OK first up, this thread is a work in progress. You are free to add your own imput to make this thread better for newcomers to Forge. Dont be afraid to challenge my opinions or give your own, so long as you back up your arguements. Also, the tips in this thread wont appeal to everyone. People will disagree with points, but i think this is the most solid way to create a successful map. More seasoned forgers seem to skip a few of the process. But this is usually from experience. Ok on with the show. Forge Hub is growing rapidly, and more and more maps are bieng submitted each day. For the first time since i was welcomed into this community, i have started to notice people posting maps, that show incredible skill and patience, although some of these people seem to lack some of the basic techniques required to making the great maps that get featured at the home page. In this thread i hope to give some advice, that may be obvious to most, but will help some of the newcomers to Forging. This thread doesnt necassarily show these people all of the glitches and techniques to making a tidy map, but mainly the whole process that transforms a simple idea to a successful masterpiece. Main Strategies When Making A Map - Your map needs character, and flare. - You will be greatly rewarded for your creativity - Try to add a theme, and stick to it. - Always take your time. We would rather wait days or weeks longer for a clean, tidy, well thought out map than get some rushed ones with tonnes of mistakes. - When making both symmetrical and aysmmetrical maps, make sure to make them balanced. I know many people are thinking, huh, balanced aysmmetrical maps? But yes, they still have to be pretty balanced, but offer a mix of weapons, vehicles and cover. - Add plenty of spawns, and dont forget those spawn areas. - Dont go OTT on weapon placement, and dont think that if you put every weapon on the map it will be balanced. A range of 5 - 8 different weapons should be sufficient. - Learn to interlock, it isnt required, but is a great help when perfected, and is pretty simple to master. This isnt just for making those upside down double boxes flat, but it opens a whole lot of doors on making new shaped objects and such. -Always check that your map will fit in the map set. Thought Process: - If your lost for ideas, then i dont recommend starting a map, it will probably be a waste of time. All of the great forge creations were planned out. If you want ideas, dont be afraid to scour(sp) the Map forums. There is soch a vivid range, you cant be lost for ideas there. - First, plan your maps in your head. Try to work out if these ideas will work or not, use forge if you must, but its best not to start your map yet, just see if the main components of your map are do-able. - Second, get some paper, a pencil and a ruler, and start to design your map from multiple angles. No one has to be the worlds greatest architect to pull this off. The drawings only have to make sense to you. Try to remember the shape of the map and objects you have at your disposal - Third, discuss this with friends or guilders. Its good to get a second opinion on wether or not your map is worth attempting. It could be a disaster in the making. Or a huge sucess. Try not to show if to too many people, or to people you dont know, you dont want people to start stealing your ideas and claiming them for thier own. With these processes done, you should have a good idea in your head and on paper about what your map will look like. Design Process: -First off, decide wether your map will need to be 'Money Glitched'. You dont want to get near to the end of the map to find you have run out of currency, but you dont want to money glitch it for no reason and accidently use all of something up, and find you can never spawn it again. -Second, work out what are the major aspects of your map, start to place these onto your map. Dont add too much. Also, if you dont plan on replacing these objects, make sure you line these up very well. Nothing is worse than finishing a map to find your basic blocks are untidy. - Once you have a basic shape, start to add the large scenery. No, not crates and barriers. Try to stick to immovable objects at this stage. Bridges, walls, and single boxes. Always remember to Take Your Time. If something looks slightly untidy, or you think you can do better, do it again. This is one of the most important points. - Now add the smaller scenery, but make sure you have done all of the above, it is a painstaking procedure to add large scenery when there is small scenery present. It can get annoying. - Once you have the map done, start placing your weapons and spawns. If you are making a map for a team game, make sure you have the equal amount of spawns for each team, aswell as plenty neutral spawns in the middle. Also make sure all of the spawns are facing the correct way, and have plenty of cover. Read the thread on Effective spawn placement if you are still stuck. - With the weapons, always space weapons out, never put too many, it is much better to lower the spawn time than to add more. It just makes more sense. Also never make 'weapons cache's' or 'armoury's'. This idea hardly ever works. It encourages camping, and is a bad idea. Testing Process - Make sure to test your map on plenty of gametypes, with a large range of players. At the end of each game, ask the players what worked and what didnt. Dont expect to not get some criticism, its the only way to improve. Make appropriate changes. So long as you took all of the above advise, the changes shouldnt be drastic. Your map should be complete. Publishing Process - Read 'How to post a map' Thoroughly. Nothing is worse than posting a map to find the first 10 replies saying ' embed pics ' or ' add a description '. - Take plenty of pics, try to show all areas of the map, not just the good points. We want to see how the map plays, and its hard to with just a few pics. - Add a thorough description. Say what you liked and maybe what you didnt. Dont be afraid to be honest, we wont like your map any less. Also add a weapons list, and maybe they're respawn times. OK. that is pretty much a walkthrough of how to make a successful map.
One thing that helped me tremendously was simply paying close attention to other people's maps. There are some amazing maps here at Forge Hub, and inspiration can easily be drawn from a number of them.
