Okay, here are some of my maps

I never shared any maps here before, largely because I assumed people would think they were no good. I figured I'd post a few of the better polished PWAD maps of mine. There's probably an official way to do this but I'm just gonna use dropbox. Also these aren't compiled as I don't know how to do it as I'm not very good at things, so as far as I know, they would need to be loaded up in doombuilder or GZdoombuilder, so they're not using original music or level names or anything and require either plutonia or TNT's IWAD as a resource (I'll point out which ones need which). Sorry if that's annoying. And sorry if I've violated any kind of forum etiquette here. I barely ever use forums. Never had great experiences interacting on them.

Contaminant Plant (Needs Plutonia) https://www.dropbox.com/s/2cp37l5nf8h3z1k/Contaminant%20Plant.wad?dl=0

Starship (TNT) https://www.dropbox.com/s/e6dsigg5y6no6zc/Starship.wad?dl=0

HQ (TNT) https://www.dropbox.com/s/zntv6oovqur4ck4/Headquarters.wad?dl=0

Contaminant Plant

HQ

Starship



I guess I should point out that when making maps, I tend to consider the artistic appeal more so than the gameplay. This is especially true for Starship, where I basically made the entire ship and then thought "Okay...now I need to cram a doom level in here, somewhere...." So if the gameplay/combat seems like a second thought, well, it sort of was.

Also, I try to stick with Vanilla Doom formats and resources. For me, the fun challenge of making the maps is taking things from the original doom games and making recognizable structures and details that one would think couldn't be done with the original resources. I'm not saying I did anything amazing here, but that's basically where my ambition lies so I never had any real interest in trying to make a heavily modded map. Probably not smart enough to figure out how, anyway. Since these are made for vanilla doom, it is highly recommended they be played that way (though the 'actors indefinitely tall' flag should be set to 'no'...I think they'd work either way but I used some tricks that are ideal with that off). Last guy I shared these with insisted on using Brutal Doom even though I explained that they're really not supposed to be played that way.

So to end this interminably rambling post...let me know what you think.

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Man everyone goes through a period of sucking at mapping before they're good at it, so don't worry. With that said, I haven't played your maps yet so they could be masterpieces for all I know.

Wow this sounds familiar. Cue that other freak in about oh, 20-30 minutes.

Thanks for looking.

Man everyone goes through a period of sucking at mapping before they're good at it, so don't worry. With that said, I haven't played your maps yet so they could be masterpieces for all I know.

I actually don't think the ones I shared suck too much. The early ones probably did but I think I got the hang of it rather quickly. I've made less than 10 maps total and these are on the latter half of that. I think they're like, 5, 6, and 8 or something like that. They LOOK pretty good at least, the gameplay might be sucky, I know that there can be certain guidelines within the map building community that might not have been perfectly followed. We'll see.

Oh.. Yes I am to participate in this thread for..reasons, that shouldn't be too terribly obtuse. :P

Hullo.

I've been through Containment Plant, it was a nice surprise. Some interesting design and texture choices here, a nice view of a large central area that isn't overwhelmingly packed with creatures. I like how once inside it opens up into a little crossfire. I cleaned out the antechambers and enjoyed the large spaces. Lighting was considered here too which is always a treat. Some questionable textures, like using STEP* on lines taller than 16 units, might flip out on some ports, but otherwise functional.
Gameplay stays controllable and there's plenty of resources.

I'll play your other offerings soon, thanks for sharing these.

@Use3D Thanks a ton for giving it a try. I played through that one again recently and was surprised at how much time I apparently spent on lighting, something I don't always take the time to do. As for your thing about the texture heights, to be honest, I'm not as aware of that as I probably should be, maybe because I always test in Zdoom with doombuilder and never noticed an issue, though I know it can happen. I just don't really pay enough attention to that kind of thing to be honest. I don't have a ton of experience using differing ports to know all of what I should avoid. I've seen some examples of what you've explained before when I played my very first map in Doom95 but I guess I just tend to figure "well...modern source ports will fix that for me, that's what mainly gets used now, right?" But I don't actually know, I have a way of being strangely ignorant about things I otherwise spend a lot of time doing, kind of like how I can jam okay on a guitar but barely know how to string one.

Thanks again for looking.

