Tell us your mapping habits!

Rayzik said:

I spend even more hours tagging hidden, shown, and 'shown as 1-sided' linedefs in order to make the Automap nice and clean looking.

I just realized I've done none of this for the map I'm working on that's...huge...and I now fear for the years of my life that will be lost to doing exactly this.

Somehow or another, my maps always end up being linear, trying to fix that. I also have a habit of not being able to map for more than minutes before doing else. I sort of lack patience, and easily get distracted. Eventually I lose motivation to continue.

volumetricsteve said:

I just realized I've done none of this for the map I'm working on that's...huge...and I now fear for the years of my life that will be lost to doing exactly this.

You know, you don't have to do it. Most mappers don't, I dare say. Speaking for myself as a player, I'm not particularly offended by seeing an "uncleaned" automap, and sometimes I even do mind the "cleaned" ones. For the most extreme example, I strongly dislike when a mapper makes an entire large section of his map "hidden" if at least part of the section can be entered by the player.

@scifista42 -

Ahh possibly not, I fear my automap will be a frantic mess though, I'll have to investigate. I wouldn't hide traversable map sections from the player though.

scifista42 said:

... Speaking for myself as a player, I'm not particularly offended by seeing an "uncleaned" automap, and sometimes I even do mind the "cleaned" ones...

I only hide certain parts of secrets to make then less obvious. I tag as "show 1 sided" in monster closet and secret doors/lifts/barriers. I agree that hiding large sections of the map is a sin.

I also hide trigger linedefs that are 'floating' in a sector, so the Automap doesn't reveal an incoming ambush or event, as well as off the playspace teleport rooms and voodoo doll chambers. I'll hide monster pits for the instant raise style deployment (never triggered in sight of the player unless absolutely unavoidable) and nested sectors that serve as teleport pads and such. Also I hide ugly dividing lines and extraneous details with gratuitous hidden/ show 1 sided flagging.

As for more habits:
I always come back to a map or section of and question how I can expand it or detail it further. This almost always pays off, minus the time consumed.

I save all my individual maps in their own wads so that I only have to do a final compile once and cam change the order by just recompiling a different wad entirely.

I minimize negative space within my map as much as possible, as long as it doesn't affect the layout or gameplay in any way.

Barons almost always come in two's, rarely by themselves, although commonly in larger groups too.

If for some reason, no matter how minute, I don't feel satisfied with a map or a part of, I nix it and redo it entirely. This also usually pays off.

Intentionally insert a few speedrun tricks in some maps. Would love to see them get discovered later on.

And last for now, always come back to a map and increase the vertical dimensions of some or all of the spaces within. I have a bad habit of mapping in a mostly flat fashion, and I've been trying to break that lately.

Just the weigh in: I'm all about the automap, from a creative perspective, and also when I'm running a map as a consumer. Sometimes it's cool to see the 'bones' of a map, or how a mapper chose to break up sectors, but that's what IDDT or Doom Builder are for!

Basically, when I open up a map in-game, it's because I'm lost. I want to see just the basic layout. I don't need to see yellow lines from the skylight for that. :p

PS: I'm personally torn on hiding entire areas of the map, from a narrative perspective. Like when I'm making a Cave||Hell + Base map, I like to think the marine would only have a map of the base.
PPS: But then again it is an automap, so I guess it just sonars the area for surfaces, shoot idk, this is why I'm torn.