AntiMatter_16 on 1/9/2010 at 04:18
I'm curious about the process other FM authors use in building a mission.
What sort of preparation work do you do before you start building, if any?
What inspires you when making an FM? What do you draw upon for a story and themes?
What do you draw upon for architecture ideas? Your imagination? Some formal training? A massive folder of images you've stolen from the internet? (That's what I do.)
My buildings tend to be rather regular and boring. I see of a lot of interesting architecture geometry in pictures and FMs, but I've no idea how to be able to reproduce something like that aside from straight copying. Know of any ways to improve my technique so I can make buildings that are more interesting architecturally, and not just cubes?
What are some of the first things you build when you start a mission?
Do you work from the inside out (building the interior of a building and eventually working your way to the outside) or outside in (building the exterior of a building, and working your way inside)?
When creating a city, do you prefer to make buildings out of solid brushes placed in a large air brush allowing the space in between to make streets and paths, or do you make streets out of air brushes, and then augmenting the walls to appear as sides of buildings?
Do you create all areas in the mission at once, or do you create one small area work on it until all the details are finished and then move on?
What's your ratio of abandoned to completed missions?
Does your mission get made in several short bursts of incredible amounts of activity, or through slow consistent steady progress?
What was the shortest amount of time it took you to build and release a mission? The longest?
How many people were involved in helping you make your missions?
On a scale of 1 - 10, how well do you know dromed? How long have you been dromeding?
How much experience do you have with other level editors?
What was the very first thing you ever made with dromed? (That you remember at least.)
What are some of your favorite FMs by other authors and why?
Can't think of any more questions at the moment, but feel free to add anything about your building process, technique, or other topic related to FM design and creation.
Melan on 1/9/2010 at 07:45
That's a lot of good questions. :)
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What sort of preparation work do you do before you start building, if any?
Three out of the five missions I have released so far started with a concept map outlining the main streets and buildings (example (
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v198/Melan/Concept_Map.jpg) here). I also tend to sketch out architectural ideas. This initial concept is later modified by the needs of the editor and the engine, the ideas that come out of the building process itself ("wouldn't it look good if I...", "wouldn't it be cool if I could do that...") , and plain mistakes (in the map above, I significantly miscalculated concept-to-editor dimensions, and ended up with a lot more sprawling map than initially intended).
Quote:
What inspires you when making an FM? What do you draw upon for a story and themes?
What do you draw upon for architecture ideas? Your imagination? Some formal training? A massive folder of images you've stolen from the internet? (That's what I do.)
Other FMs, but especially old architecture. The best thing is to see it personally and drink in the atmosphere, but reference images are also good (here is a (
http://modetwo.net/darkmod/index.php?/topic/2334-city-reference-pictures/) thread full of them). Of course, Thief isn't reality, and it doesn't have to be conventionally realistic, just believable as an over-urbanised mediaeval/Victorian environment with steam technology and magic.
If you think your architecture is "plain and boring", try to remember that old city development, and the development of individual buildings, was largely unplanned and organic, driven by immediate needs and whatever possibilities the builders could exploit. Try to build architecture that's non-square, add slopes, outcroppings, arches, overhangs, niches and all that. That's not always easy to do technologically, since rotating groups of brushes can really really suck (TDM is an improvement over Dromed here, but it still has its problems for complex stuff), but you can accomplish much with a few wedges, pyramids, corner-apex pyramids and cylinders. One possible trick is to take a few different solid shapes, intersect them semi-randomly, then try to use that as an outline for a building, or group of buildings. A side benefit to complicated layouts is that they break sight lines and reduce polygon count.
Quote:
What are some of the first things you build when you start a mission?
I start with the rough layout for at least a part of the mission. Personally, this early stage is the hardest, since it is not very creative or immediately rewarding work; you cannot look at it and say, "wow, I made something really good here". Therefore, I try to move on to detailed architecture/object/light combos as soon as possible. Other people recommend "stepwise refinement", doing building stages sequentially (basic layout-->basic architecture-->lights-->objects-->detailed architecture-->etc.), which is how most pro games are supposed to be made, but I found it wasn't for me.
