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Katamori

Why some people hate overdetailing? (actually, custom title bait for Antroid atm ;D)

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Don't ask me why I do such odd things but I searched Antroid's first post ever and in that thread, there was a kinda long and deep discussion about mapping and maps.

A lot of people agreed with him at disliking overdetails. I'd like to find out its reason, guys. Why do you hate it?

Okay, obviously the word "over" assumes that we are talking about "more than healthier" amount, but how can it be too much? I mean, show me an example where detailing didn't make that room/outside area/impse scene/etc. look better!

The only reason that makes sense for me is that detailing doesn't equal to good gameplay and overdetailed maps may have bad gameplay - for example, Zen Dynamics. How good that I piss myself in my videos only and usually I finish the map even if the stuff is too hard or unfair.

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I dislike the word "overdetail" because it seems misdirected to the point of being effectively meaningless. A large or small amount of detail can still result in an ugly map or one whose aesthetic choices negatively impact its gameplay.

Katamori said:

Okay, obviously the word "over" assumes that we are talking about "more than healthier" amount, but how can it be too much? I mean, show me an example where detailing didn't make that room/outside area/impse scene/etc. look better!

It's pretty simple, I think. Good detailing can make a scene look better, but bad detailing will make a scene look worse. Just like adding more colors to a painting doesn't make it look better, unless you know what you're doing and you've chosen them well.

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I dislike bad detailing. "overdetailing" is commonly associated with just shoving shit in a room to "make it not bare" without any thought given to scene composition. Like yeah a techbase works with lights and computer terminals everywhere but if you shoved that into say an ancient ruin level instead of detailing it to fit the theme, it would look gaudy and terrible.

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In my experience you know when you've gone too far with detailing when it impedes gameplay: whether it's visplane overflow, lag or or just that it gets in the way during gameplay, detailing that wrecks the experience is IMO bad detailing. I used to do it. :/

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Katamori said:

Don't ask me why I do such odd things but I searched Antroid's first post ever


Katamori, why do you do such things?

But seriously...

Katamori said:

... but how can it be too much? I mean, show me an example where detailing didn't make that room/outside area/impse scene/etc. look better!

Eh, I dunno. I'm pretty sure I've seen plenty of cases in which an attempt has been made to spruce up an area, by building in some additional element of visual complexity, but the result has made things look worse than they would have been otherwise. I won't offer specific examples from actual maps, but a few common ones are, say, T667-style 'flat sectoring', or building a hole into the wall/ceiling, and scattering a few sectors around the floor to represent the bit that's fallen out. Not that these things can't look nice if done well, but I've seen many instances in which these techniques have been applied with little to no thought, and result is something that looks bad - worse than it would have looked otherwise.

That said, I think that building additional elements of visual complexity into a scene can yield some really nice results.

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What constitutes (Antroid's) "overdetailing"? From skimming/interpreting Antroid's post, it pretty much seems that anything made with less than 8px in grid size would be absolutely unacceptable. Since I haven't had too much feedback, it's hard to draw a line on "overdetailing"...because there are no explicit examples of such. I know most people would point to GothicDM or Tormentor stuff, but I generalize that it's based off of both inconsistency and lack of appreciation for context.

@durian
I think this is similar to what you're saying, but a little bit more...teaser oriented. (see this)

I really really really hate it when mappers post "teaser" screenshots of their maps pointing at a corner of a room with some sort of lower grid size detail. Greaaaaaat, a little 4px tech corrosion in a marble wall. That's GENIUS MAN, WHAT ELSE IS YOUR MAP ABOUT? Though sometimes they're done well and are cool, many mappers feel accomplished from this one "complex" section, so much that it's worth screenshotting. On a similar note, I dislike maps that are using general architecture, moderate detailing, and all of a sudden some texture rape in the corner. The entire techbase map was going well when the mapper discovered 2px map grid and tried to overdo the small detailing in one random section of the map.

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I just think simpler architecture looks better in Doom. It suits the game. Rely on good texturing and interesting shapes, not fifty billion detail sectors in an otherwise boring room. Visual clutter sucks.

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Like other people have mentioned I don't think its a case of over-detail so much as bad detail that bugs people - and if its bad and there is lots of it then it will naturally be more noticable.

Bad detail in my opinion is stuff that gets in the way of your movement or your eyes. Bumps in the floor, protrusions in the wall, those kind of things can be obviously annoying, but also if you break up space everywhere with identical meaningless minor details then it makes it more difficult to differentiate between different areas and more easy to get lost. A certain amount of detail combined with consistent texturing can help make different rooms more visually memorable, but a cacophony of mismatching visual information will be harder to remember, especially if everywhere uses a similar look.

