Mapping - how much of it is talent?

[Xaser]

This is sort of a rehash of previous posts, but a lot of what folks tend to perceive as "natural talent" is really just the ability to apply an existing skill when learning a new one. There's a lot of forms this can take (e.g. see mouldy's post about prior art), but one of (if not the) most important ones is the ability to accurately self-critique your works and then iterate, i.e. recognize "hmm this doesn't work", figure out why, then use that self-feedback to make your stuff better. This is one of the hardest things to learn when pursuing any artistic (or even scientific!) discipline, but people who build up this skill tend to have the easiest time picking up new skills since they're able to apply this process to figure out how to learn it most effectively. It's like a force multiplier for learning -- it's great.

 

Relatedly, I've heard plenty of stories that go along the lines of "I took a music composition class and it made me a better mapper", even though you'd think those two disciplines wouldn't cross over that much*. Developing the "artistic eye/ear" absolutely translates across fields. It even makes you a better programmer, though that's a topic for a different thread, I think. :P

 

[*we do have quite a few musician-mappers in the community, though, and many of them started as mappers and picked up midi tracking as a hobby, then just kinda kicked ass at it seemingly almost immediately. Food for thought. ;]

[RataUnderground]

Neither talent nor practice are as important as personality.

[Xaser]

Personality is also a learned skill. Socializing too.

 

Both worth developing just to make life better in general -- not always easy to do, but don't let anyone ever tell you it's innate. It ain't. :P

[Mr. Freeze]

Talent is the output of dedication. You'll still only be as successful as a factor of the time you're willing to put in. 

 

30 minutes ago, RataUnderground said:

Neither talent nor practice are as important as personality.

 

Bro think he doing a Charisma run

[Async Unicorn]

Much.

[Major Arlene]

48 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Talent is the output of dedication. You'll still only be as successful as a factor of the time you're willing to put in.

This. I can't help but think of the Shad Brooks Twitter debacle where he's constantly showing some decent drawing skills without much effort, but then spends the rest of the time asking an AI to finish the drawing instead of taking the time to learn those skills. he'd be a frightfully awesome artist if he put the effort into developing skills he pretty obviously has. Same with any of the creative endeavors (including level design).

["JL" was too short]

I think that there is quite possibly something that some people "have" and some don't when it comes to Doom mapping.  However, I'm somewhat less inclined to believe that it would be any sort of specific mechanical skill or knack for a particular sort of cognitive processing.  I'm certain that some Doom mappers are able to render a breathlessly detailed scene in their mind's eye and then transfer it into UDB, and that this informs their workflow, but I also know at least one excellent Doom mapper who has near-complete aphantasia (look it up, it's interesting!) and somehow manages to achieve jaw-slackeningly wonderful work.  So I don't think that the particular sorts of brain faculties you have are that important, in the final analysis.

Rather, I think what's much more important is an overall ethos and motivation, and this is something that cuts across any type of creative medium.  Whether it's fiction, visual art, musical composition, or indeed Doom mapping, there are some people who don't seem to hold themselves to any sort of adult standard in creative endeavors, and it shows.

All this is not to say that how your brain is wired makes no difference whatsoever -- you'll get there by different roads, and it may well be that a map which takes a Jimmy-esque savant a week to make will take another mapper a month.  But the end product should be equally good in both cases, and neither party can get there without investing X amount of creative wherewithal, regardless of its form.

Less verbosely put:
 

1 hour ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Talent is the output of dedication.

 

[magicsofa]

I don't really believe in talent. Sometimes my friends see me mapping, developing, or composing and wonder how I learned to do this stuff, as if I was just given the ability. And I say well, I've been playing music since I was 5, learned a bit of QBASIC when I was 10, as well as messed around with level editors pretty much any chance I got. Through all the years I've never given up on any of these pursuits, so despite some gaps you could say I have up to 30 years to learn and improve.

 

Most people you see who are "super talented" have actually been practicing their craft for many years. Also, there's a lot of potential for experience in one area to benefit another, so it can sometimes seem like a person picked something up very quickly without reason, when in fact they had already built up some amount of experience and knowledge that was related enough to give a sort of head-start.

["JL" was too short]

For the record, in my own post up this page I wasn't really responding directly to the OP's question, more just putting my oar into the general philosophical discussion.  So I'll now address the specific questions with which OP opened.

