What makes a "classic style" map?

For some reason, no matter what I do, I can't get a map to look like a map out of Doom 1. I studied Doom 1 episode 1 for a while. Some of the rooms have nothing but TEKWALL4 for the wall textures and FLOOR1_1 for the floor, but they still manage to look good. Some rooms use a marble texture for the ceiling (inside a military base?) and you don't even notice because- it looks good. Most of the textures aren't even aligned properly- but it still looks interesting. When I make a room with a similar texture theme it just to me looks- awful. Any tips? Or do I just need to make more maps and get a sense of color/architecture?

Some pics of my attempts:
http://www.mediafire.com/i/?uzqwhm9g37rrxc6
http://www.mediafire.com/i/?ocr94vmzpb1sm22

Check your sense of scale (e1 in particular used a lot of 72-high ceilings, which give a much different feel to a room than even a typical 128-unit ceiling), and use diagonal lines. Not just 45 degrees, but any angle that you need to create lines that seem to guide the player around the area. It's hard to say in more specific terms, really.

Also, the color-gradiented startan textures are pretty common in e1, moreso than the pure gray ones.

Your screenshots appear to show your rooms using the grid a lot. Something very unique about Doom's engine that ultimately sets it apart from it's predecessor- Wolfenstein 3D, was that they were no longer restricted to tile-based mapping and only vertical/horizontal walls, but many different angled walls.

The difference between your maps and ID's Doom maps, is that ID was a actual gaming company who were trying to design levels where as us mappers today are more looking forward to making a map that looks like what we want it to look... We don't have a whole herim of designers working on a single map at the same time, with editors in the background to make sure it looks nice

You can read my dissertation on what made the id maps unique: hope this helps

Hellbent said:

You can read my dissertation on what made the id maps unique: hope this helps

Cool. Was that project ever finished?

EmZee712 said:

The difference between your maps and ID's Doom maps, is that ID was a actual gaming company who were trying to design levels where as us mappers today are more looking forward to making a map that looks like what we want it to look... We don't have a whole herim of designers working on a single map at the same time, with editors in the background to make sure it looks nice

Er, what? All of the levels in Doom were created by one or, at most, two people. There were no "editors" to make it look nice, just someone trying to make a fun and interesting map.

bgraybr said:

Cool. Was that project ever finished?

Unfortunately no. It started to gain interest and then fizzled out. It would be great to see it revitalized tho.

Screens look great, but too clean.
The original maps are unpredictable in style - try line lengths that are not multiples of texture widths and some random edges and angles.
The original maps felt alive and unorthodox which dies if you map too clean.

People.

Imps.