Trying to make my first map

[Nightmare2989]

So i decided to try and make my first map so far i done this if anyone got any tips or anything i world love to hear from you i building it in ultimate doom builder 

My theme is hell i got some idea but at them moment i hit a wall so i though i take a break and post this and see what people are will say to me i just done the design of the map so far 

 

Hey Guys and Gals, i upload i new version of my map i added a few feedback ideas and added a bit more too it here the download link hope it work as i had issues with it other https://www.mediafire.com/file/w4lnu9ncin0qmrj/Nightmares_Hell.wad/file

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Nightmare2989

[Bri0che]

There is a lot of things that could be said, but as far as you don't go out of the high standards, it's all yours to level design a map as you wish...

It's also a question of experience, make your owns errors and your own hit, and you will find your path. :)

 

Still, I really tend to stick to the John Romero rules about level design, here : 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 24, 2022 by Briøche

[IcarusOfDaggers]

Some things to keep in mind: 

• Regular shapes like squares and rectangles can stifle creativity  use irregular shapes within irregular shapes. Basically anything that isn't a square
• Always change texture right away. If you go for hell theme, use the hell textures to start with
• First maps take time, and you either run into dead ends or have ideas that don't fit every now and then. 

To prevent creative blocks, try developing two maps. One is your main project, the other is your side project. It's important, that they start as thematically different. This will make the map development easier early, when you're still learning everything.

 

Make sure you know your format. If you're developing for crispy doom (as close to original as possible), use that for testing. If you create for GZDoom, use that for testing.

 

Either way, be aware, the more advanced your map format, the easier it is to learn the basics, but your audience reduces drastically as well.

 

You can get more ideas by playing someone elses maps. I found newbie maps work great for my creativity, while I know people who tear down original doom wads or other peoples work for ideas, and quite a bit of people use real life locations for a base of their maps.

[Lucius Wooding]

-I'd say make sure not to make all the floors and ceilings flat, make use of 3D space. This is very important for dictating how the player and monsters can move within rooms, it can give you cover and you can confine them to platforms and such to change how things work. Same deal with deaf monsters, monster blocking linedefs, and sound blocking linedefs or doors. Otherwise monsters will move through the map as a giant mob and all your encounters will tend to run together instead of being distinct.

 

-Vary the shapes of rooms one way or another; rectangles are okay but don't make the entire map out of them. Even slight differences in layout can make the combat much more interesting.

 

-Lighting is also important, it's very apparent when you use no variations and it makes the map look even more flat. A small effort to make use of lighting can really make a room look a lot more interesting. It doesn't have to be fancy, and it usually is not a bad thing if you go overly experimental or dramatic. Sometimes it's better to make it a bit cheesy than to make it flat. 

 

-You can add a lot more detail with geometry than most people think. The textures in Doom are very limited in terms of their detail but you can make very complex architecture from sectors. Yes you can make your own custom textures, but clever usage of stock assets can be very versatile on its own.

 

-When using textures, it's important to pay attention to how they align and make sure it makes sense. A rock texture can wrap around a corner pretty much however you want, but something with distinct seams along the edges might look wrong if they don't line up, especially if it's not consistent to the rest of the map. Remember you can always use smaller trim and transition textures near doors or to fill small spaces, or you can also adjust the offsets manually or split linedefs to line things up.

 

-You can always add details once you rough out a room, it's easier to make changes when it's still simple though. So consider using a rough draft to get the basic layout and monster placements, then adding decorations, trim textures and lighting. You can take the aesthetics as far as you want to, and it's very useful to learn the skills.

 

-Don't be afraid to look at other maps in the editor to figure out how they do things, and check out some tutorials if needed.

 

-Use the editor's map analysis tools to find stuck monsters, untextured walls, and the like. It shouldn't be necessary on small maps but the bigger things get the easier it is to miss those details. It won't find every issue but it's very convenient and it will be very helpful to run each time you complete a revision. 

 

-Pick a bangin MIDI, literally anything out there so we don't have to hear D_RUNNIN. Personally I don't fixate too much on music but it definitely makes the experience a bit better and gives each map more atmosphere.

