Modern "Open" style room layouts

[SpaceTrash]

I've been struggling a little to understand how modern-style doom maps are put together. My maps are a bit more old school and are sort of more of a "room to room with interlinking corridors" type thing. Does anyone know a good place to start with making more modern style maps? Ones where it just seems to be one singular space with different areas sort of mashed together. 

 

Here are some examples:

 

Fracture World - MAP01 - Nirvana

 

 

Eviternity - MAP19 - StormCatcher.77

 

 

Running Late 2 - MAP03 - A2Rob

 

 

For context, here is the last map I put out, Sandstone

 

Edited June 20, 2023 by OrbitalSpaceGarbage

[baja blast rd.]

5 hours ago, OrbitalSpaceGarbage said:

Eviturnity - MAP19 - Dragonfly

 

Eviternity map19 is by StormCatcher.77. 

 

One tip is that if you draw a "'room to room with interlinking corridors' type thing" and then heavily create more linkages (connections and areas), break down walls, situate some areas in open caves and outdoor spaces, you can get something like those maps. 

 

If whenever you draw an area, you treat that as "final" in your mind and don't ever want to change it, that will hold you back. There's no reason to do that unless you're heavily detailing every area after you make it (which is usually not ideal for this sort of design).

 

Masking some areas in RL2 map03 shows that you could make something like this that way.

 

 

(The physical linkage to the east area is removed, but it's possible while mapping to draw areas that are visually adjacent to others that you don't know how the map is going to reach until later.)

 

Also reducing the map around the open outdoor hub, the map's structure hinges around this, an outdoor yard with three major areas connected to it, and two minor ones. If you can do that, you can do the rest of the layout since the rest is just areas connected to this in some way. 

 

 

The two simplest ways to do this are that you can draw areas and then situate them inside of facades made for them, or you can draw facades and then build areas in them.

As an exercise, you might want to try laying out an open area (outdoor or not) purely as a collection of facades and barriers (and rock faces and sky horizons), rather than a single obvious large room with a uniform wall or something like that. Instead of drawing a complete room ASAP, you'll want to draw different types of 'walls' that will become the exteriors of indoor structures, each probably disconnected from one another until you all piece it together.

 

[Wo0p]

I suppose the easiest way to do what you're after is draw a square first of all and decide that that's your map boundary. You cannot stray outside it. And then fill every little inch of space inside that square with spaces.

 

Throw out the idea that everything has to be symmetrical. Throw out the idea that everything has to "make sense" and be "functional" from a realistic point of view. It's definitely an artform in itself to be "efficient" with your space but I'm certain it will come with time. For clarity, these are observations from my personal experience as I too lean towards your map making method and am still learning :)

 

Hope that helps a little.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Wo0p

[RonnieJamesDiner]

I think there's some shared ground here with many mappers in their pursuit to learn how to create very tightly interconnected, looping layouts. 

 

In my experience, one of the big "aha" moments was shifting my approach away from thinking in terms of one room at a time, to thinking about the level in terms of its objectives. Where is the player trying to go, what are they trying to get, and how do I make that as clear as possible?

 

As soon as you're trying to communicate objectives to the player, sight lines become really important to you as you stitch your layout together. Typically, this kind of design also leans towards a major reduction in backtracking. If the player comes across a locked door, you may want to give them a glimpse of the key through a window (offering them a sense of direction). If the path to the key is a long, winding assault of fights through different areas, you may want a shortcut from the key that leads directly back to the locked door (a simple drop-off that couldn't be traversed from the other side, is a common one).

 

The more you try to show the player something (from pivotal items, doors, and switches, to powerups, secrets, and "sneak peaks" at future areas), the more you'll connect the level in order to create those sight lines and backtracking shortcuts. Clumps of rooms will tighten up to allow for "windows" between them, future areas of the map might become visible but unreachable areas of previous rooms (rather than discrete rooms separated by void space), and you may find yourself condensing the overall "footprint" of the level to accommodate for this.

 

This kind of mapping is almost like creating an onion, in some cases, where you're layering the players path on top of itself constantly, rather than stitching individual rooms together. 

 

There's a spectacular little "beginners guide to interconnected, looping layouts" in an old thread, written by boris. I highly recommend taking a quick look at it!

 

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/1968178

Edited June 21, 2023 by RonnieJamesDiner

[magicsofa]

7 hours ago, baja blast rd. said:

break down walls

 

Pretty much this. Sometimes you just have to close your eyes and Make Sectors that void into existence, and then just make it work. At least that's how I tend to do it. Careful planning might work for you instead, but I never liked that method because I don't want to be doing the work twice. It isn't hard to close it back up again if needed.

 

Also, there's nothing inherently wrong with more isolated layouts. And the examples you posted do have solid walls, they are just thinner (on average) than the ones in your map. More of a tight fit between sectors. 

[baja blast rd.]