Quote:
Do you work from the inside out (building the interior of a building and eventually working your way to the outside) or outside in (building the exterior of a building, and working your way inside)?
When creating a city, do you prefer to make buildings out of solid brushes placed in a large air brush allowing the space in between to make streets and paths, or do you make streets out of air brushes, and then augmenting the walls to appear as sides of buildings?
This used to be a major technological issue, since the large air brush method tends to be more hardware-intensive, but progress in computing has largely eliminated it, so it is more of a design preference now. I have tried both methods -
Bad Debts and
Unbidden Guest were built with the second,
Prowler of the Dark and
Return to the City (for TDM) with the first, and
Disorientation with a combination of the two. I think if we are speaking of building in Dromed, the large air-->solids method is more intuitive, as long as you have a good handle on sight lines and vantage points you can climb to (and get large vistas). I wouldn't recommend it in TDM unless you really know what you are doing. Actually, it doesn't have to be a single huge air brush. You could take a few large air brushes and connect them with corridors (as I did in Disorientation); that makes the method safer since you only have to "control" one area at once.
Quote:
What's your ratio of abandoned to completed missions?
2:5. The two missions I abandoned after laying down some groundwork were
Verge, a haunted mine mission which failed because I found it impossible to construct natural-looking caverns in Dromed without making the editor window so complex with overlaid irregular brushes that I couldn't tell anymore what was what, and an untitled
Vertical Contest entry which failed because my PC couldn't (and still can't) run Thief 2 anymore, and my laptop was hard to build on. But it was also an issue of burnout. Ironically, it was a fault of Disorientation turning out so well - I accomplished what I wanted to do in Dromed, and after that, opening a new editing session just felt frustrating, like adding a footnote.
Quote:
Does your mission get made in several short bursts of incredible amounts of activity, or through slow consistent steady progress?
Used to be the latter, is now the former, but that's also work-related. My workload has increased a lot in the last years, and when I get home, I typically don't feel creative enough or energetic enough. That means I mostly work on weekends now when I'm more focused. That makes the process fairly slow, unfortunately.
Quote:
What was the shortest amount of time it took you to build and release a mission? The longest?
Shortest: Prowler of the Dark, five days from scratch including beta. That was intense. Longest: Disorientation, 11 net month with long breaks in between (including the 2008 Classic contest), which were ultimately to the project's advantage - there was a long maturing process which resulted in a lot of polish, and I also picked up a lot of skills I didn't have at the beginning.
Quote:
How many people were involved in helping you make your missions?
I have had help from LarryG, who made me some objects, and many more who helped with advice, ideas and testing. I hadn't co-built before, but Bikerdude has recently gotten Return to the City into shape (it originally had horrible performance on slow PCs due to basic design mistakes) and expanded it, which I will follow with my own work, meaning in the end, it will be a larger collaborative project.
Quote:
On a scale of 1 - 10, how well do you know dromed? How long have you been dromeding?
Started February 2007, and I probably got to a nice 7 - enough to work with the system, but not enough to do the really fancy things like scripting or the crazy things in CoSaS2 etc. Today, it is probably a lame 3 or 4. I recently opened up a mission to look around, and couldn't even navigate without consulting the net on how to do it. Embarrasing.
Quote:
How much experience do you have with other level editors?
I am learning DarkRadiant for TDM, and I am finding it a really beautiful and intuitive editing platform (it is actually a custom-made open source editor, not the baseline DoomEd). But that's it. Never tried anything else before Dromed, unless we count the Stunts track constructor.
Quote:
What was the very first thing you ever made with dromed? (That you remember at least.)
An area of Bad Debts that made it into the level with very few changes, actually - the fortress with Garrett's and the landlord's apartment and the guard station. I was surprised myself about that.
Quote:
What are some of your favorite FMs by other authors and why?
Calendra's Cistern/Calendra's Legacy: impressive architecture, dark environments/setting, good use of nonstandard gameplay (which some people hate), and CL is how TMA should have been in the first place.
