How do you work?

[Nice]

hey all, so i kinda want to know how you work on your stuff. By stuff i mean either creating serious large scale full conversions or maybe small non serious CS that are maybe ment just for yourself to try stuff out.

Like a mini interview!

On top of that, you can also share how you got into it. When you first released something (if you did), how did the development go?

I'll start off so you get the idea xD

As for me, i pretty much suck at it. Not because i suck at making stories, maps or scripts (well maybe a bit that too ) but because i cant get myself organised. Usually i have this thing like randomly hitting me hard, lets say a voice inside my head saying "Hey man, you should totally try making a CS" then i get instantly hooked in, i open up level editor and start working like a crazy guy for maybe a week or two.

But after that hardworking week i suddenly lose all the interest and never touch level editor again for maybe a month or two. What happens then? After a month of doing completely nothing i suddenly get hooked in again and the same pattern occurs. I go crazy for it for about a week and then lose interest again for a month or two.

Even worse is that whenever i come back to it again, i usually have a new idea and start working on a completely different and new custom story, hence i never get anything done. After like 2 years i released absolutely nothing and my maps folder has like 50 different half done custom stories

Anyways, a couple of questions for you

1. Do you listen to any music when making a CS, if you do, what kind of music?

2. How often does your development stop or pause?

3. How often do you work on your project? 2h a day? 2h a week?

4. Do you have any unreleased, private CS done or full conversion?

5. Which kind of problems appear most often to you?

6. Have you ever stopped caring at some point or thought about making a non serious or a complete cliche CS?

[Karba]

1. Yes, i listen to chillstep
2. Pauses kinda often, since modelers need to get their stuff done i have to wait alot.
3. I work 1-2 hours a day, but im working very efficiently so i manage to get alot done.
4. I have one big cancelled project, Slender: Curse of Hope & im currently working on my new project, Purge.
5. I actually dont have many problems while working with projects, everything goes very smoothly forward. When i was a beginner a few years ago, the most common problem was scripting, i could never make a script myself without the game crashing. So i had to ask the forum everytime i made a new script.
PS: I love u forum <3
6. I never stop caring about the projects that im currently working on. But like now, while im waiting for models to be done im making a non-serious project about running from a monster while solving puzzles at the same time.

[PutraenusAlivius]

1. Do you listen to any music when making a CS, if you do, what kind of music?
Converge, The Lighthouse and the Whaler, and Titus Andronicus.

2. How often does your development stop or pause?
Oh, a lot. I paused from work for 2-3 months with a cliche CS and now completely redesigned everything.

3. How often do you work on your project? 2h a day? 2h a week?
1 hour per day at least. But on the weekends, that could reach 3-4 hours.

4. Do you have any unreleased, private CS done or full conversion?
Not at all.

5. Which kind of problems appear most often to you?
My mapping and lighting. Seriously. I suck at those. Oh and the crazy rotation and scaling that I forgot to do in Blender when importing to Amnesia.

6. Have you ever stopped caring at some point or thought about making a non serious or a complete cliche CS?
Yeah, but that was BEFORE the project was "temporarily" dead.

[The chaser]

"1. Do you listen to any music when making a CS, if you do, what kind of music?"

Yes, of course. If I didn't, I would be a lot more bored. I listen to all kinds of music, and mostly metal, but that's just me. When coding, be with quiet, melodical music. When making maps, listen to strong things so you don't get bored of sticking walls one to each other.



"2. How often does your development stop or pause?"

It depends: I have 2 secret FC's that I develop when I want to do something different, but I mainly develop my CS "The Otherworld". When I feel more like doing one, I do that one.



"3. How often do you work on your project? 2h a day? 2h a week?"

1 h a day, and more if I feel like it.



"4. Do you have any unreleased, private CS done or full conversion?"

I have a released CS which I now hate (no detailed maps, cheap scares, etc). If you are interested, it's called "The Chasing" but I don't encourage you to play it. Maps are very ok-ish though, and it doesn't feel bad looking at stuff.



"5. Which kind of problems appear most often to you?"

Model problems. Darn models, they are very cool, but nasty sometimes. When I try to make a complicated script there are usually errors, but I manage to fix them (sometimes with Adrianis help )
Also, sometimes some static_objects don't match and I have to search for a workaround...



"6. Have you ever stopped caring at some point or thought about making a non serious or a complete cliche CS"

My thing is this: Make a good/original story and a good use of the assets and it's done. Followed by Death is a good example to follow.


Everyone sucks at the beggining, don't worry . If I was you, I'd make another CS where you applied everything you learnt with tutorials posted in the wiki, and where you practiced with the Level Editor.

