I made another map. Comments appreciated.

[Darkwave0000]

Hello again. I just got finished that map I've been working on. I did my best, and I think I did alright. I was trying to do what Goveynetcom said and make it so you're going and suddenly something happens, so made lots traps. I also tried making a bit bigger map than before, and a more complicated layout too. I tried to make the map kinda spooky too. *cacevl*

I got the stairs working. It looks like you only tag one sector and then all the sectors next to it with linedefs pointing to it rise and the pattern continues until it gets to a line that faces backwards, so it's like teleports and you have to flip the lines the right ways. *cackew*

Please. Any suggestions on how the mapping can be improved are being welcomed. Tell me anything you see that can be practiced more. I am being interested to hear what you think. Thanks everyone. :D

Download Darkwave4 (http://files.filefront.com/Darkwave4zip/;12588427;/fileinfo.html)

[Mystic]

ok, will be back later with comments, thanks.

[Goveynetcom]

I will try it soon (have homework right know) and thanks for following my suggestion I hope it helped make your maps more fun. I think I will probably enjoy this map.

[CrazedImp]

Getting a lot better very quickly, and its very impressive how quickly you are able to make these maps.

[Aliotroph?]

It looks nice and it plays mostly nice. It's a little frustrating when every ten seconds there's a new monster teleport ambush. Only other thing I can think of is to watch the alignment on some textures. I caught one of those wall boxes with fire in the back being a bit mis-aligned. Yeah, now I have to be insanely nitpicky to find anythign wrong. hehe

[Mystic]

damn thing wont load on my Legacy, is this a zdoom map ?

/reads the reply below and buggers off to try again

[Aliotroph?]

It works fine in Legacy. :p Pretty sure it's vanilla. I don't play with Legacy anymore though. Doesn't support my widescreen monitor.

[Mystic]

nope its still refusing to work, it stops loading with a message that reads:
I_Registersong: StreamBufferSetup FAILED

beats the hell out of me, I tried a couple other maps and they worked fine

[Goveynetcom]

Yeah how do you map so fast?

[Aliotroph?]

nope its still refusing to work, it stops loading with a message that reads:
I_Registersong: StreamBufferSetup FAILED

beats the hell out of me, I tried a couple other maps and they worked fine

Methinks there's a 99% chance the fmod.dll file in your Legacy folder is toast. Would probably work if you got a new version of the file or disabled the MIDI music in the launcher.

[Darkwave0000]

Thanks everyone for commenting. :)

Which of the teleporting monsters is most of a frustration? Should I only teleport monsters near important things, or simply with less frequency?

When I map, here's the process I use. First I draw all the layout first thing. I think this helps me keep motivated because I know how much space I have to fill, in opposition to not knowing because of the adding of more areas. Then I pick the start room and add the lights to it or things like the diamond fire boxes or computer screens or buttons to press. When I get to a zone between areas or change wall texture, I make a border, and continue this pattern until I fill the layout. Then I add stuff to play with, like monsters and weapons. If I want a trap, then I add another sector to the edge of a room if there's space. Last, I make enemies deaf and lines block enemies and technical things. Beforehand, I made a whole step-by-step list of what I do to make a map that I look to while doing the mapping, so I can follow that when I make one and not worry about forgetting what to do next. I find the methodical approach of following list and notes to be very useful in doing things like this. I hope this information is helpful! :D

Also, for future use, I was wanting to make an outdoors map next, with rocks and grass and water and stuff. However, the techniques I've been using so far will not be helpful I think because there aren't any borders or lights outside. What types of thechniques should I be focusing on to make such a map as this? *cachlo*

[MR_ROCKET]

Mystic, I think whats going on is the wad has a standard midi in it instead of mus. And if I remember right the most recent 1.4x version of legacy has midi disabled. There was something I think -digimus 1 might re-enable it. other than that being the case, yeah disable music like Alio was say'n. It could be your sournd card or fmod. or see what it does with -nomidi
I can't tell from this end, I have an Audigy2 zs, which wants to play anything though. :p

The map is pretty cool so far man, I'v just started check'n it out, and got crushed at the beginning, I'll let ya know. :P

[Mystic]

I will try that in the morning, Im being dragged off to bed just now.

[Aliotroph?]

