Teacher, My Vertices Won't Stitch.

After a much deserved rest of two wonderful weeks, wherein some stayed right here in Shanghai, and others took a vacation to their place of birth, be it Korea, the U.S., Japan, or even the Chinese city of Yangshuo (the city with a familiar horizon), students reluctantly start to pack their heavy school bags again, kiss their moms, dads and ayis (maids) goodbye, and with lead in their shoes, they take the long trek back to that grey building filled with bullies, annoying sounding schoolbell- replacing- melodies- that- are- supposed- to- be- better- than- schoolbells and nagging teachers.

Almost the end of the second day of the week, just one more period to go. Option classes. Most students feel that this is the highlight of their day. Playing soccer, going swimming, pottery; whatever their parents signed them up for.

Some of them, however, feel that it's just another tedious subject to muddle through before they can run to their respective bicycles, chauffeurs or school buses. Why could those who chose Computer class not play games for forty minutes, as they could last year? Why did the school place a new teacher in charge of these classes this year anyway? He never lets the kids play Mapquest, Pokemoncrater, or even Minesweeper! No, they have to do what he says. Damn, I hope today will be different. (img) (img) (img)

• The images should explain the location of this thread. If the Doom Builder forum isn't the correct place, I would like to apologize for annoying the moderator.

Very cool to see that scorpion! Thanks a lot! This is very motivating to work even harder on Doom Builder 2, hehe :)

Just out of curiosity, what is it they are learning here? Making maps in general? or something specific regarding geometry?

The pictures were taken during the first lesson involving Doom Builder. Since one lesson is only 40 minutes, I used it to have them fool around a bit in a prefab WAD (the one from Dr Sleep, or rather, my WAD after following his tutorial, which was based on an older version of DB I think) and explained the basics of sectors and linedefs (and a short introduction to sidedefs), so to answer your question: since I got carte blanche in teaching Computer class, yes, they're learning how to create a DooM level.

This being a class with students from grade 4 through grade 8 (age range :9 - 13), I have to take it slow. Believe it or not - the graphics don't seem to bother the parents, who I asked permission to do this. They're just glad that their child is doing something constructive during option classes, rather than just playing games (which would usually involve either Counter Strike -still very hot here in China-, or World of Warcraft, paid from Daddy's credit card anyway).

The first screenshot is from an 8-grader, who grasped the concept of choosing textures and flats that actually match much quicker than the rest. ^.^,

My next class is this Thursday, with a different class, in which I'll be doing the same, pretty much. Next week, I'll start them on a tutorial which I made in steps of about 4 lessons. After that, the semester is over (Chinese New Year is a 2-week holiday here), and I'll have them construct something in somewhat of a 'test' environment.

now that is really cool, to the tenth power.

I know what you're up to. You plan on using cheap Chinese labor to make a megawad.

exp(x) said:

I know what you're up to. You plan on using cheap Chinese labor to make a megawad.

That's child labour. Cheap labour would suggest that I pay them.

But you foiled my plans yet again. I suppose I'll get back to bootlegged sport shoes now...

But seriously, a WAD of their collective work is an idea, but I don't think it will have any play value, not as long as they are still in the "OMG 1600 Cyberdemons in a room is sooo kewl!"-stage.

scorpion said:

"OMG 1600 Cyberdemons in a room is sooo kewl!"-stage.

Scorpion is preparing to create Hell Revealed 6, which will be extreme enough to skip over the 3-5 series entirely.

A chinese doom megawad? Those kids can play fugues on the organ at 8 over there, I don't think I could play a Chinese made set of megawads. Kurt Kesler, eat your heart out, China's got a brand new bag.

Thank god Korea didn't pick up doom, we'd be in some shit.

I dont really have much to offer for this thread... I just think its awesome how those kids get to learn how to map. I wish we did something more constructive in elementary school.

I think this is one of the best threads i've seen in a while ^_^.

Kudos to Code Imp and Scorpion.

