Good to hear you do it because you have fun doing it. Having fun means you put more into it which will produce better maps for us other gaming freaks to enjoy I reckon!
I'm not suprised about the restrictions with working on a professional game project. However you need them restrictions in place otherwise the project would blow way out of scope (and budget) due to a constant flow of new ideas ending up with nothing ever getting completed.
Question though, do you ever get bored of working on something that long, constrained within a set scope? Or does the fact that you can work within said bounds, then go home and work on whatever you want balance it all out eleminating any 'tedious' times'?
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My spil below for those interested my personal gaming history(not industry related at all though)...
I've been gaming since I was 5 on my colecovision and spent many years gaming on my commodore 64 before I managed to con my parents into getting me a PC for my studies.
Studies was the official excuse. The real excuse was that I wanted to play games on it.
Even taught myself basic DOS commands so I could play games on my mates PC's before I got my own. Doing that got me a career in IT.
I dabbled in the past with some mapping and found it quite enjoyable. It's a whole new side of gaming which I find was just as rewarding, if not more, as playing the game normally. I could create anything I wanted which attracted me to mapping. Plus I was playing something that I made myself which was the icing on the cake.
Starting off in Doom2 then onto very brief stints in Quake and HalfLife2 ending up into the FarCry Sandbox editor due to the attraction of the lush tropical environments and the "simple'ish" outdoor editor. Never touched indoors though....
None were ever released publicly in any form. All were SinglePlayer/coop maps. Only kept them to myself and a mate or two for our own amusement.
I got heavily into mapping after playing UT3 then watching the editor vids and realizing that it was a lot less difficult to make a map than what I originally thought. Plus the gfx in UT3 were killer!!
Originally I wasn't going to publicly release my 1st map Orbital Deconstruction due to the fact I'd never released anything previously and that peeps would think it's crap. Glad I did release it though. Good feedback and help from other modders kept the inspiration up for me to eagerly start a second map and soforth making me think that I should stick with it.
I got so enthuastic while working on OrbDecon that I even read the 'extract' from Hourences level design book to help me out with some base theory on mapping. (huge thanx for that)
Admittidly I didn't follow it to a tee but it showed my what to avoid and what works well.
I've even been tempted to buy the full book on an occasion or two so if I stick with mapping expect me to purchase a copy!
I make maps to get the type of action and visuals that I want in the game. Unfortunately this overrides proper map theory but I enjoy it anyway. I'm thinking of keeping at it and see if I can learn the proper skills, make better maps and eventually look into getting into the industry down the track if I can get it right.
A mates mum has been telling me for two years to get into the industry seeing I'm addicted to games so much. After seeing my work in the editor she's given me a business card of a good friend of hers, who happens to be the executive producer of Krome studios in Adelaide here.
It's her way of helping me out if I ever want to get a foot in the door to the industry.
I only hope I can grasp the concepts and produce some good work to show that maybe I can actually do this sucessfully as a job.
..time will tell...