Starship : TNT.wad map20

This is a very cool realism concept style map, that would not feel out-of-place in a game like Duke3d. Lots of small sector detail, and more Doom furniture! Which some people find tacky but I always liked. Also found here are quaint livable spaces created for the crew. Combat is mostly head-on with little surprises, small monsters and enough ammo to get by with accurate shooting. To me your mapping style is slightly reminiscent of Andy Leaver, who hasn't posted in a while but made good use of vertical spaces and unique texture combos.
I think this level would break vanilla in a couple ways, probably visplane overflows and short textures used on tall spans once again. Also some sound blocking might help in some areas to prevent monsters from crowding doors. Overall a fun cosmic adventure! :)

@Use3D (Starship)

Thanks again. You'll probably see a lot of short textures on tall structures from me, I like how some of them repeat, but never really considered how it might affect true Vanilla doom. I suppose it might disqualify me from being able to say that they're strictly Vanilla format or at least from saying they're fully functional, although I'm not sure that it would "break" vanilla doom assuming you mean crash it. I'm only basing this on the fact that I probably had similar things happening in my first map which I tested in vanilla doom, and although I did get some rainbowy errors on the vertical tiling here and there, it didn't crash or anything. Again it's something I don't really encounter. Plus as you've no doubt noticed I like large areas so I can't see myself changing those habits, and I've used those various 'steps' textures for all kinds of effects, such as simulating a chest of drawers or mail slots in a mail room.

I guess if it's working with ZDoom and similar ports that's good enough for me, newer computers are necessitating them anyway. Perhaps I should find some kind of term to describe my specific style of map making if it's not completely vanilla-compatible. Sort of like those vegetarians who eat fish have their own word. And after all, I do have some maps that rely on actors not being infinitely tall, which of course is a vanilla feature.

There were a few times when I intended to sound-block but I can't remember if I ever got around to adding those in or at least making certain monsters deaf (some are but I recall the final hoard wasn't for the longest time). That level's also open ended enough to where it plays very differently depending on which way you go. Some people find the rec room immediately, and others don't see it until the very end, the latter scenario definitely leading to door blocking.

Headquarters : TNT.wad map4

Wow this could definitely be an addition to a more detailed version of TNT itself. It's huge, with large open vistas and very long lines. It triggered a spell of my Doom-specific agoraphobia, hehe. All which made this level spooky for me. I noticed your creative texture use to pull off the bank-box chest of drawers, plus many other small details in this massive place like the network connected laptops. We like to call this type of map 'limit-removing', which conveys no non-vanilla specials or scripting but are simply too large for vanilla itself.

Gameplay here is a bit more hectic, with fire coming from all sides, but plenty of room to move. Higher tier monsters start showing up and ruining the party, I was blindsided by revenant rockets heading back to the yellow switch. I liked coming down into the destroyed lobby. Lighting is more basic here, with mostly overhead illumination and a black room that invites you to death. I didn't find the blue key so I'm sure there's more to this that I missed. Strewn papers, a gory toilet scene and plenty of terminals, cubicles and furniture await the unwary. A fun exploratory map, for sure.

Thanks for having the confidence to share these, you should keep it up, maybe even join a small community project here and there to strut you stuff and build up your skills! :)

Hey m8, if you want more people to check out your maps, I suggest posting some screenshots in the opening post.

@Use3D Yes the combat in that one is very chaotic. One level that left a big impression on me was Odyssey of Noises, Map 29 of Plutonia. The pure chaos of that level was something I couldn't get enough of and it's something a lot of my maps feature. This is certainly a level that I thought could stretch the old doom format more than what it could handle, it ended up being a lot bigger than originally intended but it works for what it's trying to accomplish. There is kind of a cool visual gag you missed out on by not getting past the blue door but other than that, you saw most everything. I'd say the detail of certain TNT levels certainly inspired me in my human-made themed levels so that's an apt comparison. Thanks a lot for looking at these.

@Riley Martin Thanks for the suggestion, I may do that if I can figure my way around the forum commands. Didn't really think to do it at first. As I said, I barely touch forums of any kind. Haven't used one regularly in probably a decade.

Screenshots were added, feel free to point out of they're not sufficient, I didn't want to crowd the post too much. Thanks again to everybody who's taken a look.