Speedmapping

[Groove]

I was wondering if anyone would like to organize a few speedmapping sessions for Tremulous. It's a quite tradition in the quake mapping community. For those who don't know, speedmaps usually aim to design, build and compile a map in 1 hour. It's a challenge, and it's good fun, especially when we can get a group session going and can all play the maps afterwards.

I am curious to see if anyone else would be interested in participating. We need to have some irc channel for meeting and someone who can host the maps afterward. Please let me know if you or anyone else would like to join in or help out in organizing or being a part of such an event. Perhaps we can get some kind of weekly thing going. I think it could be quite fun.

[rdizzle]

i'd be down.

[Iltama]

Sounds fun, I would definitely give it a shot . Although....one hour? That's an awful short amount of time

[22grandjob]

no problem........

[doomagent13]

Compilation must be done in that hour?!?  That is the part where it is most likely to go wrong, me thinks.

[Ingar]

Compilation time is largely dependend on your q3map2 settings, with reduced light settings only the vis time is relevant.

That said: in an hour I make half a door, or a floor or some piece of wall, good trem maps are way more compilicated than a standard deathmatch arena and need much more planning.

IMHO, in an hour you will create crap.

No thanks, I like to take my time.

[DASPRiD]

Ingar is right, there is quite a difference between standard deathmap maps and maps for a teamplay and tactical based game like Tremulous. You could extend the entire thing to, let's say, 24 hours.

However, I remember another nice project from planetquake.de. A guy called Xian started the project "48 hour mod". In this mod, 12 people contributed with their stuff, like new models, new weapons, new maps and also some new textures. Afterwards, you could clearly see, that everything was inspired by the standard Quake 3 layout, but it was impressive, what they've done in this time. Maybe you could organize something like that?

All in all, quallity takes time. So I won't throw a bunch of bullshit (sorry, but that's a fact for this short amount of time) out to the community.

[Lava Croft]

Speedmapping very, very rarely yields satisfactory results. On the contrary, it almost always yields horrific results, as evidently showcased by all of Quake II Gloom's speedmapping sessions. It's just not the way to go, people. Do we, the Tremulous players, deserve to be presented such crap? I think we don't.

[gareth]

IMO.

what you propose will produce crap, 1 hour simply isnt enough time.

however

maybe something along these lines would work:

-someone, or somepeople create a set of map sections, corridors, rooms of various shapes etc, care being taken that they have openings that fit together properly.

-the contest could then be to arrange these subsections into a map in one hour.

this would focus it on gameplay testing, but ensure the finished maps after an hour, although they all look alike, do not look like crap.

This would also take care of lighting, as it could all come from shaders/light entites that are already in the subsections.

Compiling should obviously not be part of the hour.

[Groove]

I made a mistake when I told you about the time to compile. You usually get an extra 25 minutes or so.

I hear what you're all saying about 1 hour being not enough time. However, I think with enough practice you will find it is. With speedmapping, you should be abandoning all practice of efficient mapping rules. Just copy and paste everything and don't optimize anything.

I have seen many quality maps come from speedmapping, some of them large ctf or complex tourney maps. It's also a good experience for getting rid of bullshit ideas you have running around in your head, real crazy gimmicks and layouts that wouldn't be good enough for a real release but suit a speedmap perfectly. I don't think real mapping should be rushed--but this is only for fun.

If you still don't think 1 hour is enough time we could try the turtlemap where you get a whole week to produce something quality. Or the pass the map, where you pass a map around various mappers, each adding their own section to it (but with a common goal) to create something quality. I am only looking for something fun to do here and I can't say I'm very interested in making another bland spaceport map which seems to be what is popular around here.

[TRaK]

I don't intend to practice making maps in 1 hour that "abandon all practice of efficient mapping rules". Frankly, what's the point?

I'd rather spend that hour making a map that will be an enduring contribution to the trem community, not just a stupid gimmick.

[Shadowgandor]

1 Hour or 24 hours, my maps would always look ugly xD

[Iltama]

I hear what you're all saying about 1 hour being not enough time. However, I think with enough practice you will find it is. With speedmapping, you should be abandoning all practice of efficient mapping rules. Just copy and paste everything and don't optimize anything.

I take my words back, this is rubbish  :cry:
On the other side, Gareths idea has real potential!

[Thorn]

There should be a contest. Call it FCP-contest. You have 3 years to make and compile your map!

[Survivor]

Don't I get an extra month for compiling thorn?