Its a bit like those hollywood films that throw shit loads of cgi in your face thinking that more is better. Your brain cancels most of it out and turns it all into a kind of bland moving wallpaper.

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In most cases, I feel that it detracts from a focus on interesting layouts and diverse combat situations. Multiplayer maps turn into figure-eights and SP maps are symmetrical palatial buildings.

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Tarnsman said:

I dislike bad detailing. "overdetailing" is commonly associated with just shoving shit in a room to "make it not bare" without any thought given to scene composition. Like yeah a techbase works with lights and computer terminals everywhere but if you shoved that into say an ancient ruin level instead of detailing it to fit the theme, it would look gaudy and terrible.

...*coughs*

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A good place to get some deconstruction of why "overdetailing" can be bad would be the Megawad Club's reaction to Hadephobia map19, starting here.

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I'm curious why Zendyn is coming up in a discussion about detail, since its maps are both low-detail and ugly, IMO. :P

(No offense to Malcolm Sailor of course. The few good-looking areas are all his. :P )

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I think Doom maps can be good with high detail and low detail, but if either of the two are done in a way which ruin the flow of gameplay then I don't like it.

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I don't mind "overdetailing", as long as it counts for map theme, and most important, it doesn't block players or do some bullshit by getting trapped for that 1 pixel inch wall placement while getting raped by demons/imps/whatever.

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There's overdetailing and there's "overdetailing". On one hand I do agree that spraying stuff on every possible surface is going too far (missing tiles are cool but missing tiles on every surface are not). On another, overdetailing that people like Antroid complain about is not overdetailing, it's detailing. Such people will call everything that's not an absolute minimum amount of details "overdetailing". Because, you know, DOOM should be primitive and pixelated, otherwise it'll be an atrocity.

Insane details are not always necessary but pushing for the lowest possible number of details is just going too far in the opposite direction.

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Obsidian said:

In my experience you know when you've gone too far with detailing when it impedes gameplay:

Same here, the worst I encountered (about a decade ago) had so many spiky bits protruding from the floors, ceilings, walls and columns near the starting room to make parts of it all but inaccessible to both players and monsters. It was detail on detail on detail, and possibly more detail on top of that! Wish I could remember the wads name.

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Tarnsman said:

Like yeah a techbase works with lights and computer terminals everywhere


Heh.

Dragonsbrethren said:

I just think simpler architecture looks better in Doom. It suits the game. Rely on good texturing and interesting shapes, not fifty billion detail sectors in an otherwise boring room. Visual clutter sucks.


Basically this exactly. I just plain don't like how levels start to look in the Doom engine above certain level of detail, which however varies from map to map depending on many factors.

I'm not even gonna read those posts of mine, which I don't remember at all (I remember almost nothing from my early DW days, only that it was long ago and I don't trust myself from that period to have made well thought-out posts). I'm gonna try and explain what I think of it now.

There's a tendency among people who, I think, just don't have the imagination to make things look good/interesting without everything being busy to the point of making it difficult to see and recognize things. I agree with what Tarnsman usually says (if I remember correctly), that the basic geometry and texturing should be good-looking on it's own without the need for "bitty" decoration. If your layout is so bad that without cluttering every surface you think it looks like shit, it's a bad layout (visually, not gameplay-wise). For me, the aforementioned cluttering makes it look even worse. Depressingly, this tendency to drown the boring core of a map in pointless, but impressive from the menial effort standpoint detail shows up in every mapping community I've seen. To name a few most different ones, Serious Sam, Minecraft and Super Mario World. They all have mappers who resort to wasting effort on absurd detail levels instead of, you know, actual good design. Please note, though, that I make no claims of being a master of it myself. I also sometimes resort to a bit of pointless detail sprinkle when I'm desperate about an uninspired area.

To summarize, I'm a firm believer in "more with less". More often than not a simple good texture can take care of the detailing in your room, and you won't need to copy-paste useless rims around every surface or ridiculous five-layer upside-down-cake-looking lamps. I like things neat and tidy.

Although of course there's room for some extra detail when it actually serves a purpose of depicting something meaningful and unique in a given place, setting up some sort of scene. However, more often than not it's just a desperate attempt to mask shitty aesthetics with obligatory levels of geometry complexity.

