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MrGlide

Workflow and map making.

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I would love to see some tips on work flow and the mapping process from other mappers, Especially other mappers with a lot under their belt. How do you go about making a map from step one to finnish? How do you stay productive? What is your planning process like?

 

What tips or information could you give to other members, So they could better create?

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In the end, I think it's important for each mapper to find a workflow that makes them as productive as possible.  In other words, there's no silver bullet.  But when it comes to my own workflow, this is how I roll:

  1. Plan out general themes, locations, and flow of a level.  Nothing here is too specific, save for any encounters I really want to design.  For instance, in my current project, my overall plan is "Short outdoor intro area -> Outer Temple -> Crypts -> Outdoor area where you cross a bridge -> Inner Temple -> Torture/Sacrificial Catacombs -> Boss".  These plans go on a whiteboard I keep next to my computer desk.
    • One thing I do is I keep a folder of screenshots of "interesting areas" from other levels and games, then use them as inspiration as I go.  Most of these show world geometry that I admire, but there's some artwork and photos of actual areas also inhabit this folder as well.
  2. From here I start designing the opening area.
  3. When designing specific areas, I start by making a rough "blocked out" room with the bare minimum of features.  Gameplay is designed (always keeping in mind surrounding areas), a more specific texture theme is chosen, and any sort of cover structures are implemented.  Temporary monsters are usually placed as well.
  4. Some tests of the room are done to see if the gameplay I have planned actually works.
  5. Now this is where I'm probably controversial: I detail rooms as I go.  Thus I start adding large amounts of detail to the room I've blocked out.  I also add most traps now since their sectors are usually intersecting the detail.  Initial lighting gets added now as well.
  6. More detailing and lighting, the room is looking mostly like it will be when the level is finished.
  7. Lots of testing done to balance monsters, ammo, armor, health, and overall flow.
  8. I repeat steps 3-7 until I finish construction of the map.
  9. I go back through and add more detail to areas I feel are lacking, while also continually testing and adjusting monsters/items.  This is the most tedious part for me.  Eventually I get it balanced how I want and can move on to the next map.

ACS is done just as I go, unless there's some sort of global system I need to implement (like the lightning in SoTNR map 03).

 

Once the entire project is finished, I start testing extensively.  For balance, I start by recording time it takes to complete each level, and after a number of runs, I average out this time and compare it to the other levels.  I also count the number of times I quicksave/quickload: I shouldn't need to do it at all on easy, I can do it 2-3 times per level on medium, and I should have to do it constantly on hard.  Some runs I do without finding any secrets.  The amount of health/ammo/armor I end up with when I finish a level is also recorded and averaged over all the runs.  This lets me test balance when going between levels and not doing a pistol start ("give" and "take" in the console are my friends here), and not worry about savegames not loading.

 

Anyway, that's my overall process.  The "detail as I go" is important for me personally, otherwise I've found that I lose interest in a level pretty quickly.  Essentially it lets me continue to plan out more rooms in my head while still doing actual construction.  Without that two-threaded approach, I get extremely bored.  As a nice bonus, some of the detailing I put in also ends up revealing new gameplay.

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39 minutes ago, YukiRaven said:

whiteboard

I am pretty sure you can also open Notepad (or Notepad++ which has tabs) to display (unsimultaneously) the plans for your project, like the "graph" of your level, example:

+-------------------------+
|   MODIFIERS AVAILABLE   |
| x -> Contains a secret. |   x Red Key
| * -> Contains a trap.   |       |
| ^ -> Is outdoor.        |       |
+-------------------------+    Vertical  
                               Hallway                                     
        ^x Intro Area -           |       x Side Area         * Blue Key - ^ Curved Backyard
                |      \          |         |                                          ||
                |       Big Hallway = = =x= = Big Hallway - Red Key Door - ^ Curved Backyard
                |                 |       |
         * Shotgun Locker --- Staircase --+ - Tunnel
                                                |
                                           Blue Key Door
                                                |
                                           +---------+
                                           | E X I T |
                                           +---------+

 

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I don't tend to plan out my maps in advance, it hasn't worked for me very well in the past. So my process is a kind of make it up as I go kind of thing, but I tend to do things in a certain order.