 

-It might be worth planning out the intended "story" of the map in terms of how it's meant to play. Not that you need to write 500 words of lore, nobody really tends to care about that. But having an idea behind the map can help you build off it and makes it a lot more interesting to play. It can be something simple like "start out in a prison cell and escape the yard to exit" or "enter the sewage plant and fight your way to the switch". Now not only do you have a good set of cues for textures and room layouts to use that tie the rooms together, but it feels like an adventure to play with some continuity. You can use humor or be very experimental if you want, but regardless you'll have some personality in your map no matter how small.

 

-The above also goes for individual rooms/fights; you can try and plan out how things are supposed to go for an encounter and work towards that. As long as you execute your idea and are happy with it, you can consider it a success in developing your mapping skill. If it ends up not being fun or people dislike the idea, you can take that criticism for future maps if you wish. But the important thing is to be able to hit your target, not just randomly place monsters until you decide it's good. That doesn't really teach you anything or develop your skill even if it plays ok. But if you have to learn how to make teleporters and do some fancy mapping tricks to get your encounter how you planned it in your head, you'll gain a lot of skill and satisfaction. Plus if you want to make balance changes along the way you'll have more tools to do so.

 

-It's important to make use of criticism, ask questions and look up information as needed. Collaborating on projects or discussing how people develop their maps can also be helpful if you get stuck creatively. 

[Nightmare2989]

Coming along nicely i hope lol

[Alfwin]

42 minutes ago, Nightmare2989 said:

Coming along nicely i hope lol

Looking at that, there are two main things I'd suggest:

First, add some vertices to the outer walls of the rooms and move them around a bit, just to make the rooms seem less boxy/rectangular.  Even if the overall layout is the same, having a bit of variation in the shape of the walls can make the map look a lot more interesting.  If the room is using natural rock/cave textures, you can just make the walls irregular zig-zags (key word: irregular).  For man-made structures, consider things like support columns that stick out slightly from the wall, alcoves or shelves set into the wall, or even just have a few walls at angles other than 90 degrees.

The other thing is: you should probably delete a lot of those vertices along the edges of the blood pools.  There are a lot of lines there where the angle between them is almost perfectly straight.  Anywhere there isn't a significant angle between the lines, just reduce it to fewer, longer lines.  With such shallow curves, you'll lose practically no apparent visual detail, but you'll significantly reduce the risk of crashes when running in Vanilla or non-limit-removing ports.  (Of course, that's not a concern if you're specifically designing your map to require limit-removing ports, but even then, a lot of those vertices are just bloating your map without actually adding anything).

 

Also, as you continue mapping, don't forget to play around with lighting variation!  Even a simple, rectangular room can be made significantly more interesting if you change its bright, even lighting for a shaft of light shining from an open doorway into a dimly-lit room, or the like.  Keep in mind that the human eye is naturally drawn to contrast, and to things it can see clearly, so a bright light in a dark room can also be a good way to catch the player's attention and subtly steer them in the direction you want them to go.

[Shanoa]

2 hours ago, Nightmare2989 said:

Coming along nicely i hope lol

Have some faith in yourself! It's always scary, at first, to expose ourself to criticism but it's all with good intentions. If people noticed you put some efforts (like, texture alignment, pegged doortrack, etc) and time into your map it's gonna be smooth sailing from there.

 

You got this!

Edited September 23, 2022 by Shanoa

[Azuris]

6 hours ago, Shanoa said:

like, texture alignment

 

Click on the Textures you will aligne and press A on the Keyboard. Makes it allllll easier :D
 

[Shanoa]

Just now, Azuris said:

 

Click on the Textures you will aligne and press A on the Keyboard. Makes it allllll easier :D
 

I fancy more Ctrl+A on the occasion for X&Y alignment at once.