Legacy has MIDI disabled? Methinks not. Works awesome for me. I figured the -digimus thing was for .oggs and such. I'm running 1.42 and MIDIs work great. I do have to say the only way that MIDI file sounds good is on ZDoom's emulated FM synth. The Microsoft/Creative/Yamaha synths make it sound awful.

As for the teleports, they just happen too often. This is somewhat true of traps in general. Almost every room in the map is a teleport or monster closet trap. Playing the map basically means knowing my exit strategy so I can run and hide to regroup.

Outside maps are more rare and generally uglier on average. There can be borders for some things though. Best plan might be to pick apart stuff that looks good and see what kinds of techniques went into it. Most of the outside parts in the original games were really very simple and don't make good examples.

[Goveynetcom]

From what I'm hearing you put a lot of teleports .... maybe too much but people make mistakes. Haven't played your map yet but maybe lay off so many teleports, but this only a suggestion like everyone else said to me, map for yourself and your own enjoyment not everyone elses.

[Mystic]

For outside areas with rocks and water etc try to avoid large flat, open spaces, add decorative bits with different heights to keep things interesting, could have a high cliff as a border surrounding the outside area with some caves in it. No reason you cant have lights or torches in your outside areas if you want them. Get some custom textures for your rocky bits, Doom has crappy textures for things like that, even the ones from heretic/hexen are better.

[ghost]

Open spaces isn't that bad, provided that you do keep all the rocks/cliffs sizes proportional. E.g. Big cliffs with tiny rocks wouldn't seem correct.

In my opinion, there are so many different ways of making outdoors, every maps are so different if you compare the outdoor bits. I think the very important thing is to make sure the texture selections are good. Like Mystic said, get custom textures, they will do you wonders. For the lighting bit, just be creative! You could have flaming barrels, or torches, or have light poles, whichever you fancy.

If you would like to see different outdoor maps, wait for NDCP2, there are chock FULL of outdoor maps. One of mine specifically, Map27 Wastelands has huge sprawling landscapes. The maps are excellent inspirations for outdoor mapping. :p

[Mystic]

Ok, I cut the music lump out and the wad plays fine in Legacy now, i never use music when playing doom anyway so thats no loss to me.

Ive not played it all through yet but Im impressed yet again with the design skills of the author, very good looking map with nice use of textures and colour. I was a little concerned right at the start when I could hear a spider monster and im armed with just a pistol but it hasnt shown up yet and now i got a shotgun. I will play farther later when I get some time to myself.

[MR_ROCKET]

@Alio, Maybe I'm thinking of the birthday version of Legacy, I think midi was disabled when ogg and things like that were put in. I'm sure it was, I remember asking Hurdler about it at the time.

[Mystic]

I must be using that one then.

Oh, about the wad, I ran out of ammo fighting a bloody cyberdemon, that pissed me off. Its bad enough having a cyberdemon without having all those other monsters there to use up my ammo.

[MR_ROCKET]

I remember what it was now, it did have midi but for wads that had midi instead of mus, -digimus had to be in command line before the midi was heard. something like that.
Sorry for all my blabbing about the midi stuff haha.
Your thread Darkwave.
/runs

[Darkwave0000]

Aww. You ran out of ammo fighting the Cyberdemon. That's not good. :(
Perhaps I should have made it another spider robot instead, or maybe put a plasma gun or rocket gun inside the yellow door? Actually, I think I need to practice layout more. Now that I think of it, I put all those rockets in yellow door, and you don't even need to get the rocket gun to open it. Perhaps I am not being mindfull that I already expect all the traps, but need to make sure the map is still logical without such expectations?

OK, so here's what I gather I work on: teleport monster (less frequency) and layout. I think I'll come back to these things later after more practice and try different things for the next mapping. I think I'll wait for NDCP2 as well for the outdoors map to see the techniques involved as well.

Thanks for all your help! :D
This was very productive to improving the mapping. I'll do my best for the next one (and maybe try making better this map as well after that).

[Mystic]

I didnt mind the teleporting monsters,kept me on my toes. I think the running out of ammo had more to do with me being a trigger happy bastard than a lack of ammo, I should have used the chainsaw more on the imps, demons etc to conserve precious ammo. Im not used to such hectic fighting, most of my own maps play a completely different way, I like to explore, look around, snipe at enemies, hunt them down (or have them hunt me) in my own maps which are the ones I play most.
Dont take too much advice from others, your a good mapper, do your own thing, if folk dont like it they can make their own.