What Made You a Mapper? Created 19 years ago2005-08-31 15:46:09 UTC by Instant Mix

What made you a mapper?Here's my Loong strory.
I was about 8 , When i came downstairs and found my bro , Nick , On a pc thingie.He made levels , and i was getting confused. I Copied nick and tested it. Then i realised a texture was changing.I Got even more confused.Nick made a Bunker which was ace. And i made a super-crappy level.Then nick deleted it cos i used it more than him. Now , About 9 Months ago , I Got Valve H.I Forgot everything. I Made a crappy map called Crappy sky scraper. Iwas crap , i went ongoogle, and found TWHL. I joined and I Realiswed i knew 50% more things than an 15yr old. But nick made more -- Improved maps. That was my begging to be a mapper. how did you Become a mapper? Come on , Be honest!

I joined and I Realiswed i knew 50% more things than an 15yr old.

Haha.

I downloaded Hammer , found twhl at google. Not very much more to it.

A Story..Chickenfist , how did you know hammer? It existed? Connection required, not a 2 sentenced loada tosh.

Back in good ol' March 2004!

I played "Vampire Slayer" and "Team Fortress Classic". (best half-life mods ever! final!)

I played a lot of tfc... But tfc was dying a bit. A lot of custom maps were made. I got inspired. I was bored and I told my bro... I WANNA MAP! (just as a joke) He downloaded worldcraft for me while I didn't knew that. That biatch!

He mapped before and he told me the basics.

I never... never.. did any tutorials.

I made custom blocky fun maps for my tfc clan with server.

Then I found TWHL. It helped me a lot.
I created a account but I lost my password.
I created another... lost it again.
I created another... Also lost that one!
I created this one when I started to map for source.
I wrote done my password. The reason why I lost it all the time is because I could not remember it since I had thousands accounts with different passwords... I got confused =/

Then in start 2005 I found out at source mapping.

And so it begon all over again.

I used to be 'teh 1337 CS G33kzorz'

And i gradually grew bored of.. everything. And then i played Assault UPC.. it was the first custom map i had ever played. .this was just after steam had been released with cs 1.6 and i got hooked again. at first i thought it was an 'official' map.. but then someone told me that it was actually possible for the public to make their own.

ooooh.

So i searched 'counter-strike map maker' in google and got several hits. The first hit was.. a pr0n site.
The second - Pr0n
3rd.. pr0n..
And so on in that manner.

Until i found csmapper or something like that.. i downloaded WC 3.3 and started mapping DE_SPACESHIP....
then a few weeks later..
DE_SPACESHIP 2
..the following day
DE_SPACESHIP 3
and as soon as i started de_spaceship 3, i thought... im just gonna end up binning this like that last 2... i need help.
'Worldcraft 3.3 tutorials'

PING

TWHL

1999: i started way way way back when i was 7, my older brother was playing a game i soon found out to be half-life, i was quite curious about it, he did mapping too but i never knew about that...

2002:I had got my own copy of half-life, and i had finally been able to play it, i became hooked..It was amazing as a first time experience!

(6-7 months later)

I was searching round for custom maps to play and multiplayer stuff (because at this point i owned a few other mods, like CS) i saw people making maps and some of them produced amazing stuff. Then i found out about a guy called peter manson...His maps were purely amazing and was incredibly fun! At this point i gained enough inspiration that i decided that maybe i should become a mapper

2002, December 27th (or somewhere round there) i downloaded warcraft through a demo disc i owned. At this point i was just pathetic..

For some reason i just ran out of inspiration at this point, i guess i thought it was going to be an easy ride..I made some progress but i gave up in 2003

2004 November:While searching round my computer to clear up space for a sims deluxe pack i found worldcraft, i immediately went on and started mapping, i was a little better then last time...Just about good enough so that in about 1-2 weeks i decided i'd continue.

Beggining of 2005: I was searching through the internet at this point looking to improve my skills, i found tutorials on various sites, about 1 month later TWHL appeared in the list of hits and i entered. I started using it on a regular basis and then, well i joined..

