How long have you been mapping?

Lord_Frodo · October 2002

Alright, well I was thinking the other day that I'd like to get into mapping because I think I could make some great maps, being an avid gamer, and knowing what I myself would want out of a map. So my question for you experienced mappers out there is: how long have you been mapping? How long did it take you to get the basics, and when did you feel that you were actually getting "good" at mapping? All questions partain to the half-life engine of course, that's what I'd want to deal with since it's what all of my favorite games are run on.

Also, if you have the time and you feel like helping me out, any links to mapping tutorials/FAQs would be greatly appreciated.

Legionnaired · October 2002

I'm relatively a n00b mapper myself, but Valve-ERC really helped me.

I've been mapping on and off for about 3 months....

ChromeAngel · October 2002

I've been using worldcraft on and off to map since I got Quake when it was originaly launched. It took me a few months before I produced anything playable. I look back at what I mapped, even a few months ago and think is sucks.

Persistance, inspiration, vision and good tutorials are the keys to mapping. Best of luck.

Radiocage · October 2002

I have had 1 - 1 1/2 years of HL experience.

In mapping for any engine....oh...about 6-7 years.

(Hail Duke Nukem 3D&#33<img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'>

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<b>Considering mapping?</b>

I will assume you have no experience with VHE (WorldCraft 3.4).

I shall list a few resources I found "handy" in my quest of Half-Life editing.

<a href="http://countermap.counter-strike.net" target="_blank">Counter-Map Tutorials</a>
(Handy for things other than Counter-Strike editing)
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<a href="http://www.karljones.com/halflife/almanac.asp" target="_blank">Handy Vandal's Almanac</a>
(Yes, it's still around)
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<a href="http://www.valve-erc.com" target="_blank">Valve Editing Resource Center</a>
(<b>The</b> Half-Life engine editing resource.)

Have at it!

Battousaix · October 2002

umm lets see, ive been mappin for 1 year or so, but i only began to make some "acceptable" stuff in february, and right now i feel im begining to get the hand of mapping, but im not still there.......

RhoadsToNowhere · October 2002

I've been mapping for a bit more than a year. I have to say I first felt like I was "experienced" when I made my latest map (an SI map called SI_Forge), about a month or two ago. Of course, I've got a close friend at college who's an experienced mapper too, and I have to say it helps a lot to have someone to bounce ideas off and to get help for some of the little quirks and nuances of editing.

SamR · October 2002

I've been mapping for around 8 years, back in the days of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake. I used to make them and then play games over my laggy serial cable with my brother! Good old days.

Now I make maps for various different mods, and Planet Half-Life deemed me good enough to host me, but I still look back at maps I started or made just a few months back, and think that things could have been a whole lot better.

I often make maps, and when they are just nearing completion, they screw up and don't work anymore because I've used too many textures, or too many polys. I like to make things as detailed and atmospheric as possible.

-SamR
<a href="http://www.planethalflife.com/afterlife" target="_blank">http://www.planethalflife.com/afterlife</a>

blueman · October 2002

ive been mapping for around 11 months nearly.

Greedo · October 2002

I started 'mapping' only a short while after getting HL when it came out. I say 'mapping' because it was just a series of cement cube point-lit rooms filled with dozens of barneys/scis and rpgs, gauss', egons, and any other weapon that fit my fancy.

I only got serious July or so of last year, and it was only a short few months ago that I began to make relatively decent work.

manah · October 2002

Since I was born ... I can do little else.

Janos · October 2002

Ive been mapping for over a year now.
I remember one of my friends when i was over his house one day and he was using worldcraft when hl was only just released and he said it was hard.
It put me off mapping for a long time.
Untill i downloaded Learncraft from a link on Planethalflife which was REALLY helpfull.

When u first start mapping u may think your work had been touched by god and looks amazing but give it a year or maybe less and your will be making some stunning maps.

Btw i also have the same problem with mapping sometimes i make a map only to find when ive almost completed it it screws up at the last moment but dont let it put u off just go with it...