An amazing idea, scorpion. You must be the first man in the world to teach DOOM level editing at school!
But were you kidding about Yangshuo's skyline? Aren't those mountains supposed to be in Peru somewhere?

Never_Again said:

But were you kidding about Yangshuo's skyline? Aren't those mountains supposed to be in Peru somewhere?

Yangshuo Cavern does seem to be the generally acknowledged location of the photo. And looking at a Yangshuo photo gallery suggests that it probably isn't an error.

Thanks for the positive replies, guys! The kids seem to have a lot of fun with it, and I know I certainly do. Today was my 2nd class, which was basically a redo of Tuesday's class, since I got different students on Thursday. The only one who comes to both classes is the boy from the first picture...

Csonicgo said:

Thank god Korea didn't pick up doom, we'd be in some shit.

...and yeah, he is Korean. I teach at an international school as a homeroom teacher of a grade 1 ESL class (I teach 2 Computer classes per week), so the students in the school are from all over the place. I got 3 Koreans in my Computer classes, of which this particular boy clearly is the brightest (and could probably show some people a thing or two in DM), and he keeps asking me when we get to some in-depth editing, since he feels that he's being held back a bit by the other students, who are still struggling with various DooM and Doom Builder-specific concepts. This kid is really starting to get into it, and might make that particular nightmare of yours come true, if his friends ever get wind of what he's doing during my classes...

Never_Again said:

But were you kidding about Yangshuo's skyline? Aren't those mountains supposed to be in Peru somewhere?

When I was in Yangshuo, I already felt that something was familiar about those mountains, other than them appearing on 20 yuan bills (€2; $2.75; £1.40). I made some pictures of several mountains which I then believed to be the particular mountain appearing on the sky1 texture in doom (that last picture is just there for fun, and contrary to what the imagery on my t-shirt might cause you to believe, I am not into bondage)... (img) (img) (img) (img)

Grazza said:

Yangshuo Cavern does seem to be the generally acknowledged location of the photo.

...but I made those pictures before I found out about the actual cavern (a trip which I skipped whilst being there and something which is still causing me to hit myself repeatedly on the head for doing so).

Wow, thats amazing. Learning to use a map editor is much more constructive than just playing CS or WoW.

Ahhh that's pretty damned cool. It's interesting reading this, instead of somebody's weirdo problem. You just may end up inspiring one of these kids into becoming a level designer.... ;)

Unfortunately, last week was the last lesson. I didn't take into account that the school would postpone all option classes until the next semester (which is in about 3 weeks), due to the exams next week.

Gives me some time to refine my lesson plan and come up with some ideas for the classes next semester. Does anyone have some suggestions?

Theres nothing wrong with learning how to use line and sector actions. Or something with ACS (depending how far in you're with the class). You could teach them how to improve the maps by using simple line/sector/script functions.

I'll hold off the scripting. Basically, there have been 3 lessons on the subject so far. I planned it to be 4 at first, but then I found out that the current version of Doom Builder doesn't work too well in Chinese Windows.

The first lesson was basically an introduction to DooM itself (since it makes no sense to explain things and linedef types without them even knowing what you can do in the game), the second lesson was a quick lookaround in Doom Builder and having the students get familiar with the different modes, and the last lesson was a fun deathmatch in a quick map I made. I recorded a demo of it using Skulltag, but I don't think many people would be interested in seeing a DM with 7 girls and 2 guys (although most of them weren't half bad).

So basically, we haven't come to any actual editing yet, other than me explaining the difference between a sector and a room, what vertices really are and something about linedefs and sidedefs (basically, talking about sides of a line). I suspect that some more students may join my class next semester, and some may drop out of class, or even school.

In any case, I'm pretty sure that students will have forgotten most about what I explained (also because they only get 40 minutes a week), so I'll start from square one, and not include ACS or even custom texturing for a while. But any help is always appreciated! ^.^,

For starters, I would like to see this deathmatch... give me a copy of the map and cld file if you can. (It would be neat to watch a LAN based deathmatch).

