What's The Deal With Start Maps In Jam Packs Anyway
Because walking through a portal/slipgate is more fun than typing commands in the console? Anyway, NewHouse is not actually making any gameplay map for this, so him making a start map won't waste anything. 

Would be nice to make a map first and worry about that later. 

There is only one worrying, surely others are just focusing on their maps. No need to repeat this anymore. Let's say on topic, shall we. 

 

What's the deadline for this? I went into this but I'll be busy with the end of the year's festivities and I have an internship for the entirety of January.

Though even with that I'll try to make the most of my map. 

And cheers for the level design documentation links that was added! 

plenty of time, daya
lots, lots of days to finish the map

some screens with the work i made so far.

http://imgur.com/a/Jcux0

it's ok the tower in the third and four screenshots, with half of its base in the air? it's odd, but is a good example and aplication of oddness, or just bad? 

As long as there is no leaks or other errors after compiling your map, almost everything is possible.

Here is some links that might be good to add to the document file if not already there, tools and compiling gui:
https://ericwa.github.io/tyrutils-ericw/
https://shoresofnis.wordpress.com/utilities/ne_q1spcompilinggui/ 

Friendly reminder to regularly compile and test your maps, this will save any major error finding later on, and if your maps fails to compile, you'll know it was something to do with whatever you've added since the last compile.

You can use the tools posted above by Topher or I've heard the latest version of Trenchbroom has a built in compiler too.

Backups are a must too! have a backup folder if you don't already, save constant new versions so if anything goes wrong you can go back to a recent build that works. You can always delete map files later on and they're very small so might as well save "MYMAP_11", "MYMAP_12" etc, a few times per mapping session. 

The final version should be named like this: qump_authornamehere 

i have 15 water brushes. there aren't gaps or intersections between brushes.
i tested the map in quakespasm and i can swim without problem of any kind.
can i expect problems or bugs with what i did?
weird bugs, problem with other engines, something like that.

http://imgur.com/a/cqDlp 

The best way to know if there'll be problems with other engines is to test it in these engines yourself. 

multiple adjacent water brushes is fine, the qbsp will merge them all, just make sure all of their surfaces imply the same contents value otherwise the brush might become solid instead.
water areas with different surface heights are fine (see dm3.bsp). even water above air is fine (see start.bsp). and of course bizzare shapes are fine (see pretty much ANY map with a teleporter).
the only time it might look weird is when you directly load the .map in your editor.

just be aware that water will not seal your map (unlike sky). any water fragments that remain in the void will get filled/removed instead of leaving cavities, so be sure to surround the underwater playable areas with solid brushes just as you would above-water areas. 

good to know, thanks

i know that there are technical specifications out there. but they are somewhat intimidating, academic, dry and extensive to newcomers. 

No worries, if you face any problems while mapping just let us know and someone eventually know how to help you. 

Not sure what your plans are with all of those water brushes, and maybe you know this, but in case you don't:

Water brushes can overlap with solid brushes. If you're creating e.g. a pillar standing in a pool of water, you don't have to painstakingly cut up your water brush into smaller pieces that fit around the pillar; you can just draw one large water brush that passes through the pillar and the floor and walls of the pool.

As I said, maybe you know this and maybe you're trying to do something special with those water brushes, but I thought it's worth mentioning this, as many newbies don't know this. (I know I didn't, and initially went to a lot of unnecessary trouble sculpting water brushes.) 

I'm thinking of combining aztec/mayan architecture with some Base tech, kinda like stargate. 

http://imgur.com/a/KjrgN

after one week of mapping for the first time i'm beginning to actually map.
i'm keeping two "maps". one with the general outline, and the actual map in wich i will put monsters, details, funcs and see how it evolves.

some guidelines that i have found useful:
* try to work most of the time with a grid of 16 for brushwork.
* see the sizes of most textures (64x64 , 48x48) and the size of brushes when you get misaligned textures.
* be wary of non-integer vertices on important brushes
* don't think in spectacular ideas and maps. at least not for the first map.
* try ideas in the editor and see how they look ingame
* practice with all the shortcut keys to work faster
* rotate textures when it's necesary. and inspect them when you rotate or flip brushes.
* learn about clip textures and how help gameplay by "smoothing" floors and walls

skacky streamed this:
https://www.twitch.tv/skacky/v/109342973

i can't make rooms like that and make them look good in two hours

but i find useful seeing the "workflow" of making a map by a seasoned mapper 

Looks great topher! 

I'm getting a very id1 vibe from these pics. 

After solving an issue with my map not compiling, I managed to track the problem down to a few brushes. So I can continue work!

A screenshot:
http://imgur.com/sdnnzHg

Its a very messy map with a lot of overlapping brushes and errors, but eh it will be a map. I'm sure this messy mapping will come back to bite me at some stage, and I will definitely map a lot cleaner in future projects! 

Looks like a great first room topher!

I like the details in the ceiling Hexen, don't sweat it if things are a little rough the first time around! 

i like the ceiling
play with the lights later, to make it look more awesome

one thing that i loved from the first level of hexen and that i'm missing here is atmospheric effects. we have sounds, and with custom sounds we can do nice things.
but those leaves floating in the air were sublime. i know that the leaves are sprites.

when i played quake for the first time i imagined strong winds, rains, thunders. acid rain, how cool would be that?

oh well. i'm diggresing. i like the broken ceiling, good work.

and overlaping brushes are not that much of a issue if there isn't z-fighting with overlapping faces that are visible to the player 

Yeah I used to use those leaf spawners a lot when I was mapping for hexen, they're great! Being able to make custom sounds and place them in the map was a big plus (As I'm a composer/sound designer), really adds to the ambiance. I'm placing a few of the quake ambient sounds around, and they will suffice for the first map. I can learn how to add custom sounds later on.

I did notice there are little grey dots the player can see along some of the seams of overlapped brushes. I'll go through and try to troubleshoot these later on in the process, but for now I've worked out ways to overlap less and map cleaner 

Quoth and AD allow those easily! I recommend mapping for Quoth, it actually makes certain aspects of mapping more intuitive (like monster spawning/ambushes, which otherwise requires a more complicated setup) and has some other cool added features without being overwhelming.