Have a nice time modding!

[CarnivorousJelly]

Ooh, this thread could be really interesting :D

I started modding for fun. I downloaded the development suite... 2 years ago (I think) shortly after ATDD was released. My friends had mentioned that they wanted to play custom stories and I suggested that we made one together. That never happened, but I made (an awful) one anyways. I couldn't figure out scripting, so I have up and forgot about the development kit until Christmas break last year when I was really bored.

The story for my CS wasn't fully developed when I started mapping, and it changed with almost every map, but the characters I wanted to include never changed - they just developed around the story. If I made a second story based on my initial planning, it wouldn't be even remotely similar to Lucid.

1. Do you listen to any music when making a CS, if you do, what kind of music?
I have a lot of music that I listen to. Usually it's either a playlist of assorted soundtracks by Hans Zimmer or my entire iPod goes on shuffle (iPod has everything from classical to heavy metal).

2. How often does your development stop or pause?
From my experience so far, it pauses on a monthly bases, usually when I get really busy - like the beginning of September when school started - or if I'm working on a section that doesn't feel like progress (such as writing the .lang file).

3. How often do you work on your project? 2h a day? 2h a week?
Over breaks when I don't have school/work, anywhere from 2 to 5 hours a day. Otherwise I'm limited to about 5 hours a week at the most.

4. Do you have any unreleased, private CS done or full conversion?
I have the first CS I ever made, which has awful mapping and no script. I wouldn't release it even if you paid me.

5. Which kind of problems appear most often to you?
I get stuck on the script, usually because I have (what I think are) awesome ideas, but no idea how to actually execute them. If not that, then the initial planning of maps (awesome ideas in my head that don't end up workin out) or the very last bits of mapping (detail work).

6. Have you ever stopped caring at some point or thought about making a non serious or a complete cliche CS?
Yeah but I would be really mad at myself if I did that to the CS I'm working on right now.

[FlawlessHappiness]

Why I started modding? Well, we'll have to go several years back.
I've always loved modding. The first tool I started modding with, was in a flash game called Platform Racing 2. A brilliant game, if you ask me.
Then, I saw a trailer of some game called Portal 2 and I got so hyped about the concept that i had to own it! So I bought it, retail, and played through it several times. Still loving it.
I discovered that you could download the program, "Hammer", and create levels, so I did, and I became pretty fascinated by it. This was my first real modding tool, and I wasn't very good at it. But I got the feeling.

Then I went to a boarding school, for 1 year. (It's not an actual boarding school, but there is no english name for it, because it pretty much only exists in Denmark). Some girl said she was playing a scary game on a large screen one evening, and that we should come and watch. It was called Amnesia, or something... So we went up to watch it, and it got so popular watching (We didn't finish it in one evening), that we continued playing it several evenings after, until we completed it.
What's cool to note here is that when I play ATTD today, the levels are completely different than how I remember them from the boarding school. The tension in that classroom was massive!
Well, I then discovered this forum, created a profile, and downloaded the editor tools. I got this brilliant idea, that I should make the whole school into the Amnesia game. So I did... I spent nearly half the year recreating the school in ATTD. Then I had people playing it. There were several bugs and it wasn't pretty good, but I was proud of it.

Afterwards, I couldn't stop...

____________________________________________________________________________________________

1. Do you listen to any music when making a CS, if you do, what kind of music?
Yes. Anything that I enjoy, which is right now: Carbon Based Lifeforms, Skillet and Taylor Swift.
DON'T JUDGE ME!

2. How often does your development stop or pause?
Almost everyday right now. I'm in a time where I'm bored a lot. Nothing really happens and I'm not really getting fresh ideas...
Sometimes I sit there and edit. I close my eyes for a second, and then...
"MEDIC! MEDIC!", "The sniper is a spy", "Need a dispenser here", "There's a spy is sapping my sentry"... AAaaaaannddd, I'm playing TF2.

3. How often do you work on your project? 2h a day? 2h a week?
Well, to be honest, often I come home from school, do my homework, and then I open the editor for a while and just stares at the maps for a couple of minutes... If I happen to have an idea, I try to implement it. If I don't, I'm closing the editor again. So... Right now it'll be 2-4 hours a week.

4. Do you have any unreleased, private CS done or full conversion?
Yes. I have my old Amnesia story, of my boarding school. It's bad, so there's a reason it's not released. Also, I have a lot of unfinished maps lying around... In the trash bin... That I emptied...

5. Which kind of problems appear most often to you?
Boredom and lack of creativity.
Scripting is no problem for me. I find myself rather good at it, though if my creativity stop while I'm level editing, I get completely out of the mood.

6. Have you ever stopped caring at some point or thought about making a non serious or a complete cliche CS?
Yes. I've been thinking about making a cs about the Flying Naked Jesus. A mod where there's a reason he is there.
I also had an idea of a story, with a narrator. An all-knowing narrator.
Picture this: "The player was walking down a long dark corridor. He was unsettled, but neither did he know that a monster was going to pop out of nowhere and start chasing him down..."

[Nice]

wonderful replies so far, thanks guys! (and lady )

I'm also happy to know that i'm not the only one that is sometimes guilty of the final question

[Daemian]

Interesting questions, mister.
Let me share my answers.

1. Do you listen to any music when making a CS, if you do, what kind of music?

Spoiler below!

Always. Mostly rock/heavy.

2. How often does your development stop or pause?
3. How often do you work on your project? 2h a day? 2h a week?

Spoiler below!

Lately, almost nothing. I really try but the world won't leave me alone.
But still i have the weekends to work on my mod a little.

4. Do you have any unreleased, private CS done or full conversion?

Spoiler below!

The first and only cs i did it's released. I remember the first thing i did was put a brute in a cell and i made him open the door, not destroy it, to go out. And that script stayed in the cs.

5. Which kind of problems appear most often to you?

Spoiler below!

Lack of enemies.

6. Have you ever stopped caring at some point or thought about making a non serious or a complete cliche CS?

Spoiler below!

Never!

As for how i started, it was when i watched a random video on youtube, some guys were playing Amnesia, and i noted several things different from the original game. So i realized it was possible to edit this game, that the custom stories button was for fan made levels, not updates.

And before that, the first time i saw Amnesia... i didn't like it. A friend encouraged me to play it. I played the rainy hall and i thought it was just another silly game to scare regular players. But then i picked up the first note and when i read it and heard the voice acting i realized it was something cool. And i got interested.

---

And now i can't sleep if i'm not naked like Alexander!
Just kidding.

[DamnNoHtml]

1. Do you listen to any music when making a CS, if you do, what kind of music?

2. How often does your development stop or pause?

3. How often do you work on your project? 2h a day? 2h a week?

4. Do you have any unreleased, private CS done or full conversion?

5. Which kind of problems appear most often to you?

6. Have you ever stopped caring at some point or thought about making a non serious or a complete cliche CS?

1.) Usually do not listen to music. If I do, its music that would fit the theme of what is going on currently in the story. Recently I was making an epic finale and listened to The Catalyst - Mass Effect 3, which put me in more of an 'epic mood.'

2.) Never. I start and complete all of my games, custom stories, etc within 1-2 months. If I don't complete it by then, my ADD kicks in and I abandon it. That month is filled with absolute devotion to the work though.

3.) Since I condense the time to usually a month, about 5-6 hours a day. I can't stop until its done.

4.) Yeah I do. Had a really cool outdoor thing going with Chronovyx, a time travelling full conversion. Had a lot of physics puzzles; never finished. (took longer than 2 months)

5.) No models to fit the exact image I want.

6.) None that I would release.

[HumiliatioN]

Interesting thread here, I want to share my experience with mapping and whole years spending with HPL2 editor, forums and just making mostly my own mods.

When Amnesia TDD was released I was so excited playing it! So I played, several times from beginning to end, because it was just that awesome.

Months later I downloaded HPL2 editor and start making levels well... It was hard to get the feeling and get maps done with the editor... well next year I got better with scripting part too and mapping aswell.

Now this year I was so much better when I started modding and now I can see almost everything what mod needs to make it really good and enjoyable to play when using "default assets" and custom ones too. Now I'm working my latest project "Investigator" well.. it's on hold on because that missing scripter... Okay that's about everything from my experience.

Now to Q and A:

1: Of course, music inspires me to messing around with the editor and I just deeply feel I can create something good now and making a lot of progress. I just can't edit anything anymore or my motivation is so low if there is no music playing on the background.

2: Well... it's now paused and there are several times and reasons when I stop my mod, just get something else done.

3: Always depends on my "IRL working days", but when I have free-time a lot maybe 2-3 hours max. Sometimes when I was unemployed and no job and just lazy to get anything done, I spent nearly 8 hours a day on my computer just editing maps. Now everything is changed and I'm happy with it.

4: Yeah I have couple mods unreleased and abandoned projects, just because lacking motivation and creativity to finish them.

5: Lacking ideas when making maps sometime and making cool ideas and script them gives me really annoying problems aswell.

6: Yeah, if you count my abandoned projects and I have couple non serious projects, but there just for fun and something different.