Brain blocked when mapping

Washipato

L3: Member
Jun 22, 2009
149
331
I don't know if this happens to only me, but well, anyway...

Sometimes when I map for a long time, I start to fly aimlessly in hammer, looking at the brushes and logic entities or arranging them in new ways.

Or after coding a new feature for the map, compiling and testing, I spend several minutes after doing the work fooling around the full-bright version of the map and discover that 20 minutes of mapping were wasted

Has someone had the same issue that I do or Im special? :O
 

psihomir

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 17, 2008
192
32
Take a break. It happens with everyone who's involved in something creative.

When I notice that I'm losing my concentration and I'm just mindlessly roaming around in Hammer, I close it and fire up a game or go for a walk or something. I've found that forcing myself to continue mapping under these circumstances only leads to stupid design decisions which I make just so that I can keep mapping.
 

J4CK8

L11: Posh Member
Mar 4, 2009
820
243
I find myself flying around in hammer sometimes when I'm not sure of what to do. Then I close hammer and do something else o_O
 

Trotim

aa
Jul 14, 2009
1,195
1,045
Yes, when that happens you must take a break. It happens to writers and artists too - artists start to sketch around for no reason, writers keep rewriting the same sentences over and over again.
 

Eternal

L69: Deviant Member
Jul 8, 2009
69
10
I just came BACK from a break myself. As a few of you may or may not have noticed I had disapeered for a bit there. I just sort of hit a hump in my work and had to stop for a bit.

I find I get these sort of moments after I've just done a lot of work and completed or nearly completed a section of the map (like I've setup and mostly detailed a particular building or something) I just sort of dread moving on to a new section, or have no inspiration for how to do a new section. Usually I force myself through em and its for the better, but after a couple of those you just HAVE to stop for a bit and play the game (or even another game entirely)

Interestingly enough its also good to take a break because I find when I'm working on my tf2 map, I have little interest in actually PLAYING tf2 but if you take a break from maping play some other games, and maybe even try and get into tf2 again you'll find inspiration and rekindle your enjoyment of the game.
 

Dr. ROCKZO

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Jul 25, 2009
580
159
A play test usually helps me (although, I'm still in the early stages of my map where there's tonnes of stuff to do) I just go engy with my build sentry out to find good spots, or Soldier to test how all my jumps are going..
 

Lockhart

L2: Junior Member
Sep 1, 2009
96
2
Yeah I had a 4 hour mapping sessions on Tue. because I was sick. I didn't stop mapping because I always have something to do, but I sure was getting sick of it. Got on the next day and had a blast.
 

Psy

The Imp Queen
aa
Apr 9, 2008
1,706
1,491
It happens. Just do something else for a while and go back to it after.