[Fernito]

11 hours ago, Nightmare2989 said:

Coming along nicely i hope lol

 

Nice, you're going into the right direction! :) Very solid advice in this thread, I would just like to stress what pretty much everyone has said regarding irregular shapes: try to experiment more with non-orthogonal geometry. I can see you added some curvy-shaped blood pools, which is great! But every room is still 100% a quadrilateral. You'll see an immediate difference as soon as you move some vertices around to create more irregular shapes, everything will automatically start looking more interesting, specially if you're aiming for a hell-themed map :) 

[Nightmare2989]

Thanks, guys, for the advice and support it mean a lot to me hopefully i might get it finished today as i put all day into yesterday but i release it when i feel it ready

[ONETAPPYBOI]

One useful thing that not many people realize, even though most experienced mappers follow it instinctively, is that verticality matters A LOT. You can make an area feel much more large and expansive if you make it very tall, several hundred (or even thousand!) units high. Similarly, you can make an area feel much more smaller and cramped if you make it only 64/128 units tall. Play with and contrast between the two extremes for the best results.

[Nightmare2989]

Some screenshot of my map

 

 

[Silhouette 03]

Looks good so far, but it does need some height variation. Doom maps need height variation to make their layouts stand out and be interesting.

 

You seem to have an eye for detailing, which is great. I’d also be careful not to over detail your map, so much so that it makes it difficult for the player to move.

[Nightmare2989]

2 minutes ago, Silhouette 03 said:

Looks good so far, but it does need some height variation. Doom maps need height variation to make their layouts stand out and be interesting.

 

You seem to have an eye for detailing, which is great. I’d also be careful not to over detail your map, so much so that it makes it difficult for the player to move.

Yeah, i will go over it again and add height variation and stuff like that Just want to get the basic stuff done and see what i can improve Currently I'm stuck with a trap at the moment i know how to set it up and stuff it just not doing what i want it to do

I'm just having a break from it as it pissing me off lol   

[Silhouette 03]

1 hour ago, Nightmare2989 said:

Currently I'm stuck with a trap at the moment i know how to set it up and stuff it just not doing what i want it to do

If you’re ever stuck, please feel free to ask questions in the “doom editing” subforum, specifically under editing questions. There are a lot of kind and patient people there that will be more than happy to help you, given that you give enough information, of course. So please don’t be afraid to ask questions. It’s how we learn :)

[Stabbey]

In that first screenshot, note how the red stone texture changes suddenly into irregular red rocks? That wouldn't happen with actual stone. It looks odd. If you change the red rocks there back to stone (and align it), that will look more "real".

 

Similarly, in that third screenshot, it looks like the blood is level with the floor. Lower the sector with the blood in it slightly, like 8 units or so (and texture the exposed sides) and it'll look better.

 

Those are simple things which help improve the look of maps.

[staros96]

2 hours ago, Silhouette 03 said:

Looks good so far, but it does need some height variation. Doom maps need height variation to make their layouts stand out and be interesting.

 

You seem to have an eye for detailing, which is great. I’d also be careful not to over detail your map, so much so that it makes it difficult for the player to move.

I have to agree, it looks really good, but echo Silhouette's feedback here on over-detailing (though I guess once you're in-game and the monsters are moving, they may space out a lil bit?)  I do however like the 2nd screenshot with the red rock pillars + the demons. :) 

 

Although I am a mapping noobie. :) 

[Nightmare2989]

58 minutes ago, staros96 said:

I have to agree, it looks really good, but echo Silhouette's feedback here on over-detailing (though I guess once you're in-game and the monsters are moving, they may space out a lil bit?)  I do however like the 2nd screenshot with the red rock pillars + the demons. :) 

 

Although I am a mapping noobie. :) 

I'm also a mapping noobie too but hopefully this will turn out ok and i can go crazy with my imagination and with the detail i can add or remove stuff i got some peeps ready to play test once I'm finished  

[Lucius Wooding]

It's looking like a map, keep up the good work. 

 

A good option when changing between textures is to throw in a small span of a trim texture, like an iron support which is commonly used in hell maps. You can just add a vertex along the linedef and drag it to the spot you want, then change the texture on the small maybe 8-16 unit trim. You could also build a small pillar or beam into the transition to give it a bit more geometry, even if it only partially protrudes from the wall. These kinds of details not only look clean, they also can make doorways and grates look a little more solid.

 

Just keep working on it, decorate it how you want even if it's a bit experimental. Tasteful weirdness works well on hell maps.

