what are you working on? I wanna see your wads.

[Albertoni]

A real shame, but if that's how you feel... I'll see if I can whip up something worth of praise with your Megiddo in NOVA, at least. (Didn't even open it yet to see what's inside, sorry)

 

While I feel that collaborating could be fun, I'm not sure my style fits his. Judging just by pictures, of course. That said, I'm bad at detailing and he's great at that. Well, I'm open for collabs if anyone is interested. Or if anyone just wants to chat, I got Discord and Telegram. I could use more input from the inside of the community.

 

Also, that crappy plain room from last page, now:

[Zanieon]

Well, what inspires me in map in the scale i use is mostly from Equinox which was one of the first pwads i ever played, in fact one of my pillars for mapping is what B.P.R.D. did while he was active, this ironically includes Nuts series.

 

As for a collab, i'm one of the worst persons to keep a collab consistent since i tend to work very slowly.

[Albertoni]

2 minutes ago, Zanieon said:

As for a collab, i'm one of the worst persons to keep a collab consistent since i tend to work very slowly.

We'd fit pretty well then. :P

 

I find going fast stifles creativity. Makes for very same-y speedmappy things. Very little "wow" factor to be had in that.

[jazzmaster9]

Here's some gameplay of my Wolfenstein TC.

This was hastily put together so the video quality isn't very good.

 

[elderdragonbrasil]

Working hard in my megawad speed mapping series :D

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hw9ivp740vefm50/ElderFMSemana06.wad?dl=0

 

[Lila Feuer]

@YukiRaven Love the purple! The Hexen II textures work very well in Heretic (and Hexen I'd imagine).

[[McD] James]

20 hours ago, LEX SAFONOV said:

I think it will be interesting to view)

 

 

I like what I'm seeing. The original Alien Trilogy had such an incredible atmosphere and sound design going for it, but was littered with bad design choices. I'd be all over a remake in the Doom engine. I can easily see this as something I'd want to play a lot of maps of from a lot of different authors. 

 

Just a personal opinion, but when I play Alien first person shooters, I always find that it's best when the blood damages you at close range when it squirts out, but doesn't harm you when you're walking over corpses and puddles. 

Edited June 20, 2017 by Ajora

[Phade102]

6 hours ago, SArais said:

Right. I canned any development on any current or future maps.

 

Zaneion, Albertoni. If you two ever want to toss the mapping shit at a whiteboard and see what sticks between the two of you in collaborative efforts, let us know. I'm curious to see what a project from both of you would look like.

 

Just uh, y'know. Zaneion? If you're going to make a map as big as Vinur? Toss in applicably sized critters and the like. It was a good map; but perhaps bigger than it actually needed to be; and/or lacked things that took advantage of this massive scale.

 

I'm not doing any maps solo from now on. There's better things I could be doing than spending months on a map, and getting zero feedback; or irrelevant "feedback" from those who have no intention of playing the map. If you want an extra set of hands for a map, so be it, but I'm not doing it alone.

 

And even then; all of my maps are just conceptual pallets for everyone else to use. They're maps I want to play and had fun making; but it becomes grating after the millionth playtest, and you just wanna be done with it

It sounds to me that you're mapping for other people, and not for yourself. If you're going to give up because you dont get the appropriate feedback you want, then its also a communication issue. Tell people what sort of feedback you want, what you want people to focus on when testing and playing your map. If you dont give them direction and information, they aren't going to know what you want.

[SArais]

Feels like I've beaten my head against enough walls so to speak, Suffice to say, I've already done that, seemingly it makes no difference.

I generally DO make them as something I want to play; but I'm not exactly satisfied with just playing the game anymore. I need to give back to the community and try and push our field forward.

 

My first foray into mapping was with TerminusEst13's Highway 2 Hell community project, but my map wasn't sufficient for that, and was ultimately dropped on it's head like a baby.

 

Supposedly, textures and actual map layout are my biggest flaws; but this doesn't seem like something I'll ever remedy.