Noticed you edited in a map layout. I'd agree that it's not really a bad thing to have closed, piecemeal layouts. Sometimes a map's desired experience calls for that. Everything is a technique that has uses. (Which does mean it's worth learning how to do the open style too.)

 

With the layout you posted, I'd be really tempted to connect it with lots of inaccessible scenery. Which is not the same thing, but it's a strong technique that many maps use. 

 

I took a look at the map, and everything in the layout seems really 'functional' and inward-facing, and I'd want to play around with more worldbuilding pieces.  

Here are some of the first ideas that came to mind, mainly inspired by the secret area on the east that actually serves as scenery if you don't find the secret. Just assume the transitions between buildings and caves make sense, I wasn't paying attention to that. 

 

Two natural rocky areas, with windows peering out to them. The traditional "explain where the nukage comes from" conduit. A crawl vent path you can't access, sort of implying, "There's more to this." 

 

 

Also maybe, uh, some kind of crate storage room too since you had a crate stack in one room and something that works is riffing off functional areas.

Spending lots of effort on areas that aren't visited might not seem exciting to some people, but it can be really worth it.

 

edit: The cave and the secret might be connected too (with a barrier between them). The part of the crawl vent that is blocked off might lead up and then to the outside section, unnoticeable from playing but a bonus for the sort of nerd who cares about worldbuilding. See this is fun. :P

[Somniac]

I love these sort of layouts and I always get super admirenvious (mixture of admiration and envy, yes I just made that up) when I see them, like whoever made them has some secret book of layout skills or something, but realistically I think it just comes down to experience, trusting yourself and the process, and having some idea of what you want it to be. I could also be totally wrong, and those layouts (or aspects of them) are the result of pure happenstance and things making themselves obvious to the author during construction. I think when you either can't see or envision what the start point might have been for the layout (it may very well not have been where the player start ends up), its hard to extrapolate how they did it and how you might do it. 

 

I wish I had something more helpful to contribute, but as I'm in the same boat as the OP (and very low on mapping steam atm) I guess not :p

Edited June 21, 2023 by Somniac

[Tiramisu]

All the replies here are very good stuff - I second and third the "breaking down walls" thing, it's by far the easiest way to make a map more interconnected. As for me, I have these things to add:

 

1. To make a truly "open" map, you must first master height variation. Ledges are essentially one-way walls that you can see through, and you should treat them as such when designing your layout. Same with pits and canyons, these also serve to block the player off while allowing them to see through.

 

2. If you find yourself making a map like Sandstone, and you think "there's no way to link this up, the rooms are too far away from each other", you can always try cutting, rotating and pasting entire sections of your stage, so that the layout gets more compact. Doombuilder is actually very good with things like that, I suggest you familiarize yourself with the copy/paste mechanic if you haven't already!

 

3. Finally, a map doesn't have to be interconnected to be good. I've played Sandstone, I think it's great especially for a first map. Also, rooms and corridors are fine even in a map that's supposed to be "open" - if you look at the Running Late 2 map, it's composed of an open area and a bunch of rooms, not unlike the ones on your map (at least that's what it looks like from above, I haven't actually played that one).

Edited June 21, 2023 by sq. Tiramisu

[boris]

Breaking down walls is always a good idea. Here's how the rocket launcher area in Sandstone could look like:

 

 

It's pretty simple changes. I removed the door, and made the doorways wider. I extended the nukage to a pit between the areas. This doesn't change the progression at all, but massively changes how open the whole part of the map is. It's a pretty sloppy job, with more geometry fine-tuning it could be improved further.

 

I attached the modified section of the map: Sandstone-break-down-walls.zip

[plums]

This whole thread, especially @baja blast rd.'s posts, have really given me a new perspective on how I try to map (and why I always give up half-way). It's not even any one thing that was said, just the discussion made me think about mapping in ways I haven't before. So thanks, all. Maybe I'll take another crack at it sometime.

Edited June 22, 2023 by plums

[spineapple tea]

Similar to what plums said but this has been one of the most useful threads I've seen recently design-wise. I also played Sandstone out of curiosity and found it really enjoyable, even if I'm stupid and didn't realize jumping was required for the vent secret (I don't even want to tell you how long I spent on that). It's clear that you make some truly inspired stuff and have some great potential if you stick around and keep improving.

Edited June 22, 2023 by spineapple tea

[SpaceTrash]

Wow. Some great stuff in here, definitely some stuff to add to my personal Doom bible document. Thanks to everyone who's contributed so far, I'd reply to every post if I had time!

 

Really loved those edits to Sandstone from Boris and Baja. Really goes to show what can be done when you're starting from a fairly simple place. It's interesting your can break down even more complex maps down to more limited paths.

 

Also wanted to say thanks to Tiramisu and Spineapple for their kind words about Sandstone!

 

Just wanted to share the map I've started working on after reading this thread through a few times. Here's a very early WIP image of a map I'm tentatively calling "Chokehold". All of this is one area with only like one sight-blocking wall.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 22, 2023 by OrbitalSpaceGarbage