Also no, gameplay is dependant on the versatility of the environment and that is down the drain with both prefabs and speedmapping alike.
Those things you can lock down in a contest:

Textureset: needs no explanation except for the fact that it shouldn't be atcs'.

Timelimit >= 1 week, even 24 hours is too short to create working interesting gameplay for tremulous. But give people a week and while it may not look nice it will at least play nice.

Theme/subject: Center around an idea. Like egyptian pyramid for theme or a race to securing several control points to stage up (iirc i implemented something along these lines in duelist) as subject. Then each mapper would make a map around this theme/subject.

imo the best one to lock down would be subject with an expiration date of one month. It would be fun to see different interpretations of such a thing instead of lookalike maps.

[TRaK]

I like Survivor's idea. A contest centering around a specific concept would be interesting.

[techhead]

There is a difference between speed-mapping and a noob-mapper not wishing to invest time into their maps. That said, only experienced mappers should be trusted to speed-map.
Also, for a team-based tactical game, you need a higher level of detail than in a death-match based game. Then again, someone might be able to crank out a decent ATCS clone in under 24 hours.

[Survivor]

ATCS is a decent map by common standards but a lot of people are overjudging its worth. I'd rather have people using niveus or arachnid as an example than atcs when it comes to giving an example of a good gameplay map.

[ThePyro]

The Gloom speed mapping competitions were 3 hours each.  Most of the maps were complete trash, but there were a few gems... like speedr1.bsp (cue flashing lights and music loops).  Long live the AOL CD!

[Sindwiller]

Planning, designing and realising a good map within an hour or three is (almost) impossible. I think 24 hours would be okay, too. I would also allow custom content.

Someone ready to start such a contest?  

[Ingar]

Planning, designing and realising a good map within an hour or three is (almost) impossible. I think 24 hours would be okay, too. I would also allow custom content.

While this thread was posted, I was running my own experiment.
Check Nano!. It took me a week.

[Groove]

Been trying my hand at creating a tremulous map lately and realized that we need at minimum a weeks time to create anything decent. If anyone is up for anything like that, maybe we can get something together. I think it'd be fun.

Alternatively, we could all make a section of a map in a limited time, like, 48 hours. Then, we would merge each of our pieces of the map together to create one gigantic map. We would all need to have a common unifying theme, because without direction the map would go nowhere.

I'm open to feedback on these ideas. Let me know what you think.

[Survivor]

Been trying my hand at creating a tremulous map lately and realized that we need at minimum a weeks time to create anything decent. If anyone is up for anything like that, maybe we can get something together. I think it'd be fun.

Needs no explanation and in full support of this view.

Alternatively, we could all make a section of a map in a limited time, like, 48 hours. Then, we would merge each of our pieces of the map together to create one gigantic map. We would all need to have a common unifying theme, because without direction the map would go nowhere.

It wouldn't go anywhere anyhow. The level of the mappers on this board varies wildly with dasprid and the other devteammappers having the top, me and some others having a good middle and quite a lot low level mappers who would like to get in I imagine. Imagine the problems.

If you really want cooperation better would be to delegate everyone a specific task in mapping. Start with a gameplaymapper, then a main theme setter who decides the texture set and atmosphere, a detail mapper for the fine looks, an effects mapper who would handle things like particle systems and sounds. This way you could have several teams of 4 people compete with each other.
This is because if you toss enough people in the production chain it will NEVER get done. While this taskmapping allows even the somewhat bad mappers to cooperate since most of these mappers have a thing they are good at but the other areas lacking.

I'm open to feedback on these ideas. Let me know what you think.

Now you know what I think

[Lava Croft]

Speedmapping is a fucking failure and a really bad excuse to release horrible maps.

[Plague Bringer]

Back up that statement.

[Groove]

Speedmapping is a fucking failure and a really bad excuse to release horrible maps.

It's for fun.

However, if you said, "it's about fun" about a year long on-and-off project, I would have to disagree.  You know where you would have first heard that sentiment? When you were on a little-league team that sucked. It was the coach’s pre-game "pep talk" to soften the impact of the beating you all knew you were about to take. "Fun" should not be used as an excuse for sucking, to hide your inability to make a decent level. There’s something deeply satisfying about seeing truly well made levels. They have a kind of beauty all of their own. That being said, the speedmap is about having fun, which is fun, and furthering your own mapping skills. Suck it.

[jit]

1 Hour or 24 hours, my maps would always look ugly xD

same here. i downloaded gtk radiant 1.5 and can't do anything cus idk how to LAWL