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Yes, time has been tight for me; especially in the last week. I hope to have more time after this weekend. Maybe I can work some on SM82 then.
I put up a "website" for myself, it is about 70% Quake2 content and 30% other. It isn't much for style or design, I know little to nothing about the whole web design thing and I do not have the time or energy to learn any more. I used a very basic wysiwyg editor (thus the "iffy" results for some browsers) and got some great help with the script that opens a new window when the thumbnails are clicked (thanks sonneh).
http://www.maricscabinet.com/ This does not have to be news but I knew there was at least actually, this is a good resource simply for your quake 2 map list. I was always frustrated that there was no place i could go to see all of your maps with screenshots.
That must have taken a long time to setup the site with all those screenshots.
Oh, and I guess it took some time to make all the maps, too. ;) finally there's a page for all your maps! Som eof the later ones definitely deserved to be shown off.
A suggestion though, how about displaying your latest stuff first and then moving back to you rearliest. That way you highlight the good stuff first up. Also, I like the little comments with each map screeen. I sent my dead hard drive off to my Dad, who assaulted it with various means of data retrieval, and there's good news. He's managed to restore almost everything on the drive and rescue all my old maps, textures, all of CF, and even LunSP1.
Happy happy joy joy. Remember kids, make regular backups. Awesome!
But, of course, you do realize that your excuses for not finishing LunSP1 have just decreased? How do you guys deal with the negative thoughts creeping into your head during the creative process? For example, you're working on something that you're very happy with, and then just to try and get a sense of how you're doing, you ask for opinions. If the opinions aren't necesarily helpful or specific, yet still implicitly negative, how do you stop yourself from questioning your own ability?
(example internal monologue) "Hmmm I guess it is pretty shitty, but I don't really know where to start to make it better" For most of you, do you even bother entertaining those thoughts? And if you don't, how do you if people actually enjoy or respect the work you're doing. I know that's kind of a loaded question, but I am curious. Just ask the critic to be a bit more specific about what he didn't like about it - then you can review those areas and decide for yourself whether they could be improved. Vague negative comments which don't actually describe *what* the problem is should not normally be dwelt on as, like you say, you just end up getting paranoid about the whole thing.
Also, it sometimes helps to ask "Ok, what would you do to make it better?" and you can use your own discretion to decide whether or not to take their ideas on board. okok... I know exactly what you're referring to Blitz. What you had shown for screenshots, despite looking pretty neat, really didn't impress the theme you were going for on us. What you had made was a bunch of cool architecture with lighting that would have worked great... had you been making a high tech type map, and not a dingy sewer. It wasn't really 'shit', just off themed.
What you really need to do it take the comments you got, and rethink what you were doing. You have a layout it seems, but the architecture and light needs to get redone. You're doing a HL2 map, which means going far more realistic than what you showed off. Something as simple as darker, less 'techy' lights and more piping/drippy sewerness would really sell it. with some of the theme ideas... from other shots i've seen, and I know you intend a concrete/sewer type arena still with an 'oldschool' QW generation kind of layout. That doesn't mean you can't still add oodles of delicious detailing that wont affect the player movement at all. In fact thats probably the BEST way to detail the map. I find myself getting stuck on so much in hl2dm, not just throwable objects but tons of tiny sticky outy bits. Fence off the goodness, keep the play area open & tight...embellish the theme and keep if coherent and you'll have a bitching map, that I promise to play!
Check out the coolest map/picture/thing you know. Does your map look like that? No? Do something about it then! It's all about Personal Perspective Calibration (tm).
When that happens to me, I get drunk, join a channel, make an ass of myself, then perform some ownage on some newbie in qw. And then I wake up and say "WTF I didn't map at all last night!" and then forget about it.
The first step is to divorce yourself from your feelings and a philosphical turn of mind when you are creating. Like John Gardner, the late novelist said, creativity takes no more patience, nor time out of a man's life than mastering fly fishing, but you never get long periods of inaction or self doubt from the fisherman.
Imagine in your minds eye what type of mapper you admire. Not any specific person in existence, but if you were to observe someone in a sort of career arc, what type of projects would they have been involved in, what kind of layouts would they have created that would have impressed you the most. Go so far as to write out a ficticious review of his five plus years of mapping, highlighting the strengths of his design and the pitfalls he avoided. The scenerios he created that pulled you in that made you go OMG! and HolyShit! Then work towards being that mapper. Some days you're on, some days you're off. If you know you have the potential to make maps that at least you enjoy, someone out there is bound to enjoy it to some extent as well. It's really a matter of patience, if you have the faith in yourself.
At least, that's how it is for me.
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