UCyborg wrote on 2025-01-30, 20:38:

I only spent hours in Drakan: Order of the Flame's Level Editor, fixing visibility data in stock levels after hacking the game to support double draw distance. Should be done fully automatically, but the tool isn't very smart, so from certain sections of the levels, other sections that are impossible to see would be marked as visible (slowing down rendering invisible geometry) while others that should be possible to see were marked as invisible (gaps, blank / empty spots in levels). Very boring and mundane.

I don't have the imagination and other prerequisites for making my own maps.

some editors can be tricky, often tuned to specific games and methodologies. I found duke3d's build engine good to use (as long as you remember what sector effectors to use etc) and got to grips with Worldcraft (now valva hammer i think)

there is a lot to do when making a level from scratch and i think newer tools provide scripts or procedural shortcuts to pre-fill areas with things, that would help the designer stay focussed on the overall design though it could also lead to a generic looking (well populated at least) map

for any thread readers - what's the best map editor you used?

gerry wrote on 2025-01-31, 09:11:

for any thread readers - what's the best map editor you used?

I am caught between (Ultimate/G(Z))Doom Builder and UnrealEd (1.0-3.0)

RetroLizard wrote on 2025-02-03, 20:41:

gerry wrote on 2025-01-31, 09:11:

for any thread readers - what's the best map editor you used?

I am caught between (Ultimate/G(Z))Doom Builder and UnrealEd (1.0-3.0)

i checked doom builder and it looks good! i wasn't familiar with that one. i'm getting ideas about map building again! there's also 'g.e.c.k.' for fallout 3 / nv and plenty of others when i started looking. there are lots of tutorials too, many on youtube.

gerry wrote on 2025-02-04, 08:36:

RetroLizard wrote on 2025-02-03, 20:41:

gerry wrote on 2025-01-31, 09:11:

for any thread readers - what's the best map editor you used?

I am caught between (Ultimate/G(Z))Doom Builder and UnrealEd (1.0-3.0)

i checked doom builder and it looks good! i wasn't familiar with that one. i'm getting ideas about map building again! there's also 'g.e.c.k.' for fallout 3 / nv and plenty of others when i started looking. there are lots of tutorials too, many on youtube.

Doom Builder and its derivatives are great.

I used to make my own Prince of Persia and Commander Keen level packs, but none of them were very good. There are amazing Keen mods on shikadi.net. The Universe Is Toast trilogy makes me want to get into the scene again.

65C02 wrote on 2025-02-06, 02:06:

I used to make my own Prince of Persia and Commander Keen level packs, but none of them were very good. There are amazing Keen mods on shikadi.net. The Universe Is Toast trilogy makes me want to get into the scene again.

that sounds good, was it an editor like 'keenedit' or similar later ones? I'd always imagined it would be easy to accidently trap players inadvertently, there is quite a lot to the design process, even on a 2d game

This is a cool thread, yes I actually did!

I made some maps for Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force in GtkRadiant, back in the day. 😀

Probably my two most ambitious projects:

This one was so massive in scale, I had to axe an entire room inside one of the ships, or the lightmaps wouldn't bake! 😅

Seems all my mods and maps are still up, on what used to be effiles/filefront.
https://www.gamefront.com/@alexraptor

I did some stuff for Doom, Blood and Quake.
I'm still working on a classic DoomII megawad("blog" at Doomworld) where I need to finish around 8 maps ... as always, these last steps are the hardest.

Mapping for Doom was hard back in 1995 with waded and other programs being good tools but not as ripe as the, from a usability perspective, outstanding DoomBuilder. Creating content for Blood was the hardest but one can create really cool worlds. The only downside was the 1024 sector limit... I remember having my map nearly done and as I wanted to put in the finishing steps(large final room with an organ) I hit the 1024 hard - I was devastated... and "left".
Quake is, no matter which tool, the hardest to get right for me as some styles do not scale favorably into the 3rd dimension. Therefor I gave up on creating content as none of my maps could touch the classic Deathmatch levels by id in any way or form.