[Nightmare2989]

Ok guys and gals here my first map 

Please leave us feedback guys and thanks to Norb for helping with my trap any issue i will fix just want everyone to playtest it https://www.mediafire.com/file/vgv2s22htyi2tsa/Nightmares_Hell.wad/file hopefully the file works this time peeps

Edited September 27, 2022 by Nightmare2989

[Norb]

1 minute ago, Nightmare2989 said:

Ok guys and gals here my first map https://www.mediafire.com/file/l6klzo8rdx9xhlt/Nightmares_hell/file

Please leave us feedback guys and thanks to Norb for helping with my trap 

Brooooo LET'S GOO

[Lucius Wooding]

I gave it a shot on UV, it killed me shamefully 2 times for underestimating it. Pretty successful if you ask me.

 

Spoiler

-The pinkies are a menace since you withhold the SSG, and I can't even imagine fighting the pain elemental and lost souls if you waste your chaingun ammo. The chaingun hitstun helps a ton with them but they force you to fall back and I died once trying to get past them to circlestrafe the mob. The berserk is a pretty good way to deal with them but I had the most success skipping it until I cleared the map, then dealing with the pinky trap after.

 

-Health is pretty well done I think, and ammo is fair as long as the berserk is included. There's a decent lack of firepower compared to the bulkier demons that makes it tough to take them down, although a lot of the enemies are imps and hitscan. This along with the likelihood of taking a big shotgunner hit early on and being low on health makes it best to play careful and camp a bit. Not a bad thing, just an observation. 

 

-I think the overall number of monsters is a bit high for a small map like this, since a lot of them just infight and you can always camp around doors to funnel them in. However I do like having stuff to kill, it's a bit of a subjective thing what the monster count should be. The 2 groups of initial monsters in the chaingun and berserk room are more or less just a mob that gives you no reason to go after them so they feel a bit inflated, maybe using deaf or stationary monsters or some kind of way to make them more dynamic. Personally I like the use of barrels for this as well, they can make an underarmed player able to take stuff down quickly and they can be both fun and a bit dangerous. Or you could throw in some meaner traps like a rear ambush or teleporters as you master more mapping techniques, depending on how you want it to play.

 

-Some fights are actually pretty well executed. The simple pair of imps and shotgunners in the second room is actually well designed and can be punishing or do hardly any damage depending on how you do it. The secret chainsaw helps out a lot too. The revenant and pain elemental ending is also a big problem if you stumble into it, although it's hard for the lost souls to pour out quickly. 

 

Also I should mention that you may want to manually align textures vertically when you have variations in the floor height, like the bricks in the blood pools by the chaingun. Some textures won't look off but the bricks are noticeable when they don't align. This kind of thing is pretty standard for new mappers and obviously it's not a big deal, in big maps even experienced mappers often miss these kinds of details.

 

Other than that, congrats on your first map. You clearly learned some decent basics so far so keep it up and continue to add tools to your toolbox.

[Nightmare2989]

10 minutes ago, Lucius Wooding said:

I gave it a shot on UV, it killed me shamefully 2 times for underestimating it. Pretty successful if you ask me.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

-The pinkies are a menace since you withhold the SSG, and I can't even imagine fighting the pain elemental and lost souls if you waste your chaingun ammo. The chaingun hitstun helps a ton with them but they force you to fall back and I died once trying to get past them to circlestrafe the mob. The berserk is a pretty good way to deal with them but I had the most success skipping it until I cleared the map, then dealing with the pinky trap after.

 

-Health is pretty well done I think, and ammo is fair as long as the berserk is included. There's a decent lack of firepower compared to the bulkier demons that makes it tough to take them down, although a lot of the enemies are imps and hitscan. This along with the likelihood of taking a big shotgunner hit early on and being low on health makes it best to play careful and camp a bit. Not a bad thing, just an observation. 

 

-I think the overall number of monsters is a bit high for a small map like this, since a lot of them just infight and you can always camp around doors to funnel them in. However I do like having stuff to kill, it's a bit of a subjective thing what the monster count should be. The 2 groups of initial monsters in the chaingun and berserk room are more or less just a mob that gives you no reason to go after them so they feel a bit inflated, maybe using deaf or stationary monsters or some kind of way to make them more dynamic. Personally I like the use of barrels for this as well, they can make an underarmed player able to take stuff down quickly and they can be both fun and a bit dangerous. Or you could throw in some meaner traps like a rear ambush or teleporters as you master more mapping techniques, depending on how you want it to play.