If it doesnt work the first time try, try again

KungFuSquirrel · October 2002

Started with Quake, oh... probably close to about 5 1/2 - 6 years ago by now... seems about right as HL is about to turn 4 this year and I'd been going off and on for about a year or two before that...

I completely wasted all of it up until... well, probably a couple months ago. So much time, so little to show for it. Hopefully that will be changing very soon. <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

I'll regret not spending more time with Quake, Quake 2, and early HL until the day I die, though... So much could have been learned in that time...

Scythe · October 2002

I've been mapping for 1.5 years and I've made remarkably little progress. I made a fairly accurate map of my house. I've got the technical side of mapping down pat but alas; I've got not one iota of artist in me. Plenty of engineering genes in the family.

--Scythe--

Lord_Frodo · October 2002

alright, you guys are gonna LOVE this... after tinkering with Worldcraft (now valve hammer editor or whatever) for about an hour, I assembled... brace yourselves... a ROOM! where you can spawn! it's got a simple circular arch primitive for the walls around the player, and the floor and ceiling were just basic blocks. I added a neato blue shaded light and got the thing to work in the half-life engine, so I'm feeling pretty proud of myself... <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':p'> yeah right, as if it's any big deal to you guys.

Radiocage · October 2002

Thats not so bad.

I swear to god I just had the biggest case of De Ja Vu...

Anywho, my first map consisted of 2 rooms connected by a hallway. Texturing was sure a #####, cause i didnt know all the lazy keyboard shortcuts I blindingly race through with these days.

out of all 7 years of experience, I got on 4 D3D TCs, and none of them got released <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':0'>

I got on "The Assignment" after about a month of practicing. Boy could I make a room with textures.... Hell yeah!

Its rather pathetic, is it not?

Khaim · October 2002

I've been mapping, currently working on my first major map.(most of the maps I make are fun little maps with a lot of special effects etc cuz I don't like to spend a lot of time on 1 map.)

Battousaix · October 2002

i have like 200 or more unfinished maps <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':p'>

Greedo · October 2002

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (Battousai^^x @ Sep. 30 2002,20:11)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">i have like 200 or more unfinished maps <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':p'></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Ah yes, the bane of any developing mapper. I myself have quite a few.

Merkaba · October 2002

I've been mapping for probably about 7 years now. I started just before Doom2 came out. (I think the editor I was using was DEU.)

After that I moved to Duke Nukem 3D, then Quake, then Quake 2, and then Half-life. A fairly typical route to take.

My first ever room in the Quake engine was a small corridor with a circular opening at one end (carved) with bars running vertically down through it. (intersecting with brushes) Behind it I had sky. (Man, I LOVED Quake's sky.)

I think my first full Quake level was a deathmatch level set up in the sky. It was a series of walkways hanging in the air with barriers at the sides. They led to various platforms, teleports, and a long enclosed hallway with torches lighting up the framework in the ceiling.

I used to love that...the feeling of being suspended up in the air like that, with Quake's ominous music in the background...

As for gameplay...well, the walkways simply consisted of 3 bars. Floor bar, and two side bars. The walkways weren't wide enough for two people to get past, so if you came across someone going in the other direction, it was basically a case of who's more determined to get past who. <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

I made tons of parts of single player levels for Duke Nukem 3D and Quake, and I think the best present I could ever get would be a CD with all those levels on it...shame they're lost in time now. It gives me nostalgia to think about it.

I guess I am simply a mapper to the very core of my soul. But it's been a while since a game has grabbed my attention and made me really want to map for it...Quake was the last one to really do that for me.

I think I blame the fact that everyone's a mapper nowadays. Once everyones making maps and putting them out, you kinda feel like 'whats the point?'. Back when the internet was some small geek party in an office building somewhere, you didn't used to play custom maps much, or at all...so you felt more incentive to make your own stuff, your own worlds. Desensitisation, that's what it is...

I just remembered another Quake single player level I made too now <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'> It was a maze, of sorts. 5x5 grid, with various walls knocked down. As you went through it, you pressed buttons, and new walls came down, some blocked up, some came down really quickly to reveal a demon behind it. It was all very progressional as well.