10 hours ago, Kwisior said:

It's a question I've been thinking about for a while. Do some players simply have more natural creative ability than others, and can design levels of similar quality with less effort? How much does it really matter in the long run anyway?

1) Yes.
2) Very little.

[invalidlain]

Anyone can get good at making anything, it just requires effort on their part, such as learning the ins and outs of map making, and what makes good level design.

[cannonball]

There is no magic formula to making a good Doom map, there are so many genres and sub genres of maps for this game that can actively suit one type of person whilst not someone else. In the end I think someones mapping style can often be a good way of looking into someone's personality. I know Mouldy has been mentioned in this thread already but honestly if I could think of the type of Doom wad that Cyriak would make, the result would probably be quite close to what Going Down and Overboard actually ended up like.

[OpenRift]

I think what makes good mapping talent is understanding effective design while also forging your own style within that understanding. 

 

Admittedly, in Doom's constantly expanding library of maps and mapsets, it can be rather hard at times to stand out and make something that feels unique. Maybe it's just that I've burnt myself out from playing so many Doom WADs, but the ones that interest me the most these days are maps with a distinct theme (see the Doomer Boards Projects) or a unique gimmick (see All Ghosts Forest or Cyberdreams). 

 

But regardless of how saturated mapping is for Doom, it's still ample material that you can learn from, see what kind of design works, and what doesn't. I think the mistake a lot of new mappers make is that they don't take the time to play other WADs so they can figure out what makes a fun and solid experience. 

[bofu]

None of it. Everything is hard work, experience, determination, and willingness to take risks and improve.

[Tarnsman]

The overwhelming majority of "prodigies" for anything be it recreational or professional have devoted endless hours upon hours to that craft. While I'm sure there are certain things that make getting into doom mapping easier or more difficult, like every other skill it's overwhelmingly driven by practice and understanding the medium and what you're trying to do. (I would say it's probably harder to map if you have that thing where you can't picture concepts in your mind - but given the number of prominent mappers who share "I draw three lines and it doesn't look exactly what it looks like in my head so I delete everything and start over, big mood" that's probably not even true.) 

 

11 hours ago, Kwisior said:

I read somewhere that Tarnsman's father is a level designer

 

Lol no.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Tarnsman

[DNSKILL5]

There’s definitely talented people making maps, but few mappers are going to consider themselves to be talented or gifted, but they would surely take the compliment from someone else that says such about them. 

[RonnieJamesDiner]

Sooo... when this thread is done deconstructing the entire notion of talent... can we still refer to a certain minority of mappers in this community as talented?

 

Spoiler

 

[SiMpLeToNiUm]

I think I liked Xaser's answer the most. After doing this for quite some time myself and working through many periods of burnout and frustration wondering similar things, the real progress I start having is when I notice how creativity interconnects with other technical and life skills. As Xaser said, the overarching knowledge of how to learn. You can only be as good as how good you are at improving upon and honing your craft, regardless of where you start. Of course talent exists, and we can go back and forth forever talking about how fair or unfair that is, but the real important bit that matters is how and what you choose to do to get better, regardless of your talent.

 

Learning from mistakes and keeping a focus on what it is you're actually trying to do. Paying attention to patterns in your processes. What pitfalls you routinely run into. Thought-traps, personal hangups, getting your actual personal life in order. Getting your ego out of the way and trying to look at creativity in a broader sense. There's a lot of romantic ideas floating around about what the process is, but I usually think of it myself as pure, raw focus. Keeping a clean head. People overlook how pivotal that is to having greater potential creative output. There's just SO many factors, but focus, having your mind right and having a trial-and-error, resilient mindset and a willingness to take each step along the way as a learning opportunity is what separates the work of those you envy and those who make nothing or always seem to wind up frustrated and defeated. Creativity isn't a singular goalpost, and the talented don't always stay ahead of the pack forever. Sure, the greatest of the great will, but is that really the conversation we wanna be having when talking about something that should be fun? If we wanna just sit back and mope that people are better than us, that's hardly a conversation about "talent" anymore.

 

Some people start ahead, but as the adage goes, hard work beats out talent when talent gets lazy (no I'm not saying you need to devote your life to Doom mapping or you'll be a failure, please, God), and hard work is so much more than just what you think you're capable of doing in the editor on any particular rainy or sunshiny day.