 

-Some fights are actually pretty well executed. The simple pair of imps and shotgunners in the second room is actually well designed and can be punishing or do hardly any damage depending on how you do it. The secret chainsaw helps out a lot too. The revenant and pain elemental ending is also a big problem if you stumble into it, although it's hard for the lost souls to pour out quickly. 

 

Also I should mention that you may want to manually align textures vertically when you have variations in the floor height, like the bricks in the blood pools by the chaingun. Some textures won't look off but the bricks are noticeable when they don't align. This kind of thing is pretty standard for new mappers and obviously it's not a big deal, in big maps even experienced mappers often miss these kinds of details.

 

Other than that, congrats on your first map. You clearly learned some decent basics so far so keep it up and continue to add tools to your toolbox.

Why thank you for trying it mate yeah i will sort that out mate just glad the link worked as it given me issues lol thank you for the kind words and i will take your advice and yeah i wanted to give some love to the single shottie and chainsaw and i was learning more on chaingun usages and i was trying to make the lost souls to protect the pain elemental to panic the player and yeah the pinky trap took me awhile to set up with the berserk as a hint to use it on them i 

Edited September 25, 2022 by Nightmare2989

[Stupid Bunny]

Good stuff, congrats on getting your first map done.  You have taken your first step into a larger world /obiwan

Spoiler

• See how the red ceiling has dark gray trim and the gray floor has red trim?  These would probably look better reversed (although I do kinda like the effect of the red rock against the cracked black rock, so this is a matter of taste)
• 
• You should make it so that the sectors on each side of the bars have different brightness, to prevent the grate bleeding into the floor like this.  Even if there is a brightness difference of 1 it'll still be enough to prevent this.
• 
• Again, a subjective stylistic thing, but it looks awkward how the wall turns from chunky red rock to cut marble stone right at the corner.  As Lucius said, adding some trim to separate them (SUPPORT3 is a popular one) would make it look a lot better.
• 
• General positives: you tried a bunch of different things here, which is good: lots of decorative elements, a nice trap at the end, the caged enemies, classic chainsaw secret at the beginning.  The pain elemental trap almost destroyed me, I tried shotgunning it but couldn't keep up with the deluge of lost souls.  Was fun, pretty intense.  I had no trouble with the pinkies since I could just beat the hell out of them one by one.  Weapon and ammo selection felt thoughtful, monster placement mostly felt meaningful, and in the end the combat, straightforward though it was, was also pretty engaging and never felt like it was too unfairly stacked against either me or the monsters (beginner maps are usually either way too generous or totally merciless so congrats for avoiding that).  Your texture use was, by and large, cohesive and tasteful and set the tone of the map well.
• General advice for the future: Although the decorative elements have some nice shapes, and a wee bit of height variation, the map is still very flat and rectangular.  It is also highly linear, with no branches or alternative routes that can be taken anywhere, which limits the replay value of a map since it can only really be approached one way every time.  I would highly recommend playing with more varied room shapes, and taking full advantage of the 3D aspect in Doom--add ledges, towers, windows, stairs, things like that to mix up the way you can interact with the environment and make the whole layout feel more alive.  I won't launch into a whole thing about map design, partly because there are already so many excellent tutorials about it but mostly because I think you'll learn a lot just by experimenting more in your next maps.  

 

Edited September 25, 2022 by Stupid Bunny

[PeterMoro]

Looks great man. Good luck and welcome to the addiction. 

[Nightmare2989]

11 hours ago, Stupid Bunny said:

Good stuff, congrats on getting your first map done.  You have taken your first step into a larger world /obiwan

