NoWaves

Got the basic layout done, now on to aesthetics/gameplay :) Thinking a sort of industrial/nukage theme kind of like this: These are from a speedmap I did about a year ago with the same vibe

I take a break from mapping for a few months, and one of my dream projects come up. I'll claim a map slot, dealer's choice. Always loved gothic :)

I don't know your particular mapping history, but for me, I played with the tools for 7 years with nothing to show for it because I kept getting stumped after the first room or two. What's helped me recently is actually participating in monthly speedmaps in Blue Pineapple's discord/on the forums. The theming/map gimmicks are already laid out and give you just enough to really get started and actually have a decent amount of direction, it gets you used to actually getting things done, and not despairing about having the "perfect" level. The time limit's usually around 8 hours, which is a good amount of time to flesh out a level, without getting bogged down in the smaller details like perfect balance, layout, etc. It's good practice and quite a bit of fun, without the pressure of a polished final product looming over you. Another thing is playing other maps and taking mental notes on how the mapper is using different specials/enemies to shape the experience of the map. My personal recommendation for this is Ancient Aliens, which makes heavy use of specials to play with sectors in interesting ways. If you want an easy list of wads to check out, just go on the cacowards page and start going crazy. Another thing you can do, is create a little bubble-map thing on paper before you start, kind of like a flow chart. Write down the different rooms/encounters you want in circles, and draw lines between them to lay out what rooms connect to what. Even if I end up throwing it out halfway through because I came up with something that interests me more on the fly, it's nice at the start to have that tangible end goal, even if the end product ends up straying a bit by the time it's done. Lastly, mapping first thing in the morning, before the days events invade my headspace helps, but that could just be me. Even then it's only for 1-2 hours a day, and if ideas aren't coming I just close out the editor, do something else and come back to it the next day. All of these could work, or none of these could work, but trying out different methods when the current one isn't working is always worth a shot. The only advice that's not as subjective is "play more maps, take breaks", which is likely going to be the most universal answer to this question. Wish you luck!

For me, BOOM just expands on things already present in the vanilla engine. The only additions I can think of that makes it feel "not vanilla" is scrolling floors, translucency, wind & friction. The rest is just (imo) a more robust set of vanilla features. In vanilla, yes, you do have to be more creative with your implementation, but the player likely won't notice and often times it's just more convoluted with the same end result. This might appeal to you as a mapper, making the vanilla features do things that it wasn't initially meant to do and finding creative solutions when the idea you had in mind isn't traditionally possible in vanilla. As far as gameplay goes, the added features in BOOM (particularly the fine-tuning of sector manipulation) can help the designer refine gameplay, without straying too far from vanilla. Vanilla can sometimes actually distract from developing gameplay, just trying to get the feature you're trying to implement working. At the end of the day, that's just my two cents, and a lot of this is subjective. If we wanted a vanilla feel, I'd be for restricting certain features, but I think the move to BOOM will at the end of the day produce more fun/engaging maps.

I'll see if i can whip something up for this.

Count me in!

Sign me up to both!

Does drafting on paper count as mapping time? If so, I timed out an hour of that and have the basic layout sketched.

Haven't mapped much until recently, but here's my two cents as a player: I enjoy secrets where I can clearly see the reward but I have to figure out how to access it. It'll send me scrambling to find a switch I missed or a hidden wall adjacent. Or I can see how it's accessed, but the trigger is on a timer and you have to find the fastest route and execute it, which can be pretty satisfying if balanced right. Either way, when the player does something to make a secret accessible, you want to communicate it, even if it's as small as the sounds of sector movement the next room over. Feels a lot better than wallhugging for hidden doors lol. Doom 2 seems to do it quite a bit with soul spheres, if that gives you any idea. Also there's secrets that reveal themselves by manipulating adjacent lifts/doors. Those are pretty fun too. Just play around with how the player can manipulate sectors and I'm sure some ideas on their application will come to you. Failing that, you could always play some wads for inspiration. Clears your head while simultaneously planting ideas in there.

On a lighter note, I messed with the GZDoom renderer, and using the software renderer seemed to be the issue.

Well after 10 years of using this username, I knew this would happen eventually. I'm sorry, I usually shorten it to "dach" or "dachdade", initially to avoid the mouthful, but after I read up on the WWII/ the holocaust a couple years back, it was for this reason. I came up with this username when I was 12 and had no understanding or knowledge of most aspects of the horrible things that happened back then. A quick explanation: I did not make this as a reference to Dachau. Around this time my friends had taken to calling me Chauncey as a nickname. I was trying to come up with a name better than my usual homestar runner reference followed by a couple letters. I decided to add the suffix "-inator" to the end of chauncey, creating chauncinator because that sounded cool, being 12 and all. I was trying to make an account (on I think runescape?) at the time and the name chauncinator was taken. So I added "Da" in front of chauncinator to read like "Da' Chauncinator", another thing that sounded cool to my 12 year old self. Since then it's stuck and it's my name for most things (the shortened version for everything but dead accounts). I haven't really used Doomworld since my teenage years, so I haven't updated the name since I went in my world history rabbit hole. Going to be edited immediately following this post. Again, I apologize if it caused you or anyone else any distress.

There's this strange HOM effect happening with sector portals. The anchor point is matched up, the physics work properly, it just displays like a missing texture unless I'm on an adjacent sector. I have all the portal sectors joined and one anchor point, so I don't have to tag to death. The sectors are exactly the same dimensions. Attached screenshot of editor and video of the glitch. What's causing this? Do I absolutely have to separate each sector? I'm using GZDoom Builder, GZDoom to test, and the map is ZDoom in Hexen format HomHellVideo.zip

Alright, already have a good idea on what I want to do concerning the jumping mechanic and the setting, doing a quick outline now, looking forward to the end product :)

Is this still going on? Been itching to get back into mapping and this seems like a good stepping off point.

Looks nice, I always liked the atmosphere/look of the alphas and this seems to be hitting the same notes. Cramped areas make the more open areas stand out, where in the original doom it always felt pretty open most of the time. Are you just updating the existing maps or are you making any from scratch?