The cool thing about creating Doom maps now is that with the help of ZokumBSP one can create "monster maps" which can still be played in a limit enhanced version of the original .exe(or ChocolateDoom).

gerry wrote on 2025-02-06, 09:13:

65C02 wrote on 2025-02-06, 02:06:

I used to make my own Prince of Persia and Commander Keen level packs, but none of them were very good. There are amazing Keen mods on shikadi.net. The Universe Is Toast trilogy makes me want to get into the scene again.

that sounds good, was it an editor like 'keenedit' or similar later ones? I'd always imagined it would be easy to accidently trap players inadvertently, there is quite a lot to the design process, even on a 2d game

No I used TED5, Modkeen and Gimp. My mods were very glitchy and some were even impossible (but not on purpose! 🤣) I hate to admit that I gave up, but playing some of the newer mods does have me interested in giving it another try. They open up another dimension of the Keen world. The levels are much larger and more difficult than the original game. The new art work, enemies, stories, game mechanics are really amazing.

Alexraptor wrote on 2025-02-06, 10:17:

This is a cool thread, yes I actually did!

I made some maps for Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force in GtkRadiant, back in the day. 😀

impressive! they must have taken quite a lot of work, there is a lot of detail there. it cool they still exist out there

amadeus777999 wrote on 2025-02-06, 14:18:

Mapping for Doom was hard back in 1995 with waded and other programs being good tools but not as ripe as the, from a usability perspective, outstanding DoomBuilder. Creating content for Blood was the hardest but one can create really cool worlds. The only downside was the 1024 sector limit... I remember having my map nearly done and as I wanted to put in the finishing steps(large final room with an organ) I hit the 1024 hard - I was devastated... and "left".
Quake is, no matter which tool, the hardest to get right for me as some styles do not scale favorably into the 3rd dimension. Therefor I gave up on creating content as none of my maps could touch the classic Deathmatch levels by id in any way or form.

I do remember that way back then Duke3D build was the "easy" option, and that creating wads for doom was a longer and more difficult process, and certain limits could short out a whole project. As you say, that's all changed now, it gets me interested in the process again, though firing up even older tools like unrealed, hammer and so on is overwhelming at first, it really makes me appreciate good design

65C02 wrote on 2025-02-07, 00:36:

No I used TED5, Modkeen and Gimp. My mods were very glitchy and some were even impossible (but not on purpose! 🤣) I hate to admit that I gave up, but playing some of the newer mods does have me interested in giving it another try. They open up another dimension of the Keen world. The levels are much larger and more difficult than the original game. The new art work, enemies, stories, game mechanics are really amazing.

I used to play around with some visual game maker type tools and when it comes to platformers it is too easy to create glitches and impossible to pass levels 😀 Interesting that it actually can change mechanics too, its almost creating a new game from the old one

gerry wrote on 2025-02-07, 08:39:

amadeus777999 wrote on 2025-02-06, 14:18:

Mapping for Doom was hard back in 1995 with waded and other programs being good tools but not as ripe as the, from a usability perspective, outstanding DoomBuilder. Creating content for Blood was the hardest but one can create really cool worlds. The only downside was the 1024 sector limit... I remember having my map nearly done and as I wanted to put in the finishing steps(large final room with an organ) I hit the 1024 hard - I was devastated... and "left".
Quake is, no matter which tool, the hardest to get right for me as some styles do not scale favorably into the 3rd dimension. Therefor I gave up on creating content as none of my maps could touch the classic Deathmatch levels by id in any way or form.