Shadows of Doubt: unparalleled air of menace and alienation in
Tears of Blood and
Broadsword of Sheol, good urban areas in
Walking the Edge.
bbb's mission, especially
Augustine's Revenge: simple but effective architecture, almost abstract at places.
Trial by Night: old-school city exploration, and one of the main inspirations for Bad Debts.
Thieves' Highway/The Powers of Suggestion: uncadonego's exploration-oriented missions are among the best in that style.
An Old Friend/The Crypt of St. Lucian: both are small but architecturally impressive missions, the closest to my personal style that are around. I wish lost_soul did more like them.
Rocksbourg: it is Rocksbourg, that's why. Unique vision and style.
The Seven Sisters/The Tower: again, a strong personal style and dedication to quality.
Keeper of the Prophecies: and again.
There is more, but these are what come to my mind.
The Watcher on 1/9/2010 at 14:48
NB: all of this should be taken with the proviso that I have never actually
released a mission, in 8 or 9 years worth of dromeding. Relying on anything I say here as a useful approach may be the last thing you want to do...
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What sort of preparation work do you do before you start building, if any?
I generally do pretty much no prep work before I start, other than trying to work out the overall shape of what I want in my head. I have never actually done anything sane and sensible like plan things out on paper beforehand - I just tend to go at it.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What inspires you when making an FM? What do you draw upon for a story and themes?
What do you draw upon for architecture ideas? Your imagination? Some formal training? A massive folder of images you've stolen from the internet? (That's what I do.)
I live in a town on the edge of the Peak District in England, and I work in Manchester. A walk through my town can take me past buildings that date back to the mid 1700s without even going out of my way (there are several I know of from the 1600s, and traces of settlement in the area date all the way back to pre-Celtic times), and many of the major buildings in the town were built in the 1800s. There are also a lot of old buildings in Manchester, many from the early 1800s, so I have regular exposure to a lot of Georgean/Regency/Victorian architecture and designs. This is the source of a lot of my inspiration, combined with photographs of various old European cities.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
Know of any ways to improve my technique so I can make buildings that are more interesting architecturally, and not just cubes?
Practice, and yes, outright copy! The only real way to get better at architecture is to look at how it was done, and how others have implemented it, and use that to inform your design decisions and inspire your details. If a room looks boxy and bare, think of what it might need in a real situation, and look at how they are done: ceiling supports, trims, details around windows and doors, panelling accents, etc. If a corridor looks boring and empty, add alcoves or supports, think of ways to break up the solid walls and ceilings. And so on - don't be afraid to lift detailing ideas, either from real life or other missions.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What are some of the first things you build when you start a mission?
Do you work from the inside out (building the interior of a building and eventually working your way to the outside) or outside in (building the exterior of a building, and working your way inside)?
I always start from exteriors and work in, often finishing off as much of the exterior of a given building as I can before moving in, but I'll tend to work on one building or group of buildings at a time. The (
http://gallery.starforge.co.uk/v/thief/xavs/) gallery for Xavier's Library gives a fairly rough overview of the stages I tend to go through.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
When creating a city, do you prefer to make buildings out of solid brushes placed in a large air brush allowing the space in between to make streets and paths, or do you make streets out of air brushes, and then augmenting the walls to appear as sides of buildings?
I always carve whenever possible, only using solid brushes for detailing or when carving with air brushes would be insanely overcomplicated. It takes a bit more planning in some cases, but it works for me.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
Do you create all areas in the mission at once, or do you create one small area work on it until all the details are finished and then move on?
I work intensively on individual areas, doing basic geometry, lighting, objects and detailing (which may be the same thing), but stop short of roombrushing. I'll also tend to work on basic geometry of other areas at the same time, while thinking about how to proceed in the area I'm primarily concentrating on. I often find it very hard to determine whether an area is going to work properly until I have much of the visuals of it done, so I prefer to get to the point that I'm satisfied it is okay before moving to the next bit.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What's your ratio of abandoned to completed missions?
I've abandoned at least 3 missions in the past, I've never actually completed one. Yeah, pretty lousy, really.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
Does your mission get made in several short bursts of incredible amounts of activity, or through slow consistent steady progress?
