Why hello!

[Dman]

Hi, I'm Dman (incredibly lame in retrospect) and I have a habit of starting map projects only to abandon them midway due to lack of design and/or realising I've been way too ambitous ( my current unfinished map count is 3 and finished 0 ).

[Gambini]

Welcome Dman. The started projects vs releases ratio here is like 100 to 1 so there´s nothing to be ashamed of.

[MayheM]

Nothing wrong with being ambitious. I always find it is best to map what you know and see. Find a place around you and make it into a map. Need layouts, find floorplans for buildings online. Need inspiration, google is great for ref images.

But let me give you some advice beyond that. A good plan will always help. More than that, good workflow will help you even more. For instance, most new mappers will add textures as they go. This is an absolute waste of time. You will end up spending hours trying different textures only to have a half finished layout on an unplayable map. To eliminate this, come up with a basic layout and sketch it out. The build the map in hammer using nothing but dev textures. Once you have the layout constructed, you will actually be able to play the map. When you can play something and it plays well, you will be inspired to continue the process. But really the most important thing in any level is gameplay. You could have the prettiest map in existence, but if it is no fun to play people will not enjoy your hard work. So layout is paramount.

Once you have a layout you are happy with, you can think of a theme you want to carry through the map. Once you have a theme then you can go in and start adding details. Add detailed brushwork to add to make things more complex. from there you can start with model placement and adding more. Then you can start looking at textures and adding decals and stuff like that.

Obviously this is a really dumbed down run through, but you get the point.

Anyway, welcome to interlopers...

[Dman]

Thanks for the tips!