[baja blast rd.]

7 hours ago, Tarnsman said:

... given the number of prominent mappers who share "I draw three lines and it doesn't look exactly what it looks like in my head so I delete everything and start over, big mood" that's probably not even true

 

On this subject, it seems like there's this cultural wisdom of "artist who imagines everything perfectly in their head and then transcribes it to the medium" that probably is a myth if anything. Or at least its universality is a myth. That doesn't seem like the way it works most of the time, for most good artists.

 

It doesn't pass the smell test either. If you can imagine something vividly, you can always do better than even that by improving it in the process of transcription. Sounds like woo.

[Wavy]

Talent doesn't exist. Skill does however, and skills are obtained through putting time and effort into whatever you are trying to build. Simple as that.

 

This applies to everything. Mapping, art, music, even programming, it's all skill. Some may have an easier time when starting out than others, but that's more related to how we all see, perceive, and interpret things differently. Like a good player can go out and make a good first map, because they know how the game works so they can build the map around their knowledge of the game. In Mouldy's case, art/animation really helps build that creative eye, and I can tell you as an artist myself despite not having made a map for a while (I should get back to that, now to think lol).

 

In terms of general creativity, I personally don't believe creativity is an inherent talent to anyone. Math has always been my favourite subject at school and I've always done well at it, and math is seen as more "logical" than that of other subjects such as art, however within the last few years I've been getting into learning and creating art. And while I'm not a grand master by no means I still think I'm pretty fine at it, and it's because I took my time to learn it. Same goes with mapping and any other creative/artistic field.

 

In summary, anyone can learn anything. Some may have it easier, but it's always due to how others have different backgrounds and ways of seeing things, if that makes sense.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Wavy

[Ravendesk]

14 minutes ago, Wavy said:

Talent doesn't exist.

How are you so confident about that?

 

Let's take absolute pitch for example. It is debated whether anyone can "develop" this skill or this is a natural occurrence, but either way this is something that you can only acquire as a little kid. When you are older it's too late to try and develop it. Considering the fact that at this age kids usually don't really understand larger implications of what hard work can achieve and what they want to do in life, it is largely independent of their decisions whether their parents managed to have them learn absolute pitch at the right age. What is this if not an example of a "talent"? Now, of course, having absolute pitch doesn't imply that you automatically become good at all creative musical skills, people with absolute pitch still need to put a lot of work to achieve great creative results, however it can give advantages for certain tasks (and disadvantages for other tasks actually).

 

Let's look at another example. There is a famous competitive scrabble player, Nigel Richards, who is known not only for unmatched competitive results, but also for winning several tournaments in French scrabble while not speaking French (for context, scrabble is a game where you need to lay out valid words on the board to score points, which requires a lot of dictionary study). Do you think he simply put more effort in studying French dictionary than every French player, or is there a possibility that his brain is just somehow very good at doing certain specific tasks (structured memorisation, for example), that happen to be greatly beneficial for a game like scrabble? Of course it should be noted, that scrabble is not just a game about memorising words, it has a lot of tactical and strategical decisions involved, and, of course, the ability to find patterns and needed words on the board, and of course he also had to put a lot of effort into getting good at this game to unlock his talent, but what this is if not talent?

 

There are also other phenomena, like synesthesia, mechanisms of which we cannot really explain, and that can affect someone's creative process and possibly in a way that others may perceive as "talent". Can synesthesia make you a good artist without putting any work in it? Absolutely not. Arguably this phenomenon has pretty weak influence on someone's creative abilities, but I still wanted to give this as an example of "unique" way brain works for some people.

 

I was of course only arguing a very broad "talent doesn't exist" statement. I think there are enough examples to suggest otherwise, and I only listed a few that I happen to know a bit more about.

 

Anyway, sorry for a very lengthy intro, I will now try to get to the point. So, despite all that, I still fully agree with what had been said in this thread before (by Xaser in particular): someone's prior experiences and existing skills and ability to apply them when doing something new, the ability to effectively learn new things, to self-reflect when learning them, to look critically at your own work - all these things are what other people usually see as "talent". They are not inherent, they are just reflection of knowledge and skills obtained in other fields prior to getting into a new one, that allow you to get into a new field quicker. And in niche fields like doom mapping this is especially prominent. Doom mapping scene is not a competitive game and we don't really have people dedicating their whole life only to mapping (unlike what you can see in chess, for example), and under these conditions even if someone's brain is inherently particularly great at something like idk imagining 3d spaces, this will never be a significant factor in what allowed them to create a great map and is never what allowed them to quickly "become good" at mapping. Other skills will always play a more important role along with, of course, dedication and hard work. 

