How long does it take to make a map?
BeigeAlert
Texas Join Date: 2013-08-08 Member: 186657Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
Texas Join Date: 2013-08-08 Member: 186657Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
in Mapping
I've been working on a map (ns2_hotdogs) for a little over two MONTHS now. It's been a lot of learning, a lot of trial and error, but overall a great experience. I've done regular backups of the level every day, so I have about 30 or so saves of this level. Sometimes it's fun to look at the older versions and see how the level has evolved. It's come a long way, but it still has quite a long way to go.
Anyways, my question is: how long does (or DID) it take to make a level for NS2. Now of course I'm sure it'll vary significantly depending on the quality of the level, the skill of the mapper, and the work schedule. Specifically, how long did it take to make a level like Biodome, or Descent, or any of the other stock maps?
Anyways, my question is: how long does (or DID) it take to make a level for NS2. Now of course I'm sure it'll vary significantly depending on the quality of the level, the skill of the mapper, and the work schedule. Specifically, how long did it take to make a level like Biodome, or Descent, or any of the other stock maps?
Comments
On average it should take you around 12 to 15months to get a NS2 map finished.
Co maps about half that time
I only spend 1 or 2 hours aday doing kodiak sometimes have 4 hour sprints on the weekend. I am at the 10 month mark with kodiak, 5 month mark with ayumi (however I spend less than 2 hrs a week doing this map)
Good maps~8-10 months
Exceptionally good maps~ 1 year+
At least that's how long I usually see them take, for community mappers, who usually map during their free time, not getting paid to do it for their job.
I'm also curious about that.
I suppose if it's good enough it could always go on the old resume...
It'll be another few months before it's 'finished'. So, just under a year in total.
[EDIT]
Speaking of the old resume. NS1 wound up being a good training ground for a decent number of 'up & coming' level designers. A decent number of NS1 mappers went on to level design jobs in the industry. Hell, I now teach level design.
I made some really awful UT3 maps... not sure if that counts. My favorite was the Gore Chamber. You basically spawn in a tiny room with 32 other people and instantly explode unless you're lucky enough to have spawned next to a rocket launcher.
An iteration includes all the four steps: planning, blocking, testing, decorating
And on top of that, maps tend to take a significant increase in time required if you're learning as you go. I would estimate a minimum of a 4x increase in time required if learning is also involved.
Once you got your layout down on paper / in your head you need to get this done in the editor as basic as possible say anywhere from 2 to 7 days. (Might take longer if you are not used to the editor and don’t spend much time per day doing it)
Now begins the testing / blocking phase. As you test your map it will become apparent that some areas need changing other areas might not require anything doing them at all this can be anywhere from 1 week up to the lifetime of the map. Again this is down to you, what you want out of the map, do you want it to be a fun pub map ? or a serious contender for comp ?
Decorating will most probably "Should" start 8 to 10 weeks later. Reasoning I say this is that your map will have gone through at least 8 to 9 layout changes + you will of added more detailed geo as you have gone along. Decorating will probably only take 3 to 4 weeks. SO assuming you can spend endless amounts of hours on your map can do lots and lots of play testing you could get a decent map out in say 4 months? However most of us will have IRL getting in the way so the question then becomes how long is a piece of string?
The times above are entirely speculative and down to the mapper. It depends on how you see your map and how harsh you are on yourself. How good you want it to be compared how YOU think you have done. Also a large part is down to how much time a week you spend on your map and organising gathers to test your map.
Mine would never had got beyond my PC if it was not for the SCC. As far as I am aware (and along with a handful of other servers) will allow "Greybox" maps to be played. Most other custom map servers + com players WILL NOT play a greybox map. This makes it hard to create a map when people won’t play your greybox version thus generating you feedback to make the map better.
I am sure people will disagree with what I’ve said but it’s my opinion!
And you still haven't finished marine start, no offence but how long does it take to slap some textures and place a bunch of models in there? it doesn't have to look amazing but i know this can be done in a few hours if you really wanted, from there it's up to you how detailed you like.
I don't get why some mappers leave so many large grey areas, there's now plenty of models and textures you can use to get a half decent job done without spending ages on it, obviously polish and proper attention to detail take time but that can come later.