  • I start with either an initial concept/theme or an idea/vision for a single room which the map is then built around.
  • I then start building a basic layout of the whole map, build the room shapes, simple architecture, and work out the maps basic progression.
  • I do some basic texturing and lighting. Sometimes. If I have a very clear idea of how I want the map to look I pick out some of the textures now, otherwise it stays STARTAN for a while.
  • (Optional) Sometimes as I'm building the layout I come up with a very clear idea for a specific room, so I'll do more extensive testing with monsters, textures, and lighting to see if my ideas will work. If they do I leave it and save the final detailing for later, and if not I scrap the room and either start over or just move on.
  • Once the layout and progression are finished, I start detailing. Full texturing, more complex architecture, lighting, everything. I do this while keeping in mind how I want the room to feel when I eventually place my monsters in it.
  • When the detailing is finished, I do an initial monster placement throughout the entire map. I then playtest room by room to make sure the encounters feel the way I want them to, and tweak them as I go.
  • When I'm satisfied with the monster placement, I go to ammo/health placement, and playtest more until I find the sweet spot where there's just enough of each.
  • Lastly, I do the difficulty balancing which means moving some monsters around, replacing others with different monsters, playtest, then change ammo placements to compensate for the lower/different enemy count, and playtest.

I know doing monster/thing placement at the very end isn't necessarily the best strategy for mapping and I don't recommend it, but I always try to build my rooms with it in mind so it's rare that I need to rework them to accommodate for enemy/player movement. This is how my process has evolved and it works for me. What's important is finding the process that works best for you and going with it.

 

A whiteboard sounds like a great idea, I may have to get one. Even though I don't like to pre-plan my maps, it could be useful to help me figure out some of the things I struggle with most in mapping, like progression.

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23 hours ago, Gustavo6046 said:

I am pretty sure you can also open Notepad (or Notepad++ which has tabs) to display (unsimultaneously) the plans for your project, like the "graph" of your level, example:

Oh I totally could, or something like Freemind.  But a whiteboard just works better for me :-P

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On 7/30/2017 at 4:42 PM, YukiRaven said:

The "detail as I go" is important for me personally, otherwise I've found that I lose interest in a level pretty quickly.  Essentially it lets me continue to plan out more rooms in my head while still doing actual construction.  Without that two-threaded approach, I get extremely bored.  As a nice bonus, some of the detailing I put in also ends up revealing new gameplay.

This is pretty important for me too. If I have too many skeletal rooms that don't look good, I start resenting the map and questioning my abilities as a mapper. I exercise caution and limit details if I haven't decided exactly how I want an area to play yet, but I tend to do kind of an everything-at-once approach to mapping where I fit geometry to monsters, monsters to geometry, and detail whatever I can get away with without getting too far ahead of myself. It feels like the important thing is to keep doing whatever is the most interesting at the moment or whatever I have the strongest sense of how I want to do it, and that keeps me engaged with the mapping in a way that I wouldn't be if I were just following a chronological checklist. Lighting does tend to be toward the end of the process for any given area because that's the one thing I find very difficult to fuss with after I put it down, and health/ammo placement is always dead last because I hate doing it and also don't want the visual clutter while I'm constructing areas.

 

While I'm building I do quick tests of individual rooms/chains of rooms with cheats just to see if they feel how I want them to, make sure my actions work properly, and make adjustments as needed. Then after everything is built I do three full runthroughs: skill 2, then skill 3, then skill 4, so I can try out different routes, make sure all difficulties feel right, and avoid any of those bugs people always get where the blue key doesn't appear on easy or whatever. It also allows me to catch most if not all bugs on the easy skill where I don't have to worry so much about gameplay, and then have an unobstructed runthrough on the intended difficulty setting. Theoretically I could get some more value out of doing multiple additional playthroughs on the hard skill to make sure that every possible route and playstyle is perfectly balanced, but realistically, this is what playtesters are for. (EDIT: obviously before a final release I would do additional playtesting on my own, but I haven't gotten to that point yet; the above description is basically about preparing a mapset for public/private beta).

