Ive been trying to map for the past few months, and i just cant finish a map. It either loses my interest, or i see it as a failure.
When i start to make a structure, say a church or house, i always have a picture in my head of how i want it to look.

But once i start to make it in hammer, it looks diffrent and i dont like it. Also, stuff i make is always either too big, or too small, how do you guys do it. How long does it take to make say, a house without an interior, and with?

Well, if you're mapping for source, you shouldn't have any problems with oversizing.. The DEV-textures are extremely useful because there are walltextures with a print of a human on it , so if you make your walls so that the texture doesn't need to be rescaled, you'll have a perfect sized wall :-)

And I understand what you mean with that first thing you said.. Usually I jump on a map after some ideas popped into my head, when I have a few free minutes (train/busrides) I create sketches of how the layout should be, and some environmental sketches to base the general look on. But when I try to get that stuff into hammer, it looks different, but that's where you need to take the time to edit small portions of your map untill your happy with it. Lots of mappers start with general layout as basic brushes as houses, after that they'll start adding detail untill they feel it's right.

Oh, and if I completely lost any sense of creativity, I just quit mapping for a few hours :) helps for me ^^

Originally posted by Bolteh
Well, if you're mapping for source, you shouldn't have any problems with oversizing.. The DEV-textures are extremely useful because there are walltextures with a print of a human on it , so if you make your walls so that the texture doesn't need to be rescaled, you'll have a perfect sized wall :-)

And I understand what you mean with that first thing you said.. Usually I jump on a map after some ideas popped into my head, when I have a few free minutes (train/busrides) I create sketches of how the layout should be, and some environmental sketches to base the general look on. But when I try to get that stuff into hammer, it looks different, but that's where you need to take the time to edit small portions of your map untill your happy with it. Lots of mappers start with general layout as basic brushes as houses, after that they'll start adding detail untill they feel it's right.

Oh, and if I completely lost any sense of creativity, I just quit mapping for a few hours :) helps for me ^^

Thanks for your feedback.
How long does it take to build a full structure. The ones ive seen in official maps are super detailed and would, for me, take weeks to make just one. Is this right? Is there a shortcut im not aware of?

Well the mappers of the official maps are very experienced and it's normal that they don't take as much time to create a fully detailed structure as beginning mappers such as you and me. Don't know how long it takes for them to create 1 structure, but I can quite honestly say that to actually finish 1 building, it would take me about a week. (basicly because I keep changing stuff.

Also, detail in source is mainly because of prop-models.. DoD:S has -a lot- of prop models to give shape to maps.. That's where most of the detail comes from.

I made my first building using displacements instead of just the carve tool back in early oct and it really took me a long time. well over a week.

I often lose interest in mapping after a while, so I wait at least a week and when I fire up hammer I just cant stop. :o

It depends on how many parts your building has. If you notice, a lot of the better looking architecture on Source maps have a lot of different brushes!

There's the foundation, which may or may not stick out a bit from the walls (to give it some variation). There are exterior chimneys, porches, awnings, all kinds of things.

If you're worried about scale, do what the above post said and use those dev measurements. Just type in dev in the texture browser and scroll down to the little fella. Then make your walls match that height.

Also, like they said, break up the monotony with models....though the downside is if you want to use one of those broken wall or roof models, you may have to do your brushwork all around it. You can't stretch them and put them anywhere.

Personally, I'm slow as molasses and it's taking me an average of two days or so (spread around let's say 12 hours) to do one building. But I'm new to this, I'm sure it gets faster.

ABOVE ALL ELSE, DO NOT GIVE UP. Good luck!!

Originally posted by regen
How long does it take to make say, a house without an interior, and with?

About 12 hours for me too but it depends on the building, I think Official valve mappers dont take long, they beat a moddler till they do it :p

But if you look at some models there are pre made walls and broken roofs etc they can add detail without complex brushes and make life easier.

As for height, textures generally work in 128x128 so from ground level make ur wall 128 high then put a roof / floor on it, this is generally the right scale to start with.

I usually place an info_player_allies in the map to give me an idea of size. I think they are about the right height of the player.

They are the exact height of the player afaik.

Making a detailed building takes me about 1 hour. Of course I'm talking about a "Flash style" house, not a "dijon like" church... Size of the building is everything...

Buildings, interiors, walls, stuff like that is super duper easy and only takes minutes. But when you start getting wierd angles on things, roofs, interesting archicture, wierd stairs, is when you gotta slow down to stay accurate. On tiny little buildings you can do it in like 20-30 minutes and make em look real nice too. Just be ready to come back and correct anything that doesn't look right after a compile. If time is your issue then just move on and don't stress about the little things. Focus on larger concepts like overall room flow and pov obstruction. Small details can come later.

Originally posted by regen
Ive been trying to map for the past few months, and i just cant finish a map. It either loses my interest, or i see it as a failure.



I've only made one map that I've released and it was a beta, fy_treatment for CSS.

I took forever but it was a great learning experience. I've gotten to the point after nearly a year I can have a map all ready for optimizing using optimizing brushes, I just need to READ more on how to properly complete a map so it compiles! :(

Try and work on a couple projects that are totally different, that should hold your interest in the map a bit longer.