Who has influenced you the most in mapping?

[CZghost]

Trying to find interesting topic to talk about, I'm asking you who has influenced you the most in mapping, since any mapper just should have his favour. My favour is cityy and ShadoW, their maps are incredible and I'd to inspire myself by their maps. Anyway, how are you with mapping? Should we be pleased by a new map or just wait unless you got an inspiration

Also, what's your the best inspiration for making maps? As a mapper newbie, I'd like to learn something about the inspiration given in the map. I have not so much inspirations as I mostly surf the net, but when I remember something, what could be good for making a map, I'll try to imagine how it could look like in the game and then try to realise. How about you?

[Don Carlos]

LegionXS made some really cool shit that started me mapping back in the day

[Theftbot]

Hipshot, Sock, Cityy

[CZghost]

Well, Hipshot makes great skyboxes (and maps) Sock is somewhat great in details and custom textures Rich details however slows down the gameplay. Less is sometimes more, this is in effect always, especially in mapping. If you can play with rich details and vis blockers correctly, it can do great results and playable map. Great thumb up for them, their maps and textures are incredible

[cityy]

Hipshot and method. Especially method in the beginning but as time passed I learned to question some of his decisions.

[spookmineer]

Quint and Nunuk.

[KittenIgnition]

Ghostay, Sock and Hipshot are my favourite mappers, but I dunno if I should say they influenced me much. My mapping has no influences or references. Completely unique. Never been done before.

[Theftbot]

also Lunarin

[obsidian]

Nunuk.

Nunuk is Sparth, isn't he? He decided he wasn't as good at level design as he was at concept art and went off to work for id and a bunch of other companies painting stuff in Photoshop. He has a few books out now too. Overly talented bastard!

[mrd]

also Lunarin

Lunaran! Dude made some killer shit. Visually appealing and also very fun to frag on.

[CZghost]

Yes, Lunaran's last map is also introduced in splash image of new Radiant He makes awesome maps.

[Kimza]

fKd with his cool brushwork and sometimes wild texture combinations that turns out to work so well

[CZghost]

Well, fKd's maps are somewhat nice to look and play, too Also, fKd is an active mapper that joins Maveric's competition every year it's launched.

[Hipshot]

Anyway, not really a level designer (I think) but Ydnar really inspired to make better levels, because of the features he added to compiling.

Many of Socks things and Cityys QL completion rate and consistent quality in those levels.

[dONKEY]

I've had the pleasure of talking to many many talented people through a common interest in level design.
Not all of them are designer exclusively.
Many of them sadly have moved away from the mapping scene.
Kat is the Blender guru,
Sock excels in just about every area,
I liked the simplicity of PJW's stuff, as well as the common sense he talks.
Fjoggs is incredible for his geometry, just not so good at completing stuff.
Inition and Myth were fine texture artists as well as good level designers.
Charon, Cardigan, actually far too many to mention. That time, when I was just starting out, there were so many super talented designers and artists. The bar was set very high, which is good.
If I had to pick one it would be Raven, mostly because he is one of the most helpful and nicest people I've ever spoken with.

[CZghost]

What nation is Raven? I met one player and designer called Raven, he's czech. He was a boyfriend of my sister, too. He lives in Bilina, near Usti nad Labem in Usti District. But you probably mean another Raven, that I don't know personaly

[Pext]

Nunuk/Sparth - geocomp

Tequilla! - for his clear visual style

Lunaran - for his design guide

[CZghost]

Pat Howard has written an article about tricks to make good gameplay, which I have edited to fit grammar rules and translated to czech for local readers. It sits on my local drive until I kick myself to do new design of websites, where the guidelines will have its own place. It will be also downloadable in a ZIP file, in HTML format. I have also translated images included along the article, just to keep the translate in effect Well, these guidelines affected me a lot, so I shall add Pat in the list of inspirative mappers. Keep going, Pat

[obsidian]

I've had the pleasure of talking to many many talented people through a common interest in level design.
Not all of them are designer exclusively.
Many of them sadly have moved away from the mapping scene.
Kat is the Blender guru,
Sock excels in just about every area,
I liked the simplicity of PJW's stuff, as well as the common sense he talks.
Fjoggs is incredible for his geometry, just not so good at completing stuff.
Inition and Myth were fine texture artists as well as good level designers.
Charon, Cardigan, actually far too many to mention. That time, when I was just starting out, there were so many super talented designers and artists. The bar was set very high, which is good.
If I had to pick one it would be Raven, mostly because he is one of the most helpful and nicest people I've ever spoken with.

Pretty much all of this.... plus wviperw who also wrote the defacto competitive level design guide. I miss these people.

[Hipshot]

I've had the pleasure of talking to many many talented people through a common interest in level design.
Not all of them are designer exclusively.
Many of them sadly have moved away from the mapping scene.
Kat is the Blender guru,
Sock excels in just about every area,
I liked the simplicity of PJW's stuff, as well as the common sense he talks.
Fjoggs is incredible for his geometry, just not so good at completing stuff.
Inition and Myth were fine texture artists as well as good level designers.
Charon, Cardigan, actually far too many to mention. That time, when I was just starting out, there were so many super talented designers and artists. The bar was set very high, which is good.
If I had to pick one it would be Raven, mostly because he is one of the most helpful and nicest people I've ever spoken with.

Pretty much all of this.... plus wviperw who also wrote the defacto competitive level design guide. I miss these people. :tear:

I keep telling people, that it was better, way, way back, like before 2004!

[CZghost]

Rota has inspired me a lot by his nice architecture. However I did not see any new map from his, the last map he has released is Adelline in 2009 (sorted by reviews in LvL).

[fKd]

Hmm.. Hipshot, Sock, Strahlemann, SST13 and AEon to name a few. Its a broad range for me, i just trawl ..::LvL and look at cool maps.

http://lvlworld.com/author/sst13
http://lvlworld.com/author/Hipshot
http://lvlworld.com/author/Strahlemann
http://lvlworld.com/author/Sock
http://lvlworld.com/author/AEon

[Pat Howard]

for me, it's the original id software maps like campgrounds, lost world, and vertical vengeance that i always come back to for inspiration. i felt like they had a deep understanding of q3a scale that comes with being on the game's original development team.

sock, for all things artistic and architectural. not only his q3a stuff but i've been really loving his q1 maps lately.

i completely forgot about rota until czghost mentioned him. he was a huge inspiration on me around the time of my first map.

[AEon]

Hmm.. ... and AEon

Oh, shucks... that brings a tear to my eye... very kind of you to mention my name... snief...

To me inspiration was actually real-world architecture, since I always felt the brilliant designs out there are not being used enough. And as we all found out, real-world makes pretty terrible maps usually... alas. But the designs can inspire a few interesting architectural shapes.

The other inspiration are textures, those Sock created come to mind (there are probably at least a dozen other texture-creating folks I forgot, oh,... Hipshot's skyboxes and textures ), and Socks models e.g. for plants.

[CZghost]

Æon, I played your map Ædm7 recently, it was wonderful Now with new CPU architecture (changed Pentium 4 to Core 2 Duo) it plays smoothly all the time. Nice work This reminds me that also you has inspired me a lot since your maps are always nice and wonderful. Keep doing that good job