You'd start off with a single barreled shotgun, and appear outside a portal. (You know, one of those wavy star things.)
Exit, face two knights, kill them, run around the corner. Face two more knights, kill them. Face an ogre, but you could lure him into a spike trap at the intersection. After that, you had you dodge the spikes, pick up a double barreled shotgun, and hit a button, releasing another ogre in another grid section. In his room there was a button which you pressed. Pressing that made a wall come down behind you with a demon inside. (Shock moment.) Kill demon.

Go back to start, a wall had come down there with two death knights behind and a nailgun. Kill them, move on down a long straight. Turn right, come across two or three of those jumping blobs...pick up super nailgun. Turn back, and find a shambler patrolling the long straight you just came from. Kill him, and jump into the portal in the room just now opened.

And, in multiplayer, I set it up that various walls disappeared and others appeared so it became a little deathmatch arena. And it was amazingly fun <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'> Especially grenade jumping on top of the 'maze' walls, then throwing potshots about the map. (no rockets in map)

Oh yes, nostalgia...

In fact, here's an example of what the map sorta looked like. It was basically walls with columns at the intersections, egyptian obelisk style. Excuse the crappy quick mockup. It did, of course, look much better back then, but then everything does, doesn't it?

BedwettingType · October 2002

I've been mapping for about 3 or 4 years so far. My first mapping experience was with Quake 2. It was a HUGE ski-slope in a narrow map. You would slide down for about three seconds and get flung the entire height of the ramp into a pool of water. A horrible map, but it was fun at the time.

Back then I was using the shareware version of Qoole, which had that silly 300 brush limit. So when I found Half-Life, I fell in love. Too bad I had the creativity of a brick. =P

I think the most important thing when you're a beginner is to pay a lot of attention to other people's work, get some inspiration, and find out what works well and what doesn't. Aside from that, read tutorials every chance you get. The Half-Life engine has so many capabilities when it comes to mapping, so the sooner you know its ins and outs the better. That's just from my experience anyways.

[Edit: Speaking of Duke Nukem 3D, my first Half-Life map was a remake of Hollywood Holocaust, hehe. But I took it off my site a long time ago cause I didn't feel like getting squashed by 3dRealms with a shrink ray.]

<a href="http://bedwettingtype.tripod.com/" target="_blank">BWT MAPS</a>

Mouse · October 2002

well I first opened WC in late 1999, but somehow it confused me, so I didn't do anything with it, over the next couple of months I opened it every now and again. Then one day when I opened it, (some time mid 2000) I understood it. My first map was a poorly scaled es_ map.

But before ns_frigid, there was only one map I considered releasing and it was called as_area7, it was set in the underground aircraft comlex, Area7 from the book Area 7 by Matthew Reilly (I highly recommend all of his books).
The main feature of the complex was a six level aircraft elevator with a detatchable/reatatchable personel lift in one corner.

Unfortuantly I decided to include said aircraft elevator in the map and have it working. I ended up getting it to work, (the elevator setup used 56 (I think) point and brush based entities) I was pretty happy about that. and yeah that's pretty much it <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'>

[EDIT] I just checked, I actually used 120 brush & point based entities for the aircraft elevator. And when I look at it now, the rest of the map is ****

pielemuis · October 2002

i started mapping 2 months ago(?) , WC wasn't working out, so i decided to try quark. Quark made mapping easier and more fun for me

CrouchingHamster · October 2002

I started less than a month ago. Got past the "single square room" phase, now working on doing "many linked square rooms"..and trying to work out how to do very basic things like getting texture lights to ..er.. light..and getting doors to open in the right directions..

Work in progress, tentatively titled ns_noob

Not likely to ever see light of day, just a trial and error learning sort of exercise..excuse the dodgy quality, haven't quite got the knack of gamma correction yet, its a lot darker in game.. <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'>

Creme · October 2002

Started mapping in 1993 or 1994, just in a Stunt driving game, funnily enough called Stunts. Nothing fancy, but hey it was a blast at the time. Started on Duke3D in 1995-1996, creating around a dozen maps which were played constantly around the facilities instead of studying at college (TAFE&#33<img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'> =) Even people I didnt know would compliment me on my various crazy maps!

