Mappers' first world problems

[Novaseer]

Use this thread here to list any issues you have with mappers or mapping practice (which seems to be accepted as the less taboo option to discuss) that really should not be issues, but you don't like them anyway for some reason.

 

For me? Whenever people use the Doom 3 UAC logo in their maps. I just don't like it.

EDIT: And another one: when I added every custom texture I need apart from the one I'll end up using the most but I can't be arsed to go back into SLADE to add it.

Edited January 1, 2019 by Novaseer : Put the 'mapping practice' part in bold so Xaser doesn't call the thread a cesspool again.

[Dexiaz]

Doortrak texture is moving when door opens.

 

Yeah, in rare situations it's better to be "animated", but in other situations...

 

BTW, also hate when usual doors doesn't have any "doortrak" textures.

[leodoom85]

I hate when mappers put their first world problems here.

 

:P

[Novaseer]

13 minutes ago, leodoom85 said:

I hate when mappers put their first world problems here.

 

:P

this is too meta

[leodoom85]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think I saw a similar thread somewhere...regarding the same kind of topic, the likes that what you hate, what is weird, what is unique and all that stuff.

[Novaseer]

3 minutes ago, leodoom85 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think I saw a similar thread somewhere...regarding the same kind of topic, the likes that what you hate, what is weird, what is unique and all that stuff.

Probably. But what do I know?

[Nine Inch Heels]

Lack of coffee or tea during mapping sessions, that's the big one. When you have a good workflow going, are you gonna go to the kitchen to "reload", or you gonna finish off that one section you were working on for the past 40 or so minutes? Unfortunately there is no good solution, other than bringing more "provisions" along next time, which you forget anyway because you're way too excited to put your ideas down quickly, so the dilemma repeats itself over and over.

Here's another:

"Yeah I have time for a few finishing touches. Won't hurt missing out on 15-20 minutes of sleep. Just gotta sleep a wee bit quicker..."
2.5 houeurs layteur:
"I guess tomorrow is the correct day to do only what's necessary and relax as much as possible."

[Danlex]

gets banned for using the term "mapper" instead of "level designer".

 

Now seriously speaking, something I don't like is when people put a lot of damaging floors in their maps.

[Xaser]

I thought from the thread title the topic was gonna be something like "hey mappers, post about all the little things about the mapping process that bug you," not yet another "let's complain about all the trivial nonsense we can't stand in other people's maps" cesspool.

[Doomkid]

When I map for too long in one session, getting lost ‘in the zone’ then I try to stand up too quickly and get a leg cramp. I hate that bullshit and always stop and have a proper stretch/cool glass of water whenever it happens.

[Novaseer]

1 minute ago, Xaser said:

I thought from the thread title the topic was gonna be something like "hey mappers, post about all the little things about the mapping process that bug you," not yet another "let's complain about all the trivial nonsense we can't stand in other people's maps" cesspool.

I assure you I meant only the best intentions when making this thread.

[Juza]

Damaging floors are unecessary 90% of the time and I hate having my screen tinted green for most of the map.

 

Now for my problems...

- I hate when I move a vertice/linedef and a bunch of sectors get screwed up

- A monster gets alerted before I intend it to, so I have to give him a special little sector and make its floor raise when the player steps into the area

- Lower and upper unpegging windows and aligning them correctly

- Aligning the textures in the walls in which stairs are connected to

[TheOrganGrinder]

When the auto-align feature does something apparently inexplicable with the textures, and you have to spend time manually aligning them instead, as well as making sure that, if you expand or modify the geometry going forward, you don't accidentally/automatically hit auto-align in the process and undo all your careful manual texture alignment.

 

...Then you discover the whole reason the auto-align feature produced the results it did is that you forgot to upper-goddamn-unpeg a line.

[bonnie]

When I think it's been 20 minutes but I've been level designing for 90 minutes and I only have 10 minutes worth of work.

 

i.e. literally everytime I- uh, level design.

[Novaseer]

1 minute ago, TheOrganGrinder said:

When the auto-align feature does something apparently inexplicable with the textures, and you have to spend time manually aligning them instead, as well as making sure that, if you expand or modify the geometry going forward, you don't accidentally/automatically hit auto-align in the process and undo all your careful manual texture alignment.

 

...Then you discover the whole reason the auto-align feature produced the results it did is that you forgot to upper-goddamn-unpeg a line.

I think, out of all the posts in this thread, this is the most real.

[MFG38]

When I try to make the best map I can but then see a map by someone else that's so impressive that it makes my efforts look like IDontKnowWhatImDoing.wad by comparison.

[yakfak]

- when people remove the original beavis and butthead monster sounds and replace them with camel groans and heavy breathing

[Nootrac4571]

59 minutes ago, TheOrganGrinder said:

When the auto-align feature does something apparently inexplicable with the textures, and you have to spend time manually aligning them instead, as well as making sure that, if you expand or modify the geometry going forward, you don't accidentally/automatically hit auto-align in the process and undo all your careful manual texture alignment.