 

Still, my primary concern is as always with my maps, "Well, it's complete and utter GARBAGE but maybe somebody with actual skill and talent will come along, look at it, find something neat, and then be able to recycle or reuse it for their own projects, but a lot better than I could." or even a simplistic bout of helping newer mappers overcome specific hurdles or features they had a hard time figuring out.

This in particular is why I try to tackle as many advanced features as possible: I wanted to squeeze our little GZDB and our engines for every drop it's worth, getting as much practice in as possible on each possible feature so that I can keep improving on it until I am satisfied and get the best possible results out of such a thing. Portals, slopes, 3d floors, polyobjs, the like. I want to learn and get a grasp of everything I can end up doing with these; put them into possible conceptual practices, and then re-iterate upon them over time.

 

This may seem crazy; but considering the way I map, this is less an option and more mandation.

Heck, It takes me a while to figure out some of the advanced things, but I feel the individual results are worth it in the long run.

 

Even then though, I can't really map unless I've some form of mental stimuli in the process.

Quote

I'm bad at detailing, I'll see if I can do anything with your nova 3 map

Uh...

The map that you're working on and your Shrooms series say otherwise.

I'm not so sure about that. Your detailing is fine; it's simply just surreal.

 

It probably would be best to look at the general concept or rough idea I'm going for, and then scrap the whole thing for parts, so to speak. I'm not exactly satisfied with it's outcome. Naturally, temple bits in a forest setting; but as this was a Megiddo map, I wanted to make a variety of paths that the player could go to, then when each area in a given hall is cleared, one of the icon-of-sin blocks lowers for a key. I don't know. It's very bland.

 

I'll pitch and bite here and there if either of you or zanieon wishes; but I just don't believe to be cut out for anything more than map conceptualizations instead of full-scale maps. I just don't care for it anymore.

I'm just particularly fond of both of your mapping tricks at the moment, so I just wondered what would happen if we tossed the two of you in a blender and poured the contents into a mold.

You can probably tell my maps pick up a lot of traces from other DOOM maps I've played. The ones that pick from your mapping flavor should be a bit blatant.

Maybe I might pick it back up again sometime soon, but I'm generally seemingly getting nowhere with the whole deal, and have zero interest on working on a map from scratch anymore.
The joy of mapping discord, particularly jimmy, helped out a bit with the feedback on my most recent one; nevertheless, my gradual fixing and tweaking of the maps will probably preclude to something.

 

Oh well. Let the clowns say what they want. They'll always presume "hurr you just want others to do the work for you"

/sperg

Edited June 20, 2017 by SArais

[Phade102]

@SArais It seems to me you care deeply for your maps. You know how you want the map to be, how you want it to play, but you have difficulty putting it down on paper. This isn't about you wanting people to do things for you, this is you having trouble being motivated, and getting frustrated by it. SArais, I dont think you should give up. I am a new mapper, but I would like to think I know a bit about detailing. if I can give you any advice, please let me know. I love outdoor levels, so the temple map you're looking at is something I can possibly help with.

 

I dont want to see you giving up over something like this, since I feel its not something you want to do, you just feel you have no choice.

[Albertoni]

1 hour ago, SArais said:

Maybe I might pick it back up again sometime soon, but I'm generally seemingly getting nowhere with the whole deal, and have zero interest on working on a map from scratch anymore.

I do hope so. As for being bad at layout, I generally sketch things out and pass them to a friend for opinions before I start actually doing things. If you want me to give you some early critique on that, or help in any way, hit me up. I'm not gonna tell you not to give up, but it's sad to see someone doing this.

[SArais]

1 hour ago, Phade102 said:

@SArais

I dont want to see you giving up over something like this, since I feel its not something you want to do, you just feel you have no choice.

Basically this, yeah. I really don't care if my maps are all that popular or well received or anything; I just want them to be useful to somebody, and hopefully help some mappers overcome a particular hurdle.

Honestly, the best bits of advice one can give is just another perspective on my creations. I constantly playtest and check it over and over again constantly to make sure everything is where it should be; but obviously I'm going to miss a whole bunch of things. That's just how it is with everybody.

