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Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition

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Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition > Guides > Micky C's Guides

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How to Make Fun, Good looking SP Maps

By Micky C

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Micky C
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Category: Maps or Levels, Modding or Configuration, Workshop

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

1 Feb, 2014 @ 10:20pm

27 Sep, 2014 @ 5:33am

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Guide Index

Overview

Introduction

Learning to Map

Mapping Fast like a Pro

How to make your map fun and good-looking

Conclusion

Comments

Introduction

Learning to map isn't just about getting to know the editor and effects, it's about how to make a map that's fun, good looking, and at the end of the day, that players will want to play over and over.

This guide is a collection of everything you need to learn how to map, increase your mapping speed so you can get more done, and of course make fun, good looking maps.

Make no mistake, you're not going to become a mapping veteran overnight, it still takes a lot of time and work, however these guides will definitely teach you the theory so that your practical skills can get there as fast as possible.

Warning; there is a LOT of reading involved and it will take you a while to get through, but trust me when I say that it is definitely worth it in the long run.

Learning to Map

Before you can learn how to map well, you need to learn how to map. The absolute best guide out there for learning the editor and the effects is the Duke Informational Suite (Infosuite) by Nukey. It's great for beginners because it's clearly explained and nicely formatted with useful diagrams. It's also in-depth enough that veterans use it to brush up on effects they're rusty on.

Check it out here. If you've never made a map before, I suggest reading through the whole basics section. http://infosuite.duke4.net/

Although the above guide is by far the best, a community driven site, the eduke wiki, includes a different mapping guide. If perhaps you read through the Infosuite and don't quite get something, the wiki's alternative explanation might help out. Plus it's got loads of other information on Duke modding which you may or may not find useful.

Here it is, click on "editing levels with mapster32": http://wiki.eduke32.com/wiki/Main_Page

Mapping Fast like a Pro

People who have been mapping for two or more years can make maps litterally a hundrend times faster than those starting off. While it's true that some of this is due to a familiarity with the controls and the general processes of constructing a map, a lot this is also due to there being lots of small, useful features in mapster32 which many people don't know about, features which can save you an unbeleivabe amount of time.

Most if not all of these features are listed in the following guide, written by myself. The guide also goes into detail about various techniques that veteran mappers use to save themselves time. Note that the guide assumes you're already familiar with mapping, e.g from reading the infosuite.

If you're feeling a bit overwhelmed with information at the moment, I recommend you skip this section and come back when you're ready.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vII1ILXvNjCYhdo-As7ndoKUbeXnHW8elS4ieZWWWTw/edit?usp=sharing

How to make your map fun and good-looking

The following is another guide written by myself. It's a sort of essay discussing the various common elements to all Duke Nukem maps. Anyone seriously considering becoming a SP mapper should read through the whole thing and think about it carefully before starting their maps. It's not an instruction manual as much as a collection of advice in various elements of maps.

It also includes a section of general advice on making and releasing your maps if you're a beginner at the end of the document.

As with the speed mapping guide, this guide assumes you're already familiar with mapping, e.g from reading the infosuite. Although you could probably get away with understanding a fair chunk of it, or at least the gist of it without reading the infosuite, I don't recommend it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14yVNQRxyZpiA3nIqQbiPRsLR2vUwyu2810XZF8UR0bU/edit?usp=sharing

Conclusion

So if you've read through the Infosuite and the two documents by myself, you are well on your way to becoming a skilled mapper. You're not there yet, but you're light years ahead of most other people starting off. I know it must have taken a large amount of time, but you should be able to make it up later on thanks to your higher level of understanding. So pat yourself on the back and get into it! Practise makes perfect.

12 Comments

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RottKing 24 Aug, 2024 @ 6:27pm

Nice post!

KyraSoze 14 Jul, 2023 @ 9:36am

I needed this 26 years ago when I got my copy of Atomic and bumbled around in the editor as a dumb child.

Malahmen 1 Aug, 2018 @ 2:08pm

just a quick question: does this version runs the original game custom maps? got my old maps from a floppy disk the other day so... :P

MrElix3r 6 May, 2015 @ 7:26am

@Collateral Damage: Doom and Duke don't use .paks, Doom can with ports but vanilla does not.

Sixty Four 6 Nov, 2014 @ 1:08pm

Really good job Micky

Collateral Damage 9 Feb, 2014 @ 6:20pm

@Micky C Awesome thanks! :)

Micky C [author] 7 Feb, 2014 @ 8:53pm

I never said I knew how to edit Duike art, I only acknowledged how difficult it is to get into. Hopefully new tools will be written in the future.
Perhaps try this guide: http://sp.zhabite.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=165800019#38546

Collateral Damage 7 Feb, 2014 @ 6:28pm

@Micky C I took your point on board and went looking for textureing tutorials. for anyone intrested the best I found was a tool set and instructions here... http://forums.duke4.net/topic/2815-custom-texturessounds-in-duke-nukem-3d/

@The Commander
To add textures to Doom, Doom 2, Elite Forces, Half life, Counter Strike, The Specalists, Heavy Mettal F.A.K.K.2, Half life 2, Elite forces 2 and Quake 3 arena you opened the PAK file extracted the base image, repained it, created a new pak file (ading a higher numeral at the end) or rewrote the origional image in the pak and then ran the game.

I actually struggled to find the option in photoshop to create an 8bit 256 color pallet in an image without first converting to a gif. Even then the tool (bastART.exe) wouldent accept it without altering the pallete.

This makes me all the more impressed with the mapping walk through by Micky C. Not only did he survive the condition of the tools but he has clearly thived.

The Commander 6 Feb, 2014 @ 7:32pm

I find "Collateral Damage" comment baffling...

You go try add some textures to this game compared to adding new textures into games such as the Source engine or UDK.

Micky C [author] 6 Feb, 2014 @ 6:20pm

Yeah adding art to the game isn't as straightforward as it should be. I'm sure somebody wrote a guide for it though, try doing a search. This guide here is purely about mapping.

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