 

...Then you discover the whole reason the auto-align feature produced the results it did is that you forgot to upper-goddamn-unpeg a line.

 

Ooh, this. When you spend a million hours perfectly aligning textures, then accidentally press "A" while in 3D mode, because your hands naturally fall on WASD to move around, but don't notice the apocalyptic texture destruction you've caused until much later.

[Doom_Dude]

3 hours ago, Doomkid said:

When I map for too long in one session, getting lost ‘in the zone’ then I try to stand up too quickly and get a leg cramp. I hate that bullshit and always stop and have a proper stretch/cool glass of water whenever it happens.

That sounds painful. God damned cramps.

 

I find it hard to concentrate long enough to get into the zone. I mess about in one room or something and then the phone rings or you need to go take a leak or you start falling asleep..... ahhhhhhh!

[elend]

- When I accidentally auto align textures

- When I accidentally raise or lower sectors because my mouse's scrollwheel is finnicky

- When I work so much in GzDoom Builder, that my workflow in other programs is messed up, where you don't use the right mouse button to drag vertices, but the left one

- When I forget a stupid semicolon in the ACS script

[axdoomer]

One day, I was mapping in Doom Builder. My map was great, I was using the 3D mode to see what it looked like. My map was almost finished. At this point, I had been working on this map for a little bit more than three hours, but the editor crashed while I was giving it the final touches and I lost everything because I had never saved it while working on it. It was so discouraging, I didn't even remade the map even though it was a great map. 

 

Previously, I was using WadAuthor which crashed every 30 minutes. When I moved to Doom Builder, I thought it would never crash. I was wrong.

[CorianderCastor]

I get tied up in trying to do things that aren't mapping, and then don't map. Like trying to make mod patches for the Eternity Engine. Or trying to jury-rig custom configs for map editors, inevitably breaking things, and then staring at them for quite a while trying to figure out what's exactly broke. Like wondering why my broken UDMF mess will work in GZDoom and k8VaVoom, but not 3DGE or EE. Note to self: update to latest EDGE. I even managed to crash SLADE3 with a bad config.

[Reisal]

Here's some to add to the list:

• Donuts not working correctly.
• Raising stairs not working correctly.
• Raising floor w/ changing flat changing to incorrect flat to match adjacent floors.
• W1 teleport instead of WR.
• Monster ambushes partially or not working at all.
• Not raising sector ceiling for step areas when you can ascend but not descend.
• Forgetting to sector tag platforms/remote doors/etc but forgot you have to make it Boom/Vanilla compat.
• Not enough ammo/health to complete/survive a level from pistol start.

[VanaheimRanger]

5 hours ago, elend said:

- When I accidentally auto align textures

- When I accidentally auto align textures and don't notice it right away.

[Juza]

13 minutes ago, Glaice said:

Here's some to add to the list:

• Donuts not working correctly.
• Raising stairs not working correctly.
• Raising floor w/ changing flat changing to incorrect flat to match adjacent floors.
• W1 teleport instead of WR.
• Monster ambushes partially or not working at all.
• Not raising sector ceiling for step areas when you can ascend but not descend.
• Forgetting to sector tag platforms/remote doors/etc but forgot you have to make it Boom/Vanilla compat.
• Not enough ammo/health to complete/survive a level from pistol start.

You can fix all of those pretty easily though.

[Killer5]

When mappers include platforming but dont force the player to fight PEs whilst platforming.

[bemused]

Sending a map to a playtester, who immediately sends a demo back of them standing in a voodoo closet.. 
Sending a map to a playtester, who immediately sends a demo back of them standing in an area of the map they shouldnt be in..
Forgetting to link sound sectors in TP rooms
Vine midtextures laid on stepped ceilings making slices through sprites at ground level in software rendering
General bullshittery with skies between renderers
Revs and viles clearly being bigger than the gzdb box suggests they are
Not having a clue how to sequentially tag stuff, and having to do everything by hand
Being unable to learn how to compile textures into a wad because im utterly perplexed by slade
Im also utterly perplexed by FTP so have to get other people to upload my wads for me
Thats all i can think of atm, but there is plenty more that ive forgotten

 

[VanaheimRanger]

19 minutes ago, Killer5 said:

When mappers include platforming but dont force the player to fight PEs whilst platforming.

Pain Elementals...I knew I was missing something!

[The_SloVinator]

Managing item/monster placement for every difficulty. I always hesitate to do this because I know people won't play my maps on any skill level except UV & it's actually tedious to do.

[pavera]

Setting up dummy sectors for monster teleports. Very tedious. Bonus points for playtesting through the entire level, only to realize that I forgot to unflag "ambush" on the monster I wanted to teleport in. >.>