So theres my story...As far as i remember

I used to be 'teh 1337 CS G33kzorz'

Been there, done that.

cough h4x!!!! cough

Ok, I think one of my friends said something like "OMG HE IS SO L33t HE CAN MAKE CS MAPS!!11" so I googled for CS mapping, found a simple tutorial at egir.dk and started mapping. After a few maps I realised that mapping for hl is much funnie, so I started to do that.

Been there, done that.

amen..

I had a CD witch contained HL, CS and Bots. I had it like 5 years or so. There was worldcraft in HL folder. But i didn't know that Then i was looking for somethng in that cd and noticed worldcraft i thought wtf? Installed it tried to do something but failed. Then i forgot about it. Few years after i forgot about it i remembered it (surprise), installed. Then i read worldcrafts help file (you know old worldcraft had example maps and a help file with tutorials!) Then i thought i need something more and googled and found twhl. I learned many things here

I bought Half-Life. Then Team Fortress Classic online got me started, for sure. I got foxbots and, as I played, I kept thinking: "This map would be better if such-and-such.."

I'd written my own modeling and level creating progs (C, C++, OpenGl, DirectX, etc.) and knew it had to be easier than that.

I googled for stuff like "team fortress map-making," etc. Eventually, twhl popped up and I lurked for quite a while, trying to figure out what everyone was talking about.

I downloaded Hammer from valve-erc, tried a couple of the beginner tuts here at twhl (still just lurking) and..

..got hooked.

What made me a mapper? Just my interest for design, I think. Before I got hold of Worldcraft I had been busy creating levels for Red Alert, Starcraft, Tomb Raider and the like already. I've also tried creating RTS games with some cheap-end game creating packages and all.

When I played Half-Life I soon found out about the editor and started toying around with it. I've been creating things for 2 or 3 months without knowing how to compile but it was just fun to create something 3-dimensional. Once I looked up on things on sites like the VERC more and more I started to get the hang of it. That has also gotten me into modelling, texture art and programming (the thing I started with when I was 12) and all that... reading artices about game design, gameplay theories and rendering algorithms and all that. I just like those things, I gues...

Summer 2000 - My brother bought HL Game of the Year Edition that came with Worldcraft 2.1. He began to make a level based on our school in Paris.

April 2001 - I decided to do my own version of the school so I had to learn Worldcraft and Wally. I found tutorials in many sites and checked out the highest rated maps out there.

2002 - I made some more HLDM maps and some Cstrike maps.

2003 - I got bored of multiplayer maps since I didnt have access to the net, and worked on a SP mod that died later that year.

2004-2005 - With some architectural knowledge, I decided to make more HLDM maps to see if my skills had improved. When HL2 came out, I made some HL2DM maps.

Future - After the September TWHL competitions, I might have to give up mapping and use Hammer only for university work. I'm going to go back to drawing manga or writing.

I always liked to build levels. I started from red alert,warcraft and then starcraft. Then I noticed in Hl1's instructions book that Hl1 had a builder also,Worldcraft 2.1! It looked so cool and I didn't know where is it for they said it came with the disc but I never found it. After a 2 years or so I saw it again and decieded to search the web for it and found worldcraft 3x! Only then I also found worldcraft 2.1 when I explored my Hl1 disc.

Are you a good mapper Mr.Good Map? for I never saw any map of yours! :

Are you a good mapper Mr.Good Map? for I never saw any map of yours!

must be, his name says so! Obey the name...Obey the name...

What made me a mapper? Just my interest for design, I think. Before I got hold of Worldcraft I had been busy creating levels for Red Alert, Starcraft, Tomb Raider and the like already. I've also tried creating RTS games with some cheap-end game creating packages and all.

Done that too. I think I have some maps I made for Rayman somewhere

When I first saw custom 'walls' on Doom games--mostly pr0n btw , my interest was perked that the user could actually edit the game. Downloaded DoomCad, but never used it.

