What inspired you to be a doom mapper, mod maker and midi composer.

[xScavengerWolfx]

22 hours ago, E.M. said:

It was Joel's Doom Mapping Contest that inspired me to start making Doom maps of my own. He has yet to host a third one, but at least I found a new way to express my creativity.

If i remember right i think he said he wasn't going to host another one for a long time because of how long it took. But i also think he said if he did he was going to keep it short and not have so many maps summited for it. I could be remembering wrong. 

 

But if joel did i would toss one of my community maps in just for fun

 

[xScavengerWolfx]

I totally forgot i made this thread a while ago lol. I figure this thread would just lay dormant and not have any activity, but thank you for sharing your thoughts and everything. I love reading how everyone got started and i was plan on making a new thread about "What inspired you to be a midi composer" but i might change the title of this one to include it so i don't look like i'm spamming the forms. 

 

Once again thank you all for sharing, and again i'm sorry i totally forgot about this post i made back in April and now it's August lol. 

[Sonikkumania]

Hmm, inspiration from old 90's PC games I have to say. The creativity I can see in those games is has been long gone.

 

Being a toddler I used to recreate those games with Legos, toy soldiers etc. And later make Doom style maps on notebook pages (yes kids, PEN & PAPER! Lol). It was at somepoint I found out you can make maps on Doom yourself and since then I've been seasonally doing it.

 

Seeing this mapping scene grow to this point is amazing. There are very talented people making gorgeous maps and it just shows how timeless and a huge impact Doom still is. Future historians will one day make documentaries about as all, haha.

[jazzmaster9]

What inspired me to make maps were two things:

- Playing Ultimate Torment and Torture and saw what could possibly be done with Doom when utilizing Source ports.

 

- Watching speedmapping sessions on Twitch which made me actually pick up Doom Builder.

 

I think honorable mention was playing Blade of Agony and getting the first feeling again years later and pushed me to further explore GZDoom TCs.

[Shanoa]

My reason is absolutely nothing special. I like DOOM and was wondering if I too could create a map of my own for the game i've been enjoying for so long, discovered Doomworld and Doom Builder 1 (shortly before Doom Builder 2 released, maybe months before).

 

I don't really release any maps these days and only ever released two, years ago, so my output was already non-existent. Still, to this day, I enjoy simply booting up the map editor and drawing shapes. There's something therapeutic about it.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Shanoa

[xScavengerWolfx]

1 minute ago, Shanoa said:

My reason is absolutely nothing special. I like DOOM and was wondering if I too could create a map of my own for the game i've been enjoying for so long, discovered Doomworld and Doom Builder 1 (shortly before Doom Builder 2 released, maybe months before).

 

I don't really release any maps these days, only ever released two years ago so my input was already non-existent. Still, to this day I enjoy just booting up the map editor and drawing shapes. There's something therapeutic about it.

Yup i know that feeling. I'm currently working on a secret map for a community project i want to pitch at some point. But i got to write out the summery for it and what i want out of it all.

[Shanoa]

Just now, xScavengerWolfx said:

Yup i know that feeling. I'm currently working on a secret map for a community project i want to pitch at some point. But i got to write out the summery for it and what i want out of it all.

Ah, that's already more than I ever did. I often tell myself that I'd like, someday, to maybe contribute to a community project. As for your secret map, I hope you can finish it at one point and find satisfaction in having done so.

[xScavengerWolfx]

8 minutes ago, Shanoa said:

Ah, that's already more than I ever did. I often tell myself that I'd like, someday, to maybe contribute to a community project. As for your secret map, I hope you can finish it at one point and find satisfaction in having done so.

I'm the type that will get the mapping bug then get burnt out, then get it again. But it more of an idea to show off what i want in the community project.

 

[Majin]

ive wanted to be a level maker since childhood

[xScavengerWolfx]

10 minutes ago, Majin said:

ive wanted to be a level maker since childhood

Same here, for me it was halo as a kid

 

[Majin]

17 minutes ago, xScavengerWolfx said:

Same here, for me it was halo as a kid

 

combat evolved was the first game that i played to make me want to map. the campaign often featured unique architecture with beautiful environments, the use of music and atmosphere made me realize what could be made--something much more than a bunch of geometry. i sometimes played on the multiplayer levels by myself & being spooked yet intrigued by the emptiness it gave of, i also looked into those crummy campaigns people made with the custom edition that were uncanny. reach's & 4's forge mode was when i messed around with mapping myself, i don't remember what i made much besides bootleg recreations of levels i've played before. i think i made something super cool at some point but it wasn't super cool that it was multiplayer only

[Razza]

I first tried mapping around 2017/2018. I was inspired by Symphony X's "Church Of The Machine" (which I have Scythe 2 to thank for introducing me to the band), and wanted to make a map of the same name centered around, you guessed it, an unholy church devoted to some sort of machine that was buried deep underground where the church was built upon. Unfortunately, partway through the build, my PC completely shit itself and would blue-screen upon startup. I really have no idea why it happened, it turned on just fine earlier in the day, but i went out the house for an hour and came back to a suddenly broken PC. I was forced to factory reset my computer, losing absolutely everything. This, in addition to feeling a bit overwhelmed already, completely killed my motivation to make a map, and I simply didn't even bother downloading UDB again.

