I give up | Quadropolis

RacistBadger | 2013-12-25 02:34

I give up

I've come to realize I'm just not cut out for this map-making business. I'm all about instant gratification, so it frustrates me when I can't make the brilliant map idea I have become reality within minutes. I get bored, and say "I'll finish it later." But when later comes I find that I'm still bored with the project and just end up scraping it. I've started hundreds of projects only to give up after an hour or so of work on it. And what I've come to realize is that I'm just not very creative. I can come up with a broad idea in my head, but then all the details are left blank and I've got nothing to work with. So I do what any uncreative person does when they need an idea, look at other people's work for inspiration. Then I say "that was a bad idea, because now I REALLY feel inadequate about my creative ability." What avenue I have left is to take maps from other games that already exist and remake them in Sauerbraten. It's been done before, right? face-capture is still pretty popular for ctf and it comes from Ut-2004 (though even that version was a remake of the one from the first Unreal Tournament.) Anyway that's gotten me nowhere so far because this place is all crazy about licensing and I used textures that I wasn't supposed to and something something legal hooplah. I could go retexture the map with Sauer's regular textures but that sounds like a lot of work and it was hard enough to texture in the first place. So my give up, no more maps from me (probably.)

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skiingpenguins | 2013-12-25 03:19

do something else instead. i couldn't map, like you, but here i am with skyboxes included in various cube 2 games.

Greaserpirate | 2013-12-25 04:09

Good advice.

Thing about mapping too is that there's a HUGE supply but almost no demand (especially since there's no /sendmap yet for Sauerbraten). I still map because it's fun, and because it's a skill I might be able to use later on if I decide to go into the games industry (which I'm probably not because I've heard it's super cutthroat competitive, and lasting for a year at a studio is longer than usual).

If you still want to get back into mapping, there's plenty of guides and inspiration available. Here is a list of some guides.

Suicizer | 2013-12-25 07:19

Although you might leave the mapping scene, don't delete your nodes on Quadropolis!
People spend time and effort to review and comment on them, which you just careless disrespectful throw away when deleting so.

Perhaps we should create a rank for newcomers with limited actions, like not being able to delete their own nodes...

skiingpenguins | 2013-12-25 13:33

leave that to moderators/admins and you'll have more engagement.

Suicizer | 2013-12-25 15:16

Perhaps you can make icons, skins or even textures instead of mapping...

zombie-apocalypse | 2013-12-26 19:54

did you delete your maps? =(
you're very welcome on ours if you like to join us! we could use some help in one of the other things hat have been suggested here! =) or we could teach you mapping if you want?

love, meow! =)

MisanthropX | 2013-12-28 00:00

Hi there!

Even if Sauerbraten gives the possibility to create awesome stuff rather easily (compared to UDK GTKRadiant and similar) I also have always these motivation issues ;)
So you are definitely not alone. What keeps me coming back is that I created a rather flowy (well to play) map and want to continue.. making it better.

Maybe it is also a matter of workflow?
from the ideas I know from my friends, most of the times they are huge! Do not start with a project like a CTF map. A nice dedicated (also little) Deathmatch map will do well and you can see results very easily if there is not that much of an area left to design/texturize/light whatever stage of creating you are currently :)

Which is another matter of how you approach level design/mapping.
For beginners, it is easier to start with a basic layout and very basic architecture (ramps, stairs, platforms) and etch more and more detail into it. only in the end you add the details. And you also get to ship an already appealing map before you added too much details.

Some maps like Xenon and Tempest took Months (4~8!) to create, because I did a lot of art-breaks and had no motivation whatsoever :)

I wish you all the best in your future pursuit. If you need any further help, I think meow or similar would be good people to start with. create together. If you seek for playable content, members of the mX family could help you with some advice (igc, snowy etc etc)

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