the Gears of War one.

Hey you can't call it that! We're bleeping that one out!

(laughs)

We have the very simple colour-blind.

Black and white.

Old-timey. Which has a little bit of a film-ic effect.

It's like watching a Charlie Chaplin movie.

You guys enjoy the map. We had a lot of funn making it, and playing on it and testing it and all that. Send all feedback to vicdeleon...

Hi. I'm Niles Sankey, and I'm the designer on Avalanche.

Hi, I'm Mike Buelterman. I was the lead level artist on Avalanche.

Hello, my name is Chris Barrett. I'm one of the art directors at Bungie.

The fiction behind this was a large Forerunner structure that basically is pulling power and energy out of the ever-accumlating ice shelf and glacier behind the main structure to produce some sort of power.

You made all that up after you built it.

I did. (laughs)

We really wanted to make a map that we could put as many vehicles as possible on and that was really the fun of the game, very much like Sandtrap is.

Big vehicle carnage.

It's more or less symmetrical. We have Covenant versus Humans for Capture the Flag and One-Flag which is pretty fun just using the different tanks.

Man-cannons are huge in this one, where the original didn't have the man-cannons. The we have the kind of teleporter exits which are kind of carved-in Forerunner tunnels. And then just to help get people out into the middle of the map we also have an ice cave to help get you from one place to the next.

Spartan Laser is a big rush at the beginning of the game. It's right at the exit of the ice cave, under the large Forerunner arch.

Buelterman's like talking about gameplay and stuff. We're just throwing like Warthogs into the man-cannon.

I mean, that's kind of how the development went we goofed around while Buelterman did all the hard work.

Bitch.

True that, true that. (Buelterman shoots Niles and Mike's Warthog with a Spartan Laser)

Look how awesome the ice is.

It's still there, it's just a little less slippery because the Warthog has better traction, generally.

Yes, it's got upgraded tires.

Snow tires. Because it is the Snow 'Hog. 

It is the Snow 'Hog. It has chains.

It does not have chains.

It doesn't? Oh, sorry, sorry.

So it has like, snow-camo versions of all the vehicles. The Covenant ones do not. I think the Covenant are too cool to do snow-camo. (a Wraith destroys a snow-camo Mongoose)

Susman(?) did make a lot of new Forge objects for this.

He did? Let's see 'em.

Alright, so what are the new Forge objects? There's that little sniper tower, along with the ramp.

Now there's some energy doors to block off certain areas of the map.

Let's place one of those.

I place two but...

I know, but not in any kind of a good place. I'm gonna take the door.

Yeah you block that, I'm gonna block this door.

Come play with my ramp guys, check it out. (takes a Ghost off the ramp)

And it fits, just like that.

Memory was really rough for the artist because we have so many vehicles and we wanted a lot of options in forge so people could do whatever they wanted, but the more objects you get in there the less exercise there is for artists. Those guys did a really good job, it turned out looking really good.

Especially if you turn the filter on. (picture becomes fuzzy) (laughs)

I'm Dan Miller. I'm mission designer at Bungie.

I'm Blake Lowe. I did some finishing art for Blackout.

I'm Paul Russel!

This is Blackout. This is the port from the Halo 2 Lockout. When I first started working on it, the original designer Francois came on and actually did all the weapon placement, and then he got called off to do some top-secret thing, so I kind of picked it up.

Can we talk about his top-secret stuff?

Naw, can't.

All the weapons, guns more or less, are the same. Say with the sword, same spot. We put the Bubble Shield near the Sniper Rifle. The reasoning was that the player can not use the Sniper Rifle with the Bubble Shield. It's kind of one of those things that you're gonna use the Bubble Shield for this middle area to prevent from a lot of grenade spams.

You try to add variations and just making it a better Halo, but to actually say, "Hey, we're gonna make this game about..." I don't know, Paul Russel think of a good genre.

A Western.

We can't make it a Western. (Paul's ring tone is heard)

It's his fans, he has tons of them, always calling.

(on phone) Hello? (listens) Hi. (listens) No, we're recording some audio for a video documentary right now.

Every part of the map has no equal on the opposite end of the map. Primary game... play type in my mind is Slayer.

(one phone) Yeah, they're recording everything we're saying right now.

Get off the phone!

Okay, I love you. I love you Bob(?), bye. (Paul is killed by Dan) I died in my pink uniform.

I assassinated you. (laughs)

Does anybody see the wind sock?

No.

The wind sock and wind cup.

(robotic voice) Weather station Z-41.

In the original Lockout the structure itself was pushed into the ice.

Yeah.

Why'd it get pulled out of it?

Embedding an oil rig or whatever in the ice didn't make much sense to me.

Plus it was just another one of those things, you could piss the people off who wanted a direct port.

Thank you.

Oh man, I wish I could fire up Forge, there's some cool stuff in here. We can?!

(striking Paul) Oh is that you? Oh hi bro! Hi, hi. (crouching up and down)

I tried to grab all the stuff from what we placed in Foundry, so in theory you can actually make your own walkways. If you have two people you can build on top of things and then remove it so you have floating platforms.

Oh is that how they work?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

It's cool. Either or you guys work with Forge? Ah, dumb question.

What's Forge?

(laughs) We also have these doors that fit with the motif, so we'll just block that door off. You can close every room. You can close every door if you want.

Sounds like fun.

It's interesting to see how things play out with a couple doors locked off.

I'm really excited to see how people are going to play this map.

Yeah, it'll be great.

Go buy a Legendary Pack.

Don't get too mad at us for (Warthog horn)-ing things up.

(the three of them jump into a man cannon and off the map)

{the Halo 3 logo} {Bungie}