There are also instances where I start to do a thing, get a sudden idea for it later on when I'm working on another part of the map, come back to it, and then realize I'm too far along to actually do such a thing. The most readily availible example of this is the 'red light district' in my most recent map. Originally it is as it is now, but I thought "well, what if i had it transition from Blue to Green to Red?"

Other problems are like the hell 'hub': I have what I want; but I have no idea how to mesh it with everything else; and trying to get the skybox/line horizons to look nice with the branching pathos is just a bit odd. Then you have the hell-beach thing itself, which I couldn't figure out.

 

Other flaws are a case of trying to work around pre-existing flaws. Flaws to cover up flaws. How hillarious.
Suffice to say, trying to overhaul the room would break the map, and wasn't really necessary to the whole.

People keep telling me to look at other maps, and even the original doom maps. I have done so countless times, and still have not picked up on what the hell they meant by a particular thing.

 

My H2H map was originally planned to come to a midway climax/crescendo in a Whitemare 2 styled Icon of Sin. I now know the basis of what I need to do to make it; and have the know-how and capability to do so (well, with the exception of trying to do the insides of the palms on the hands. That's going to be a real tricky one with Sloped 3D Floors, but did not have such a thing at the time.

 

Assuming I ever had the experience, I would pull off some really funky shit by combining 3d floors, polyobjects, models, and the like. Now if only there was "3d polyobjects" that rendered the top and bottom as well as the sides and could be freely passed over/under. The plan was to have a map that ultimately ended with the boss being two Marbface things. See the first below shitty diagram.

 

Presuming the fact that I get such a thing, other possibilities include a mock "infinite chase" (i would have to make a diagram to explain this better, but it's basically using polyobjects and walls to make it look like a boss made out of a wall is constantly retreating away from the player as it's pelting them, but in actuality it's just a trick with conveyors and moving map parts) boss, as well as such a thing but in an "infinite freefall". Mostly just visual trickery, but it would push the maps a bit and turn some heads.

 

I have the nasty tendency and trickery to stuff monsters inside of map geometry and disguise them, sometimes. This is actually vital to some aspects as it was part of the plan for my initial Icon.

 

Forgive the shitty drawings. I can't draw. Which is hilarious, considering I am very adverse to not hand-drawing my maps in the builder and try to stray from common shapes as much as possible.

 

The idea is that these two large MARBFACE cubes suddenly appear, spin up, then dart towards you and firing off a load of projectiles. As the fight progresses, more and more of the cube breaks off and the boss changes tactics; tentacles now coming out of the cube and writhing about. After taking enough damage, the cubes will lose flight capability and plummet to the ground, now moving along on it's tentacles. After this stage, the bottom breaks off, changing the animation it uses to move about, and eventually being able to kill it off after the top peice breaks.

 

They're inspired in part due to the unusual combinations of tentacle and marbfaces seen in ZDCMP2 (my most recent map borrows a good deal of assets out of it and I couldn't seem to locate the documentation proper, so i don't know what I can and can't use) so I thought of such a thing as a possible encounter; and I have used such a thing as teasing in a couple of my maps already.

Edited June 20, 2017 by SArais

[Phade102]

@SArais Your map doesnt need to turn heads, or have amazing gimicks to be good. By the sounds of it, you have an incredible amount of passion. You want the map to be something everyone will enjoy, but thats not realistic. There will always be people that dont enjoy your map, because they have their own tastes and they dont mesh with yours.

 

Map for Yourself first and foremost, but dont be afraid to say "I'm not sure how to do this" and ask for help. The whole community is here to help you. Do you think people like Skillsaw, or AD_79 got anywhere without asking for help? If you want testers, thats fine, I'll personally test your map if you'd like, and you can tell me what you want me to look for, what you want tested precisely.

 

You shouldn't give up, the doom community isn't massive, and we need passionate people like you to keep us afloat.