 

Fast forward to 2021, youtube recommended me one of MtPain's Dean Of Doom videos (can't remember which one). I was instantly a fan of his videos, and binged most of what he had put out (I ignored the episodes which covered the standard IWADS cause I don't really care about the opinions people have of them.) As I watched, a small itch started to form in my head, egging me on to try mapping again, and got harder and harder to ignore as time went on. I also stumbled on videos of people making maps and mapping tutorials, one of which was DavidN's "The visual language of doom maps". I watched his videos on editing basics, then his 7 part factory build-through, and found out about RAMP (was too late to put in a submission though).

 

At the start of 2022, I was itching to get started on mapping again, but I didn't want to restart on the map I worked on ~2017. Instead, I had an idea for a map that was inspired by Stuart Rynn's "Starting Out", which is a midi used for plutonia 2's map 15 and is one of my favourites from said mapset. The song had a sort of "heroic/triumphant escape" feel to it, and everytime I listened to it I would picture a map where you would run around in, and escape from, a base where you would destroy some sort of machine, which would cause the base to get destroyed, with demons being taken out by exploding machinery and walls. So, that's what I did. Was it how I envisioned it? No, it was better, and despite it being my first completed map, it is still the one i am most proud of. Not long after I had started, I saw Obsidian's "Doomworld Maximum Project" and decided that was a good place to start. It was an amazing feeling getting a map included in a project and seeing people like Biodegradable play (and enjoy!) my map. A month later, I started working on another map only to find out a few days later that RAMP 2022 had started. So I strapped myself in and made 2 (IMO solid) submissions for it. Again, it was an amazing feeling to see people play them, and to get very useful feedback to make them just a little bit better. I've already got another map I'm working on (a map to test out the UDMF format), and thanks to certain songs I've listened to recently, I have a fair few more ideas for maps, at least in terms of how they should feel.

 

I've spent the last few years worrying about not finding a creative hobby to put my name (or at least a screen name) on, and moving into my own house last year amplified those feelings. Now I feel like I've found something I enjoy putting out for people to experience, and am hopeful that I'll be around for a while :)

 

TL;DR had a failed attempt a few years ago, got back into mapping by various doom-tubers, and am taking inspiration mostly from songs by focusing on how they feel

[bofu]

I was sketching Doom levels even before I knew there were level editors for it. I always had an interest in making levels and mods for games. But what inspired me to actually go through and start making them to share with others was a few YouTube channels. I literally made my first complete and released map in a fit of inspired mania after watching some of Coinicident and decino's playthrough or analysis videos, followed by DavidN and Doomkid's mapping videos. Once it was complete, or at least playable and finishable, I realized that I had a lot more ideas I wanted to make into reality, so I decided to start doing it more regularly. I'd tried making levels once upon a time in Deu2, Renegade, and DoomCAD (who remembers those beauties?), but it was only in the last year or so that I decided to actually finish one.

 

As for MIDI making, I've always been interested in composing. So interested, in fact, that I went and got my doctorate in music composition. I used the first MIDI editor I found, a little program called Noteworthy Composer that I actually still use to this day (though just for MIDI; I use Sibelius and Dorico for more sheet music-based things and MaxMSP or Cubase for audio production). Listening to the music of Lee Jackson and Bobby Prince was particularly formative for my tastes in video game music. I actually made music for some South Park fangames a long ass time ago (in fact, that's where I first met at least one member of this community originally, with it being an incredible cosmic coincidence that we ran into each other here decades later).

[DeathWalkerGT]

I really like trying to create Doom levels but the bad side to all of this is that I end up scrapping them over lack of confidence (I guess) and bad "quality".

Overall though Iam more into the creation of Doom levels cause of the freedom the engine provides. Ahhh I still remember the first time that I tested the first level of mine... (just a room)

That moment signaled a change in my relationship with Doom.

Anyway... I'll stop...

[bofu]

42 minutes ago, DeathWalkerGT said:

I really like trying to create Doom levels but the bad side to all of this is that I end up scrapping them over lack of confidence (I guess) and bad "quality".

Overall though Iam more into the creation of Doom levels cause of the freedom the engine provides. Ahhh I still remember the first time that I tested the first level of mine... (just a room)

That moment signaled a change in my relationship with Doom.

Anyway... I'll stop...

It may have just been one room, but it was YOUR room. Everyone starts somewhere.

[MemeMind]

Whenever I get into a game I always check any level editor or mod tools. I have always been interested making games so I have always loved modding.
The difference here is that I never got bored of mapping for doom. The simplicity of modding doom is the best part. Doom is simple on the technical side but the possibilities are endless. 

[Kokoro Hane]

When I found out you could make your own levels, I thought "ooh this could be fun!"

 

And the editor is waaaay easier to understand than, say, Unreal's lol.

 

Plus since my brother has gotten better with DOOM editing, I sparkled going "I CAN FINALLY MAKE MY VERY OWN FPS!!!!!!" (via the TC method) That dream is just about to be realized too lol

 

I have a ways to go which is why I always work alongside my brother but still, 'tis fun. 

 

[QuaketallicA]

On 4/14/2022 at 10:39 PM, Thelokk said:

Also, pretty much no one makes the specific kind of doom maps I like to play, so I have little choice but to make them myself. 

 

^ This. Well not entirely, I do enjoy other mappers' styles, but everyone has their own style, and it gives you the freedom to see it finally done your way.

[xScavengerWolfx]

9 minutes ago, QuaketallicA said:

 

^ This. Well not entirely, I do enjoy other mappers' styles, but everyone has their own style, and it gives you the freedom to see it finally done your way.

Yes. That is very true