A mapper runs out of ideas just after drawing the first sector.

[_bruce_]

It's normal to run into a dead end. .. quite often.

 

A remedy is to do something very different and not connected to your efforts to recharge your "creativity" - e.g. lift some weights, play guitar, hit a punching bag and DO NOT play Doom. Having said that creativity is most likely the least of all worries when mapping... as most of it is quite the laborious drag.

 

If you still feel empty then rebuild a map that you like in your style - a great exercise.

 

I never draw much of the things that I want to realize which is a bit lazy but on the other hand the traction of your sketches can be marginal depending on how you're wired. I usually create the maps out of thin air but lately I managed to go along a more planned routine. The "I pull maps out of my ass" approach seems to be the most common(least mental effort) and it is seems perfectly valid but after some time a tiny bit of pre-building more steps in your mind may pay off handily in the end.

 

I often go back to the stock maps and wonder how they cranked out so many in such a short amount of time... then I realize how spoiled & pampered I am. 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by _bruce_

[Gokuma]

Pretty sure I saw this story on the thehardtimes.net

[Man of Doom]

why do you have to attack me like this

Edited February 26, 2020 by Man of Doom

[nname]

Relatable.

[aletheos eberlain]

On 2/25/2020 at 5:53 AM, SirJuicyLemon said:

Oh, man... this is what my notebooks used to look like.

Is that room-over-room using portals instead of 3D-floors, in the first image? I am so stealing that.

 

 

Also, I did not really follow my plan, but I am trying to finish the map today. I will put up what I've got tomorrow, even if it looks like crap.

Edited February 29, 2020 by aletheos eberlain

[Doom_Dude]

What Urthar said. I'd add to that with, 'Oh I need another texture here: Spend 10-30 minutes messing around making a new texture.'

 

It gets worse once you level up and have 20 years in one project.

 

Well, time to get another coffee and contemplate what sandwich I'll make today.

[SirJuicyLemon]

5 hours ago, aletheos eberlain said:

Is that room-over-room using portals instead of 3D-floors, in the first image? I am so stealing that.

 

The BRNSMAL boxes on top you mean?
At first I thought of 3d floors, and you could access one (I thought of the left one) by stairs, while the other you have to reach it activating a raising platform bridge between both boxes with some switch and the trick is that, there's a secret room door behind that raising platform, so you have to discover how to access it (you have to find a secret switch to open it) before using the raising platform or you won't be able to access it afterwards.

 

I think this idea, if you figure out how to properly do the map, you can do it Vanillawise without using 3d floors for the boxes and just raising the floor to a certain height. At least, in my idea, the floor beneath that box isn't having much purpose so you can make an alternate vanilla version aswell (there's a little tiny sketch on the right top corner with this idea not so well illustrated :P). But at first glance I just like the aesthetics of a floating "box" with 3d floor.

[aletheos eberlain]

I'm having so much fun with slopes, swimable water, 3D-floors, and scripts, that I don't see myself doing anything 'vanilla' in the foreseeable future.

A... 'problem' I keep having, is my affinity for ...realistic proportions of rooms. I make very small play spaces, with extremely tight corridors.

[EANB]

I do this 20 times, then combine all of those first rooms into one map.

[aletheos eberlain]

 

[universal-quantifier]

Am I the only mapper who starts by doing a rough sketch of the layout in mspaint before even opening Doom Builder in order to avoid this problem?

 

Spoiler

 

[aletheos eberlain]

6 minutes ago, universal-quantifier said:

Am I the only mapper who starts by doing a rough sketch of the layout in mspaint before even opening Doom Builder in order to avoid this problem?

 

[snip][snip]

I use Blender, since I want to get a feel for what it looks like in 3D, but that's some nice sketching!

 

I used to use pencil and paper.

Edited March 16, 2020 by aletheos eberlain

[Boomslang]

come up wiith an idea

 

like for instance, i was doodling in the  gz doom builder in class a few months ago, got an idea of a storage facility

 

so i made this facility level and...

 

now i have a complete level that's almost done!

[ZALGO]

That is sadly me...

 

Despite the amount of times I convince myself to make a map, the perfectionist in me knows that it just won't work the way I want it to be.

 

This kinda ends up killing the project as a whole and I take a break for potentially months.

Kinda makes my whole biography on my profile very outdated and sad to look at IMO.

[Mystic 256]

i usually make a really nice detailed first room but then have have trouble building off of it 

i don't really have a lack of ideas, i kind of have the opposite problem: too many ideas but no sense of which i should pick or go with

deciding a map theme/setting isn't a problem but the encounters and layout can be tricky to decide on