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Enderkevin13

Tips For Editing

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It's every doomer's dream to create their first Doom WAD, but they need tips sometimes. Luckily, that's where I come in.

So here are some tips for creating a Doom WAD.

1. Take inspiration from your favorite vanilla WAD. For example, I take inspiration from Doom 1 maps, mostly because of their complex levels and design. It doesn't have to be a PWAD, as i pointed out.

2. Give it a theme. A theme is always a good idea for a WAD. To give it a theme, choose a series of textures matching the theme you want. For example, and underworld themed level would use brick (Not the suburban brick) or maybe the ASHWALL textures.

3. Get creative. You have inspiration, you have a theme ready, but something is missing. Oh yeah, your creativity! A good WAD uses a lot of your creativity and effort. Create 3D stalagmites using sectors, make windows using the SHAWN2 texture, The possibilities are limitless!

4. Don't copy other WADs. Lets face it, we see lots of knockoffs of other WADs, and no one wants a knockoff WAD. This is why you should make your own content, rather than copying it. If you decide to copy a map, expect bad reviews. If you're adding one as an easter egg, then credit the original creator of the map.

5. Add scenery and decoration. A good WAD has plenty of scenery around it. Maybe a garden, or a view of something. And adding lamps is a good addition to decoration, especially when positioning them just right. Just try to balance the mix of decoration, and open space, too much decoration can be annoying.

6. Don't under-texture. Try and use a variety of textures in rooms, such as a computer room might use some computer textures, or maybe a library might use bookshelf textures. What i'm saying is, don't use so little textures.

7. Difficulty. Try and add some challenge to your WAD, unless if it's an easy first level in a megawad. Other levels need some difficulty though, like add some barons or cacodemons. Maybe it's a boss level, and you want to add a cyberdemon.

8. Information, we need it. Add a text file to your WAD containing info on various stuff, such as if new sounds are included, new enemies, and such.
A text generator can be found right here.

Anyways, that wraps up this tutorial. I hope this helped!

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Enderkevin13 said:

As you see, a lot of WAD authors forget to add a theme to their WAD, rendering them bland looking.


I'm struggling to find evidence of this being true.

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#1 is not a bad idea. More generally, you can draw inspiration from any number of sources. The IWADs, great PWADs, other games, TV, porn, you name it.

#2 is decent advice. You could be a bit more thorough (and accurate) with the "what is a theme?" and "how do I choose a theme?" parts.

#3 is putting the cart before the horse -- layout, architecture, and thing placement, just to name a few, are more important than and take precedence over small-scale detail. Gameplay over aesthetics is the common thread.

#4 depends on what you mean by "copy" of course. Copying and pasting another map and re-texturing it won't do in 2015. But nearly everyone gets ideas from other maps. It's impossible not to unless you don't play other maps. (Speaking of that, I wonder if there's a mapper out there who hasn't played any form of Doom at all, not even the IWADs, apart from their own levels.)

#5 is fine, but can be misleading a la #3.

#6 uhhh...

#7 is a solid general point -- the explanation could be less vague, however.

#8 is correct, but I'd emphasize compatibility levels and necessary texture packs and things like that over custom resources, which I don't mind being in the dark about until I find out about them in-game.

Some of your points have the right general idea, but the explanations could use some work. :)

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rdwpa said:

#3 is putting the cart before the horse -- layout, architecture, and thing placement, just to name a few, are more important than and take precedence over small-scale detail. Gameplay over aesthetics is the common thread.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Enderkevin13 said:

Watch Aquarius199, there are lots of bland WADs.


Um, you do realize that Aquarius mainly focuses on troll/bad wads, right? Look at any decent map or mapset and you'll most likely see a sense of theme. Hell, even bad wads can have a "theme". You seem to be confusing theme and visual detail/looks.

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It's every doomer's dream to give mapping tips to other doomers, but they need tips sometimes. Luckily, that's where I come in.

1. Gain some experience in mapping before you try and teach someone how to map. You don't want your advice to be obvious or plain wrong.

2. Make sure you don't preach your own style instead of giving a general advice (not necessarily applies to this thread).

3. I dunno. To be honest, I'm still learning to map, let alone give tips about mapping, let alone give tips about giving tips about mapping.

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Guest DILDOMASTER666

What is this thread actually about

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Da Werecat said:

To be honest, I'm still learning to map, let alone give tips about mapping, let alone give tips about giving tips about mapping.

That gave me a damn good laugh!

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Da Werecat said:

It's every doomer's dream to give mapping tips to other doomers, but they need tips sometimes. Luckily, that's where I come in.

1. Gain some experience in mapping before you try and teach someone how to map. You don't want your advice to be obvious or plain wrong.

2. Make sure you don't preach your own style instead of giving a general advice (not necessarily applies to this thread).

3. I dunno. To be honest, I'm still learning to map, let alone give tips about mapping, let alone give tips about giving tips about mapping.


My mapping skills are slightly improving, and I didn't want new mappers to make the mistakes I made when I was completely new to mapping.

I might fix some of these tips though.

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This furthers my point that DoomWorld should feature it's own "official" (to the community) tutorial on mapping. Something with a permanent spot on the right side of the home page under the "community" header.

Now I'm not saying that I'm the best person to write it; I would if needed, but either way the author would need to interview many accomplished mappers. There's already so many great articles that have already been written, including the recent monster placement article as well as the arlticle Xaser wrote than I've shamelessly posted links for several times. I'm sure there are other articles on other facets of mapping that are just as high a quality if we but find them.

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Enderkevin13 said:

My mapping skills are slightly improving, and I didn't want new mappers to make the mistakes I made when I was completely new to mapping.

I might fix some of these tips though.

New mappers need to make mistakes otherwise they won't learn anything about the mapping process, what works, what doesn't, the engine of choice and indeed the tools that they use. While some pointers can and do help I suggest that people are better mappers when they go in blind.

Dave

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Three Rules:

1) Make something that you think is fun.
2) Make it look better.
3) Go to 1.

That's always been my formula for success.

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I once asked John Romero how he managed to come up with maps that were at first glance so abstract, but also were fun and looked good. His answer (and the alphas bear it out) was iteration. He built some maps and then changed them again and again until they didn't suck. This is both good advice for mappers and encouragement. Even if you've built AAA games before you will build maps that suck when you start. Fix them. Then fix them again. Learn from others and keep doing it until they don't suck.

Learning to map is an intellectual process rather than something you can be told how to do. If I tell somebody they should detail their map they still have to work out how they're going to do that. Phendrena is right: making mistakes is important. That's how mappers learn.

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