Then for a while I ignored FPS games in favor of immersing myslef in RTS games--Starcraft, C&C mostly. I dabbled in editing levels for these games for a while.

My friends got me back into FPS by playing CS, sometime prior to 1.5.

Same as Hunter, I got interested In HL mapping as soon as I noticed the public could edit levels. And after finding so many webpages and tutorials devoted to the subject--Not least of which TWHL--, I was hooked.

I had the most energy and drive to map, when I knew the least about Half-Life and the Editor. It's Ironic that now, knowing more about both than I ever have before, I almost have no interest in making maps anymore.

Ah, yes.

It's was, I think I was 8 at the time, and I downloaded Qoole for some reason and started playing around with it. I spent maybe 2-4 years making simple maps for Quake 2, and being wise enough not to post them. Then QuArK came along and I was hooked. I spent quite a long time making both Quake 2 and 3 maps, and yet again, I never posted them, nor even looked at any tutorials. About 3 or 4 years ago, I found out about half-life. I bought it as a gift for a friend of mine, and after watching him play it, decided to get a copy of my own. I mapped for half-life for a while with QuArK, which was awsome, and it was about this time that I started to turn out quality maps. But, sadly, I never finished one of the many projects I started, so, I never posted anything ethier. After a while, I needed help with some of the more confusing entities, so I googled, and found TWHL.

Then I got Half-Life 2 maybe 6 months after it was released. I jumped on to QuArK, all exitied to start mapping, and I noticed that QuArK didn't have full support for Half-life 2. So, I was forced to use hammer, and after a while with it, I've gotten very acustomed to using it.

Finally, I decided to try to give something back to the communities who helped me so much with their tutorials. So I joined TWHL and the Snarkpit a while back and have been here ever since.

I had always been big on customization. I guess what REALLY started it all was making my own Wolfenstein 3D maps with Wolf Edit. I'll tell the story, however, form the standpoint of my Half Life career. Half Life(CS really) for me started about 5 years ago:
I started with CS, not knowing about Half Life untill a few weeks after when my brother bought it. Thus I found out that Half Life was the original and CS was this mysterious thing called a "mod", which apparently was a changed version of the original game. With this new knowledge of "mods" I decided I wanted to make my own! yeah! it would be the coolest game, it was going to be called "Meat". It would have been a deathmatch game where you run around as cows and pigs and chickens picking up weapons like sausage launchers and Slim Jim whips, etc. Yeah! best fuckin' game ever! Well I didn't know how to make a mod. So I googled "make your own mod for Half Life". I found the link for Worldcraft and installed it. But at first glance it only let you make maps. I needed code, modelling programs, the works. So I thought the mapping program, Worldcraft, to be useless. However I got bored one day and decided to open it up and try to make something, just for the hell of it. My first attempt failed miserably, I had no idea what I was doing. My textures paths were all wrong, my compile paths were screwed and I had holes all over the map, which at the time though didn't make a difference. Through the course of what I'm not at liberty to say I came to want to map something more and more until I was driven to map icegalaxy, an unfinished HLDM map and the predecesor to de_icegalaxy. I fixed my paths and compiled the map. It worked! Except for the gaping hole where the sky should be. But how was I supposed to know how to make a sky? I was an infant in the mapping world and didn't know to cover the sky with the "sky" texture. And even browsing through the textures I wouldn't have found it, being as small as it is. I was determined! I googled "sky for Worldcraft", "Sky for Half Life", and such. I found a few other sites that didn't really help, some that weren't even related to half Life. Eventually I found TWHL, saw their tutorials(yes, when I was a we-little noob, I actually did look at the tutorials) and saw that they were helpful. I bookmarked the page and began my never ending quest that is now my mapping career.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I remember like yesterday.I was imagining my own game when I was seven years old after playing red alert1.Then when I was 10 years old.My cousin told me about HL.When I saw the first barney from the tram.I said'WOW!AN UN-SPRITE!NPC!' I played it like 4 years.I started mapping for it like 1 year ago.Because I found HL1 too easy.So when I'm making hard maps.People get mad at me (speacially Captain P).Well,after finishing my mod(our actually) .I will be extremely happy!