I do remember that way back then Duke3D build was the "easy" option, and that creating wads for doom was a longer and more difficult process, and certain limits could short out a whole project. As you say, that's all changed now, it gets me interested in the process again, though firing up even older tools like unrealed, hammer and so on is overwhelming at first, it really makes me appreciate good design

Yes, Doom editors used to be nasty in regards to the orientation of linedefs and to "deadly contamination" of a map by mistakes. As far as I remember some mistakes were fatal... "lava pits" of mapping so to speak.
I have never worked with Duke's editor version - I guess that they hid some of the complexities of the original editor that arose due to having a plethora of options...?

There was not enough time and firepower to have really handy tools made. I think Silverman's efforts were outstanding to build an editor that allowed real time map traversal(due to a non bsp approach).
As for map quality relative to tools ... I managed to build some wads that I personally adore but none of the things I did can touch the really good maps of old.
DoomII's Map04, Map11, Map29 and many others are excellent maps which show that the mapper's were really talented and could make classic maps with little to no "instant 3D" preview. Similar with Quake where, for example, Willits outdid himself with some of the material he delivered.

One of the downsides of better tools & more horsepower is that people who are not artistically profound get lost in "aesthetics"(which are most of the time not pleasing) instead of focusing on the essence... "modern" Romero comes to mind here.

I did new cooled name map PadPizza, Padman open his pizza shop to have friends and players to enjoy is margarine and mozzarella and expansive mushrooms and more addons + New AI map (Random at the ROTT Mapper Deluxe 3.0, I think: "Dopefish"-developer at 90s 3DR version).

https://www.moddb.com/games/world-of-padman/addons/padpizza

https://www.moddb.com/games/rise-of-the-triad … /addons/havrota

Does anybody remember a CS1.6 map, where both CT and T sides would spawn in their respective rooms, go next room to pick up weapons (probably Maverick M4A1 Carbine?) and the fight across both sides. There are stairs with which you can move around and go up and down the map.

There is no hostage. There is likely no bomb defusal either, just defeat each other's teams

The background is white and closed, while it has a bluish tint.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-03-22, 13:44:

Does anybody remember a CS1.6 map, where both CT and T sides would spawn in their respective rooms, go next room to pick up weapons (probably Maverick M4A1 Carbine?) and the fight across both sides. There are stairs with which you can move around and go up and down the map.

There is no hostage. There is likely no bomb defusal either, just defeat each other's teams

The background is white and closed, while it has a bluish tint.

I specfic dont know the execly map. But I played a mainstream custom map at the first when you slide to other team spawnpoint and been killed a lot. A sedistic map but many people love it. I dont.

Another: my new-old map for the Unreal 1 a DM map.
Built her in 2020/1 only now I name it dm-telavivnightbeach!!

https://www.moddb.com/games/unreal/addons/tlvnightbeach

Updating and fixed maps from my past.

https://www.moddb.com/games/unreal/addons/dm-azrieli

https://www.moddb.com/games/prey/addons/megalevel-the-start

https://www.moddb.com/games/xonotic/addons/minimanx

https://www.moddb.com/games/world-of-padman/addons/padaroma

This topic brought back some good memories...

Way back in the 1970s, playing the original Crowther and Woods "Adventure" game on an IBM 360
mainframe ... myself and some buddies carefully made detailed hand-draw maps as we worked through
it.

I of course don't have any of them anymore...

I do remember how tough it was to figure out accurate maps for the "maze of passages - all alike" section
(prob. a dozen or more rooms which identical descriptions (no graphics here) and the passages between them
apparently curved so that when you exited one, you didn't always enter the next from the opposite side!)

Vardiel 17 from Tel Aviv, a community center for young 18-35 age people. A lot of my friends I know from there.

I make on that a new map for the WoP game.

https://www.moddb.com/games/world-of-padman/addons/vardiel17

With VIS and lighting build/compile new ioQuake3. World of Padman or WoP as simple. The same mirror I already post on that topic.

The LUDO games development hub in Tel Aviv now as a new map.

https://www.moddb.com/games/world-of-padman/addons/the-ludo/