 

I always build a map around some particular idea for a theme or gameplay twist/unique battle that is exciting to me. For instance, E1M3 of my current episode is based on jade green stone textures and big open garden areas, while E1M4 coils around a gladiatorial arena in the center where I have a battle that introduces new monsters. Those ideas pop into my head faster than I can attempt to sit down and plan, so then my planning stage is always about trying to catch up with/expand on the ideas I've written down. I always keep a list so I don't forget cool stuff I've thought of. I draw the map on paper before attempting to put it into Doom Builder, but I follow a process similar to what 40oz described somewhere recently, where he just puts down each room as a basic blob instead of trying to shape it. It's easiest for me to use the drawing to figure out how things connect up and how the progression works, and then worry about geometry in the editor where I can get an actual sense of scale.

 

 

Edited by Not Jabba : Added stuff about playtesting, difficulty settings

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For me it is the following process:

  • Sit down at a desk/table and have an A4 paper coupled with a pen.
  • Draw a small beginning room, which will later contain the player start.
  • From there I think of the map's concept and I draw the whole map. It doesn't have to be 100% interesting or final, because I will definitely change things later.
  • Afterwards, I open Doom Builder 2.
  • I design the starting rooms with as great detail as I can place, because they act as an anchor for me (I get a sense of progress when I see them, that helps me continue with the rest of the map). This includes texture alignment, even with textures that are not final.
  • Then I usually add enemies, after making each room and I place a bit of ammo and health.
  • I playtest to see if the gimmicks, doors, switches, e.t.c. work properly and if the enemies can be beaten.
  • I continue by adding even more rooms, placing details, enemies, powerups and so on...
  • In the meanwhile, as I am building different rooms, I sometimes get inspiration for new areas, decoration, e.t.c., that I implement most of the time, since they probably improve on the starting design of the map.
  • Finally, I do a lot of playtesting, to see if the map can be beaten consistently.

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Most times, I'm already have imagination of map in my head, before I'm started to draw in map editor. In other cases I starting to draw some cool shapes and after this different ideas will comes to me.
All ideas about my maps I save to txt file, to do later.

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I actually have no process before I start map making. I just map as I go. which can be a pain in the ass. It's probably not the best of processes though, hehe :)

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Sometimes I'll map everything as I go which is my preferred method, but other times there's a certain task that I don't want to do so I'll avoid it. I think this is the first sign of mappers block for me. My desire to complete it is higher than my desire to make it good.

Now I don't map unless I'm completely inspired to do so. ...or the monthly speedmap which is good for practice.

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I usually have a base concept or some kind of vision in my head for a map and just set about mapping, i improvise everything as i go. Initial drawings in the editor are always the most difficult part so i find i usually have to force myself to get something done with them - i usually speedmap these sections in an hour or so. I get no inspiration from a blank screen. I am flexible with my approach because often maps you picture in your mind don't translate to the editor, so i often work around that, and additionally new and interesting ideas can arrive when in the middle of making a map. Very little planning involved.

 

I am often inspired by other maps and am not afraid to borrow base concepts as a driving force to start a new map, as these concepts always morph into something unique anyway by the time i am done with the map. Behemoth was originally inspired by Vivisection from NRFTL!

 

One quirk that i haven't ever seen another mapper mention they do is that i always pick a midi as early as possible, ideally before i've even done any drawing at all. I don't know if anyone else works like this. I think music is incredibly important for the atmosphere you are trying to convey in a map and i am finding more often that an inspirational midi will drive ideas as i am mapping. I have a load of midis set aside for maps and ideas that aren't even started in the editor yet. In my earlier mapping days i found it incredibly difficult to do a map and then place a midi afterwards and so avoid it at all costs.

 

I have several WIP screenshots showing progress from a map i did for the recent Joy of Mapping 4 project. I could post them up and go through what i was thinking at various stages, if that is useful?

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