How do you make your maps and WADs?

[StarSpun5000]

I'm curious to know how people like to make their maps and WADs. Do you plan out the whole level beforehand or do you just wing it? Do you make a basic outline and let the ideas come to you while working on it? It'd be interesting to know. 

[Voxelvoid]

Well, I just have an idea and I work on it on the fly - sector after sector after sector. Whenever I try to make a rough outline of a map I always abandon the concepts behind it. Creativity just flows, you know. Start mapping and let the ideas flow through you. If something looks or works well then leave it, if it's ugly or unbalanced - remove it. It is important to know basic rules of texturing, how monsters behave and interact with everything and all the Doom mechanics. I made only 3 maps as for now but I love making them and I encourage everyone to try.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Voxelvoid

[Remilia Scarlet]

I start out with a very general idea of what I want to accomplish with a level.  Then I do the initial room and detail it to establish what I want for the visual aspect.  From there I start working on the level in segments: block out a few major areas, add enemies/ammo/weapons, playtest, get it feeling good with repeat testing, then (mostly) detail that area.  Rinse and repeat, iterating on ideas early and only doing detail stuff last or when it's necessary.

 

I'm always keeping my general idea in mind, though, and also always thinking if I want to "smash rooms together" to give a connected feel (though not too much - I'm personally not a fan of wide open-feeling maps).

 

Then when I've done all of the parts of the level, I go back through, tweak the combat, balance things, and do a final detail pass.  If it's a XBAWKS HUEG level, or multiple levels, I usually test them one at a time (or each major segment at a time) and take averages of health/ammo/armor at the end of each one.  Then I start the next and just adjust my health/ammo/armor to the average :-P  Makes it a bit less tedious to test the feel between levels, at least for me.

[Alfwin]

I usually start with an idea of what I want the map's theme to be, e.g. for my Arcane Archive, the theme was supposed to be interconnectivity and a sense of being hunted.  I then imagine a vague idea of the overall flow of the level - do I want branching paths, for it to loop back to the start, &c.  and start putting actual rooms together.  For each room, I again think what I want the general feel to be like.  Is the focus going to be on hectic projectile-dodging, archvile hide-and-seek, or maybe only a few imps and a quick switch hunt/puzzle to give the player a breather from the action?  I rough out the layout of the room and repeatedly run the map with no monsters, just to make sure the space feels good to move through.  Once I have the basic form of the room, I start placing monsters and adding more shape to the arena (e.g. cover, obstacles), always keeping in mind what purpose everything I add serves.  Large pillars can create blind spots and deny the player knowledge of where roaming monsters are, and once I've added those, some pinkies in the arena will stop the player from using the pillars as cover; that sort of thing.  I'll iterate on the design of the encounter, testing it repeatedly until I'm satisfied.

From one room to the next, I basically just go wherever the flow of the map takes me, but I try to maintain contrast between areas.  A large open space leads to a narrow hallway.  That dark hallway leads to a brightly-lit room, and so on.  Once I have all the rooms, I'll go back through and adjust for balance, visual detail, &c., again testing the map frequently and iterating upon the design until I feel the map is complete.

[JediMB]

2 hours ago, Voxelvoid said:

Well, I just have an idea and I work on it on the fly - sector after sector after sector. Whenever I try to make a rough outline of a map I always abandon the concepts behind it. Creativity just flows, you know. Start mapping and let the ideas flow through you. If something looks or works well then leave it, if it's ugly or unbalanced - remove it. It is important to know basic rules of texturing, how monsters behave and interact with everything and all the Doom mechanics. I made only 3 maps as for now but I love making them and I encourage everyone to try.

 

Pretty much this. I haven't found the inspiration for a larger map layout yet, which might just be a matter of experience, so I just start with trying to a build a single interesting room and then expand from there, room by room.

 

I'm almost done with my 3rd map now, and I figure I'll make about eight of them before I release the "episode" to the public.

[Somniac]

So far what works for me is doing the starting room first, shaping and detailing to almost the level of detail I want the entire map to have, establishing a basic visual theme and extrapolating from there where I think it should go, letting what I've already laid down guide my hand to a degree. Then as I go, I'll be trying out some thing placement, applying functionality (doors, switches) etc here and there.

 

I'm trying to get an entire layout done before I start adding more visual detail, but I can't help myself if a spot for lighting or sector detail really makes itself obvious there and then. The ability to create atmospheric set pieces that function as backdrops (or integral features, in places) to Doom's gameplay is one of the biggest appeals of mapping for me.