Nice post. I'm sure this will help a lot of people here. I'll weigh in with my opinion: Take. Your. Time. I can't stress this enough. It's not a contest to see how many maps you can vomit out; what you're trying to accomplish (I'm assuming) is to make a quality map that can be playable over and over again for you and the friends you play with. If this is truly the case, then you need to spend the time to make sure your map is solid and it's intended gametypes play well. Not all maps are meant to support all gametypes (even Bungie's default maps; multi-flag on Guardian fails), so choose wisely and test often. It's not unheard of to work on a single map for a month or even longer, so don't rush a good thing. There's a fine line to walk between final tweaks and going OCD on the direction of the spawn points, but taking your time to produce one quality map will always be better than putting out 7 half-assed ones.
Make sure your maps fits EVERYONES playing styles, or at least alot, don't make a competitive map that it weighed heavily towards snipers only, make it so everyone can use their OWN tactics, make it so the snipers can be snuck up on, the campers can be pwned with a good grenade in their hut, make sure every place on you map has its ups and down. Oh and for important rooms, make sure it has MORE THAN 1 entrance/exit. CTF maps are not fun if it is just run into the room and get owned by their entire team, you need multiple exits. Though, like most rules, all of these have a few, ONLY A FEW, exceptions
I cannot believe i forgot this. This was one of the main reasons i decided to write this post, and it seemed to be the only thing i forgot to put in, I will put it in now. It wasnt so bad, i have had alot of coursework to write lately, its much easier from the top of my head than from a piece of paper. The hardest bit was imputting all of the links correctly.
Especially for the "thought process" part, a lot of what you are saying is more your own approaches I think. I for one have never planned a map on paper or anything, I have a rough idea and just do it. I also don't really discuss my idea with anyone before I start. Also doing things in stages like you stated is not what I do. Infact I have a strange tendency to half make one part of the map, then make another part and then go back again. Half way through building my maps often have parts with scenery and weapons placed (albeit not the final placements), while others have gaps and walls not placed yet. Most of it would be very useful for newcomers, although maybe add something like "We all think differently and have different approaches to problems, but here are some guidelines so you can avoid common problems and make your life easier". Something to add - Make sure you have enough space to build what you have in mind, finding that you will have to rethink your design because you forgot about the crane sucks.
You have pretty much sussed my reply there. Yeah i totally agree, everyone has they're own process. Although i have to say you are a very gifted forger. You make incredibly creative maps, that seem almost impossible to pull off. My tips were pretty much a process that can make your map alot easier. You cant really deny that. I will add a paragraph saying that this wont work for everyone, and ill input that tip of map size.
This was extremely helpful. I thank you for posting this and not just keeping it to yourself. This is going on my favorites.
My tips were pretty much a process that can make your map alot easier. You cant really deny that.[/quote] Of course not, I wasn't trying to. It'll be useful for newer members for sure. I just think you should state that there aren't any right or wrong ways to plan and build a map, although there are plenty of tips and tricks its useful to adapt to which you've pointed out. And thanks for the compliment... I think the challenge is thinking of something "impossible" more than making it, heh.
I added your first point, maybe not in enough detail, i will add some more later. Your welcome on the comment, you are like the only person here who makes sure all of his maps are perfect, and go for some outragously cool designs. Thanks to everyone else who replied. I was thinking about it this morning, and thought no one else has done it and its pretty helpful to just make a plan. I dont mind typing so i thought i'd do it.
This was definately a great help, but I'm still thinking of weapon placement and what weapons to use for an average medium size map on foundry
Well, i think you should have more on spawns and weapon placement, because a map is nothing without decent spawns. Firstly, spawns. If there is a good spot to put a spawn point, put two. Make sure that when you place a spawn point the traingle is not facing a wall. The triangle dictates where a player spawns and spawning a player looking at a wall is not very good. Also, make sure that a player is covered from at least two angles. Spawning a player on the wall of a big open room is not a good idea. Put the spawn behind a box instead so that the player will not get spawn killed. Spawn zones are a necessity. Make sure that a spawn zoner covers at least 1/5 of the total spawn points on the map. If there are 75 spawn points, make sure each zone covers about 15 (+ or - a few of course). If there are 50, make sure it covers about 10. Weapons need to be spread out. Armories do not work unless the map was specifically built around it, and even then its not a great idea. Overloading a map with powerweapons is the worst thing you can do. Ask yourself what is on this map. If it is vehicles, add a laser, missle pod, or rocket for each team. If it is just people and no vehicles, consider just a rocket or a fuel rod gun. Sniper rifles should only be used on larger maps. Forcing people to no-scope isnt a good idea. Lastly, make sure BRs and some duals are within easy reach of all the spawn points. Spawning a player near all the weapons and spawning another near nothing goes along with spreading the weapons out.
Nice job on a well thought- out post. I agree with your points. I cannot stress the importance of spawn placement. A mixture of defenders, attackers, and neutral spawns are essential as well as starting points. A player sub- consciencely judges a map by spawn placement (What do they see right when they spawn?). Sometimes what I do is stand on top of one of my spawns just to see the view and then adjust accordingly.
I think that you touched on this in 'Design Process', but i would like to stress 'be precise'. If making a row of walls, just one that tilts slightly can ruin the look of a map. This also, occasionally leads to problems such as getting out of areas, unlikely, but possible. Great guide, it helps a lot!
Thanks, and i have posted about "taking your time". I agree with you totally, and i will go into further detail on this tommorow when i can be bothered to type it up. Thanks again.