Honestly, unless it serves some narrative (in a very vague sense of the word) purpose, for me higher levels of detail just make it all look worse past some point (which is maybe a bit more than the original Doom games). Vanilla doom to me looks leagues better than KDiZD, for instance.

Also, Katamori, you're getting creepy. That's just unpleasant.

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Antroid said:

Also, Katamori, you're getting creepy. That's just unpleasant disgusting.


Fixed that for ya.

*cough* On 'overdetailing', I'm pretty much with the crowd that says it's overcompensation for bad layouts, usually. I think the most detailed thing I've played so far has been Community Chest 4; which is probably not the worst offender by a long shot. But I'll break it down like this; immediately, there's a lot of clutter onscreen. From a distance (and especially with lower resolutions) it can be hard to discern exactly what a structure is with so much visual information.

Secondly, there's only so much a mapper can do with any kind of texture resource. They will repeat themselves if every wall needs detailing; and this can make a layout poorly-landmarked and very confusing. Additionally, and unless this is 'cleaned up', this can make navigating via automap especially confusing, having to discern from above what the 'sector soup' is supposed to be in real terms.

It's just aesthetics. Some folk don't reign it in, and love to overcrowd their senses with as much as possible. Some love the visual ergonomics of minimalism. Some sit between all that.

Myself, I sit closer the minimalist camp. I don't know about anyone else, but sometimes it's just so damn satisfying to see a large chunky structure (and I'm thinking here of The Living End's final ziggurat-type thing) in the distance imposing upon you with how large it is, and a lack of clutter can really hammer home that point.

Then again, there are some very lovely textures out there that speak for themselves and don't need to be overdetailed -- a mapper doing so is basically undermining everything the texture artist set out to achieve; why not map with 256 flat colours and fake your own details in this case? :P

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Jayextee said:

Fixed that for ya.


Go Go Gadget Forcing-a-Catchphrase? Well, I'm not entirely opposed to that...

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Antroid, if it makes you less unpleasant, you are not the only whose early comments were watched by me. :P anyway, you are totally right with that "the less is more", but there's something that is also true for mapping, and no matter, which game we are talking about. There are a lot of people with different personalities, with different interests - some people are design and layout enthusiats (like Tormentor667 and other ZDoomers) and purists (like you and...ehm...purist :'D). We should accept it.

I think everyone should get the chance to get ubiased reviews and opinions. Because everyone deserves it, even if he wants to make 1px sectors for every single quare pixels of the map. But as I said above, this is true for every games and game genres.

Of course, if you feel that you wouldn't be able to tell unbiased opinions about a ZDoom map, for example Tormentor's one, than don't speak about it. I mean, you may tell that "I don't like Austerity because it's a humiliation of traditional Doom for me", if you want, but it's like when a hardcore RPG gamer talks about Doom like this: "this is boring, I can't level up, levels are way too short, there aren't any quests etc. Not bad but it's not for me".

Also, I laughed strongly on Jayextee's "fix". :'D

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All opinions are opinions and they are all biased. I don't see why I should refrain from ever mentioning things I don't like. If I feel that overdetail is a bad trait in a doom map, I'm going to criticize it. I disagree with the "if you don't like it, ignore it and say nothing" mentality.

Also, the "just unpleasant" thing was totally a set-up for someone who enjoys beating a dead horse to come in and reference the "just disgusting" phrase again, so congratulations you two on your sense of "humor" :P

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Speaking of overdetailing, I personally don't care so much as long as the maps still play well...that is, until the size and detailing cause my computer's framerate to drop.

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I dislike overdetailing when I make maps myself because it's burning me out. :P

On a more serious note, for me, overdetailing is when a room or area has so much detail that it looks bad, where you can clearly see that less detail, or "just the right amount of detail" would've made the room look far nicer.

What's "just right" differs from each and every one of us, of course. :)

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"LOL I TROL U" never gets old. :)

Katamori said:

I think everyone should get the chance to get ubiased reviews and opinions.

But Katamori, lulz, wasn't the internet created for us to be totally HONEST and BADASS?

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Antroid said:

All opinions are opinions and they are all biased. I don't see why I should refrain from ever mentioning things I don't like. If I feel that overdetail is a bad trait in a doom map, I'm going to criticize it. I disagree with the "if you don't like it, ignore it and say nothing" mentality.


Okay, here's an example: if I make a game that is not so badass but I did it with sweating blood because of the struggle I put to it, I don't want to hear "U GAEM SUKCZ, MODENR WRAFRE & BRODELANDZ R BATER!" opinions from 12-years old gamers who doesn't have a single f*cking idea how to make a game.