RTS to FPS isnt an easy conversion

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, 7 years ago at the age of 13, I got Half-Life. Worldcraft, as it was called many many ages ago, came with HL on the CD. I tried making a few maps, they sucked, I found it confusing. I made maps on and off in the years following. At which point I got CS and decided I wanted to make multiplayer maps. That is when I joined this site.

So when I'm making hard maps.People get mad at me (speacially Captain P).

I'm not mad at you, I just don't like your levels...
I wrote such long articles since you asked me for it. Otherwise I had probably not even downloaded it.

Anyway, the conversion between mapping for a RTS and a FPS may not seem that easy, as most technical basics are somewhat different, but when you have a feeling for games like that then it's not too hard I think. It's just getting used to a different set of tools and a different style of gameplay. But in both genres, gameplay may differ quite some already, so...

I initially had a mac.

And I used REDit on the school computers. Things were shit but I kept at it. When I got a PC in May (04), I picked up HL - Not that I'd never played it before, but I finally got around to getting my own copy and playing the PC version - Needless to say I got involved in the editing scene fairly quickly. Picked up some skills with teh hammre, but didn't bother getting loads of maps polished and released - Instead I regarded it as prep for HL2. And I worked...and worked...and worked...and worked.

HL2 arrived, jumped on with Source from the get-go. Felt a lot better for everyone to be on a level playing field in terms of new stuff. Released Petrol and Raincheck, hopped on and off of C13 and joined BMS. And that brings us to toooooooday...

Planning on getting a professional LD job at some point in the future. So far, things are looking quite good for that to happen. Now to find Source developers...

My friends and I started out when we wanted to make custom maps for our lan parties. All our maps sucked so everyone gave up except for me and I found this site to improve my skill even more.

A few years ago, when I was 13 or 14 I had just found out that it was possible to create one's own Half-Life maps using a tool called Worldcraft. So I downloaded Worldcraft just to try it out. I was so confused and wondering how to start. I opened up the texture tab, looked around there, couldn't figure out how to start. Seemed too complex for me, so I thought to hell with it. About a year or a year and a half later, I decided to give it another go. I fired up Worldcraft and searched google for: How +to +create +map +Worldcraft, or something like that, and I came across TWHL, saw the tuts, found them helpful and decided to join.

Wel back in 1999, when I got my HL, I was in love with it. The whole game was sumthin unreal compared to popular games at that time. Then CS appeared. My classm8 lended his CS cd (1.1 ) and I started playing it like hell. Later on I noticed that some of the retail maps werent made by valve. And so i thought that perhaps it would be possible to make maps on my own?
Later on, in about 2001 - i found planethalflife, and downloaded the SDK. I downloaded it, just because I was curious, not that I thought it would contain worldcraft. So I never did install it.
Later on, like about 2003-2004 i found a valve hammer download at fileplanet, and found out, that that was the program I was lookin for! I downloaded it and i didn't understand shit. The help file didn't help, so I started experimenting and before joining TWHL I already knew, how to create a brush and texture it. Although I started wondering, how do those brushes work ingame. I mean, how does glass break, when you hit it. First I thought that it was the texture, but I wasn't sure, so I googled for tuts. At first I found egir.dk, a site with mapping tuts, but It was more concentrated on CS mapping, so I searched on.... and found TWHL. I read the tuts, then TONS of questions started buggin me. So I Made an account and became a decent mapper...
OMFG!! I wrote a whole page!!

Dunno which year it was...! Anyway, Me and my friends played alot of cs. (Not public, only pcw's and tournaments) and when none of them were on ventrilo I wanted to make my own maps for cs so I googled and found counter-maps, which has the most stupid forums, and learned some basics there. Later I wanted to do hl mapping so I googled again and found TWHL. That's my story

I bought Quake 1. Nuff said.

I have been a mapper for almost exactly one year today.

