Func_Msgboard: Rapid Map Development

Posted by Jago on 2009/11/01 14:29:55

I would like to hear what approaches other people take to speed up the development of their maps so that they actually see the day of release and whether that comes naturally or whether you end up having to focus on the issue of development speed.

Back when I first started mapping in 1997-1998, my first few maps took about 3-5 weeks to make each. Now obviosly since they were first maps, they were also really shit. Over time, I learned to understand what actually made any given map good, started paying attention to polish and detail and this has caused the development times to balloon completely out of control.

Apinaraivo / Monkey Rage, the Q1SP I released a few years ago took 6 months of active development time, mapping 2-4 hours pretty much every single day. Right now I also have an UT3 DM map in the works and while I admittedly have been quite lazy, that alone can't really quite explain the numbers: I take a new backup of a map file every new day I am working on the map, judging by the amount of backup files, I have worked on this map on 35 different days so far amd while it does have some interesting things, it not even remotely close to a beta.

At least in part, the problem seems to be that I am not easily satisfied with the quality of my work, random XYZ thing has to be just right before I can move on to something else and this often results in me rebuilding a small section of a map 10+ times, making tiny adjustments, moving things around, etc etc so that at the end of the day, a lot of work has been done, but I have very few things I can actually point my finger at and say that "this is new stuff I've added today", so the progress feels very slow.

And then I see some people making absolutely jawdropping releases using new, modern engines that they have not only made the map itself, but also had to build all the meshes and create quite a few materials, test, polish and release into the wild, all done in a timeframe of 3-4 weeks.

WTF?

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#101 posted by ijed on 2009/12/01 11:35:28

I used a method -don't know what to put here, need coffee- to this a while ago.

I ended up spending alot more time on the map than I was comfortable with and produced alot of additional pieces that were never used - but alot of people seemed to like it.

Basically I was putting a big brick into the map with a couple of other bricks on it to show where the exits / entrances were needed, then copying it out to another, empty map in order to build it and do the brushwork.

When I was happy with it I'd copy it into the main map and slot it into its place instead of the brick.

I ended up making lots of stuff I never used, so this is probably for 'slow map development' but the process seemed to work ok. Not having all the rest of the map as a distraction seemed to help.

Huh

#102 posted by Drew on 2009/12/02 17:00:39

thats a good idea.

This

#103 posted by Jago on 2009/12/05 16:17:16

isn't an example of "rapid mad development", but a cool overview (with screenshots obviously) of how an UT3 map evolved from few basic blocks into a full blown beautiful map: https://sites.google.com/site/chongleevoxels/ctf-sabr/how-ctf-sabr-evolved

#104 posted by JneeraZ on 2009/12/05 23:18:29

Very cool! Yeah, that's more or less what we do at work.

Very Interesting Thread

#105 posted by rudl on 2009/12/19 05:40:35

My Problem is that everything I start gets boring after a while. Not only quake maps: paper models drawings when i want to make them perfect. Those quick and dirty short sketches seem to be better than the final model.
And I don't have that much time at the moment for mapping. Wasn't mapping since september.
Now I have a little bit of time for mapping, winter break. trying to make screencasts to analyse progress. Today was the first one I tried to speed things up by thinking less. Spent 1:13h for 196 polys.
Unfortunately the screencast is too big (1.5GB) to upload it. my internet sucks.
Does someone know how to transcode ogv theora videos?

#106 posted by Spirit on 2009/12/19 09:48:12

mencoder and ffmpeg should both be able to. The rest depends on things you did not ask or mentioned.

#107 posted by JneeraZ on 2009/12/19 11:29:56

Funnily enough, I lost interest. I guess this isn't the answer for me, QUake wise. I'll have to keep experimenting with techniques...

Oh Dear.

#108 posted by Shambler on 2009/12/19 17:04:18

*sob*

#109 posted by Zwiffle on 2009/12/19 17:06:37

I find that odd, since your favorite part of mapping is detailing and you just got through with (or were very close to finishing) the layout portion and were about to get started with detailing.

#110 posted by necros on 2009/12/19 20:28:54

just as an fyi, i'm attempting to do this with a doom3 map atm while i take a break from quake for a bit.

typically, i get bogged down when working on d3 content because of the sheer amount of things that have to be taken care of.

it's not blueprint textures, but i'm building with the absolute bare minimum, 99% simple brushwork and only adding in map objects when they are necessary for gameplay. ironically, in order to stay interested, i'm creating the gameplay at the same time as the layout. while it slows things down a bit, it also makes the gameplay a more active element in the map layout.

Necros

#111 posted by [Kona] on 2009/12/19 23:07:19

sweet bro, is it gonna be single player d3?

yeah that ut3 map turned out looking quite good didn't it. the first few screenshots i was thinking omg this look awful, worst layout ever this is gonna be a steaming pile of crap.

#112 posted by JneeraZ on 2009/12/19 23:23:45

"I find that odd, since your favorite part of mapping is detailing and you just got through with (or were very close to finishing) the layout portion and were about to get started with detailing."

It's a little odd, yes. I dunno, I guess maybe I hurried the layout and wasn't really happy with it and don't want to rework it? Beats me, at any rate ... bored.

Bummer

#113 posted by Drew on 2009/12/20 00:18:26

You still have that larger map in the works, don't you?

#114 posted by necros on 2009/12/20 02:58:58

sweet bro, is it gonna be single player d3?

yeah, it'll be a minimod that uses my tweaked gameplay stuff. it plays a lot like quake atm esp with movement speed boosted up and max 5 damage from falling.

the ai stuff in d3 is pretty awesome. aas pathing owns.

#115 posted by JneeraZ on 2009/12/20 03:10:35

"You still have that larger map in the works, don't you?"

It's there. Lurking.

#116 posted by necros on 2009/12/20 03:48:33

what kind of food does it like? maybe we can coax it out of hiding. ^_^

Bump!

#117 posted by RickyT33 on 2009/12/20 04:15:35

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/screen_shots/rickyt23_wip.png

What Maps That?

#118 posted by ijed on 2009/12/20 05:01:53

Looks cool :)

Its The Same One I've Been Making All Year! ;)

#119 posted by RickyT33 on 2009/12/20 15:11:58

The only one I've made this year except coag3, you know which one it is!

Great

#120 posted by ijed on 2009/12/20 15:13:46

Don't forget the code requests ;)

#121 posted by Drew on 2009/12/20 17:24:57

Looks good, can't wait to play it Ricky.
I hope its brutal as usual!

Its A Remake For The RemakeQuake Project!

#122 posted by RickyT33 on 2009/12/20 17:27:53

So if you wanna play it then we'd better finish the pack!

Yeah

#123 posted by Drew on 2009/12/20 17:35:10

I thought so.
And yeah, you totally should.

Map Development

#124 posted by rudl on 2010/01/31 16:10:55

I uploaded 73 minutes mapping. It's unfortunately rather big 669.2 MB

http://www.mydrive.ch/
user: joee@banan
banana

I'm also very interested in the workflow of other mappers.

Nice

#125 posted by Zwiffle on 2010/01/31 19:05:58

Reminded me I found these on worldofleveldesign.com - several videos for L4D2 workflow - scroll down and you'll see "L4D Environment Workflow"

http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/cat_left4dead_mapping.php

Fascinating to watch and some generally useful information. Videos are sped up to 2x and about 6-10 minutes in length each.

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