if you out of idears what should you do? Created 18 years ago2006-01-26 09:48:28 UTC by mathew!

Hello i am asking this question as i've had this problem quite a few times with maps : , and so i am wondering if anyone knows any good methords of aquireing idears and makeing them suit the map still.

Thanks in advance to anyone of help.

Sure, Watch a film or play another game to give you ideas then change them and expand on them.

Wasnt it einstien that once said;

"The best ideas are just old ones redone well."

If i run out of ideas then i do something else. I actually do things like Tycell said in his post.

Best thing to do is have a break for a week and something usually spings to mind for me, although I rearely have problems with ideas

Well when I was out of ideas for Hlsp I started mapping for Hl1dm. No need to think on the plot, just a cool layout and theme.

Uhm... well, I'd do a search for idea threads if I were you... this subject has been covered several times already now.

Not that I'm running low on idea's, I've got plenty of them. I'm running low on time, so it's more a case of picking the best idea's and sticking with them. But, again, that has been covered before...

Just think of something thats cool and possibly new...I have always wanted to make a nice peaceful type forest with a nice river to sit on and meditate.

My skills are not good enough for that unfortunately.

Think about a place that you think looks cool or check the spell checker for inspiration.

find a website with abandoned, decrepit buildings and map those

abandoned decrepit buildings suck ass, one of the most mapped things in the world is boring buildings, we dont need more!

You can thank me for that.

show me these maps and then ill decide who to thank!

Look at my profile for 2 seconds, man.

well i did and i seen one old building map! The rest are nearly all city maps

To have ideas is like to breath, to love, to see etc, nobody can teach this to you : you got it or you don't, some people are very creative when it's about to build a house, some others are about clothes, some others about RPG, some others about FPS etc, what is the point of wanting to make maps if you are clueless about what you want to do ? If you don't know what to do, just don't do, that's simple ...

I use Hammer because I have some ideas I would like to check : if I wouldn't have any ideas, if I like the game (CS) the way it is, or if finally I don't like it at all, I wouldn't even think a single second to open Hammer and spend hours then days then weeks then monthes to build maps ...

i took almost a year of mapping (no one noticed the absence of my fine maps for a year ) because i ran out of ideas, but now im back - they just come to you when your doing whatever your doing. Draw pictures but, that helps!

As other people are saying, do something else...

I generally find that the biggest problem I have is getting a new map started. Once I have that first room which I like, building up from there is almost easy. However, when I do find myself stalled at a particular point in the development, I find it very useful to show the work in progress to one of my mates - just give him a quick tour - and see if he has any thoughts on where to go from there. Even if another person's thoughts aren't quite what you want to follow, they are often enough to kick-start your own ideas again: I don't want to do that because I want to do this instead.

OTOH, several of my maps have sections which I can readily point out as having been somebody else's idea; I just had to build it (and make it work, and look good... ;-))

This topic appears on every forum - sooner or later.
Well, everyone said it: try doing something that has nothing to do with mapping.
But be careful! If you overdo it, you'll find out that making textures is damn kewl and you'll end up making materials for BM:S.

I agree with J.C in that I seem to have no end of a multitude of ideas...

My problem is not having enough motivation to finish them

Try breathing exercises and meditation. If that doesn't work, try astral projection

When I had no ideas for Sp as I said before, I started to think on layouts for DM. It's quite simple for they are mostly circular, afterward fit a nice theme to that layout.

It's sometimes easier to think of a layout then thinking on a theme.

I'll keep it short:

'A mappers first use is Hammer, A mappers second use is google. Use them wisely.'

Just search interesting things and play other poeples map for inspiration. A lot of poeple forget about the actuall hl (cs/tfc etc..) players, see what they like, after all, it's all about the gamer.

Just think of something thats cool and possibly new...I have always wanted to make a nice peaceful type forest with a nice river to sit on and meditate.
My skills are not good enough for that unfortunately

Habboi, please, stop making such comments. They make me wanna puke. You always say that you're not good enough and that you want mapping skills like <fill in>, damn, stop the whining and just TRY to map the things you want to map before taking conclusions.

Change that first use to paper, or doing nothing and catching idea's, FresheD...

I think it's good to gather idea's, no matter how bad they are or how stupid they sound. Write them down in whatever form or shape you're comfortable with. Once you have a bunch of idea's, try to find one that sounds good. The others may be bad, but that doesn't mean they're worthless - you can mix up things, they can influence your best idea, and what not.

It wasn't ment in order of....

I use hammer to make the map.
I use google to gather ideas and inspiration for the map.

I never use paper for I have my lay-out's (Is that what you ment, P?) printed in my mind.