[Pechudin]

12 minutes ago, Ravendesk said:

even if someone's brain is inherently particularly great at something like idk imagining 3d spaces,

 

Or 2.5D spaces.

 

This is bait, ignore it.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Pechudin

[baja blast rd.]

Another way I'd put it is that talent exists, but you're better off ignoring that because there's so much low-hanging fruit for getting better than dwarves the importance of talent -- and that people who over-obsess on the existence of talent are definitely going to miss out on. Talent is "real" but it's not an especially useful concept to the lone practitioner.

 

People sometimes have a way of attributing differences they don't truly comprehend to the bucket of "talent," but if you start picking that apart in a more nuanced way and realizing why one person gets better faster than another, or starts out better, you can gain a lot of useful lessons you can apply to yourself, or share with friends. And then talent will still exist, when all that is pared back, but 90+% of what you thought of as talent would have other explanations that you can actually use. The person who believes too strongly in talent, by comparison, rolls over and dies. 

[Wavy]

@Ravendesk I think I was a bit arrogant when I said "Talent doesn't exist" so I apologise for my vague wording, but I don't think I'm entirely incorrect. I was going to type something wordy but the way baja put it is way better than I could tbh.

 

I think what I really meant to say is that while talent does exist, it doesn't really define innate skill set I guess?

Edited November 28, 2023 by Wavy

[Deadwing]

59 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

Another way I'd put it is that talent exists, but you're better off ignoring that because there's so much low-hanging fruit for getting better than dwarves the importance of talent -- and that people who over-obsess on the existence of talent are definitely going to miss out on. Talent is "real" but it's not an especially useful concept to the lone practitioner.

 

People sometimes have a way of attributing differences they don't truly comprehend to the bucket of "talent," but if you start picking that apart in a more nuanced way and realizing why one person gets better faster than another, or starts out better, you can gain a lot of useful lessons you can apply to yourself, or share with friends. And then talent will still exist, when all that is pared back, but 90+% of what you thought of as talent would have other explanations that you can actually use. The person who believes too strongly in talent, by comparison, rolls over and dies. 

 

As someone whom was refered to """"talented"""" in my childhood, I second this.

Talent can only get you far until some point, but after that you will have to work yourself to get better anyway, which sometimes can become a crutch and hinder your progress.

 

Of course, sometimes you'll have extreme cases of 3 years old childs playing drums or piano better than anyone will ever be, but in the scope of Doom mapping I don't think that would be the case of anyone :P (3 years old releases perfect Kama Sutra sequel megawad in 2 weeks lol)

Edited November 28, 2023 by Deadwing

[Ravendesk]

14 minutes ago, Wavy said:

I think what I really meant to say is that while talent does exist, it doesn't really define innate skill set I guess?

Yeah, I agree, no need to apologise. I also didn't say anything about how individual can act upon these concepts, but I think rd summarised that perfectly.

 

It's just that "there is no talent, only hard work" notion can be easily perceived incorrectly and lead people to being disheartened because their hard work didn't allow them to achieve similar results as the mapper they look up to in a similar time. So it's important to break down what constitutes a "talent" and see that not only there is a lot of "hidden" work that was basically done before a talented person started mapping so it's not immediately visible, but also other important things such as good learning practices (that themselves have to be learned) that allow them to grasp doom mapping quicker. This understanding can also help to recognise your own strengths and your own talents and put them to good use when practising doom mapping.

 

So both "there is no talent, people just work harder than me" and "these people are just gifted and I'm not" can be demotivating notions and it's important to see that things are much more nuanced than that.

[magicsofa]

5 hours ago, Ravendesk said:

Let's look at another example. There is a famous competitive scrabble player, Nigel Richards, who is known not only for unmatched competitive results, but also for winning several tournaments in French scrabble while not speaking French (for context, scrabble is a game where you need to lay out valid words on the board to score points, which requires a lot of dictionary study). Do you think he simply put more effort in studying French dictionary than every French player, or is there a possibility that his brain is just somehow very good at doing certain specific tasks (structured memorisation, for example), that happen to be greatly beneficial for a game like scrabble? Of course it should be noted, that scrabble is not just a game about memorising words, it has a lot of tactical and strategical decisions involved, and, of course, the ability to find patterns and needed words on the board, and of course he also had to put a lot of effort into getting good at this game to unlock his talent, but what this is if not talent?

