Your Way Of Mapping
How do you think of a puzzle/map?
I can rarely force myself to come up with something. Ideas usually come to me in the shower, at school, or while I'm lying in bed. If I do force myself, I have some goal in mind, or know what techniques/processes are going to be used (e.g. extending a bridge through a fizzler and getting off and on it to conserve a portal).
How do you start making it?
I always do a PTI draft first. In the PTI draft I do, basically, what the Hammer version will look like and then iron out the problems that I didn't think of in the idea-getting phase.
Do you always keep your mind to the same map?
Map changes:
Throughout the testing, the map can (and will) change a lot (although it maintains the same base idea). This is adding things (which I almost always do) or removing things (which is common, but not as much). I always choose the theme before I begin, though, and I stick with it the whole way through.
Other maps:
Yeah, I change a lot, actually. I've got 3 map packs in the works right now, and I'll finish a map in one then start one from another pack, and so on. Plus I also have a multitude of standalone maps waiting to be created.
1. Ideas most commonly come to me when I go for a walk or, like srs bsnss, in the shower. I usually think of what theme the map is going to be, and then think of a puzzle with a difficulty corresponding to the theme, for example, how clean maps have generally easy puzzles and how Wheatley maps are usually medium to difficult.
2. I never map out the puzzle in PTI first, I don't really feel that I need it and most of my puzzles ideas use things that you can't do in PTI anyways, such as ramps, things that would be classified as errors, et cetera. I always build all the geometry first, then put in doors, then put in details such as smaller rooms or angled panels. Then I add all of the elements and finally the lighting.
3. No.
About getting ideas when going for a walk, it happens to me too except that it makes me continue walking.
well, i kindof do everything all at once. detail, puzzle, room shape etc. are all made and developed alongside each other.
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Im blue, a Clean Christian Furry with Autism.
1. I only really get ideas if I actually start up hammer and start making a room. Then I experiment with some lighting and think "I'm gonna try this out!" And a map idea starts brewing.
2. I never really use PTI at all. Unlike most, I start by making the room look nice, and then building a puzzle in it, if I made the room first. If I made the puzzle idea first, I have a bunch of random, unconnected elements that I build walls around.
3. I try. I really do, but I can't seem to stick to only one project at a time. I have so many unfinished maps, and maps that are complete but too large to upload.
Aperture Science: We do our science asbestos we can!
How I think of a puzzle or map?
Usually I just don't thing of anything, and when I bored I'll just think of a simple test, ex: Hmm... A map where a user has to use 2 of the 3 gels and make it to the end, whilst getting all the cubes and using the laser element! (actually map I've started working on months before, but forgot/gave up because I had school...).
How do I start making my maps?
I start with a square (usually either 128x128, 256x256 or 512x512), and start making a room out of that. I then start adding puzzle elements in it (I.E., the gel dropper), and adding some obsticals (walls and blocks), and then I think, "This is too easy... I have to make it harder..." and then I place gels in other rooms, add toxic liquids, deathfields, fizzlers, buttons with timers, grate buttons, laser sections. Just some hard stuff. Then I work on the lighting. As every mapper knows, the lighting is crucial, but should be kept second. When I finish that I add instances (elevators and cube droppers, because goo droppers are too easy), and finish it off with adding details like bullet holes, special textures, nodraws, trim some parts. And then it should be done. Should.
Do I keep my mind on the same map?
Not all the time. I've got 3 maps I haven't finished for portal 2, and I have given up on my map pack "Think outside the Box" (mainly because I couldn't do it all myself, and no one would help...). I have only publicafied (is that a word? Publicafied is now a word.) one of my old Portal maps (Re-incarnation pretty much. Made a portal 2 map into a portal map from scratch). So yeah...
Ooh, thread resurrected.
Publication is a word apparently, but we all use the word "publish".
Another thing about making maps is that I use PTI if I'm afraid I won't manage to do it properly in hammer before I have the actual map layout, because it's a pain to move things around in hammer. (Lesson learned from a map I made called "Isolated Button". Was meant to be art therapy style, but I remade it in PTI. It actually was the second concept I ever had for Portal 2, but I was too tired of working on my first map, so I scrapped it from being a second part).
Another thing for people making their first map: DON'T GIVE UP. IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MANY TIMES A STUPID CRITC COMES TO ATTACK YOU, or more seriously, how many times it seems like you can't continue.
Publication is a word apparently, but we all use the word "publish".
well, of course. it's a verb. we publish it. it would sound really stupid if we said we publicationed it, silly. 
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Im blue, a Clean Christian Furry with Autism.
Publication is a word apparently, but we all use the word "publish".
well, of course. it's a verb. we publish it. it would sound really stupid if we said we publicationed it, silly.
Nope. "Publicated" is the word that doesn't exist. We would have used it if we didn't have the word "publish".