My friend gave me his HL1 CD, I tried playing it, but it required a 88 MB patch to load. While trying to find the patch, I found Uplink and Worldcraft instead. Together, it's still a smaller download. So I downloaded them instead.

I found TWHL from Google, and the learning began. I was obsessed at first, spending all waking hours mapping. Then it slowed down a bit, so I actually slept and ate and went to the bathroom during compile time.

Now, I am back to leading a normal life again. I am married, and working almost full-time. Mapping is a nice hobby, but it's not all-consuming anymore.

Got tired of porn.

I'm not all that sure quite when I started mapping. Started FPSing and HLing together, and pretty recently, in... 2002, I think it was. I found CS first, then, at some point, found Hammer. I played with it briefly, wondered why the hell the boxes I was trying to create disappeared whenever I tried to make another one, and gave up. After a whole lot of searching, found here, registered... and lost it.

Then (new paragraph, just to break it up), found it again by fluke, a few months later. I'd've found it much quicker if only you could tap colour descriptions into Google (this orange really sticks). Er, then here we are. My first proper project was a pair project, Cause of Death, which won John_Crichton and I a gold trophy apiece in Trapped. Et cetera.

I dont map. I'm just chillin' here ;o

What made me a mapper?

the CS game and the official maps

What is about to make me tired of being of mapper?

the CS gamers and HLCSG/BSP ...

that explains why your other acc was crazed1...

What is about to make me tired of being of mapper?

the CS gamers and HLCSG/BSP ...

Yeah, but you're trying to do things with the HL engine that it wasn't really made for, like large, open, detailed maps and all that.
I once tried creating a cave map, using a triangle brush method, but that turned out to be nearly impossible to finish (and get a decent framerate and look) in HL. The Source engine would suit you much more, looking at your idea's, J.C.

Everybody is telling this to me ...

I totally agree : I know Source would solve most of my "mapping problems", I would be able to set lower textures scales, add more details, make open areas larger, make outside areas more "natural-looking" etc, but there are two important points against that :

_My comp is a bit more than two years old now, and Source really doesn't run on (the display rate is like 1 frame every 6-10 seconds, seriously (I felt like playing a turn-based game while I tried it), and a probability of crash/quit/freeze/blue screen of about 30-45% for each clic/load/alt+tab (I rebooted at least 20 times a day the week I was trying it), which make that editor the most awful one I ever seen ...). And I can't buy a new one as long as I don't have a job ...
_I don't like Counter-Strike : Source : it is just pure crap for me, the fact that Valve never played Counter-Strike, don't give a f#ck about the gamers, and have absolutely no clue about what CS really is ...

for those reasons, and that most CS gamers are the worst braindead people I ever seen (considering themselves "l33t" massively and endlessly doing the same 4-5 strats on the same 4-5 maps with the same 4-5 weapons ...), I am not planning to work on anything "valve-related" after my current CS 1.6 project, surely take a look on what are the other games editors ...

Hmm, understandable situation. Though then I think no current-gen engine would really fit for you, but it's always worth looking around a bit. The Unreal engine might be a good alternative...

_I don't like Counter-Strike : Source : it is just pure crap for me, the fact that Valve never played Counter-Strike, don't give a f#ck about the gamers, and have absolutely no clue about what CS really is ...

Nah, that's just because you're used to CS the way it is now. CSS is just somewhat different. People complain about CSS but they also complain about CS... Valve is actually putting up much more patches for CSS than they do for HL2DM...
And indeed, the majority of CS players doesn't really seem to have a high catch of good design...

I don't feel that gameplay changed that much between CS and CS:S. I seem to be in a small minority, though.

most CS gamers are the worst braindead people I ever seen (considering themselves "l33t" massively and endlessly doing the same 4-5 strats on the same 4-5 maps with the same 4-5 weapons ...),

Quoted for truth.