[SArais]

1 hour ago, Phade102 said:

@SArais Your map doesnt need to turn heads, or have amazing gimicks to be good. By the sounds of it, you have an incredible amount of passion. You want the map to be something everyone will enjoy, but thats not realistic. There will always be people that dont enjoy your map, because they have their own tastes and they dont mesh with yours.

 

Map for Yourself first and foremost, but dont be afraid to say "I'm not sure how to do this" and ask for help. The whole community is here to help you. Do you think people like Skillsaw, or AD_79 got anywhere without asking for help? If you want testers, thats fine, I'll personally test your map if you'd like, and you can tell me what you want me to look for, what you want tested precisely.

 

You shouldn't give up, the doom community isn't massive, and we need passionate people like you to keep us afloat.

Oh, of course. I'm just not really fond of what I perceive to be 'nagging' people incessantly. (which is why I am so pushy about collaborative mapping; Both people can work on their maps individually and/or on a two-person map, and then when either of them runs into issues or some sort of block, they can directly infer with their partner and work out a solution; as well as share expertise) I'm aware it doesn't need to turn heads or have amazing gimmicks, but I'm intending to put them in anyway for potential gameplay output.

 

Some things I tend to ask myself are "Is it fun to play?" and "Is it pleasing or fun to look at?" If a player is going to be in an area for an extended period of time, give them something nice to look at. If it's something that the player is going to be in breifly; still give them something nice to look at, but it doesn't need to be as much as they would be in say, locked in a room with enemies pouring in

 

Course, when I map, I have to work from the inside out, which is why I usually need to constantly flip between 2D and 3D. Very jarring; and the result in the editor is not necessarily the result ingame.

 

Most of my mapping is done on-the-spot-improvisional as I'm going along. I very rarely can pre-plan things, and even then it's just individual little segments; so I sort of have to figure out how to connect them.

Edited June 20, 2017 by SArais

[Albertoni]

58 minutes ago, SArais said:

Now if only there was "3d polyobjects" that rendered the top and bottom as well as the sides and could be freely passed over/under. The plan was to have a map that ultimately ended with the boss being two Marbface things.

This particular case could be done with models.

[SArais]

24 minutes ago, Albertoni said:

This particular case could be done with models.

Yeah. I was presuming it would require those anyway for some states.

The idea is also in part due to Lilwhitemouse's Harbinger- the canned 'omen' project of theirs sounded particularily intresting.

Edited June 20, 2017 by SArais

[Bauul]

@SArais It sounds a little to me like you're bouncing all over the place trying everything you can think of, which is going to be a lot of hard work to turn into something you feel proud of.

 

My only exposure to your mapping was the level you created for Confinement 256, and I must say you squeezed more advanced effects into your map than I think about half of the other maps combined.  That's not really necessarily a good thing though, even aside from it being so visually taxing you literally made my laptop crash when I tried to run it.  It was so overwhelming it was hard to make out the map underneath it all.

 

Perhaps set yourself a challenge: create a new map in GZDB in "Doom (Doom 1): Doom format" and make just one short level using 100% vanilla assets and the reduced Doom 1 bestiary.  I personally find when you're limited to just the basics, it's easier to focus on what actually matters in a Doom map: rooms and spaces to shoot monsters in.   All the advanced stuff should only serve to enhance those basics (unless you're deliberately making a map with entirely different gameplay).

[Zanieon]

Well since you are talking about models, many people knows me for using them alot since 2011 and you can do some tricks with them:

 

Also about the subject of you giving up in your maps, it's sad that you decided to do that, you have potential for mapping because you know about detailing and gameplay.

Enforcing what Phade102 said, practice takes time and time makes experience, no mapper started godlike in skills, me particularly took fucking 10 years to reach Industron style and 6 to reach what you see in the video, if you stop now, you are never going to give the chance of reaching what you really want with your maps.

[SArais]

5 hours ago, Bauul said:

@SArais

My only exposure to your mapping was the level you created for Confinement 256, and I must say you squeezed more advanced effects into your map than I think about half of the other maps combined.  That's not really necessarily a good thing though, even aside from it being so visually taxing you literally made my laptop crash when I tried to run it.  It was so overwhelming it was hard to make out the map underneath it all.