That is also an opinion, but you must agree that not constructive at all. Here's the same: if you dislike ZDoom maps, and you don't play them and maybe you don't even know, how to use its features properly, than I'm not sure that your opinion would be helpful and useful.

Because in this case, a similar discussion happens:
Antroid, the Cynical Russian: - hey pal, this map is not okay.
Unauthorized Random ZDoom Mapper: - what's wrong? =)
A: - you shouldn't use this skybox.
M: - Thanks! Any ideas for other skybox textures to use?
A: - actually, I dislike this whole skybox thing.
M: - ...
A: - ...

You must agree that this is totally useless. And useless opinions doesn't keep any kinds of values for me. I can agree your opinion and views, but I don't care what do you think - if I want to make a ZDoom maps, I'm gonna make, even if Antroid dislikes it.

It's not a personal attack, I do the same with everyone.

I disagree with the "if you don't like it, ignore it and say nothing" mentality.


You may be a great internet troll. Anyway, I have no idea, why some people have so much time that they deal with things they hate. It's unnecesary, useless, annoying and ridiculous in the same time.

Also, the "just unpleasant" thing was totally a set-up for someone who enjoys beating a dead horse to come in and reference the "just disgusting" phrase again, so congratulations you two on your sense of "humor" :P


Look, I can even laugh on the most disgusting death, abortus and holocaust jokes of Family Guy. ;P

Da Werecat said:

But Katamori, lulz, wasn't the internet created for us to be totally HONEST and BADASS?


I meant "unbiased", sorry. Anyway, everything has its "limits". Everonye deserves honesty, but also deserves respect. At least if he gives the same for other people.

Also, I rather said in the meaning that if someone makes design-oriented stuff, he should get opinions focused on it, etc. Look, what if I want to make a map without any monsters, that contains puzzles only? If I get opinions that totally ignore puzzles and repeat all the time that "WHERE R DA MUNSTAZ?!", I'd piss myself off easily, even if you wasn't rude. Because I get useless opinions.

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Whoa Katamori, way to pull strawmen out of your ass.
First of all, "zdoom map" doesn't necessarily equal "overdetailed, overscripted clusterfuck". In case you missed it, my only big doom project is a Zdoom megawad (even if it doesn't make use of the better half of it's features).

Second of all, knowing how to make a game/maps isn't a necessary qualification to offer criticism. I don't need to be a great cook to know when something makes me ill. Sure, the caps-lock thing you wrote isn't criticism, but we were never talking about that. Or is that how you perceive my posts?

Then, why should anyone care how much effort you put into something if the end result sucks? Who cares if you "don't want to hear it"? It just means all that effort was wasted, and wasting a lot of effort doesn't magically protect you from criticism. Also are you bringing up skyboxes because of Eris' terragen doodles in the PYDP thread? Because I don't have anything against skyboxes in general, only against badly-made ones.

Fourth, there's a difference between "I dislike that" and "I think that's bad for these reasons". I "dislike" slaughtermaps, but the overdetail thing, I'd argue, teeters on the edge of the latter type of opinion. I genuinely think that overdetail can be bad and not always a matter of taste because of what it says about the mapper sometimes.

Fifth, I dislike the "never criticize" mentality because that just breeds little isolated, overprotective and defensive communities where people aren't improving and make shit, lack the experience and trained eye to recognize it's shit, and lash out on anyone who dares try and speak about that.


The main thing about this is you don't seem to differentiate between a matter of taste and a matter of criticism. Sure, someone may like what I consider bad, but that's different from someone liking what I dislike, like, again, slaughtermaps. I have nothing against them - no reason people shouldn't enjoy a different type of gameplay in Doom - but I personally don't enjoy them. In case of overdetail, I believe I have legitimate criticism and explanations of why it's a bad thing, and I have no intentions of withholding it because some people are going to cry when someone disagrees with them. Not all opinions you think are useless actually are.

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Can you differentiate between being critical and being plain rude? There's a common thing about foreign languages: everything is perceived as more neutral than it actually is.

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Antroid said:

Whoa Katamori, way to pull strawmen out of your ass.


Hehe :D sorry I can't moderate myself in so basic themes like these.

First of all, "zdoom map" doesn't necessarily equal "overdetailed, overscripted clusterfuck". In case you missed it, my only big doom project is a Zdoom megawad (even if it doesn't make use of the better half of it's features).