When I was "mapping" for Warcraft 3 ( http://www.ideaseed.net/web/TRM/download/maps.htm ), believe me or not, but when I needed to test my work (multiplayer standard maps), I just needed to create an online game (with just some clics, no need to spend 40 euros for a laggy server), people joined my game within some minutes (seriously), and some ones loved it !! give me feedbacks and so on ... next to that, trying to make people test your stuff in CS is da ultimate p41n in d4 a$$ man !! I spent money in web and game servers, and actually only about 10-15 people gave me feedbacks !! I mean wtf is wrong with those l#me #ss#s ??

I played CSS and really don't like it : got sick very quickly of all those barrels that are rolling on the ground, stupidly hampering your moves, while there were actually only one skin for each team, and the maps have not even been redone correctly !!! (modified runtimes, some removed covers ... CSS is a total nub job : using awesomest backgrounds ever to hive the crappy gameplay)

I just wanted to map for sumthing (Got bored of Warcraft 3) and found TWHL. From there I got hammer, read the tutorials, and ruined my life with mapping

After I beat halflife a few times (with cheats, I suck) I dl'd hammer 3.4, but had no idea how to use it. So I let it sit for about a year, and came back, and figured out how to use it, found twhl, and improved my mapping skills immensely.

I found TWHL at Half-life 100 topsites, after adding my old site "The Madcow Mod Site" over there.
I wondered, how do they make maps? Thought only valve could do that. :S
So, I asked 7:th how to make maps and he said, "read the tutorials!"

(Got bored of Warcraft 3)

How can you become sick of wc3?

How can you become sick of wc3?

For exactly the same reason I am becoming sick of CS : it's always the same thing ...

While playing warcraft 3, I was like "wow such great game, such deep gameplay : you can creep that way, you can creep that big monsters and get good items, you can expand that way, you can tech or rush, play that hero or those one etc". But for the enemies, 95% of them at least, there isn't any "deep gameplay", there is just "rush", there is just "make that hero everybody do" and build an other lame lame 854266th new account, just to be able to say "stfu noob" on the chat channels ...

Actually I don't know a single online game community that is not totally infested by, sorry, stupid kids. And while I am looking for a good game for years, everytime I finally find one, I just see it ruined by 8-15 years old lamers (or older people who act the same way), and that is making me angry and sad about the whole humanity with the years going, I am like "omg how will become our already lame world with such braindead nolife lamers ?" ...

I don't mean every children is a stupid kids, children may be wiser than adults, I just mean this is the age time (in my opinion) there are the most probability to have/be arrogant/ignorant nolife-vocabulary limited nubswhoissuretobeDAl33t lamers who just need a big "STFU" ...

I saw my bro-in-law to be playing with hammer after he finished HL in the first day he played it. He made an awesome deathmatch map called "The Circle" which was a circular map with shotguns and tripmines and 1 guass gun in the centre.

The first thing i did was make an oversized version of the WC2.1 tutorial map but i added monsters to it for a more fun box level. Then i read a PC Gamer tutorial on mapping and scripted sequences. Since then (over 6 years) I have found TWHL and vastly improved on my mapping $K1LLz. I now also have a mature voice to do the speech with. It was fun to have 60 year old scientists having 14 year old voices though.

My most recent (and favourite) implementation in my maps is the survival horror thing (get key, open door to find safe, read letter, get safe code, open safe. etc.) inspired by 'Heart of Evil' for HL1 of course

Ah, I really must find my old maps. I'll upload one for a laugh if i do!

Right, I've just finished downloading 'Life's End.' (HL1) Going to go play now.

@ J.C: You said you can't map for source because your computer is more than two years old? I havent made any CPU, 3dcard or memory upgrades since I bought my computer more than three years ago and there is no problem whatsoever... What are your system specs?
Mine are P IV 2.0 Ghz, 512 ddRAM, Geforce4 ti 4200

HL2 will run fine on an AXP Tbred 1700+, 512MB of RAM, and a GeForce Ti4600, I've seen it done. Runs smoothly at 2x AA/Trillnear filtering at 1280x1024 with everything at max and world reflection.