I generally work on about half a dozen different projects at the same time: woodworking projects, various coding projects, 3D modelling, art stuff, and level editing. I tend to shift from one to the other as inspiration strikes or dries up, spending some time on each fairly regularly... so probably closer to the latter than the former.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
On a scale of 1 - 10, how well do you know dromed? How long have you been dromeding?
I thought it was late 2001, but after some digging recently it appears I was posting using my old nick in TEG back in 2000, so longer than I thought! I'd say I am somewhere around a 6 (assuming that 10 is Godlike Knowledge and 0 is Utter Neophyte) - I know a fair number of advanced techniques, and have a lot of experience with custom content, I've even started poking at writing scripts. I can't consider myself more experienced than that though, given that some of the stuff you only run into when you get closer to a release than I have yet.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
How much experience do you have with other level editors?
The first level editor I used was one I made for a game I wrote back in the Amiga days (A Hired Guns clone, killed by a HD crash before I released it :( ). I've messed around with Worldcraft (the old Quake and Half Life editor, before it became Hammer) and knocked out a few levels, I've used UnrealEd for various unreal-engine games to varying extents, I poked at GtkRadiant and I've spent some time in DarkRadiant. I made a few missions in the level editor for Freespace 2, and I've probably used others I'm forgetting.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What was the very first thing you ever made with dromed? (That you remember at least.)
The first thing I have any actual certainty of is a cathedral level from 2002 - I still have the files in my archive. I suspect that the really first thing I ever made was one of my early abortive Lost City mission attempts though.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What are some of your favorite FMs by other authors and why?
Ominous Bequest and Broken Triad are high on my list - the intricacy of the puzzles, the interesting touches, and the overall design impress me greatly.
Mission X - while I personally don't overly like the overall mechanics of the level, its detail, scope, complexity, and the complete chutzpah of the whole thing is something I can only aspire to.
Inverted Manse - still one of my favourite missions, and it still manages to make me jump sometimes.
Temple of the Tides - I find this one immense fun, and technologically impressive. The first time I saw the sunbeam puzzle it just blew me away.
What Lies Below - Overall excellence, and it keeps me completely on the edge of my seat.
As with Melan, these are just the ones that spring to mind...
d'Spair on 1/9/2010 at 19:55
I'm really confident that you should build your mission step by step.
1. Design document. This is a very important step. Think of what your mission will be. Think of the story, of the features, of the characters, of everything. You might even start writing readables (books and scrolls) actually before you open DromEd for the first time. Make plans of the spaces. Not necessarilly detailed ones, but the more detailed, the easier it will be to build the level in the editor, especially if you're making a mansion-type mission (city layouts or caves can be built on the go, improvising, as opposed to some more logical places). Design document should be a completed mission, but on paper.
2. Basic architecture. Don't start making decorations, placing objects and textures, let alone the gameplay features, unless you're done with the basic layout of the space. Area brushes is a must.
3. Basic textures and room-brushing then. Then comes the very basic lighting (no need to tweak colors or decorative hacklights at the time).
4. Implement the gameplay. Add AIs, quest-related or gameplay-affected objects and architecture. Create your objectives. As a result you should have a pretty working mission, minus the graphics and additional features. Good time to use the help of a couple of testers then.
5. Finish off the mission with the eye-candy. Add lots of decorative architecture and objects, tweak textures, work on cool light effects. Ambient music, automap, interface and other features come then. Use more testers then.
Working according to this scheme really helps. It keeps you involved and interested in the process and very efficient in terms of engine's resources and limitations. Say, if you're out of brushes or objects or room brushes due to limits, you will know it during your very fundamental work, and not when you've completed one half of the map entirely and is just going to take on the second. It also has a few low-level technical advantages that are best described by the ex-LGS people in the appropriate documents.
Schwaa2 on 4/9/2010 at 00:03
Well,
d'Spair deffintaley lined out 'how it SHOULD be done'. Working like that will probably end up in a cleaner, tighter, more optimized.... map in any game/editor.
But I just can't do it, I've tried and tried but I get bored. I can't do just brushes, then objects, then ai, then paths, etc...
And I can never wait until I've got a fully realized idea before I start.
I usually have an idea, get excited and start slapping brushes around, decorate a little bit and go in game and play around. Then continue along those lines.
Of course my maps probably show it too but, meh, it's a hobby.
nicked on 4/9/2010 at 07:04
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
I'm curious about the process other FM authors use in building a mission.
What sort of preparation work do you do before you start building, if any?
I generally do a little preparation work in the form of throwing ideas for plots, locations etc. around, and then start building when I come up with an idea that inspires me. I'll usually sketch out a rough map. Generally, by the end of the project, the map is about 15% correct, and the plot is completely unrecognisable, because I make copius notes of all new ideas as I have them, and I get bored very easily.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What inspires you when making an FM? What do you draw upon for a story and themes?
I play other fan missions, other games, films etc. These usually inform my initial plot designs, although sometimes I'll just build something in Dromed that helps inspire the plot.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What do you draw upon for architecture ideas? Your imagination? Some formal training? A massive folder of images you've stolen from the internet? (That's what I do.)
Real life buildings where I live, google image searches, and playing lots of other games and fan missions. If I'm stuck on a particular feature, I'll generally google that room type or architectural detail, and then sketch out the best of google images until I find a shape that I like.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
My buildings tend to be rather regular and boring. I see of a lot of interesting architecture geometry in pictures and FMs, but I've no idea how to be able to reproduce something like that aside from straight copying. Know of any ways to improve my technique so I can make buildings that are more interesting architecturally, and not just cubes?
For complex architecture like the outside of buildings, I use a set of scaled plain template textures, then build a series of intersecting shapes at different heights etc. Then once the shape is good, start texturing and adding beams, windows etc. For simple rooms, never underestimate the power of wooden support posts in the corners.
Take a simple air brush cube room (say 32x32) and resize it to 32x30, then clone it in the same position, and resize that brush to 30x32. Instant corners. Then just mess about with interesting textures and add trim and stuff. Add ceiling support beams, maybe some cylinders for an arched ceiling. Also look at real life buildings and rooms from 100 years ago and earlier for inspiration.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What are some of the first things you build when you start a mission?
My usual method is kinda stepwise refinement. I'll box out the whole level with almost no objects first, but I'll take each room and finish it brush-wise and texture-wise before moving on to the next step. Nothing worse than a whole level full of jorge.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
Do you work from the inside out (building the interior of a building and eventually working your way to the outside) or outside in (building the exterior of a building, and working your way inside)?
Depends on the building, but usually inside out. The reason being, if you build the outside first, you may well run out of space for the internal rooms you'd envisaged. Or at least, I would, because I never measure anything properly.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
When creating a city, do you prefer to make buildings out of solid brushes placed in a large air brush allowing the space in between to make streets and paths, or do you make streets out of air brushes, and then augmenting the walls to appear as sides of buildings?
I've never completed a city mission, because they're
hard! However, I'm 75% through making a village, which is basically the same thing. I did it by making a large air brush, constructing the boundaries of the playable space, and then adding some boxy buildings to get the layout, then working from there. I can't wrap my head around carving streets to make buildings, even though it's technically the better way.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
Do you create all areas in the mission at once, or do you create one small area work on it until all the details are finished and then move on?
I usually try to get the rough details in place (and the texturing as done as can be) in each room, then move on. When the whole place is constructed and textured, I'll start adding room brushes, objects, usually doors first, then work on the AI, objectives, maps etc. For my most recent mission, I tried it a bit differently, and put all "static" objects in as I went. Not sure that was the best idea, as it feels like it's taken me much longer to get to the "complete" but empty level stage.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What's your ratio of abandoned to completed missions?
I've completed 7 (8 if you count Memoirs of a Dead God as 2). I've abandoned countless more. Probably 30-50 missions abandoned somewhere during the first stage of building. The furthest I've got with an abandoned mission is an observatory I constructed, which is unbelievably vast. I got to the object adding stage, and realised I had no inspiration to fill any of the rooms. One of these days I'll package it up and add it to the abandoned mission archive.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
Does your mission get made in several short bursts of incredible amounts of activity, or through slow consistent steady progress?
The first, with a few long bursts of the second. But mostly the first, due to inspiration and the constraints of real life.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What was the shortest amount of time it took you to build and release a mission? The longest?
How many people were involved in helping you make your missions?
The shortest was Vampire Skull - 3 days from start to release, more as a speed-building exercise than anything else. Sadly it shows, and the mission's not great.
The longest will probably be the one I'm working on now, as it's swelled into a four-mission behemoth. Before that, Memoirs took about a year and a half I think.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
On a scale of 1 - 10, how well do you know dromed? How long have you been dromeding?
Between a 6 and an 8 depending on how fresh my experience with it is. I can do most complicated stuff, but usually have to consult the internet before it works 100%.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
How much experience do you have with other level editors?
I'm a novice with Hammer. If Valve ever release a game that inspires me as much as Thief, I might make a level for it, but so far all I've managed is a few aborted Counterstrike and Left 4 Dead levels.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What was the very first thing you ever made with dromed? (That you remember at least.)
I think it was a haunted, abandoned section of street. It was basically just a T-junction with some piles of leaves, and some boxy houses back in the days of yore for Dromed 1. I then made a massive pit that led to an underground haunted mine. It was pretty small and rubbish, but it taught me the basics.
Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16
What are some of your favorite FMs by other authors and why?
Ominous Bequest, because it's really well designed, and keeps on surprising you.
Seven Sisters and Broken Triad; two excellent mini-campaigns with incredible city design.
I usually play one of these to reinspire me, although obviously there are many other great missions I've played that have given me great ideas.
AntiMatter_16 on 4/9/2010 at 08:16
I'm kind of the same way, Schwaa. I have sort of an idea of the setting I want, and just see what I can make. As I go along I come up with story ideas. Probably why I like small 64' cube missions too. They don't need as much time or planning as a huge mission. I like playing them better than large missions anyway.
Despite that I've been thinking about making a large city mission which hopefully would have more impact than my small missions. I've spent some time examining other peoples missions I especially liked the feel of to help me replicate something I like. However my traditional haphazard approach left me with a smallish cityscape I just don't like the feel of, so I'm going to let it go. I was also using Dromed1 since no one uses that anymore, but I soon remembered why. It crashed so much I created my own "If you can read this, dromed just crashed. You're Fired!" wallpaper. =P
The Thief I OMs and a few FMs like Calendra's Cistern are mostly built using the old poly reducing method of hollowing out small areas and paths as opposed to hollowing out a very large area and placing solids for buildings. The former generally seems to produce a mission with a slightly larger scale (in terms of building size compared to the player), streets that are more often enclosed and have more vertical variation than the latter.
I prefer carving out a large open area to work in though, so I guess I'll do more planning than I would otherwise, and hope for the best.
And on 6/9/2010 at 19:40
I've only released 3 missions (revamping my 2nd mission, and if I say my favorite) I found I started with the main bones of plot, eg:
Plot:
Garrett goes to see an old friend, gets embroiled in some conspiracy, time set between Hammer to Mechanist transition. Introduce the Assassins Guild, ancient bloodline family main baddie. Town level. This will be fleshed out with readables and objectives
Architecture: (I carve out)
Rough list of main buildings needed: shops, Cathedral, Police station, Pub, cafe, Factory, workshops, Library, main characters homes. Architecture tends to be gleaned from buildings I pass every day, see on telly or as is often with what ever room I'm left with
Build:
Cut out rough street shapes, add facades later, rough shapes of interiors, tart up later.
Tend to Me Only area a building and tart it, room brush and populate then move on to the next building / area.
Does lead to a lot of running around but it worked for me !!
And :thumb:
SlyFoxx on 6/9/2010 at 20:00
Well....the last few years have gone like this. Open dromed, work for a few hours and then close.
Repeat every three to six months.:o
So hard to get motivated anymore. Shame really as I've got a really nice city map...I just need to bring it to life.