My First Maps

[DooMGo2It]

Hi. First I would like to thank you all for taking the time to come here and check out my thread. I've been a big fan of DooM ever since I was 5 years old, watching my cousin play.

Just recently I've been more in tune with my inner DooM (lol?), and I tried my hand with making some maps. Here are few screen shots of what I've made so far. I plan to make an entire wad called Painful Demise.

My second level, I call it Much Simpler:

Monster/ammo/health removed.

-
http://img39.imageshack.us/i/screenshotms1.png/
-
http://img138.imageshack.us/i/screenshotms2.png/
-

I'm looking for criticism as far as the looks and detail go, thanks!
________________________________________________

My first level (thus far no name): http://www.2shared.com/file/cZqDiMkI/firstmap.html

- I tested this with ZDoom 2.4.1 only
- Player Starts for 2 people
- Easy/Med/Hard difficulties (I only did a quick run or two on Easy/Med so there might be some mistakes, but it seemed fine for the most part)
- A hand full of custom monsters!
- I believe Plutonia and Doom 2 are required to play this; I simply drag and drop it on the ZDoom executable and select Plutonia when it prompts me.


I spent a lot of time and put a lot of effort into this so I hope you all enjoy it! :) Good luck and have fun. Please comment if you play it, thanks.

[RestlessRodent]

They look nice, however screenshots don't say anything except by how it looks.

The only real way to tell is to actually play it.

[EvilNed]

I think they look good. IMO, it's got the right amount of detail and you don't need anymore than that. I wanna play those maps, tho!

[Jonno8825]

They look pretty good, I wanna play them. Man I have to start mapping one of these days.

[SevenYearItch]

It all looks good, but I agree with the above post by GhostlyDeath. In my opinion, I don't really care how it looks, I mean it's original Doom modification.. how amazing is it REALLY going to look? I'm more interested in it being hard (on UV, of course), and interested in it taking a little while to beat (meaning I prefer it to be a megawad, a complete set of 32 levels).

Of course this is just coming from a girl who is a little picky and doesn't know a damn thing about map editting, lol, so don't mind me.

And I agree, I need to start mapping so I can truely become a part of this community as well.

[DooMGo2It]

Thanks for the feedback. I work relatively slow, so making a full 20+ level wad will be heavily based on your feedback. I'll release a few (4 or so) levels, and if they are liked, I will continue and make an entire game.

Once again, being that I know I make slow progress at times, I'll probably upload the first few levels 1 by 1.
----

I'm not exactly sure what is considered to be looked down upon when mapping, so I'll state a few things I've done that I think might possibly cause people to look down on my maps. I'm very new to this. :x

- I've used a few custom monsters from Realm667. I was stuck playing the 4 games that make Final DooM for so long, that when I found out how to do all this, I just had to use them.

- In some parts of my first map, there are more custom monsters than originals.

- I've edited the DECORATE of some of these monsters just because they looked so much cooler and stronger than they actually were. (Example; I used a Lord of Heresy, as well as Barons, but the Lord only has 1250, to the Barons 1000 HP, which I thought was too close. I upped it to 1500.)

[magicsofa]

SevenYearItch said:

interested in it taking a little while to beat (meaning I prefer it to be a megawad, a complete set of 32 levels).

To me that's just a big "Fuck you" to any mapper. You don't have to map to become part of the community, but maybe it will make you realize what a stupid request that is.

Also, I think it's funny that everyone is brushing off the screenshots saying "wanna play the map" because the screens show plenty of things to comment on.

So: These all look really cool but I can see some things you might want to change. This is not meant to say your level has to look perfect or adhere to certain rules, and since this is your first map I'd say you are miles ahead of many other newbies. However I'd like to offer some tips just for polishing:

Screenshot 1: It looks strange to have the marble floor with a tech texture on the side. What I mean is you appear to have BROWNGRN on the side of a marble floored sector - it would be more appropriate to have something like MARBLE3 or GSTONE1. Also, you have BLAKWAL on the stairs, which doesn't seem to match the floors.

Screenshot 2: The blue floors with metal sides are really weird looking! Also you have more BLAKWALL steps...this is just a mish-mash! This of course is just like the problem above - intuitively you would expect that a piece of architecture is made of one material. You wouldn't see a metal sided thing with rugs on it...usually. This is up to the mapper's judgement, especially since not every texture has a matching flat, but generally you can find something that more or less matches. If you really want something that doesn't quite match, you can make a little raised border or something to separate the textures. Otherwise it is weird to have two completely different things coming corner to corner - in this screen it looks like the blue was painted on the the metal walkways.

Another issue with this screen, although it's not a big deal, is that the BROWNGRN siding is sort of cut off at the sky. Consider lowering a border by 8 pixels so that the texture stops at the line - it looks much nicer that way. You could probably even leave this border untextured with a sky ceiling, and it will be invisible. That way you don't have to worry about the column in the middle being higher.

Screenshot 3: Lots of misaligned textures here. The raised floors and ceilings are creating issues - the floors don't move the textures up or down but since you split the line it is just starting at 0x0 for each 16 unit segment (or whatever it is). Autoalign should fix this easily..however, when you raise the ceiling like that it is more of a problem because the textures Y offset is affected. Try toggling Lower Unpegged - this will stop the Y offset from being affected by sector height. Depending on the surrounding textures you may still have to do some manual aligning but, it makes it easier when you only have to align the long wall rather than the pieces under the arch.

Screenshot 4: Cool first room, only thing I can spot is that the door and wall textures are cut off. Although, it doesn't actually look bad, but you could change the ceiling height to make it line up better.

Much Simpler screens: Sweet arena in the second shot! Only thing I see is more cut-off textures. In the first one the wall you're looking right at is cut off at the bottom - you could lower the ceiling by 8. Same goes for the BLAKWALL that is up at the sky - consider lowering the sky to line up with those boxes. Also, I can't tell if you did this but you could darken the sectors under those to make it more gloomy :P


I'm looking forward to testing this map out - upload soon!

[DooMGo2It]

Hi, thanks for posting.

I was looking at the textures you stated, how metal doesn't go with the blue carpet, etc. I'll definitely look into it to try and make it fit a little better. I didn't really think the blue was a carpet, I just plugged it in and figured it looked decent. I wasn't based on what the materials are made of, just the visuals of them. I'll take this into account when mapping in the future. Also, when making this map I used Doom 2 resources only (not counting monsters, of course). So I guess I was somewhat limited in what I could make. In Much Simpler I used Plutonia resources as well, which gave me many more options.

As far as putting in shade, were you referencing to the black walls going along the ceiling? If so; yes, I had put a darker lighting in that area, but I'll make it a notch or two darker so it's more visible.

I will upload my first map soon, in a day or two, I just want to tweak it a bit, as well as set lower difficulty modes. I had started that level simply for my cousin and I to play a co-op with some new baddies, so I just left all the monsters/powerups on all difficulty settings.

As for Much Simpler, I'd love to work on it day and night just to finish, lol. I'll try my best to get it out ASAP.

I forgot to realign the walls where the switch is in picture 3 because it's a bunch of bricks, and even misaligned it doesn't look -too- bad. I'm such a noobie that it wasn't until AFTER I finished the entire map that I realised 'Lower Unpegged' would stop my doors from having their tracks slide up and down with them as they move. :p

I took about as much time creating the map as I did trying to learn how to use stuff. :X

[magicsofa]

The blue flats are sort of random, but they look cool when used right. COMPBLUE is one of the weirdest textures in my opinion, but it's a nice splash of color. Anyway, regardless of realism I think people will cringe when they see what you have going on there. As I said it's up to you. Maybe you should try making a raised border - that would allow you to keep the contrast, which can be really visually pleasing, but eliminate the weird corner.

Yeah, mapping will get a lot faster once you stop getting hung up on making stuff work. Still, you'll always be able to get stuck on -something- :D

I personally never un-peg my door tracks. I think it looks cooler to have them move with the door as if it was a pulley thing. Of course, everyone else hates it, but I really don't care. Moral of the story, you don't always have to listen to everyone else.

[DooMGo2It]

I was thinking the same, as to leave the door tracks moving. However, on some of my doors the tracks don't move on their own. Don't know why. Now I have them so they all don't move, as usual.

I'll see what I can do for a trim or perhaps just change the floor texture.

[SevenYearItch]

First off, I'll have to ask you to not be a cunt. I was simply stating what I enjoy, I feel as if you quoted me without reading the full post. I specifically said that I can be a bit picky, but I'm sure any map/s that has had time put into it can be very playable, as well as replayable at that.

Second, I didn't request a damn thing from him. I simply said I enjoy to play a full set of 32 levels so I do not have to move to the next doom game within the time span of 1 hour. I've played plenty of single maps and enjoyed them, I'm just saying that if those single maps had another 31 levels like such, it would be more playable.

You can't argue with that, the more gamePLAY a doom has, the more PLAYable it is.

With that being said, keep up the good work DoomGo2It, and if you did happen to take any offense to my prior post, I do apologize, obviously none was intended......

Megadwad or not, I will definitely give these maps a try :D

Cheers!

[DooMGo2It]

Thank you, and no I hadn't taken any offense. I would take that as a compliment if you liked what I did and wanted to see more.

[magicsofa]

SevenYearItch said:

A bunch of stuff that magicsofa read in full

I quoted the specific part I was responding to. I did read the whole post, but I just felt like you were not contributing really to the thread. Go2it asked for comments on LOOKS and DETAIL, so if you're going to say "I don't care about looks" you might as well not respond. Instead you say how you are interested in hard maps that take a long time, or are numerous such that there's a lot of play time. You are entitled to your opinion, but I don't see the point in saying that in this thread. It's not relevant. So I'm going to be blunt and tell YOU not to be a cunt by spouting off your opinion on something that is not being discussed: Namely, difficulty and play time.

[SevenYearItch]

You did not read the post, you are one of those cunts who only read what they want to read, or perhaps see what they want to see. I told him it looks good. It's the first fucking thing I said, learn to read.

After that, I gave my opinion when it comes to LOOKS while playing doom, or any doom modifications for that matter. I think I covered basically what he asked in one sentence.

If I knew a little more about building maps, perhaps I'd be able to contribute more, but as far as my knowledge goes, I gave what I could, which was encouragement to continue his good work.

Now with THAT being said, I trust you will no longer act like a child, assuming that you are not one in the first place.

@ DoomGo2It - any more progress thusfar? Never sure how long it takes to build a single map, I guess it depends on detail and such.

Cheers.

[DooMGo2It]

Right now I'm just play testing to see how the minor tweaks work out. I've got a little bit of redecorating to do. I'm just adding some detail in current rooms.

Also fixed an error in map design that would cause the player to get stuck shortly after getting the Red Key if they hadn't hit another switch earlier.

The speed at which you create rooms, I would believe, solely relies on the mapper. I'm not trying to make a masterpiece, but I get picky when it comes to adding detail. On top of that, I'm a rookie mapper so I would assume it takes me relatively long to complete my work.

[magicsofa]

SevenYearItch said:

You did not read the post, you are one of those cunts who only read what they want to read, or perhaps see what they want to see. I told him it looks good. It's the first fucking thing I said, learn to read.

I read that, and it's not constructive. You also phrased it in a shrugging-off manner as if to say "Whatever, it looks fine...what I really want to talk about is GAMEPLAY"

SevenYearItch said:

After that, I gave my opinion when it comes to LOOKS while playing doom, or any doom modifications for that matter. I think I covered basically what he asked in one sentence.

Saying "how good can it look, it's vanilla doom." Well, it can look pretty amazing, and also terrible.

SevenYearItch said:

If I knew a little more about building maps, perhaps I'd be able to contribute more, but as far as my knowledge goes, I gave what I could, which was encouragement to continue his good work.

You can certainly contribute by looking at it. Of course, you apparently don't care to. Anyway I was giving mostly technical criticism but still there's pure aesthetics which anyone can comment on.

SevenYearItch said:

Now with THAT being said, I trust you will no longer act like a child, assuming that you are not one in the first place.

No. If you are defining my stubborn behavior as childish, fine. Your retarded accusations are not going to affect what I say. You are very insulting - I think that is childish. I did retaliate but, I don't see any reason to get pissed off. Also, I find your overuse of "cunt" distasteful - I hope you don't feel entitled just for being female. You have to be scottish for that to be remotely acceptable. LOL (ever read Cunt by Inga Muscio? crazy feminist, some good stuff in there)

Now that we've taken over the thread, I shall refuse to respond to you further. If you want to keep bitching send me a message, I'm always down to chat.

DooMGo2It said:

The speed at which you create rooms, I would believe, solely relies on the mapper. I'm not trying to make a masterpiece, but I get picky when it comes to adding detail. On top of that, I'm a rookie mapper so I would assume it takes me relatively long to complete my work.

[/b]

I can understand taking a long time on rooms. Sometimes when I am really inspired I can fly through but most of the time I take a while adjusting, playtesting, adjusting, and so on. However, things like making a door, a set of stairs, ceiling lights, or a teleporter have become rather streamlined. Also certain detailing such as columns and borders are usually predictable so you don't have to think too hard about what you're doing. I do spend a lot of time thinking about the overall layout and I hate going back and totally changing the general shape of the map, so I try to make each new area in a purposeful manner rather than just randomly drawing sectors and then deciding it sucks.

[DooMGo2It]

I'm noticing a lot of textures that are cut off, though it looks decent for the most part. I'm just going to leave it as is for now just so I can upload it faster. It's taking me long as it is lol.

[magicsofa]

lol PLZ UPLOADZ RRRRRRRRR

[SevenYearItch]

If I do not know much about the mapping, alls I can comment on is what I THINK it looks like. I said it looks good. I do not know all the technical information you can find out just by looking at a picture. It looks like doom, and it makes me want to play it, and that's what's important to me. So no more being a cunt please! Cheers!

Your post makes no sense at it, obviously I looked at the screenshots. Don't be a dumbass, that's the only remark one can make on that comment.

You started by saying I make stupid requests, when in reality, I did not request a damn thing. Again learn to read, and get your facts straight.

