The Halls of the Forgotten (Location)

The Halls of the Forgotten is a location in Labyrinth Origin. It can be recognised by its stone themed appearance and architecture. It is the first area the player experiences as part of the main game.

Appearance


The Halls' walls were initially comprised of solid stone and brick with a cosmetic grout applied to them to make them all seem uniform. The stone was actually set into the soil the passages were carved out of.

Stones were set into the soil and then the soil was compacted to hold the bricks in place, with grout then applied around the stones to make the walls appear complete.

Of course over time, the grout has disintegrated and the bricks have come loose from many walls.

Ceilings are barely supported by stone beams and pillars. Again, decorative ceiling panels are sparse, many falling to the floor due to poor application.

The flooring is a lot more sturdy, thousands of floor tiles make the walkways strong and somewhat stable, though aging and movement of the earth has some tile protruding slightly creating a trip hazard.

Many areas have primitive plant life growing where small shafts of light emerge from fissures in the crust of the earth.

Additionally, pots litter the halls, though it is currently unknown why...

Sub-Zones

 * Passage of Souls.
 * Hold of the Redeemer
 * Abandoned Connection South
 * Sanctum of Truth
 * The Living Halls
 * Pool of Cleansing
 * South-West Transfer

Development
The Halls of the Forgotten underwent just over 100 iterations before the final look, feel and design was settled upon.

The levels were developed by creating blocked out sections, and then creating modular segments such as floor "tiles", each of which is a 3 x 3 "tile" static mesh allowing for a variation in colours and heights.

The same goes for ceilings and walls.

Due to the amount of populating items such as pots, vases and saucers, the scene has to be heavily optimised. This was a setback later after development went on, as more content was added to make the level flow better on several levels.

Some original files has become corrupt so had to be re-exported from UDK back to a 3D modelling program for optimisation. This process unfortunately came with its own problems, for example, the engine exporting meshes with incorrect measurements. Just under half of the locations physical assets had to be remade from scratch.