Sandstone

This map is a combination of tools knowledge and top Forger collaboration with a good chunk of passion sprinkled in. The main geometry of the map was traced out in Blender against the original map geo with the same assets that are used in Forge and then "printed" into Halo Infinite with an external tool. This allowed us to get the map geometry and proportions as perfect as possible.

Remaking a map in Halo Infinite's Forge isn't as simple as importing a map file and calling it a day, as the map has to be built out of individual pieces that make up shapes, kind of like Legos. Minor adjustments to long sightlines were made by positioning two large vehicle props in open areas, but otherwise the map geo is nearly identical to the original; see the comparison pictures above from the original map.

The map initially started out as an idea to make a snowy themed reimagining of the classic map. I was tasked with creating the blockout, figuring out scale, gameplay and sandbox for the map, with art coming in after those formalities had been figured out.

The blockout for the map was done in Blender with a procedure named "Blender to Forge" where the original geometry of the map is loaded into Blender, then ripped assets from Halo Infinite's Forge are used to re-block out the entire map. Afterwards, the positional data of the placed assets is converted into keystrokes by a macro bot that places those objects in Forge. This process took 4 days as the map geo was simple and repeatable.

After our terrain guy did their magic morphing the terrain for the map using only scale, rotation and positioning of preset terrain pieces (there's no terrain editor in Forge), I was able to start brainstorming the gameplay and sandbox on the map.

My main focus was to make sure there weren't too many long-distance lines of sight in areas that had to be traversed through as that would discourage players from using them – feeling unsafe. Wanting to keep the map still faithful in it's layout, I decided to cleverly position two large cargo transport vehicles, "Elephants" in ways that would cut off lines-of-sight.

These Elephant vehicles were actual operatable vehicles in Halo 3, but in Infinite we had to manually build them out of 300 pieces each (once again with Blender), which meant that they would not move, at all. In essence they were a reference back to the original map, but I made good use of them for a gameplay purpose.

Our plans diverted from the snow-themed map to a full on faithful theme that would mirror the original as close as possible. At this point most of the remaining work was done by our art team, but I gave direction on how the lighting should look like as well as the color palette for the vehicle props.

After further playtesting, I changed the locations of the Elephant vehicle props once more. The new locations also conveniently acted as flag spawns, just like in the original. I made one of the Elephants fully intact, but had more freedom with the second one, collapsing one of it's walls and having it be buried in the sand. Ultimately both of them were just line-of-sight blockers, but I took the opportunity ot give the map a little bit of storytelling at the same time, as the lore for the map was that it had been abandoned for a decade.

Sandstone went on to receive the "343 Recommended" mark on 14th May, 2024 meaning that the developer of the game, 343 Industries saw the map as being of high enough quality to want to promote it.

This project was a technical challenge in wanting to accurately recreate a map from a previous Halo title and make it work well in a new game, as well as I got to improve my teamwork skills by working with artists to bring the map to a high art quality bar.

My contributions:

Blender blockout

I created the main geometry blockout for the map by recreating the shapes used in the original map within Blender. The pieces that were used to create those shapes were then "printed" into Forge with an external tool.

Map scaling and sandbox testing

I was responsible for making sure the scale of the map felt right and that the sandbox setup was adequate. I scheduled playtests to fine tune these aspects of the map.

Line-of-sight fixes

The map in Halo 3 worked well with long, open sightlines cause the main starting weapons couldn't be used at long ranges. For Halo Infinite, this wasn't the case anymore so line-of-sight blockers had to be placed in certain areas to reduce long-range engagements.

Lighting and art help

I fine-tuned the final lighting on the map, requiring a thick fog and a slight green hue to the skybox to get a sandstorm look. I helped with deciding on a good military green color for the vehicle recreations used on the map.

Marketing and video trailers

I spent a considerable amount of effort making fitting trailers for each variant of Sandstone. I also hyped up the release of the map on Twitter and let Halo streamers know of it's existence.

Map Preview, Map trailer & "Just Keep Driving" variant trailer.