MY FIRST MAP: Premonition

[monkeyofevil]

okay, i thought i should put a story to go in with this. i used ultimate doom for this wad but i guess you can use whatever to play it. i only tested it in jdoom since its the only one i got. sorry, im not sure if it will work with other engines. anyways, heres the story:

You have just gotten word of an invasion on the UAC base. While you make your way towards the base, you enter a nightmarish dream state deployed onto you by the demons. in the dream you will experience great challenges that show you what lies ahead. if you survive the dream then you will know what you have to go up against in the near future. however if you die here, its over in reality.

upon exiting the dream you wake up in the nuclear plant ready to face the ebil for real.

OVERVIEW OF MAP: okay this is my first map ever. i dont know what you will think of it. But i think i made it too hard, so without giving away any spoilers, ill give you some hints.

Hints:
-save your ammo. although the weapon you will need most is in plentiful supply you will need to get as much as you can.
-its a straightforward level divided into 2 parts. once you leave part one you cant go back. there is something you need there to finish the level that isnt in the second part.
-keep moving. try to never stand still. trust me. if youstand still you will most likely die.
-only 1 secret, one you cant really miss. also this secret has a different sector effect than the rest of the room.


these tips are probaly useless because you already know this stuff, but hey, they could be useful to somebody. anyways heres the link.
tell me what you think of it.

http://savefile.com/files/6369596

the download button is at the bottom of the page. i had problems the first two times but i fixed the map so download the file premonition fix for a correct map.

[Illdo]

How to improve your map:

- All the doortraks move with the door, you should set them to "Lower Unpegged".
- Doors have a wrong floor texture.
- If you don't take the yellow key before going into the teleporter, you can't go back and reclaim it. (Do you even need it?)
- In the green slime room, the door is set to "unpegged', which makes it disappear from the bottom rather than raise.
- The level is overall pretty boring, flat and straightforward. Insert some variety, like stairs, elevators, ledges, cliffs, etc.

[Dutch Devil]

Why bother to pick up all the other weapons while your only need the bfg for this map.
This map was shiteasy tons of health and ammo, shall I help you an bit with improving the looks of this map?

[monkeyofevil]

thanks for the comments. well, i just wanted to see if i can make a basic level, it wasnt meant to be anything fancy. and i know about the door tracks, i fixed them once but the editor didnt save them. by the time i realized it i had already uploaded it, but since this was only a test map, i didnt think it was important to fix them right now.

and i know the level was sort of boring. again, i just wanted to see how it would all yurn out.

as for the yellow key. there are three doors at the end after the acid room. a yellow red and blue door. the first one is yellow so if you didnt get it your stuck after the teleporter. i didnt know how to put the colored skulls on the sides of the doors but ill try to fix that next time.

[monkeyofevil]

Why bother to pick up all the other weapons while your only need the bfg for this map.
This map was shiteasy tons of health and ammo, shall I help you an bit with improving the looks of this map?


you posted this while i was posting so i didnt see it.
well, would you use a bfg on five imps. you probaly would considering theres a whole room with bfgs right after that. but thats if you didint know that. i put them in there because i felt like it.
yes, i put too much ammo and health. but again, its just a test. it wasnt meant to be an expert map. also, if you read the little story that i made to go along with it, this was a dream showing you what you would be up against. its sort of a cheesy story but it shows that your only meant to get a taste of what lies ahead.

this was my first map. it sucks. i knew it probaly would. but now ill try something different.

[jake250]

Well, be honest, you didn't wasted even a day on this map :P

I will be completely honest... there is nothing in your map. Nothing, bland look, bad texture placement (look at these doors, do they really look good?) and bad items/monsters placement, im sorry but its isn't funnyy.

Yes you need some training, but in all honesty, doing this kind of map is good for training but is not worth posting - still, use what you learned here and train more if needed, then make a real map that doesn't take 5 minutes to do when you've understood the editor, because its how much time this map takes to make.

I'm not saying this against you and neither I want you to stop mapping - but be carefull and don't make such a tiny projects, think "bigger" for your next map.

Good luck! That is, if you make another map.

[monkeyofevil]

well thanks. your honest. i know, it sucks. i shouldnt have posted it. but your right. it was rushed and i didnt put alot of time into it. it only took me 10 hours because i was confused on what to do and kept messing up. i will make more maps but ill spend more time on them now. remember though, i never said it was good.

[Dutch Devil]

well, would you use a bfg on five imps.
Normally no id probably take the shotgun for this but since there was an large amount of cells lying around I kept using the bfg.
Keep mapping you will get better eventualy.

[jake250]

it only took me 10 hours because i was confused on what to do and kept messing up.

I was like that too, and everyone started where you are now anyway. Even if the map is not good, its enough to say "you've learned something". 10 hours? Quite long, I guess it took you a lot of time to figure things out, It did for me too.

Best thing in all honesty, is to aim high : not TOO high, but your target must be something not too linear, varied, etc... You could try making your own house like I did : it turned out good because I had to force myself and find the best way to make it like it should be. Since my target was already high enough, it greatly helped.

If you didn't, look at my house, its some topic lower. It took me a week to make I think, but it was my first map. Consider at least a week of work on a map, with a goal in mind, and you should end up with a good map! oh and it could take less than a week, I wasn't working all day long.

[rustyslacker]

Hey monkeyofevil, I have an offer:

After I play your map, I can re-detail it without changing the basic layout or the monster/ammo/health layout. Then you can take a look to get some ideas for your future maps. Sound good?

[monkeyofevil]

sure, if you want to do that then go ahead

[monkeyofevil]

hey guys i have a question. i want to make a map using final doom, but i only have the option of doom, ultimate doom, and doom2. i use doom builder. what do i need to do.

