I am fairly new to mapping, but i have worked throught numerous tutorials as well as watching the free videos on 3dBuzz. I now feel ready to tackle my first map.
What i want to know is how to go about it, i mean work process is the a right or wrong way, do i do the terrain first or the buildings etc?
Any advice is greatfully received, and keep up the excellent work everyone.
nuff respec…
the first thing you need to do is decide what you want to make then maybe you can sketch it out on paper. I think people here normally do the terrian first but this might not be the case depending on what type of map you are making.
You can work on the pieces independantly. Some people start with the terrain, others start with the buildings. You might want to start with making a few key buildings, then insert them into your basic Easygen terrain just to get a sense for how everything would be laid out in relationship to one another. Play around with those until you get the scale and proportions you want then start fine tuning. At this stage, you could even drop in your objectives and play the map a couple of times to see if it really plays the way you envisioned it would
There’s no best way to do it really.
For some people it’s best to plan everything out and go from there.
With Frostbite I just started with a small area that I thought would make for some good fighting, and expanded from there without any idea what the rest of the map would be like.
Personally, if I sit down and plan everything exactly out right from the start, I tend to get a bit bored when it comes to actually filling it out.
Thanks for your help guys, I’m quite excited about my ideas i just hope i can create something half as good as the maps i’ve come across in these forums.
Keep it up coz you can only make a great game better…
If you are going to have terrain in your map, its best IMO that you start with your terrain. This is due to several reasons, but most predominately is that it creates your “extents”… Or boundaries of how large your map will be.
If you start from a building and then just keep spreading out, creating your terrain isnt going to be an easy task. I know that from experience. You will most likely have to create many terrain sections and piece them together so that they wrap around your map… and you DONT want to do that. 
So start with your terrain.
gl
the best advice is not to use subject titles on ur post like “advice needed” or “i need help”, I only came in to reply to this post because i thought i should tell you that. Otherwise i just wouldn’t have read it. I don’t think i’ve got much to add to add in reference to ur question, cause i’m quite newb myself, but just be more informative in ur subject headers and you’ll probably get a shedload more replies
Best advice I can give is …
If you really want to create something and can’t wait, then create small box room example of structures and objectives that are scirpted and working. Each small project will be much easier to create and give you good feedback to how things are put together. Creating a big chunk of terrain and detailing structures will take a long time and without a good map layout will be worthless. Sorry for the harsh words but there is nothing worse than spending loads of time creating something to find it does not work in game.
Start with small steps first.
Sock
:moo:
Totally agree with Sock. Gameplay is king and it will take some tweaking to get the scale, connectivity, and objectives working right. To do a good chunk of that, all you need is the big block placeholders. That way, once you put in the time to create nice detail, you are pretty sure have a solid map
I agree with Sock too, but only to a certain degree.
Deciding on whether or not you start with the terrain or if you start with “building blocks”, is simply determined by what type of map your are planning to make. For example, if you are plan on creating a terrain based map like the following, then you would start with the terrain.
But if you wanted to do a map like goldrush for instance, you would create the fat building blocks. Reason being is that your terrain is inside of your map and you therefore know the parameters of how large it will be.
Just my opinion.
For someone starting out with mapping, creating a terrain first would be a mistake. The complication of learning metashaders, creating realistic looking terrain (Not creating the edge of the map all the same height), height maps, understanding how to use the grid for building/structure placement is not for beginners. The import/export process from terrain generators to GTK is a minefield of issues for beginners.
Throwing people in the deep end is just frustrating and mapping is suppose to be relaxing and fun, right? 
Sock
:moo: