art vs design

Taffy

L1: Registered
May 25, 2010
14
0
hey folks,

im new to mapping and enjoy designing maps and then using the gen textures to make it but i'm not very artistic, i can't really do much better than cartoon dogs, so when i come to doing all the detail and making it look all TF2 style, i seem to get bored and fail cause it looks rubbish.

Just looking for any advise or wondering if you ever get mappers working together, one doing designing and one doing detailing???

look forward to a responce :D
 

HeaH

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Oct 2, 2008
553
102
Hi, welcome to the site!

Nope, one mapper does all the work. There are a few collaborations out there (cp_furnace mostly), but it's not the normal thing to do.
 

DjD

L5: Dapper Member
May 18, 2010
230
55
sure, it sometimes happens that mappers team up and split the work.
It is helpful because both have their ideas and inspirations and can combine them to perfect the outcome. another advantage: "Two heads are better than one." meaning map errors will be rarer because 2 people are overlooking the map process.
You can find a couple maps created by more than one mapper in the map database of this site.
 

Jesmonda

L1: Registered
Jan 30, 2010
20
8
welcome mate, i'm new myself, just working it all out, (leaks will be the bane of your life, as i've found, but don't let that worry you just yet. )

texturing is indeed numbing at times, especially when your trying to make a texture fit to a brush to look nice. you'll find that if you look at some of the maps already within the SDK, just looking around at the art style and how it's done will help you with ideas, but if they aren't enough, be sure to get more maps here to help you. (but ignore mostly everything else, the sheer work they've done at first sight almost scared me off mapping, but once your ready and have decent knowledge then have a look at how they've done it. optimization etc. )

most of all download the Ultimate Mapping Resource Pack here on the site, that Prop Library will get those creative ideas going for what your map can include, it will also help with a lot of other things too, so well worth it.

finally, i'd have a look at the this, find the tutorials for you, a lot them will really help, but also make sure to keep the TF2 section of the VDC bookmarked for any help, use them both and things should be good.

have fun!
 

Bad Vlad

L2: Junior Member
May 23, 2010
71
16
welcome mate, i'm new myself, just working it all out, (leaks will be the bane of your life, as i've found, but don't let that worry you just yet. )

Leaks are pretty painless, provided you've a good picture of how leaks are caused.

OP, I don't think a mapping forum is the best place to ask about making textures. What do you mean by 'gen textures', actually?

edit: Cartoon dog comment threw me off. Detailing, then?
 
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grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
hey folks,

im new to mapping and enjoy designing maps and then using the gen textures to make it but i'm not very artistic, i can't really do much better than cartoon dogs, so when i come to doing all the detail and making it look all TF2 style, i seem to get bored and fail cause it looks rubbish.

Just looking for any advise or wondering if you ever get mappers working together, one doing designing and one doing detailing???

look forward to a responce :D

First of all, if you're new to mapping, your biggest problem is understanding how to build and create geometry in the most efficient manner. When you are comfortable with creating geometry it will be 100x easier and faster to get through the "art" process once you've completed your layout design.

As a beginner it's important you read through as manner hammer related articles as you have time for, and practice with the hammer tools. There's no real short cut to it which can be frustrating when you're really eager to produce quality results.

Practice, practice, practice; and if you're still having difficulty, Valve have provided us with pre-compile vmf's of official TF2 (Valve made, not community) maps for us to study (located in your sourcesdk_content/tf/mapsrc folder). These can be helpful as reference for detail architecture or for observing how certain geometric forms were created.
 
Mar 23, 2010
1,872
1,696
I'm also terrible at detailing. I like doing layouts and stuff better. I blame it on my n64 graphics i play on.
 

Freyja

aa
Jul 31, 2009
2,994
5,813
Collabs are the best way to learn to hate your fellow mapper.

They can also produce the best maps if you find the right person to work with.


Detailing is easy if you keep in mind how someone in real life would have build it. Like - where would they have put thos ejunction boxes. Where would they put supports to hold this building up.
 

Taffy

L1: Registered
May 25, 2010
14
0
thanks for all the responces,

the textures I was using were called something like 'dev/dev measure gen' and came in red, blue, grey and orange.

I have quite a few ideas for maps, and can make them look ok in hammer, but i havn't tried displacements or using textures much yet.