It's terrible that people like you exist in such a community, especially when new people show up. What a true sin. Grow up. And being female has nothing to do with anything, especially when it comes to a community of Doom players/editors. Aside from what you think about me being female, I believe what was said and addressed is what was deserved.

With ALL of that being said, maybe we can actually put this aside and get back on topic..... or it's up to you, for that matter.

DoomGo2It what is the name of the program or whatever you might call it to make these maps? I'm looking into starting on my mapping skills, and might need some help at that >_>. Maybe if I start building and find some stuff out, I can throw a little more feedback your way other than my opinion on the pictures. Maybe it'll also prevent people from waking up on the wrong side of the bed, so to speak, as well.

[esselfortium]

Yeah, how dare magicsofa post constructive criticism that you disagree with for this guy. Way to shit up a new community member's mapping thread.

[DooMGo2It]

@magicsofa - I will upload later today, for sure. I've got a cellar/basement type area thats rather devoid of detail so I'm gonna' go through that 1 last time to put some small things there. It wont be too pretty but it's dark in there anyways! :p

Also, is there any website or program you would recommend that I use for uploading? I'm not entirely sure how I would go about uploading the wad file.

@SeveYearItch - I use a program called Doom Builder 2. I learned how to map 2 different ways; a) watch Youtube videos on how to use Doom Builder; b) trial and MANY errors :x

If you ever need help feel free to message me and I will help you to the best of my knowledge, though I'm not great with DB2. I'm still new to a lot of the features the program has.

[DeathevokatioN]

Eh, I know SevenYearItch said something noobish, I'm not going to get involved in the argument... but to be honest I think the flaming should stop in this thread. I'm going to point the obvious and agree with Essel, let the focus of the thread be on the maps. :p

The screenshots look pretty good IMO, some strange use of textures. That screenshot with the green marble and green torches, where basically everything is green needs to have a bit more color variation, try finding colors that compliment each other. Light brown hellish bricks complement green marble pretty well. And maybe even change those torches for the normal flame to see what it looks like in contrast to the green.

And also, some of those areas look massive, nothing wrong with that, but be careful with monster placement in these ares as it can get tricky and this is where some new mappers fail, some types of monsters can become completely ineffective in these areas if they're not placed properly, such as imps or demons, unless you place lots of them, but then you can fall into the trap of making a fight tedious if you create too many... And also make enough smaller rooms where the player has less reaction time when he gets attacked by monsters... so as to contrast with the bigger rooms. Anyway, good luck with the maps, looking forward to see what you come up with, and what you do in terms of monster placement.

:)

[DooMGo2It]

Yeah, I'm not the greatest when it comes to blending textures well, though I do try my best. Being that it's only my first level, I think I did alright.

I should have this uploaded by tonight. Currently reworking the balance of HP/Ammo. Can't have those secrets give up -too- much! :p

I hope I didn't build much anticipation as I wouldn't want to let you all down. :x

[DeathevokatioN]

Don't worry bro, texturing isn't something everyone picks up instantly.

Just takes a bit of experimenting.

[DooMGo2It]

Yeah it definitely takes time and practice, and I can only get better from here! :D

Some of the textures might be a little wacky, and the majority of my rooms are somewhat square, but I think (more like hope? :x) you will enjoy the game play.

Also, I play Doom solely on UV difficulty (and I assume most others do, too), so anyone out there who plays on easier difficulty settings might notice more flaws in monster placement. I will do a few quick runs through on lower difficulty but my play testing will mainly be UV.

[DooMGo2It]

Well, here it is, finally! I'm a slow-poke but at least I've finished. I hope you all have fun with this wad even though it's just one level. Good luck, it's hard! :D

[DeathevokatioN]

Awesome, I'll play it once I've finished listening to metal!

[ArmouredBlood]

That was a rather annoying download site -.- try mediafire, wadhost, or drdteam instead. Will try this thing out in a bit ...

[DeathevokatioN]

I played a bit into it, and it's definetely not bad for first map. Some parts are way too dark on GZ Doom... as in pitch black, like that area after you're first encounter with the modified imps.

Some of the action is pretty fast paced and fun, but I kinda found picking off the modified imps with just a pistol pretty slow... And speaking of which, I'm not really a fan of custom monsters unless they're used sparingly. Just a personal preference though... some of the fights would have been much funner if you stuck to the stock monsters IMO.

I might sound a little negative, but so far though, it's definitely not bad for a first map, just needs a little refining, and I can see a lot of potential for your future maps.

I haven't finished it yet, I'll let you know more tommorrow though. :)

[DooMGo2It]

Yeah I did use a rather high number of customs. I guess you can say I'm still experimenting a bit. I'll try to stray away from using as much as I did here. My second map has a much higher ratio of normal:custom.

Also, for some reason it's stating that there are 9 secrets, when there should only be 7.

If there are any parts that are just annoying and not hard in any fun way, let me know. I have one or two spots in mind. :X