I remember Aardappel saying never to make any room's walls the same -- make each area different to avoid monotony. (Or something similar) 

mapping "correctly." I read em all, but I don't remember any of it. 

[1] dont have largish or long empty areas devoid of monsters.

[2] dont have small boxy rooms with low ceilings.

[3]vary textures and have detailing in the textures, not just large bland walls.

[4]Interconnect your map so it feels like a real place.

[5] Think what type of mosters work best in what type of setting.

[6]if in doubt make gameplay harder rather than easier.

and lots of other stuff too. =)

hey go easy on me... this is a long post for me. :o 

As for #3, you have to be careful about the textures used in the sense that the majority of textures are there to hide the simple geometry underneath and help maintain the illusion of real objects.

There is an ugly trend that texture artist have been doing with the advent of high resolution textures and that is to dress up the textures in lovely and curvy scratch marks that call too much attention to themselves. You see this big time in the Quake retexture project, but it exist in a lot of current sets for Quake Arena and Unreal Tournament.

Gamers have come to expect it and one team, Eidos Invisible War crew that purposively avoided it for a more subdued look has come under heavy criticism by Dues Ex fans because they think they want their beautific squiggleys. Art movements have always been susceptable to ugly little mannerisms like this, like garish coloured lights in Quake II levels, but I think even the public will grow in accepting better defined artistic standards.

Rant aside, IMHO, best use of texturing EVER in a Quake map, Xenon's 100 Hours 'til Dawn. 

http://www.planetquake.com/teamshambler/theories1.html
http://www.planetquake.com/teamshambler/theories2.html

Those are quite old i.e. late 98 / early 99, but if you haven't got the intelligence to judge what might be outdated or what might need to be interpreted in a modern way, you shouldn't be mapping. 

[1] dont have largish or long empty areas devoid of monsters

Zer1m6 - True Love Waits

Headthump: Best use of texturing ever? Come again? Hehe... how many maps have you actually ever played? :-) 

DO keep your major architecture brushes aligned on a size 32 grid where possible. Preferably 64 for outlining walls/floors.

DO keep connecting corridors at lesat 128 units high & wide if you plan to have monsters in them.

DON'T use custom textures which you haven't seen in a map before (unless a.> you know what you're doing, or b.> they really are the dogs bollocks.. if in doubt post screenshots to hear what people think).

DO get people to betatest your map!

DO try & make lighting look interesting.

DO play other highly rated maps before starting your own, and learn from them; what makes them good, architecture, texture usage, layout, gameplay... etc. 

...use Quoole 

...zer1m6 doesn't really count. It was a huge, moody, tense, long, empty area that was devoid of monsters UNTIL you get to the very "end" and suddenly it's a huge, moody, tense, long area full of monsters and items and you have to fight your way through all the way back to the beginning. A rule-breaking masterpiece IMHO.

So maybe "Don't have largish or long empty areas devoid of monsters unless you effectively create a very tense atmosphere, or it's a DM map." :-)


BTW. I'm suprised (and a little disappointed) that Shambler or Vondur hasn't posted some advice along the line of "Don't waste your time and mapping talent doing stupid, pointless speedmaps." ;-) 

1. Play all the maps for the game and make sure yours is in the same style as a popular map, otherwise there's a good chance no one will play it.

2. Make sure your map is not of the same style as anything that exists already, what's the point? 

map 

Don't: listen to Speedy/Mapist

Do: flame him

Don't: hold back

Do: call him a trolling moron who can't map his way out a box or add in anyway to any discussion. 

most of these do and don'ts are stupid...

all you need is DO make good, interesting maps with cool architecture and good gameplay, and DON'T get lazy and make sloppy brushwork that only increases r_speeds and saves you nil time. 

he he -- You should know by now that whenever I use superlatives I am kidding, but 100 Hours is a handsome little map. The texture usuage and lighting make it appear there is more to the map than is actually there..