  Reveal hidden contents

• See how the red ceiling has dark gray trim and the gray floor has red trim?  These would probably look better reversed (although I do kinda like the effect of the red rock against the cracked black rock, so this is a matter of taste)
• 
• You should make it so that the sectors on each side of the bars have different brightness, to prevent the grate bleeding into the floor like this.  Even if there is a brightness difference of 1 it'll still be enough to prevent this.
• 
• Again, a subjective stylistic thing, but it looks awkward how the wall turns from chunky red rock to cut marble stone right at the corner.  As Lucius said, adding some trim to separate them (SUPPORT3 is a popular one) would make it look a lot better.
• 
• General positives: you tried a bunch of different things here, which is good: lots of decorative elements, a nice trap at the end, the caged enemies, classic chainsaw secret at the beginning.  The pain elemental trap almost destroyed me, I tried shotgunning it but couldn't keep up with the deluge of lost souls.  Was fun, pretty intense.  I had no trouble with the pinkies since I could just beat the hell out of them one by one.  Weapon and ammo selection felt thoughtful, monster placement mostly felt meaningful, and in the end the combat, straightforward though it was, was also pretty engaging and never felt like it was too unfairly stacked against either me or the monsters (beginner maps are usually either way too generous or totally merciless so congrats for avoiding that).  Your texture use was, by and large, cohesive and tasteful and set the tone of the map well.
• General advice for the future: Although the decorative elements have some nice shapes, and a wee bit of height variation, the map is still very flat and rectangular.  It is also highly linear, with no branches or alternative routes that can be taken anywhere, which limits the replay value of a map since it can only really be approached one way every time.  I would highly recommend playing with more varied room shapes, and taking full advantage of the 3D aspect in Doom--add ledges, towers, windows, stairs, things like that to mix up the way you can interact with the environment and make the whole layout feel more alive.  I won't launch into a whole thing about map design, partly because there are already so many excellent tutorials about it but mostly because I think you'll learn a lot just by experimenting more in your next maps.  

 

Thanks for playing mate i will take your advice into account man and make something awesome i just started my second map now making the layout out and stuff if i add you on discord as a friend could i pick your brain sometimes man cheer for playing again

Edited September 26, 2022 by Nightmare2989

[Somniac]

Just played your map, I actually wish I'd recorded a demo of it cause it was a pretty intense run and I finished with 8% health xD the pinky trap in particular really got me, nicely done. 

 

Texturing and visuals were pretty spot on, nothing looked out of place at all. You've clearly got an eye for aesthetics and what textures work well together, and the environmental flourishes (the little rocks in the lava for example) are nice touches too. There was a good amount of light variation too.

 

More precise feedback, if you wanted to add to this map or for your next:

 

Use more height variation - it makes the level much more dynamic visually and there's a gameplay element - chaingunners in cages (and a lot of monsters tbf) are especially good as turrets when they're placed higher up, for example.

 

Room shapes and progression - especially with cave style maps, you want to have more natural shapes to the rooms. It doesnt have to be super complex to be effective, and don't worry about realism too much. Same goes for techbase maps - they only have to make sense in their own world. Try experimenting with giving rooms multiple ways out, areas that branch off into new ones, and/or loop back round.

 

To be honest though, this is all stuff that will come naturally the more you map. Keep it up! 

[Nightmare2989]

9 minutes ago, VisionThing said:

Just played your map, I actually wish I'd recorded a demo of it cause it was a pretty intense run and I finished with 8% health xD the pinky trap in particular really got me, nicely done. 

 

Texturing and visuals were pretty spot on, nothing looked out of place at all. You've clearly got an eye for aesthetics and what textures work well together, and the environmental flourishes (the little rocks in the lava for example) are nice touches too. There was a good amount of light variation too.

 

More precise feedback, if you wanted to add to this map or for your next:

 

Use more height variation - it makes the level much more dynamic visually and there's a gameplay element - chaingunners in cages (and a lot of monsters tbf) are especially good as turrets when they're placed higher up, for example.

 

Room shapes and progression - especially with cave style maps, you want to have more natural shapes to the rooms. It doesnt have to be super complex to be effective, and don't worry about realism too much. Same goes for techbase maps - they only have to make sense in their own world. Try experimenting with giving rooms multiple ways out, areas that branch off into new ones, and/or loop back round.

 

To be honest though, this is all stuff that will come naturally the more you map. Keep it up! 

Thanks for play man i do feel i have a eye for detail i like stuff too feel real if that makes sense and i will tune the map up more touch it up a little too i still got a lot to learn so i might just mess with the map a bit more i do appreciate your feedback and thank you for playing 

[Nightmare2989]

So, i been working a bit more on my map adding some feedback i got i will upload it again when i feel it ready hopefully the new changes will improve it better