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Demon_Collector

How long does it take you to make a level?

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Dragonsbrethren said:

I'd like to use one of the older editors just to see what the guys in '94 had to put up with.


The one factor that will certainly slow you down is the lack of automatic sector creation - when you draw a bunch of linedefs, even if you close them, that's ALL you are drawing. Sectors? Gotta fill those in yourself. EXTREMELY "fun" with nested and enclosed sectors.

Then again, this allows you to do some things that are no-nos in DB. There, if you go "against the grain" of how auto-sectors work, e.g. trying to split a sector in a way other than the One True Way expected by DB, you're gonna make a mess and create some "orphaned" sectors along the way, which will prevent you building the map's nodes until you save & reload. Also, in DB you can't lay down a closed shape WITHOUT it becoming a new sector (unless you explicitly unlink it....and remember to reuse the already allocated sector numbers, if you don't want "orphans").

On the converse, in DEU you can lay down several unfinished sectors, and then associate them with e.g. just one new sector (check e.g. the detail in Gorhic '99. You can also delete JUST a sector without affecting the LINEDEFS that use it. That would be near impossible to do with DB in a reasonable amount of time, as it's essentially contrary to how it works). It's a clear case of convenience vs flexibility.

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I actually used DEU 5.21 back in the day. I wouldn't torture myself by going back to it again, nostalgia be damned. Don't forget to use standalone BSP generators if you go down this path. Even when the maps wouldn't break vanilla limits, DEU's limits would break before the vanilla limits ever did, at least in my experience. It's kind of an honourable idea in a way, but I wouldn't go near it... I'll take WadEd for more pure frustration value any day of the week ;)

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Maes said:

The one factor that will certainly slow you down is the lack of automatic sector creation - when you draw a bunch of linedefs, even if you close them, that's ALL you are drawing. Sectors? Gotta fill those in yourself. EXTREMELY "fun" with nested and enclosed sectors.


A faster way to make new sectors is to use the rectangle/polygon tool (and this way DEU will assign correct linedef/sector refs). You can also copy an existing sector, split a sector into two, or join two into one.

One thing I can't figure out is how to clone a sector, i.e. end up with two sectors with same number. In Yadex you can copy the set of linedefs that make up a sector, and it will preserve the sector references, but that didn't work when I tried in DEU.

The only part that annoys me is when I try to join non-adjacent sectors by moving one's vertices on top of another, everything works fine except that one of the linedef's sector reference is bogus (it still references the sector that was in-between the two I joined). Easy to correct, but still an extra step...

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If you're new, then you'll be slow at first. But once you start building, you get faster and faster and it becomes easy and seamless to do.

I would say that for a level around the size of level 1 of doom2, would probably take 16-20 hours to complete. So, if you work on it for 2 hours a day, then it's roughly 1.5 - 2 weeks.

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My most recent release "Subdivision" took me 2 days to make, maybe 2 or 3 hours in total.

WOS - MAP25: Vulcana took me 5 weeks to make while MAP29: Heated Trauma took me about 7 weeks to make on and off.

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Doom Marine said:

Something about that map looks fishily familiar to me... I must be having a case of deja vu... haha.


It reminds me of Deus Vault 2 map, some hell temple.. with sauron's tower?


On Topic: Usualy month or two, that is because I spend more time playing doom and other games than map making.

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DV/DVII was actually a lot of inspiration for me, and set me on track to make a plethora of Cathedral styles levels here is a montage of the layouts. The evolution of style/experience is certainly evident starting from the earliest maps at the top to the latest at the bottom.

Thanks Doom Marine.

http://imageshack.us/a/img171/9905/mapmontage.png

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What a beautiful picture you have there. All those maps. All those lines, details. The sizes, and magnitude. omg.

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Fastest map I made with proper detailing was MAP19 of 32-in-24 12, where it took me about 4/5 hours to work things out. From then, I have 3-4 maps that have a 30 minute par time each sitting on my hard drive that are incomplete, each having taken anywhere from a few weeks to several months.

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I'm in the crowd with the slower map makers, being unable to make a map in less than a week unless I'm speedmapping. I hope I get them all done, eventually.

Also Pottus, provide us some links to these babies (if available)!

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I think that the whole concept of level making time is flawed. When the level making actually starts? When you put the first vertex or when you first imagine any part of the level? What if i know what i want to make and how to make it, but i need to create new set of textures? Creation of the textures can take thrice as much time than creation of the layout, in such case the majority of "level creation" is painting. Should it be included in the "making time", or only the mapping counts? What about planning?

tl; dr: It's done when it's done, and the main thing that it is done.

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Oh wow, I never realized you were the one that made the Temple of Verdance! That level floored me. I have a huge knack for architecture in Doom wads (which was also inspired by DVII) so I always love gazing upon expansive, detailed and articulate constructions.

Harmata said:

I think that the whole concept of level making time is flawed.


What I'm more interested in is how people separate how long they spend working on their level, between drawing linedefs, putting in textures, balancing monsters & health, etc.

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pcorf said:

WOS - MAP25: Vulcana took me 5 weeks to make ...

ONLY?? O.o

... while MAP29: Heated Trauma took me about 7 weeks to make on and off.

That is crazy, man! I bet you're using all hotkeys and every accumulating tools, and, of course, you don't even go lazy and let your enthusiasm drop!

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I started on a "map" in September, and I expect it to be done by December.

I started on another map 2 days ago and I will have that finished in a week's time, unless I succumb to procrastinating the final pull.

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Cell said:

ONLY?? O.o

That is crazy, man! I bet you're using all hotkeys and every accumulating tools, and, of course, you don't even go lazy and let your enthusiasm drop!


They are truly huge maps so what do you expect, both which have 4 figure sector counts. Esp MAP29 which is approaching 20,000 linedefs (over 17,000 from memory). I sorta lacked ideas and MAP29 of WOS was pretty much thrown together. Layout took 5-6 weeks, gameplay and item placement at least 2 weeks and I tested it like 20 times, each time a 30-60 minute playing session ...... time for me to sleep now hehe. I was up to 4AM some mornings mapping away.

Had lotsa fun making Vulcana though. My personal favorite from WOS. Lotsa inspiration from screenshots I saw of DVII. And there is Vulcana II as well, a similar looking but different map altogether.

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pcorf said:

They are truly huge maps so what do you expect, both which have 4 figure sector counts. Esp MAP29 which is approaching 20,000 linedefs (over 17,000 from memory). I sorta lacked ideas and MAP29 of WOS was pretty much thrown together. Layout took 5-6 weeks, gameplay and item placement at least 2 weeks and I tested it like 20 times, each time a 30-60 minute playing session ...... time for me to sleep now hehe. I was up to 4AM some mornings mapping away.

Had lotsa fun making Vulcana though. My personal favorite from WOS. Lotsa inspiration from screenshots I saw of DVII. And there is Vulcana II as well, a similar looking but different map altogether.


Well, my bitter fact is that I've wasted 3 months doing a shit featuring only Cyberdemons (Five Places E1M9), yet the layout and the design is sometimes near-horrible, because of the unlucky combination of huge-unbarren and small-superdetailed rooms that connect together. The only excuse is that it was also featuring numerous slopes and I've thought it would take forever to set up both that hydropower plant and channel refinery thing. Sometimes I even went into playing WOS to get a bit of more inspiration, and one of the planned battles was simply ruined by the fact Cybies are unable to take blast damage.

Cybernetic Apartment was really a monster, but not related to Predestined Mortality (Hadephobia's beforeheadly planned MAP26) which took me over half-a-year to finish - BADLY. Two huge amounts of time wasted for something non-worthy instead of doing something more important.

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