If your going that slow, I would suggest coming up with challenges for them instead. You must make a map with 50 sectors that can be playable in deathmatch, or, Make a map that uses 25 different floor textures and 25 different wall textures.
It’s a very good idea to have creative challenge. You not only learn but it’s also fun to see the outcome. Besides, who wouldn’t love to see different outcomes of "You must make a remake of doom e1m1".

Edward850 said:

For starters, I would like to see this deathmatch... give me a copy of the map and cld file if you can. (It would be neat to watch a LAN based deathmatch).

After some consideration, I've decided to grant your request. Even though the map isn't nearly up to most people's standard, I made a quick textfile for both the WAD and the demo.

Click here to download the map and the demo.

Edward850 said:

If your going that slow, I would suggest coming up with challenges for them instead. You must make a map with 50 sectors that can be playable in deathmatch, or, Make a map that uses 25 different floor textures and 25 different wall textures.
It’s a very good idea to have creative challenge. You not only learn but it’s also fun to see the outcome. Besides, who wouldn’t love to see different outcomes of "You must make a remake of doom e1m1".

Please keep in mind that a lot of these students are just beginning to learn how to do multiplication with numbers higher than 10, and most of them haven't even started geometry yet. And, since they only get 40 minutes per week, and it's quite different to explain steps to a class filled with students (where everyone has to wait if one person doesn't understand a certain thing) from explaining it to one person, things are going fast enough.

Since this semester has ended, and new students are bound to be in class next semester, I'm making up a lesson plan and some text on paper, for them to learn the basics of editing using Doom Builder, and with some exciting assignments.

Hope you enjoy the demo. Let me know what you think.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to include one important piece of information: The demo is a little over 30 minutes long.

Good work, Scorpion! Get them hooked while they're young.

Edward, you really are getting ahead of yourself there. There's a lot to learn about sectors, lines, and etc. before you can even consider making a map with gameplay.

I'm surprised to learn that sky1 is actually part of a real photo. I'd be even more surprised to learn that sky3 is part of a real photo. :)

Well some people are better then teaching people then other people. I admit am not one of them. The problem with me is that I assume that the person knows at least what they are doing first. Kind of stupid, I know, but it’s hard for most people to lose that idea.

Next Monday is the first class of the new semester, now down to teaching one time per week (as all the option classes are now being taught two times a week, in stead of four), and I'm getting paid extra now, as the students now have to pay to get in class.

As said previously, I will start from scratch, as different students are in my class now. Some items, which would come as easy or natural to you, need a lot of attention and 'background teaching' for these students.

Please don't forget that, even though very easily overlooked by people visiting these forums, most of these students haven't played Doom before, and are thus unaware of its options (many of them stand in front of a door, for example, waiting for it to open by itself).

If anyone's interested, I'll keep you posted about next week's first class, although I'm worried about pushing this subject offtopic. Even though the tool being used is Doom Builder, teaching Doom mapping has a lot to do with stuff much more general than that.

Oh I'm insterested! post some photos again or maps they made :D

UltraFwomp Bump

We're well into the new semester, and as I feared, most of my computer class has been completely replaced, only leaving three or four students from the previous semester in the new class. But students who joined this computerclass are mostly students who heard what was being taught previously, and now there's a class filled with -mainly- boys, eager to create doom levels and ending each class by filling whatever they created with rocketlaunchers, plasmaguns and a shiteload of monsters to quickly blast before the bell rings.

Classes are short, a lot of time is spent explaining individual students certain steps which are more difficult, and most students have Chinese or Korean versions of Windows at home, which makes it more difficult for them to try their hands on DB (without having to change settings or install additional software, something their parents may be opposed to). So, levels are still simple, and students have just successfully created a door, a lift and rising stairs.

