Methods of mapping

[Creaphis]

Kyka said:

What??? Telepathy??? Do you mean to tell me that I will still have to think to make doom levels when doombuilder2 comes out. That's just not good enough!! There's got to be a better way. ;)

Hm... well, there's always OBLIGE ;)

[Kyka]

Other than laughing my ass off, I'm not gonna dignify that with a response Creaphis... :Y

[Dutch Doomer]

I draw almost everything on paper first, then rebuild it in db without any detail.I focus on the layout first, when I'm happy with it I start adding detail.When adding detail I make sure it doesn't get in the way of gameplay, and if possible I try to let it add to gameplay.I try not to put too much detail in my maps, too much detail is too distracting.

Gameplay comes last but even in this stage I still work on the map itself, but I do it to improve on gameplay.I usually make the maps pretty challenging for myself, nice and hard in your face traps, or those annoying backstabber traps, monsters that appear behind you.

[stewboy]

I don't really plan a map. I just start off with a really small idea, or else I just draw random sectors and put random textures in and see how it turns out. Then, I just draw additional sectors until I get a map. Only rarely do I plan the whole level out first, or draw it up.

[40oz]

I map blindfolded and let my fingers take it from there. Hopefully inspiration gets the best of me.

[purist]

If I don't plan a layout on paper first I find all my rooms look a bit square. I can't spark the same sort of creativity at my computer screen that I can with a scrap of paper.

I've been known to keep of post-it handy at my desk at work to sketch miniture scale maps on when I'm stuck in an aimless phone call. My workmates must think they're just wierd doodles.

[deathz0r]

I more or less use Kaiser's approach, and you can see for yourself how my more serious maps progress! Here's all of the revisions I did for ODACTF1 MAP07:

http://deathz0r.unidoom.org/junk/odactf07.zip

Take note that it was originally assigned to MAP03, so you gotta warp to MAP03 until odactf3h, as all revisions after that use MAP01. From odactf3g onwards you'll need ODACTF1 itself for textures.

[40oz]

To be a little more realistic, I like to make the basic layout of maps first.

When I do this, the first sectors I draw are the simple exit room, and starting room. After that, I draw 'target' rooms, which are rooms that house keys or switches that operate doors to other target rooms. All these rooms are all simple and basic shapes, such as squares, octagons, rectangles, X's, H's, crosses, diamonds, T's, etc. None of the drawn rooms will be connected. Instead, later on connect the rooms together with hallways and stair sets.

When I first started mapping, I used to go room by room by room until I get to an exit. This often created pretty nice detailed maps, but later the maps seemed to just go on and on and the maps were too linear. I rarely finished them too, because I simply lost track of the idea. With my new method, I can spend a couple minutes mapping, then save the map and work on it later, and still know what I was doing because the exit and target areas are still there.

Once the layout is finished, I spend the rest of the time fitting sectors into my basic shapes. For example, this:



to this,



to this.



Every sector has either a different floor texture or height difference or both. Of course this example is a little too symmetrical and wouldn't look all too good in maps as it would be easy to get lost in the map when all four directions look exactly the same.

[Cybermaarten]

purist said:

I've been known to keep of post-it handy at my desk at work to sketch miniture scale maps on when I'm stuck in an aimless phone call. My workmates must think they're just wierd doodles.

Funny, I do the exact same thing, except I scribble my maps in corners of my Things-To-Do-Today book. Long meetings are also excellent for drawing "doodles" :)

[purist]

How awkward would it be if someone caught you though? For some reason the scene from Fight Club where the narrator's boss finds his 'Rules of Fight Club' on the photocopier comes to mind...

[pcorf]

I rarely draw layouts on paper. Sometimes I might draw an specific area of a map on paper but most of the time I just build a map, room by room in DB. I often use the 3D mode for height levels, lighting levels and some texture alignment but textures are often chosen in the 2D mode. Gradient lighting is often done by the gradient feature, the same goes into making staircases. Its a fast and effective way to create a map. I could make a standard sized Doom/Doom2 map in a single day if I wanted to.