[ace]

Final Doom is just Doom2 with new levels and textures, so just select tnt.wad or plutonia.wad as your IWAD for the Doom2 setting.

As for the map, it's a typical first-map dealie. I won't bash it considering my first maps were certainly not much better (well, maybe a little :p), but I can say it definitely needs improvement. Keep practicing and working at it, and you'll improve, mereckons.

[rustyslacker]

AAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

You forgot to tell him to
http://forums.newdoom.com/images/old/gif/edit.gif

[ace]

Hush, you. I don't forget anything ever.

...

What were we just talking about? :p

[rustyslacker]

Hush, you.
You sound like my grandmother.

[ace]

Tarnation, sonny. These rotten childrens today and their general disrespect towards their elders. Well they can burn in hell, I say, every last one of 'em. :p

</spam>

[Gu-X]

Hey man, keep it up. Making maps is a world of fun and it gives you some experience in programming.

This topic may be old, but I have to show monkeyofevil a map I made much like his. (In the prospect of making masses of enemies, that is.) It was also my first map. Anyone else may try as well, and comments are always appriciated. (hehehe...)

http://www.geocities.com/bloodyspire/hellsfire.zip

Enjoy

[Aliotroph?]

Well, that fragfest just crashed Legacy on me. :p

As for monkey's map, it was honestly horrible. It gets points for not having any show-stopping errors (first maps usually do) but it doesn't have any gameplay or appearance worth speaking of.

Now that you know somewhat how to build maps and have them work ok, you can try things like wandering in other maps and looking closely at what makes them look or play well. Then try building some of those things and maybe even improving on them. For example, if you like computer rooms, try screwing around with those and seeing what sort of ideas you can come up with. You don't necessarily need to come up with whole maps every time; just build things that look good.

And if John Romero were here (he never comes over here. :( ) he'd say that if you want to build a big map you should try drawing the layout first to give you something to work with. That sometimes works. :) I have a lot of pieces of rooms I just built when I was first into mapping. Some of them have a couple neat ideas even if they're unplayable and suck on the whole. Fiddling around is good practice though.

Oh, and stories are mostly pointless effort unless you've got a pretty big project going. Most people just want to play DooM anyway. Don't get discouraged though. It's cool to see more people mapping for DooM.

[FATAL]

I think that every map should have some smart trick, puzzle or such to keep things interesting. At least, that's always what I try to do when I map.

[Aliotroph?]

I tend towards that too. You don't really need any clever new tricks though. DooM generally plays pretty well if you work at the design.

[Raptor Jesus]

i haven't tried it yet but i've already found flaws just by reading what you said. Don't make a map that causes you to get stuck if you forget to pick something up. This pisses me off more then anything in games because it means you have to start over. i'm downloading the map now and i'll put an edit after i've thuroughly tested it.

[EDIT] first off, map 30 of doom 2 didn't even have that much ammo. too easy. Your secret fails it. you put a glowing object in a dark corner. no exit switch. And whats the random teleport pad on the floor at the end? Definately not something i would post online.

I like my first map better. You start out with a super shotty, enough ammo to get the job done, a bunch of ss nazi's infornt of you with their back turned, a cyber demon facing you. He shoots, pisses off the nazis, and the nazi's kick his ass XD

BTW, my post count is PI WEWT!!! heh

[monkeyofevil]

ok, really, i know this sucked, it was a bad idea, i did it in ten hours. so what. it was my first. maybe not as good as other first maps, but hey, im getting better. i started one on my house, but i have a question. i got the basic layout done. but i want to put a joke in here. i think of my sisters room as an evil room. so i want to put a teleporter in there that leads to an icon of sin. now heres the problem, how do they get the face together. i have every thing i need to know except how to stack the face parts. and i know they are like stairs just really thin. well, how do they make them that thin. i cant do it. i tried rearranging them, resizing them, hell, i even looked at all 3 icon of sin maps in doom builder and couldnt figure it out. how do they make the parts so thin and get them so close to where they look like one flat surface. i dont get it. i even tried prefabbing the other icon of sins using doom builder. it doesnt copy the whole thing. im stuck, i need help, big time. any suggestions.

[beanenator1]

Change your grid size

[Aliotroph?]

Exactly. Grid size is key there. 8 should probably be small enough but you can go all the way to 1 if you really, really need to. I doubt nodes builders like maps with too much stuff on that small a grid.

[Raptor Jesus]

hehe. I have a lot of 1 pixel wide sectors :P. I've noticed that in doom builder's 3D mode, it really screws things up by making the ceiling and ground textures see through but it looks fine in doom so i don't really worry about it.

[Aliotroph?]

I tend to make them too. Handy for things like breakable vent grates and clever lighting tricks. They can hurt BSP tools (and Legacy) though. :D

[MR_ROCKET]

Ah the days of Wad Author's 1 unit grid size and a really old bsp :D

Grid of 2 is ok in db though but if you start working in a 1 unit grid size even zoomed in it will want to auto connect the vertex to any given closest line thats in a 1 to 2 unit radius from it. - keeping you from sliding that linedef that much closer to the next without connection.
But yeah it probably is better that way if it might achieve a better node build.

heh imagine a .10 grid size in doom, now thats liable to burn something up.
Rofl awasome, perfect for my .10x.10 texture i'v been working on!

[FATAL]

Grid of 2 is ok in db though but if you start working in a 1 unit grid size even zoomed in it will want to auto connect the vertex to any given closest line thats in a 1 to 2 unit radius from it. - keeping you from sliding that linedef that much closer to the next without connection.
If you press control+z once right after doombuilder connects the dots, it restores stuff to what it would be without the automation, leaving your changes in place.

[monkeyofevil]

ok, thanks guys