Research: Forerunner Architecture

Following up on previous research that I have done I want to go more in depth with the architectural style that Halo uses.

A concept piece illustrating the Forerunners structures from the book cover: Cryptum

So what is Halo? Most people will know what this game is but not necessarily what it is about and what the architectural style consists of. Halo is essentially a weapon, a halo ring shaped planet that one activated with its other 6 becomes a destructive weapon killing all life form around each of its radius for light years in distance. These Halos were created by a species called the Forerunners. They created massive structures using a sci fi and futuristic style however the style is still simple compared to a typical sci fi game. These next points are some of the styles that Halos architectural structures use:

- Ancient

- Relic

- Futuristic

- Sci Fi

- Religious

The religious style that the Forerunner use isn't necessarily your average religious church/cross style but more of a peaceful and a sense of serenity. The image below conveys the sort of peaceful and almost god like appearance in which I feel has a religious quality to it and helps create a powerful architecture style. The image of the concept piece from Halo Wars uses a methodical architecture with the use of symmetry and patterns used all over the structure, I really like this style and the way that everything is very sleek and uses symmetry to give a pleasing style.

This is from Halo 2 and is called The Library, this is a classic Forerunner structure

This is a concept piece from Halo Wars

Another example of the symmetry used by the Forerunners

With all this in mind and the architectural style that Halo uses, especially by the Forerunners I want to go back to my door in Maya and think about how to create the patterns and details before texturing it. I want to try and convey the same serene and relic style whilst using a very futuristic theme as the one used in Halo.

A quote taking from aliens.wiki.com 'Forerunner architecture is noted mainly for being large-scale and geometric in style, with a triangular theme being the most commonly observed design. The Forerunners had a habit of creating natural habitats, such as those of the Halo rings, which tend to be very elaborate, with numerous extrapolations of the basic design of a construct appearing to be purely decorative. In addition, the structures were engineered to compliment the natural landscape, as opposed to the modern idea of replacing it.'

This bit of text describes the architectural really well and how they used geometric shapes and lines, notably triangles, they also used shapes lines and edges to give the appearance of a futuristic look. Bungie, the creators of Halo wanted to give the acrhitecture created by the Forerunners a monolithic feel but at the same time decorating their structures with patterns and glyphs.