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40oz

Your Mapping Quirks

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An interesting thing about mapping is that when you have the freedom to draw sectors and lines any way you want, there are multiple ways to accomplish the same tasks. Many of us are self-taught on how to make maps. Everything you do culminates into a unique signature, a style of mapping that cannot be easily replicated by another person. Sometimes people design their maps with really specific measurements of their lines, and sometimes people draw lines all over the place and both maps can be good under their own merits.

What are some things that you do specifically in your maps that you are sure no one else does in their maps? What things do you consider to be more vital in your map building process that other people may not consider to be very important? Why do you do it? Is it more efficient? Does it look better? Is it more unique? Tell us about it!

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When mapping (and not speedmapping), I obsessively try to minimize texture misalignments, maximize usage of non-orthogonal line angles, and prefer using solely these textures.

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I am an utter slave to texture borders even when they're textures with borders that would make sense sinking into the floor, like bricks.

I need to break that but ugh.

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I really like windows. Sometimes I make redundant walls just to cut windows in them. I know it's not something to be proud of, but it seems to be a relatively harmless habit.

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I don't know. That stuff is in my subconscious, not in my mind. Perhaps other people can say what are my quirks.

Maybe consciously and intentionally leaving misalignments thinking that the level looks more interesting with them. Even in cases where one press of the autoalign button could make everything smooth and clean. I think usually people's excuses for not aligning stuff are still just excuses, while in my case I firmly believe that alignment usually makes things worse.

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16 x 16 square 'bars', absolutely fucking everywhere.
"Curves" using 64-length lines on an 8px grid (a holdover from my WadEd days).
Plutonia-style exit teleporters.
Really dragging out pistol usage in early maps.

There are others as well, like my preference for switch plinths as opposed to inset into walls. I dunno.

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Everything is hand-drawn, except perfect curved lines (which I use only rarely and mostly on structures).

Player 1 always starts on (0,0) coordinates, and always on a 128x128 pad of GATE4 texture 8 unites above the surrounding floor. No idea why, OCD I guess?

Texture variation is kept to a minimum (sounds bad, but nobody has sad it is for nearly all of my maps), with any single map having a coherent theme that lends itself to a strong sense of place.

My signature is hidden in every map, alongside the year the map was made in.

Never create a set of bars that a player can "glide" through. Muhahaha, cursed speedrunners!

Can't think of anything else that qualifies. Maybe other would be able to point out such quirks.

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Useisms

Tag by 2's...2-4-6-8..bothers me if this sequence is broken.

Recessed door lights..
"But you can't see them.." -esselfortium

Blocked off hallways fading into dark oblivion...who's back there? Helllooooo...

Liquids...liquids everywhere.

I missed a secret..oh it's locked off forever...fuck this!

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-Really don't like using teleporters
-Dislike action starts- try where possible to have a longer than normal empty area at the start of a map
-not keen on damaging floors, but I'm warming to them
-I have never placed a single lost soul in any map I've made, ever

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Traps, traps everywhere. Matching textures to their best flats.

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I am inspired by and prioritize making scripted events and encounters even over map design. For the most part, it is a poor choice as I don't plan ahead resulting in more boxy like rooms. Room, Corridor, Room, Corridor sort of thing. However with some creative thinking, scripting and clever use of Doom Editor's flexible tools you can make it work, or at least fun.

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I probably always have a 64x64 switch somewhere in the map, likely a SW1MET2 or SW1COMP texture, or one of the SW1GARG/LION/SATYR ones. I also like lifts that are activated by the latter of those switch textures.

Basically, I like switches...it's like pushing the forbidden red button. I could do it all day.

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Hiya!

Player always (98%) starts on a "teleporter pad" (GATE1 to 4 or FLAT22). The other 2% of the time he starts in front of a UAC door. I don't know why, but I just can't bring myself to start the player 'in a room' or 'standing outside'. It just feels...wrong.

Lighting. I mostly map for myself and just for fun. I'm a 3D artist and so I like to use lights (GZDOOM, and recently, Doomsday...now that I figured out how to make them). I do use sector lighting gradation, but I almost always add a static Light over the area as well to help 'blend' the linedef delineations. I have made wads that have an ambient lighting level of about 60 to 80, and then ONLY use Lights and glowing texture flats. With my ever so slowly increasing knowledge of DED, I'm trying to really get down how to attach lights to wall textures. Doomsday is an awesome visual engine...it's just kind of a pain the arse to try and find decent tutorials and info on how to actually *do* any of this cool stuff...from an artist perspective.

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I have a tendency to expand my maps north and south more than east and west. I don't know where this habit came from but it's been happening a lot lately.

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I think the perceived tendency to expand a map north/south more than east/west is just an optical illusion by the fact that Doom Builder's editing window is twice as wide as it is high. Try mapping in Eureka Editor (where the editing window is square) and you might end up not seeing the tendency anymore.

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I start mapping and create a really interesting scenario/scene, then feel determined to make a fun level. Finally, I build a few rooms and realize that A) I have no clue how to connect it all together without making it a bunch of rooms and corridors, and B) That nobody'll play it. (Of course, that's only because I never release anything.)
The final step in the Kapanyo Mapping Sequenceâ„¢ is to lose all motivation, leave the map to collect virtual dust and feel slightly sad that I just wasted another potential map.

My actual mapping quirks are as follows:

-DOOR3 cannot be used as anything other than a start door unless PolyObjects are used.

-LITE3 or LITE4 (or a re-aligned EXITDOOR) always go next to DOOR3.

-To avoid irritation, hitscan monsters should be towards the front of a group of monsters, while projectile-based ones should be further back or in the distance.

-I have a thing for sudden, wide, beautiful chasms that are needlessly huge and make me feel like I'm really moving through another world.

-I always start the player facing North.

-I always overdo my gradient lighting, with about 200 different increments for one cast lightray.

-I overdetail, then find I can't easily change an area.

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My "quirks" are:
using SHAWN1 as door textures, haven't seen that in any other maps.
Relatively small areas, I've never made a big big big area, probably because it doesn't fit in my notebook when making sketches.
Having a really slow mapping tempo. What most mappers do in a week or two, I do in a month.
But then again, I'm not really succestful at making maps.

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I doubt this is unique to me, but I love teasing players with keycards that are juuuust out of reach when they start the map.

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I love making "circular" rooms.

My level always starts with a DOOR3 texture behind the player.

I love making secrets cruel (you got an armor? Now fight these Imps in a really cramped area!)

Every map of mine has an outdoor area.

80% of my maps have the hardest battle (and mostly the final one) outdoors.

I started mapping, I never used light levels lower than 192 and every outdoor was 255. Now I use light levels as low as 112 in gameplay and mostly my outdoors are 160 - 224.

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Usually all my maps have at least one design decision that will piss people off and partially throw all the effort from window (sometimes leaving some areas bare on purpose, sometimes complicated secret required to finish, sometimes I even put exit right next to start so 99% is not mandatory :D ).

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"Say, that's a nice room. Maybe I can put a catwalk in it. And a catwalk over that catwalk."

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For some reason I always have exactly 3 revenants teleport in at significant moments such as weapon reveals, additionally I always like to have the exit visible well before it's actually accessible. Finally due to laziness large portions of my maps are off the grid, I can design details a lot quicker this way.

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