It is a lot of work.
Is this from personal experience????? I've spent WEEKS on a single CoH map. Though most of the time is just because the editor is pretty slow (takes like 2 minutes to save, every time, no joke). I've made about 3-4. I mean I guess if you go flat out for 3-4 days straight without ever resting... probably... but then again it would probably look like an Escher drawing after that long without sleep.
The thing is, CoH worldbuilder is quite intuitive and easy to slap together some concept stuff and then work on a map.
On the topic at hand, SparkE has that Sketchup thing down, but the texturing, offgrid and rotation stuff is really throwing things into a mixer of hell. And balancing/testing NS2 maps is something that also takes a lot of time. I'd say 6 months to a year depending on your dedication and SparkE requires A LOT of dedication. I'm still tipping my hat at the early mappers, who were using the beta editor!
Hey that's a nice map! Were you working on them full-time for the entire 10 days?
Well cannot disagree on that, shame on me. Unfortunately, current version is in disastrous WIP state, but I can revert to older one and update from that.
To make a fully detailed and planned out map it certainly is a lot of work, that's not what im talking about here, i've played around with the editor plenty and seen mapping videos, probably the two biggest time wastes are attention to detail work that many seem to obsess over, mostly geometry and texture work, boxing rooms and dumping models and slapping some textures doesn't take very long at all compared to that, if more mappers took this approach it would greatly speed up the process and get maps out faster while still looking decent enough, as long as its playable and fun thats all that matters, co_faceoff looks quite basic but its one of the popular maps, i think that appeared on servers pretty fast back then, im not saying don't polish but don't leave areas grey for so long.
I only say it to motivate, it's such a good map that it's a shame to leave one area unfinished for so long when you can get something that looks reasonable in a few hours.
I start my areas already with most of the details and props already planed in, because I don't like to stretch the models too much. Also it makes all the things look more integrated and the scene coherent. This means, that any temporary work is practically waste of time.
I didn't had that much spare time recently and trust me, 2-3 hours mapping session is really short to produce any noticeable progress. The current state of Core really doesn't make me happy. :-(
Maybe UWE's next project along side NS2 should be enhancing Spark into a more user friendly and powerful engine to work with, including brushed terrain mapping like you would see in more frequently referenced editors like CryEngine, Dunia, Unreal, FrostBite, etc. It would benefit their ability to bring maps out faster and in better quality, and allow for a bit more accessibility from the community side of things, but that's a different subject.
I would love to get into mapping for this game, but currently I cannot work out how to use the current editor, those who are using it successfully definitely deserve more credit for taking the time to adapt and learn the engine.
I get what you're saying and know everyone works differently but my main point here is if the options are leave that area grey boxed for 6 months or spend a few hours of dropping models to cover the walls, floor, ceiling etc to make it interesting (forget geometry/detail work), it makes a lot of sense to do that, if later on you have time to really make it how you want then all it takes is a short time to delete or change the arrangement of those models, anything is better than leaving grey boxed rooms for ages and if it turns out you never end up finishing it how you originally intended then at least it can be considered good enough like that.
I wish it was that easy. I got you very well. When I said it is a lot of work I was talking about throwing some textures on the walls or something parallel. I don't even want to start on talking about the planning phase or debugging.
Let me give a few examples. Go look up the room I did for co_portals. Very simple little room. You could nearly count the number of models on your hands. I gave myself about a month to think about what I was going to do, and then it took me about a week to make that tiny little simple room. I intentionally developed something I new wouldn't take a lot of time (yet I'm talking about a week)
A strategic room for NS2, like a tp or rt, could take easily a month. The new service sector in turtle, planning, thinking, building, texturing, putting models, I think that took about a month/month and a half, and this is with my experience. Maybe more months I didn't count. Now turtle is just what you are explaining. Minimum models, very simple 'geometry' yet complex in the layout. To 'update' it to what I wanted to do, from planning to execution, it took me 8/9 months. And now, it has to be put to the test and there is more work to be done on it. Things have to be done step by step.
You seem to know what you are talking about so bring it on. Give a map to the community.