Okay, here I was a bit off-topic, but you also mentioned that you dislike ZDoom maps. You are right, though. ZDoom doesn't always mean "overdetailness".

Second of all, knowing how to make a game/maps isn't a necessary qualification to offer criticism. I don't need to be a great cook to know when something makes me ill. Sure, the caps-lock thing you wrote isn't criticism, but we were never talking about that. Or is that how you perceive my posts?

Then, why should anyone care how much effort you put into something if the end result sucks? Who cares if you "don't want to hear it"? It just means all that effort was wasted, and wasting a lot of effort doesn't magically protect you from criticism. Also are you bringing up skyboxes because of Eris' terragen doodles in the PYDP thread? Because I don't have anything against skyboxes in general, only against badly-made ones.


Yes, you are totally right in it, sometimes even I tell it to the others. But I hate when someone doesn't feel that producing something is WAY HARDER than using it and they underestimate all my efforts. It's true for everything in life.

Let's assume that if you make something with a lot of effort and it still sucks, you must be a beginner. Otherwise, you either don't dp shit with a lot of efforts or make shit with not so many efforts. But beginners deserve a different treatment, you must agree with it. It's like that you don't ask for the Pythagorian Equalation (hope I wrote it well) from a 10 years old kid.

Skybox is just an example, it's not related to Eris. ;)

Fourth, there's a difference between "I dislike that" and "I think that's bad for these reasons". I "dislike" slaughtermaps, but the overdetail thing, I'd argue, teeters on the edge of the latter type of opinion. I genuinely think that overdetail can be bad and not always a matter of taste because of what it says about the mapper sometimes.


Okay well, I may not have known that either you dislike overdetail or think it bad for these reasons. Mostly because (as I mentioned in the OP) I couldn't see any strong reasons for not liking it, only the taste.

Fifth, I dislike the "never criticize" mentality because that just breeds little isolated, overprotective and defensive communities where people aren't improving and make shit, lack the experience and trained eye to recognize it's shit, and lash out on anyone who dares try and speak about that.

The main thing about this is you don't seem to differentiate between a matter of taste and a matter of criticism. Sure, someone may like what I consider bad, but that's different from someone liking what I dislike, like, again, slaughtermaps. I have nothing against them - no reason people shouldn't enjoy a different type of gameplay in Doom - but I personally don't enjoy them. In case of overdetail, I believe I have legitimate criticism and explanations of why it's a bad thing, and I have no intentions of withholding it because some people are going to cry when someone disagrees with them. Not all opinions you think are useless actually are.


Okay, in this theme, I went a bit far. Of course you MUST tell if something's way too wrong, just find the right style of it. I'm sorry for not making it obvious. I'm a bit paranoid with these things since in Hungary people are always trolling, humiliating, annoying and being disrespectful with each other without any forms of constructive discussions. Even I may seem like a fag who tries to be the smarter one (like a typical hungarian), but I'm not that kind of person actually.

Da Werecat said:

Can you differentiate between being critical and being plain rude? There's a common thing about foreign languages: everything is perceived as more neutral than it actually is.


Antroid is not THAT rude actually. At least I feel I can handle it, even if I make such long off-topic discussions. :P

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Regarding levels of detail, there's indeed a stigma of "clutter" attached to the concept of fine detailing, but that doesn't mean that one implies the other. Take Vader's Thunderpeak and Ed's Putrefier -- both are massively-detailed levels, but done in such a way that the detail complements the macrostructures rather than distract from them.


I'm trying to apply the same sort of philosophy to Hacx 2.0's maps, with the goal to achieve a quasi-realistic level of detail that looks natural in the Doom engine and doesn't interfere with gameplay. It's a tough road at times, but the end results look great once finished. Lots of sectors and things going on in the scene, but the results look like a cohesive whole. I guess I'd describe it as "clean detailing", as opposed to the muddled kind most folks think of.

I do think that good texturing and texture resources have a lot to do with it, though. The only reason Hacx's styling is doable in any way or form is because Cage has been cranking out a consistently awesome (and rather massive) texture set. To toot the BTSX horn a bit, this is something Essel has done a fantastic job with as well (juat wait until the next two episodes are revealed!), though I guess that's more along the lines of effective minimalism given its vanilla nature.

On that note, perhaps it's telling that the two maps I mentioned earlier utilize custom textures extensively. There's still much that can be done with Doom's stock texture set, but at some point it may be necessary to break off into custom texture land to make certain kinds of detailing work. Just a thought, I suppose.

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