Hello.
How do people come up with their mapping ideas? What is the process, what do you do when you can think of a layout design or an idea? Are there any things you do to limit you or at least give you a direction when you can't think of a map to create?
Thank you.
Mapping Ideas
There are usually three methods I personally use for Alien Arena.
The first is, I just have some kind of idea or concept pop into my head. I might think of a theme, or a specific layout that I want uniquely for our game. I'll think to myself, I want a gothic styled map with two or three tiered vertical play, or I want a weird sci-fi map with brains in jars and electrodes everywhere. Good examples of this are maps like dm-deathray, dm-invasion, dm-warmachine, dm-furious, dm-crucible, dm-vesuvius.
The second is I see or play a map, or some kind of art and get inspired by it. Sometimes I'll start with trying to recreate a main room from a memory of a UT or Q3 map, using some derivative architecture, and go from there, usually winding up with a map that has the "feel" of something, and maybe some derivative rooms, but a different layout. Dm-dynamo, dm-deimos, dm-oblivion, dm-purgatory are examples, they have the feel of something seen before in other games, but the layouts are unique.
The third is the most derivative. I'll have played a map over the years, and want to create my own "ish" version of it, making either subtle or broad changes, depending on how faithful I want it to be, or how much "alien" I want to inject into it. Dm-beyond, dm-dread, dm-babel, dm-eternal, dm-chasmatic are examples of quasi-remakes of Q3 and UT maps.
The first is, I just have some kind of idea or concept pop into my head. I might think of a theme, or a specific layout that I want uniquely for our game. I'll think to myself, I want a gothic styled map with two or three tiered vertical play, or I want a weird sci-fi map with brains in jars and electrodes everywhere. Good examples of this are maps like dm-deathray, dm-invasion, dm-warmachine, dm-furious, dm-crucible, dm-vesuvius.
The second is I see or play a map, or some kind of art and get inspired by it. Sometimes I'll start with trying to recreate a main room from a memory of a UT or Q3 map, using some derivative architecture, and go from there, usually winding up with a map that has the "feel" of something, and maybe some derivative rooms, but a different layout. Dm-dynamo, dm-deimos, dm-oblivion, dm-purgatory are examples, they have the feel of something seen before in other games, but the layouts are unique.
The third is the most derivative. I'll have played a map over the years, and want to create my own "ish" version of it, making either subtle or broad changes, depending on how faithful I want it to be, or how much "alien" I want to inject into it. Dm-beyond, dm-dread, dm-babel, dm-eternal, dm-chasmatic are examples of quasi-remakes of Q3 and UT maps.
http://red.planetarena.org - Alien Arena and the CRX engine
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Team Xlink
- Posts: 368
- Joined: Thu Jun 25, 2009 4:45 am
- Location: Michigan
When you just start to map, with no clear idea in your head, do your maps ever seem to be similar to maps you recently saw or remember, or played on?
I was mapping today after playing TeamFortress 2 on the Xbox 360 (It is part of the Orange Box Collection), and my map turned out to have a similar style or setup to 2Fort.
I was mapping today after playing TeamFortress 2 on the Xbox 360 (It is part of the Orange Box Collection), and my map turned out to have a similar style or setup to 2Fort.
Nah, in that case they turn out to be incoherent messes. These days I usually now always have a pretty clear idea of what I am going to do, often drawing the map out on paper before attempting to build it.Team Xlink wrote:When you just start to map, with no clear idea in your head, do your maps ever seem to be similar to maps you recently saw or remember, or played on?
http://red.planetarena.org - Alien Arena and the CRX engine