 

This is a fascinating example. But, he was already an experienced player by the time he entered French tournament, wasn't he? Furthermore, couldn't it just be that he focused only on the necessary information, such as the patterns that he could see in the way French words are spelled, and ignored the information that doesn't help win the game? In fact maybe he had an advantage by not knowing much of the meanings of the words, and not being stuck in the habits of a native speaker... maybe this made it easier for him to just focus on letter combinations?

 

I know I also said "I don't believe in talent" which sounds very blanket-statement... I guess what I really mean is that, in response to the original quiestion "how much of mapping is talent" I would say "very little." I mean, to really prove that talent can arise, you would have to find an example of a mapper who was crushing it right out of the gate without any training or even indirect experience to help them. 

[Ravendesk]

58 minutes ago, magicsofa said:

This is a fascinating example. But, he was already an experienced player by the time he entered French tournament, wasn't he? Furthermore, couldn't it just be that he focused only on the necessary information, such as the patterns that he could see in the way French words are spelled, and ignored the information that doesn't help win the game? In fact maybe he had an advantage by not knowing much of the meanings of the words, and not being stuck in the habits of a native speaker... maybe this made it easier for him to just focus on letter combinations?

Yes, he was already known as possibly the strongest scrabble player in English by that time. However, just focusing on patterns wouldn't help in scrabble because knowing large number of obscure words that utilise unusual combinations of letters is what gives the most competitive advantage on a high level of play. He actually managed to memorise some extremely obscure words (and also spot when non-existing but highly realistic-looking words were played against him by sceptical opponents). In short, I think this is a very strong example of a "genius" or "talent", however you want to call it.

Don't want to derail the thread, but if you are interested in learning about it in more detail here is a nice video covering said event and the player himself (there is more depth to the topic, but this is a good intro video): https://youtu.be/T-8NrvVqbT4

Either way as I mentioned before, I don't think this is something that we really see in doom mapping or something that's useful to compare ourselves to in context of doom mapping - as this field is quite different.

 

[Kwisior]

2 hours ago, magicsofa said:

I mean, to really prove that talent can arise, you would have to find an example of a mapper who was crushing it right out of the gate without any training or even indirect experience to help them. 

I'd say John Romero, but he had plenty of experience playing DnD and (I think) making Wolf3D levels. There might have been a bunch of talent involved though.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Kwisior

[roadworx]

28 minutes ago, Kwisior said:

I'd say John Romero, but he had plenty of experience playing DnD and (I think) making Wolf3d levels. There might have been a bunch of talent involved though.

romero has been designing games since his childhood. he was involved in the creation of loads of games, even before id software was founded; then at id, he was involved in several more games (all of the commander keen games, catacomb 3d, wolf3d) before doom was made. the guy has a shitload of experience, his mapping abilities didn't just come out of nowhere

 

that's the same story with the rest of the original id mappers: sandy petersen had previous experience creating call of cthulhu, and tom hall had previously worked at softdisk making games along with romero and carmack (not to mention commander keen being his brainchild). they all had plenty of prior experience

Edited November 28, 2023 by roadworx

[Tangra]

On 11/27/2023 at 8:24 PM, magicsofa said:

I don't really believe in talent.

 

If talent doesn't exist, then why most people here are making Doom levels and not ground breaking triple A games, or creating next gen graphic engines? I know some of you like to believe that you're on the same level as John Carmack, Albert Einstein, Mozart, John Williams, Steven Spielberg, Christopher Lee, Lionel Messi, Michael Jordan, The Beatles etc., but i'm afraid you need a reality check. "No, no, no... see, it's laziness the real reason why we can't be like these names, talent doesn't exist. All those hardworking people, who bust their asses, but never achieve their dreams, i bet they don't try hard enough". Come on...

 

I believe that everyone has a talent, but not everyone is lucky enough to find what that talent is. Also some people are more talented than others, and that's an absolute fact, you have the entire human history as a proof of that.