SiMpLeToNiUm

Sure! I'd be interested to see how this would slot into a WAD.

Yeah, if the ceiling isn't F_SKY1 and the way you see the sector is splitting off in triangles that aren't geometry you've actually drawn, it tells you there's a nodebuilder void there. You usually solve it by either moving some vertices around, deleting and re-making sectors, drawing lines through that sector, or building nodes later on. It could also POTENTIALLY be an unconnected vertex. Make sure "Snap to Geometry" is turned on and that vertex is actually touching the wall there.

It's an in-joke referring to the extensive usage of the OCONC otex concrete texture (along with Warren's personal...attraction to it <3 )

This isn't AT anyone in particular, but just something I feel needs to be said. There's a real undertone of pity to this whole thing, and I think it needs to be reiterated that most people have gotten recognition envy at some point. It's a natural part of the creative experience and just being part of a community in general. When people get lost in it though or have unaddressed shit in their personal lives, it gets pathological and everyone's worse off for it...like with this whole thing. It's always really uncomfortable to see grown adults acting like literal children. A better effort could come about someday that isn't just a bad-faith grab at clout and attention, and I really hope someone manages it, but until then I think this type of behavior is to be expected. Additional Doom community awards could potentially do a lot of good, but they have to have focus and the right intentions behind them. Lots of people smelt this coming from miles away and it gave off real bad vibes from the start. There's a necessity to understand pro-social behaviors and having humility and a genuine interest in growing as a creative person that is sorely lacking from the Doom Awards and people that pull the woe is me routine during each Cacoward season. That's not being mean-spirited, elitist or cynical. We see it every year. Grow up, check your ego, put your nose to the grindstone and hone your craft in humble silence while trying to actually be a better creative and a better person. You might get a Caco that way, you might not, but doing it JUST to get one will ensure you never do, and some people are in such scary denial about all of that. It's not just about you, it's about the journey and the friends and support you make along the way. Pat your fellow Doomers on the back, learn from them and be a part of the community's growth. Stop trying to get your slice of the cake and STOP with the pathologically antisocial behavior. THAT's why this undertaking failed, not because people wanted it to.

Avast ye scurvy Doomers!!

I shall lay claim to an Ep. 4 slot, kindly.

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.

A bit of feedback myself, aside from all the gushing and praise I wanna lump upon this mapset: This area in the Egypt map, for flow and QoL I think there should be some stairs that rise up from the sand in this corner once you complete the encounter here (maybe a switch on the wall next to the diabolist or a trigger once you go that way the first time) since you have to constantly loop around if you're going back through this area again: These bars in the Royal Chapel just outside of the big Cathedral fight can softlock you if you come back through this area and re-trigger them. I'm not sure exactly how this happens: Nodebuilder void in The Eye of the Cosmos: Also in the same map, I feel like the lifts should be easier to spot. Earlier on in the map I had 0 idea these were lift textures. Something like lights or something earlier on could make this easier to notice. I think it was only towards the end of the map I watched a lift raise or lower and only then went back through the map noticing the other ones. Maybe something with brightmaps or lights on it?

Godless Night by Tango, et. al:

A big part of me really doubts it's something that's "never been discussed here" before. It's likely that when it was/is discussed, such threads meet a similar fate, and probably for very good reason. It doesn't take a master detective to figure out why. It's just a bad idea to go drama-stoking, no matter how burning your curiosity is. That's all a thread like that can do: stoke old drama for no reason.

Flow. State.

I think we should clarify "aesthetics." If that means overall fidelity of the environments, i.e. detail or complexity, then that matters a bit less to me than say, artistic expression of a concept or the more classical definition of "aesthetics." If you have a chosen theme or design philosophy and I see it in your work or can guess at it because of how well you've expressed that idea, that is much more enthralling and interesting to me than the overall detail level, or fidelity, although grand or opulent maps do have a wow factor to them that is hard to ignore. Say for instance the aesthetic you're going for is brutalism, and you do a very good job of capturing that very specific idea through how you've crafted your experience, regardless of the overall fidelity. Or, say gameplay or storytelling is your primary focus and you nail it with some passable visuals. I'm going to be much more impressed by every other aspect of the work rather than just how it looks. Overall, great looking maps are just a bonus for me, but they do have unignorable staying power.

Damn these look great! Gonna have to give this one a go!

Latest WIPs from Culling Strike: