Home » Renegade Discussions » Mod Forum » [TUT] Mapping Tutorial Series
| Re: [TUT] Mapping Tutorial Series [message #461817 is a reply to message #461440] |
Tue, 17 January 2012 16:36   |
TNaismith
Messages: 86
Registered: May 2006
Location: Canada
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As of January 17th 2012, here is the list of mapping tutorials found on Renegadehelp.net:
Out of that list, here are the ones by title name that seem to be 'beginner' focused tutorials for mapping:
Advanced RenX Map for Beginners Video
http://www.mp-gaming.com/renhelp/index.php?act=tutorial&id=6154
Basic Terrain
http://www.mp-gaming.com/renhelp/index.php?act=tutorial&id=6156
Creating a Basic Map
http://www.mp-gaming.com/renhelp/index.php?act=tutorial&id=6160
Creating a Basic Map - 2
http://www.mp-gaming.com/renhelp/index.php?act=tutorial&id=6161
Creating a Basic Map - 3
http://www.mp-gaming.com/renhelp/index.php?act=tutorial&id=6162
Creating a beginners map in 3DS Max 8 Video
http://www.mp-gaming.com/renhelp/index.php?act=tutorial&id=6167
Creating your First Map
http://www.mp-gaming.com/renhelp/index.php?act=tutorial&id=6169
New Map Tutorial Part 1
http://www.mp-gaming.com/renhelp/index.php?act=tutorial&id=11740
New Map Tutorial Part 2
http://www.mp-gaming.com/renhelp/index.php?act=tutorial&id=11741
Nine in total, and more than half of these have images that don't show up, making them not utterly useless, but more than a hassle to attempt worthwhile learning from if your a full-fledged beginner:
Basic Terrain
Creating a Basic Map
Creating a Basic Map - 2
Creating a Basic Map - 3
Creating your First Map
That leaves us with the following four which are video-tutorials:
Advanced RenX Map for Beginners Video
Creating a beginners map in 3DS Max 8 Video
New Map Tutorial Part 1
New Map Tutorial Part 2
Considering Renegadehelp.net is the 'most-current' location for Ren mapping tutorials already easily known, referenced and shared amongst the entire Ren community/playerbase; To find tutorials elsewhere for a beginner requires some time and effort to probe around for. This means new mappers have, at first, only a few beginner mapping tutorials immediately available to them at this 'website hub' for Ren tutorials. And that's less than five their able to get right off the bat.
Those four video-tutorials above are great, a person could learn basics and advanced techniques/habits that could serve them well into later stages of their Ren mapping career, if any. And there are more out there too; real gems that can't be found directly from the renegadehelp.net site.
Lets take ACK's (Aircraftkiller) immensely rare-gem of a tutorial at CNCDEN;
Renegade Map Tutorial
http://www.cncden.com/ren_map_tutorial.shtml
And if you were lucky enough or smart enough, you might have heard of these older renhelp.net domains from either around the odd post here at the Ren forums, or from someone 'in the know' inside the Ren modding community:
http://renhelp.laeubi-soft.de/index.php?tut=0
http://www.pokemonca.net/rh/index.php?mod=Tutorials
The renhelp.laeubi and pokemonca.net tutorials have a lot of beginner-basics map tutorials for Renegade, and the pictures work (or can work through certain work-arounds) on those sites compared to the current Renegadehelp.net.
But these latter tutorials aren't easily found -- from just going to Renegadehelp.net, new guys have to have to search around for them -- and I don't think it's more easy to find these ones above compared to if they could have been found on Renegadehelp.net from the start, in working condition. (As it stands now, ACK's tutorial, and lots of the working 'beginner/basics' map tutorials on the laeubi and pokemonca domains are not on renegadehelp.net, certainly not in the 'fully complete and viewable' category)
And so the situation right this moment is that the only central place for Ren tutorials (renegadehelp.net) only holds less than five actual beginner/basics map tutorials for the game -- and saying 'Well the guys who work hard to research and look up stuff should be the ones the only ones we want mapping -- all others are lazy bums we don't want here' might be a possible response, but it's not helping foster new mappers to join the mapping scene for Renegade. Some of these new guys are bound to be 'good apples' out of the rotten bunch, and that's worth helping out just for the chance to nab one of these folks and turn them into a keeper.
And so what, Renegade is dying and getting smaller each year -- why should anyone care about helping new mappers learn the basics, they'll be making maps eventually for a dwindling community, right? What is the point?
Respectfully, I think there is still opportunity. So what if the playerbase will be infinitely small by the time a new mapper matures into a skilled mapper and someday creates some pretty stellar Ren-stuff? If that mapper wants to continue to learn and map for this game -- so what? Really, think about it again. I've thought about this question lots of times over last years, and most likely so have many of you. It is their time and effort, motivation(s), and decision to do so. And furthermore, to take the optimistic road -- helping newcomers learn to map in Ren might produce a few more long-term, talented folks that might get hooked enough to stay involved making maps and contributing to the Ren community up until the last Ren server permanently shuts down. Look at the old-timers at Tiberian Technologies. How about all those Roleplay2 guys? How about those unaffiliated mappers floating around the community? I'm sure you know them, see them around -- and their still chugging along putting out neat stuff and maps every so often.
Ren dying or not doesn't matter to me, and I'll be glad to see more mappers learn the ropes of the Ren engine, editor, and to move on to create their own custom maps for the community, for servers, or for their own personal ventures/amusement.
Finally, what I've said above, everything and all of it, means one thing; Putting out non-crappy, basic map tutorials for Ren is still helpful. We don't have 20 tutorials basic map tutorials lying around Renegadehelp.net -- the only central database new mappers will most likely go-to first for resources. We only have less than five working ones for teaching the basics of mapping and making terrain. And while they are themselves quite good, having more tutorials like what SSIDJTHED has posted in this topic is still helpful as well.
I don't think the tutorials SSIDJTHED posted were bad, the videos may have revealed some bad or good techniques/habits for mapping -- but it certainly wasn't 100% all bad. Assuming that is true, then it's fine for basic map tutorials like this to be put up -- the possibility of a few people 'learning the bad habits' is worth risking when you consider that the more tutorials out there a beginner has to learn from, the more data they can gather to make their own informed decisions around learning to map.
Certainly if a new mapper absorbs 'bad' mapping techniques their first-time learning to map, then they have to spend time later on learning to get rid of that habit/technique and start from scratch to learn the proper one. That's not good. But consider the more likely possibility -- that regardless of the 'bad techniques' they may learn -- the result of seeing a large, numerous collection of basic map tutorials at the start of this newfound mapping hobby will let them pick up on things that DO work: positive techniques, tidbits, methods, styles, behaviors/processes good mappers DO exhibit and the kind of things we DO want any new mappers to get into the groove of doing regularly towards the path of becoming a long-term, skilled map-maker.
I've seen well over almost every basic to even advanced mapping tutorials for Ren that can be found out there on the general internet -- from video tutorials teaching how to use boolean, texture, create water, mesh smooth, manipulate a flat single plane and one-handedly turn it into a complex shape/terrain. ( Blazea wrote a splendid tutorial for this that isn't on renegadehelp.net far as I can tell, but you can find it on pokemonca.net [Here]. And by using the fix posted by ErroR [Here], where you replace the "http://www.renhelp.net" to "http://www.pokemonca.net/rh", as stated by ErroR, you can get the images to properly show up. Blazea re-did those tutorials later in the same spirit using videos, but the image-tutorial he did is still a very helpful one to use)
And what happened over the last few years I've been watching, scouring, reading, re-watching, these tutorials, is that certain things people do in tutorials stand out -- I noticed how one fellow commentating in a tutorial for 3ds max works the controls and buttons to create a shape, and I notice what someone else was clicking in another tutorial to achieve similar results. Some tutorials always covered identical steps for certain mapping techniques, other people made an off-hand comment during their own tutorial videos about this one option/feature that they use/don't use -- a comment that gets overlooked during your first time watching the video, but you pick-up on during your second, third, even fifth re-visit to the tutorial.
I ended up being able to make my own informed decisions on the techniques that work. People will do that for themselves when given different perspectives, tutorials, resources, and places to read/watch/learn from.
Summary: SSIDJTHED's tutorial doesn't botch EVERYTHING there is to mapping, and therefore for the most part, it's just another standard re-make of the wheel -- but in the case of tutorials for mapping in a game like Renegade -- that should be viewed as a welcome addition. The more mapping tutorials out there, no matter how many times done before, and as long as it's not entirely BAD teachings, then the better chances of new mappers breaking through the learning curve and becoming long-term, contributing folks to keep the Ren community going for awhile longer yet.
This is partly for future people reading this thread and considering creating map tutorials for Renegade, be it basic or advanced. It will help, and as long you don't create total garbage, re-inventing the wheel works here -- because in the case of tutorials, each person adds their own aspect to the tutorials that makes them different to watch compared to others. You might do something that some other tutorials don't do, and it might not be a 'bad' thing for other mappers to learn and develop as techniques themselves.
I won't be responding to this thread again, if you would like to offer criticism or feedback to anything I've written or to correct me on something I've mistaken -- send me an email or PM if you feel necessary.
[Updated on: Wed, 18 January 2012 07:34] Report message to a moderator |
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