The coming assignments will include editing existing WADs, working together on WADs (have them start, then swap files with each others to have someone else continue). If anyone has any ideas, or maybe feels like making some mapping starts which the students can finish, I think they'll (and, most certainly, I'll) be very happy! (img) (img) (img)

scorpion said:

most students have Chinese or Korean versions of Windows at home, which makes it more difficult for them to try their hands on DB (without having to change settings or install additional software, something their parents may be opposed to)

Tell them Doom Builder 2 is coming... well, next year probably :P but it will work on their machines. You and me will make it work!

After some deliberation, and even asking 'official' permission on IRC to bump this ol' thread, here is a zip file that will shock the doom community and alter it forever.

Heh. These maps were made by a couple of students who started with a template and were asked to do whatever they liked with it, as long as they used what they learned in class. Please note that I will not upload it to /newstuff, since it doesn't really need someone to review it with 'shit' (but, if you feel that it needs to be there anyways, feel free to do whatever).

Please see the .txt for additional info.

Download the zip

There isn't much there but I understand the time constraints and limits they were operating under. It is kind of funny to look at these wads and know who made them. :P Good job Scorpion.

Good work Scorpion. Thanks for the file. It's kinda neat to imagine a bunch of young fellas working on Doom levels :)

I think this is awesome, we never did anything fun like this at school.

I'll donate my old starting area for the map I'm currently working on. I cut it from my map as it lead into a UAC base, but I decided to start the map from inside the base insted.

map-for-scorpion.wad

As well as the map you're going to need the skulltag client and skulltag.wad, Scorpion. If you haven't got it already head over to the st download page. The map is in "Skulltag (Doom in Doom format)", IWAD DOOM2.WAD, with additional textures and flats coming from skulltag.wad (but you know this... I just want to cover everything in 1 post, just to be sure).

Here's some screenshots:

outside

I did the outside area a couple of weeks ago, ever since it's been sat in my doom folder doing nothing.

--

inside - getting started

I threw this area together just now, just to get your students started. Of course feel free to change it, or just let them start from here and see what they come up with.

My plan tonight was to get some floor and ceiling varation in, where they can add ammo, weapons, health etc, before returning the floor to 0 and the ceiling to 128, so they didn't have to worry about texture heights too much if they're still learning sector work.

Please excuse the second part of the map (and any poor wording in this post), I wanted to get this done before I went to bed, and it's fast approaching 3am :S

--

I'd really like to see what they make out of it, as I'm working on a big map at the moment and otherwise this would've gone to waste.

Take it easy,
Fox.

Edit: Here's 2 reference shots from DB, just incase:

Outside 3d mode
2d view

Hey codeimp, what're the black tears in 3d mode caused by?

Hey Fox, thank you for that, I really appreciate it! It's certainly a good starting point for students to start mapping from, and I appreciate your hard work.

Now here's the somewhat sad news, which would pretty much mean that I kill yet another thread (but yay 600th post yay yay, sorry, I couldn't help it).

Two weeks before the school is due to start (tomorrow), all the parents and teachers were informed that the school has moved to a new campus. I also learned that I went from teaching grade 1 homeroom (meaning, one teacher teaches all -English- subjects) to grade 2. And (here's Chinese administrative magic for ya), there were to be computer classes for all students, as part of the regular curriculum, which would basically mean that I wouldn't be able to combine homeroom teaching with being the school's computer teacher. Then they couldn't find the right room to turn into a computer room, so computer classes are canceled indefinitely.

The latter is actually good news, since they will eventually have a computer class and, since the parents are already pissed off as it is for paying for a school near their homes and then learning that the school has moved quite aways, the school won't change the curriculum anymore, so it will eventually be added as an option class once more, and I'd love to teach that class again.

Anyway, thanks again, Fox, and my apologies.

By the way, Skulltag is no problem, since we used to use it for playing over the network (search this thread a bit to find a demo of me vs students, heh).

Oh, and the graphic glitch issue is discussed here.