How much time do you spend on aspects of mapping you dislike/hate?

[slowfade]

A simple question... While my texturing misery has lessened somewhat, I feel such aimless fatigue with my project. I recognize why: the geometry is done, the machinations are in place, everything I really like doing is done, now I must choose new textures and place them. But I'm beginning to question whether slogging through like this makes any sense when I could be creating new maps for another project (with stock textures) and actually be enjoying my time. How much time do you spend on things you don't like, in mapping? Do you keep doing things like adding new textures if you absolutely can't stand the process?

 

Part of my problem is that I have already invested quite some time on my current project. Perhaps 50% of the thousands of surfaces still need texturing, but all the maps are done and the overall concept works (at least for me, nobody else has seen this). I've rigorously tested the whole.

 

I feel like just selecting all lines and applying the same texture and then uploading the maps. It's once again a niche map set based around a cool idea (in my opinion) that most people won't have interest in anyway. The more time I spend on it the more "zero-sum wad" this thing feels. Any advice?

[DoomGappy]

I generally do texturing as I go, so I don't come back to anything later and suffer. It's easier this way IMO, because any new vertices or linedefs you create will have the same textures. I also generally use a placeholder texture other than startan for certain areas, so I can visualize it better. There isn't any part of mapping that I dislike, to be honest.

[kdoom]

I don't understand why you would not be texturing as you build. Seems like a LOT of wasted time there.

 

For me, it's the gameplay portion I get bored during. Add, adjust, play, repeat. I usually play my maps 60-80 times just testing fights, ammo, health, and difficulty options, before anyone else sees said map. 

[slowfade]

Sorry, I was being a bit unclear; I do like texturing itself, but I can't stand choosing and adding new textures into the wad. I forgot to mention that I'm browsing through OTEX and selecting textures and importing them to my vanilla wad. That's why I couldn't texture as I built; I had no textures (and no will to choose them)! I agree that it's quite painful afterwards...

 

Yeah, I can't think anything else I dislike in the process. Other than choosing music, which I haven't done before anyway. I like testing.

[prfunky]

Active in a project right now; I'm texturing as I go but sometimes only partly. I'd say that I'm working on three

different sections at a time.

1) Where I'm at

2) finishing off where I was

3) doing preliminary work/testing for where I'm going

I may have some ideas of what I'll need for textures on #3 and begin working on that by experimenting with

those textures in a small section of #1. I try to have those textures available by the time I've moved the

where I'm going to where I am. Still, I might find that I need a little something else which I don't have and

need to create my own texture to fill the void in my selections. That's where #2 comes in; finishing off where

I was once I've created or acquired that finishing piece of texture.

 

[DoomGappy]

25 minutes ago, slowfade said:

Sorry, I was being a bit unclear; I do like texturing itself, but I can't stand choosing and adding new textures into the wad. I forgot to mention that I'm browsing through OTEX and selecting textures and importing them to my vanilla wad. That's why I couldn't texture as I built; I had no textures (and no will to choose them)! I agree that it's quite painful afterwards...

 

Yeah, I can't think anything else I dislike in the process. Other than choosing music, which I haven't done before anyway. I like testing.

Testing can get pretty exhaustive, specially when the level is almost completely finished. You've replayed it over and over and over and you need to finish stuff. 

 

For texturing with resources, a good tip is to use the author's naming system. If I'm not mistaken, ukiro uses O for his real name, Ola Björn as a prefix for textures, than the material type, and then a number. This can speed up texturing significantly. Of course, the author has to know what he's doing when creating the texture pack.

[buzter555555]

17 minutes ago, DoomGappy said:

Testing can get pretty exhaustive, specially when the level is almost completely finished. You've replayed it over and over and over and you need to finish stuff. 

 

For texturing with resources, a good tip is to use the author's naming system. If I'm not mistaken, ukiro uses O for his real name, Ola Björn as a prefix for textures, than the material type, and then a number. This can speed up texturing significantly. Of course, the author has to know what he's doing when creating the texture pack.

Well all stuff must start small and end tall 😆 

 

[slowfade]

It seems that a bit of venting and just putting in some hard work can make quite a difference. I've added more new textures and just kept grinding. Not wanting to abandon the wad any more!

[Tangra]

I absolutelly hate playtesting my own maps. Playtesting is fun when you can do it for someone else (in most cases), and go through the maps blind once or twice, like in a normal playthrough. But what is there to surprise me in my own maps? It always boils down to, "let's see how that encounter works from as many angles as possible", or "let's try to predict all scenairos the player might find to cheese the map", or "let's see how that area works with a different monster arangement", now let's repeat all that 50 times in 3-4 different ports in a short period of time. There's nothing fun in playing the same level on repeat, even if it's not yours. It also makes it hard for me to judge my maps objectivelly, because i'll never have the perspective of going through them blind... will i like them more if i could, or not? That's why i find other players' gameplay and feedback much more important, but me playing my stuff hardly ever feels rewarding, other than to see if everything works as intended. 

 

So how much time do i spend playtesting? Once the map is done, around 3-4 hours, but that excludes all the testing i'm doing while building the map... every door, every switch, every trap, every teleport, the scale of every newly drawn room, every adjustment, and everything else you can think of, all get playtested on the spot, so add a few more hours to the process. Oh, and if the map is vanilla-compatible, add even more time for testing the visplanes from all possible spots and viewing angles all around the map.