Created half a dozen single player C&C maps, Starcraft, and a bunch of other RTS things, including creating my own byte hacking programs to edit maps for games which didnt provide editors of their own!

Duke3D however, was the real sticker, and until I met my match with Quake, particularly with the advent of Quakeworld, that my abilities became evident to me. Deathmatch used to rock! I released a fair few maps, which were quite popular on our local servers.

Apart from some small level testing of Q2 and Q3A, including porting some Q1 maps over, I skipped those, as the feeling just wasnt there...

Half-Life however, enslaved my interest. Made a few CS maps which I never released except for LANS, and started HL-Rally. Mapping isnt as much of a priority anymore, however its definately my true passion. The only reason I'm coding HLR, is so I can eventually sit down and enjoy mapping for it!

However, I did make the start of a NS map in there at some point.. (as some of you may remember) lets see if I can dig up the screens.

15 mins of HDD searching later..

Venmoch · October 2002

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (Creme @ Oct. 01 2002,07:52)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Started mapping in 1993 or 1994, just in a Stunt driving game, funnily enough called Stunts.</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Heh that was a cool game!
Uh yes my mapping experience.... There ain't much, started mapping with *ahem* Dark Forces... And I recently opened up Worldcraft and the UT editor, thought OMG what does what what do I do with the damn brushes etc and gave up....
*sigh* I'll stick to fan-fiction!

HanzGruber · October 2002

I've been mapping since worldcraft 3.0 became available -
all-be-it, not very well .... but not a great deal of time... as for knowing when I was good....I'll tell you when I get that feeling...

Creme : Hey, you know those join signs - make them additive..

SamR · October 2002

Hehe, I just remembered. I did a lot of mapping for a game called Outlaws, which was made by Lucasarts! Does anyone remember that game?! I loved it, shoot outs in the old west, shooting out of broken windows, and hiding behind barrels. I tried to make Hill Valley from Back to the Future 3, but only ever made Doc's little garage place...!

It was really hard to map for too, the editor was called Law Breaker or something, took my ####### ages to get the hang of.

-SamR
<a href="http://www.planethalflife.com/afterlife" target="_blank">http://www.planethalflife.com/afterlife</a>

RhoadsToNowhere · October 2002

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (InterFect0r @ Oct. 01 2002,05:26)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">i started mapping 2 months ago(?) , <b>WC wasn't working out, so i decided to try quark. Quark made mapping easier and more fun for me</b></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
<span id='ME'><center>RhoadsToNowhere high-fives pielemuis</center></span>

Merkaba · October 2002

Outlaws was a classy game.

Relic25 · October 2002

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (Lord_Frodo @ Sep. 30 2002,16:43)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">how long have you been mapping?</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>

Year and a half? Something like that. It's all a blur now.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">How long did it take you to get the basics</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>

Still picking those up from time to time. I picked up enough to make a functional map in about 2 to 3 months.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">when did you feel that you were actually getting "good" at mapping?</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>

I'll let you know when this happens, if it ever does. <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'>

Insane · October 2002

Oooh, between 1 and 1 1/2 years now. To start with, I was obsessed with trying to make single player HL levels, which turned out to be extremely unfruitful.

The I went over to the Unreal engine for a while, made half a reasonably promising DM level for UT and then lost it. That was frustrating, but it has provided me with some solid ground to stand on for second genreation Unreal mapping.

Then I discovered NS, and immediately went back to VHE/Worldcraft. My first ever NS map attempt was confusedly named Ns_Hera. I don't know why; I must have suddenly forgot the name of the map I had been looking at 5 minutes ago. Then followed a string of random "atmosphere experiment rooms." I.e they were complete failures as NS maps or were lost in a deleting spree to try and salvage some HD space.

Then Spirit was born. The difference between this and all the other attempts was that this had a layout. And you've seen what Spirit looks like. It's one of the few maps I have actually been happy with.

How long have you been mapping?

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