This is true; the map felt very cramped and of poor quality; but it was mostly me needing something to space out my work on my most recent map. "Mapping Fatigue" if you will.

 

I guess I'll post this though? One of the minor changes made, roughly on the 16th or earlier.

[Phade102]

@SArais That screenshot looks really cool. Gives me a real hellish vibe, though I'd suggest changing the silver texture on the pedastal directly in front, maybe with a marble skull  texture? Just my opinion =)

[SArais]

1 hour ago, Phade102 said:

@SArais That screenshot looks really cool. Gives me a real hellish vibe, though I'd suggest changing the silver texture on the pedastal directly in front, maybe with a marble skull  texture? Just my opinion =)

Yeah, It's because it's the other half here.

Aforementioned hell-hub

 

Some recommended to use additional floating 3d floors in conjunction with the floatingskull bridges (I like to use Floatingskulls as ROTT GADD equivilents, couldn't seem to get them to move on a path though), but I'm not sure how to actually connect the four pathways; but still want this "broken open" look.

 

Acid worms and a hall based off of (read: a shout-out that practically rips it off) the entry hall in Shrooms 2. I like these visual tricks. It originally did not have the parralax until I figured out how albertoni used the "transfer texture to sky" I can see myself using such a function a lot. Suffice to say, once I clued in, I got a bit excited about it and started plastering it elsewhere into the map. No clue when this was, was prior to the various inverted crosses. The ones in the 'puzzle' room are based off of similar tricks in ZDCMP2

 

Maybe I'm acting like the steryotypical drama-monger and am over-reacting about quitting; but then again, I guess it might be a norma reaction when you work on a single map non-stop for a couple of months.

Edited June 21, 2017 by SArais

[Phade102]

@SArais That really looks incredible. but it sounds to me that you're burnt out on a single map. Take a break, build another map =D Theres a Community project I wanna try to start up if I get enough interest, with some restrictions that might give you a fun challenge.

[SArais]

Eh, very well.

[Lila Feuer]

@SArais You got cool ideas, don't give up!

[Albertoni]

@SArais Definitely sounds like you're where I was a pair of years back, suffering of heavy featuritis, focusing more on figuring out how to use things than how to make levels, heh. Love those last two screenshots in particular, and awwww at copying me <3

[Egg Boy]

Started making this yesterday.

Spoiler

 

[Phade102]

@Lo_Mein  that looks like it could be really cool! A nice design, keep it up!

 

Velma. <3

[Dutch Doomer]

Working on another Tekgren/Metal themed map for good old vanilla Doom. Nothing fancy, altough I'm trying my best to make it as nice as possible. I think I got something good going here.

 

 

[LordTestes]

14 hours ago, Phade102 said:

@SArais That really looks incredible. but it sounds to me that you're burnt out on a single map. Take a break, build another map =D Theres a Community project I wanna try to start up if I get enough interest, with some restrictions that might give you a fun challenge.

I'd be interested in working on a community project.  Let me know if you go through with it and id be willing to make some amazing maps...just as long as the texture pallet is big enough for me to get creative with.  If Esselfortium finishes BTSX E3 and releases his texture pack for the Doom community, I would definitely love to make a community project with those textures as well since there is so much that can be done with them.  I've implemented them in my current wad Descent Into Pandemonium and it looks beautiful (as seen on page 32 of this thread).

[Misty]

1 minute ago, LordTestes said:

I'd be interested in working on a community project.  Let me know if you go through with it and id be willing to make some amazing maps...just as long as the texture pallet is big enough for me to get creative with.  If Esselfortium finishes BTSX E3 and releases his texture pack for the Doom community, I would definitely love to make a community project with those textures as well since there is so much that can be done with them.  I've implemented them in my current wad Descent Into Pandemonium and it looks beautiful.

Dude,use Ancient Aliens pallette and resources, it would feel so colourful.