[kdoom]

4 hours ago, Tangra said:

and if the map is vanilla-compatible, add even more time for testing the visplanes from all possible spots and viewing angles all around the map.

 

The first few dozen (or more) maps I released, were built with/for doom.exe....all the limits, and the bugs of the original game executable to wrestle with. There wasn't any other engine to choose from.

 

I was very happy to get the Boom engine, and I never again worried about visplane overflows, or other map-size related issues.

 

A mapper doesn't have to use the "new features" of the source ports, but we should at least stop worrying about the old bugs and limits of the original engine. If you like pixels the size of quarters, that's fine, but you don't have to worry about the bad side of the original engine.

 

BTW, I do not consider limit removing, a feature....it was a bug fix, from my perspective.

[TheHambourgeois]

A majority because for me it's playtesting, unfortunately

[CravenCoyote]

On 11/1/2023 at 2:09 AM, slowfade said:

Spoiler

 

A simple question... While my texturing misery has lessened somewhat, I feel such aimless fatigue with my project. I recognize why: the geometry is done, the machinations are in place, everything I really like doing is done, now I must choose new textures and place them. But I'm beginning to question whether slogging through like this makes any sense when I could be creating new maps for another project (with stock textures) and actually be enjoying my time. How much time do you spend on things you don't like, in mapping? Do you keep doing things like adding new textures if you absolutely can't stand the process?

 

Part of my problem is that I have already invested quite some time on my current project. Perhaps 50% of the thousands of surfaces still need texturing, but all the maps are done and the overall concept works (at least for me, nobody else has seen this). I've rigorously tested the whole.

 

I feel like just selecting all lines and applying the same texture and then uploading the maps. It's once again a niche map set based around a cool idea (in my opinion) that most people won't have interest in anyway. The more time I spend on it the more "zero-sum wad" this thing feels. Any advice?

 

 

 

I feel like you could potentially even pair up with someone for something like this. If you design a level, let your partner design the aesthetic, and come up with a great map-set.

 

You'd need to find someone that clicks with your design style, but if it allows you both to focus on what you enjoy, you could end up with some amazing results

 

[slowfade]

I agree, it could result into something great. But the problem is finding that someone. Most mappers also want do the other parts. It'd have to be someone who's obsessed with choosing textures and creating a look. If there's anyone out there let me know...

 

Speaking of testing, yeah, testing a map that takes an hour played casually is a total nightmare. Likewise with big battles. But I like thinking like a speedrunner and trying to block all their shortcuts. Sometimes it opens up cool ideas for challenging puzzles -- whether those are good or not is a different question.

[SilverMiner]

I'm not rationalizing what I'm doing when mapping, it seems

[Finnisher]

I might be very weird in this sense but I kind of hate drawing new geo as in new rooms.

 

They look so horrible and nothing like the "excellent" vision I have in my head for them, lols.

Ofc it's gonna be like that at first, then you start moulding them to what you want bit by bit, but the start is somehow exhausting to me.

 

Maybe since I'm rather visual but not a super creative or imaginative person so not being able to "immediately see" what the vision looks like makes me question if the vision is worth making and that kind of makes me stop.

 

So in other words I spend quite a bit of time on the part I dislike but as little as possible.

I really like the moulding process though adding the geo and details and lighting and mechanics etc.

To the point of offsetting textures by 1 mp to get them just right.

 

I tend to finish one room before moving to the next. Ofc iterations happen later as they should but I feel I can't "leave" a room until it matches my target for it.

[bobstremglav]

I never cared about unpegged textures, same with allignment. Sometimes I allign textures when it's too obvious, but most of times I just slap textures on walls and call it a wad

[Pechudin]

Playtesting is something I like the least, but is necessary. I spend about 25% of the time on it.

[NightRiding Doom]

Funny. I actually like texturing. What I find most difficult in creating a wad is coming up with something that has more geometry than a couple of ledges and a floor.  That is usually what takes up most of my time, about 70%. But it's also the biggest part of developing a wad.

Dealing with choosing textures from large texture sets can be a pain, but I have started to make some presets of most frequently used textures I see myself using. Be it in PK3 or wad form, it really can cut down the time spent on it, as well as lower the chance of decision paralysis just due to sheer amount of patches and textures you have

[rita remton]

On 10/31/2023 at 6:09 PM, slowfade said:

A simple question...

 

hi! during mapping, placeholder textures could be used so the mapper could focus on form/architecture first, then texturing later. parts of buildings (floors, walls, support beams, doors, etc) could all be colour coded, so they could be quickly swapped with other textures in udb via the [search and replace] mode (oddly only works in udmf) or the via the [map analysis mode] mode (using missing flats+textures selection when the placeholder textures/flats wad file is removed) for other wad formats. this reduces texturing time. hope this bit of info helps. good luck :)

[slowfade]

Thanks, that's a great idea! I'll start implementing it with my next maps. I'll add a few monocolor textures and use them when I don't know yet what texture to use and just replace them later. That'll save me a lot time and nerves.