A stub of a map

http://www.mediafire.com/?7312bx15b58xoi1



I started it in July and quickly abandoned it. Today I made the exit switch and here it is...

Originally it was meant to be a medium-sized Obtic-inspired vanilla map. What you see is 1/5 of the size of the original plan. 19 monsters on UV :) Posting as a curiosity, I think it cost me too much time to continue. Unless you say it is soooo promising :-P but I think not.

I like it! Some nice ideas here. It took me a while to kill that mancubus with chainsaw. :)

Thanks, my two main beginner's problems are

1.Difficult to "translate" what's in my head into a map. I lack basic stuff, don't know how to set the "proper" ceiling height, not make the rooms too cramped/too spacey, etc.
2.I'm too slow. I played recently Tango's map made in 2 hours or something. I would need 80 hours for this quality stuff :-P

This silliness already consumed a few hours, and it is before setting light variation, light sources and proper texture alignment...

I think it's always cool to see demo recorders making maps! Never stop.

All it takes is practice and dedication. If you like Tango's map, copy it. And what I mean is, study it. Look at how he drew the sectors and set the ceiling heights and try to mimic what he did in your own map. After a while you'll begin to develop your own style and you'll be able to come up with stuff that satisfies you by your standards. Also, don't map if you're uninspired. Mapping for the sake of finishing the map is a sure fire way to come up with some subpar stuff. Just look at my Beneath the Surface map (which I still haven't released on /idgames, but it's on the forums here somewhere). It has some pretty cool ideas (IMO), but the execution was pretty rushed towards the end because I was sick of looking at it unfinished on my harddrive. Do you think Huy Pham made Deus Vult II in 2 hours? Nah. In fact, the version that everyone's playing now is actually unfinished by his standards and he's still working on it today. (you should see some of the stuff he's building for it, it's incredible).

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is, don't abandon a project because Tango (an established and already well respected doom mapper) made an awesome map. He's been doing it for a while.

vdgg said:

2.I'm too slow. I played recently Tango's map made in 2 hours or something. I would need 80 hours for this quality stuff :-P

you guys flatter me :p

i know how easy it is to get discouraged. if speed is your issue, then that's really just a matter of getting familiar with doom builder. even just going through and trying to complete a full map, however big or small, will help with your mapping reflexes a lot. it shouldn't take much.

if you map enough to be able to think in your head more clearly, and think in terms of 32 pixels of 64 or 128 or whatever, it will be a lot easier to translate what's in your mental image to what's on the grid. getting to that point is just a matter of becoming more familiar with how the units and textures work together etc.

I know I don't have much a body of a work out their to show it, but I can certainly attest to Tango's comments about thinking in higher pixel multiples, because when its comes down to it, your life will be far more worrisome free if *blah* is a multiple 8. Try to limit or even coordinate around the use of fine scale building as much as possible, and you'll see what a vast difference this makes.

All very good advice.

One thing that helped me improving is speedmapping. It doesn't have to be as fast as possible, but setting a deadline for yourself is going to make you cut the fluff and develop skills to get the job done faster.

It's also good not to have too high quality standards ; just map a lot, and stuff improves naturally. I used to antagonize about exact sector width, height, shape, or texture alignment, or on a decoration... Before I noticed ingame, while playing other PWADs, I don't even look at that stuff. It's important to get an atmosphere going, and just as important to not trap yourself in spending disproportionate amounts of time on small details (if time is a problem).